A couple of things got me to thinking about change and the church, or is that maybe change in the church.
First, there was a cartoon I have seen several times before that popped up on my feed. Someone behind a podium asks “Who wants change?” while the crowd raises their hands enthusiastically. In the second panel he asks “Who wants to change?” with everyone looking down in discouraged dismay. Uh huh. When things remain abstract we can support change happily, but if those changes require significant effort on our part, not so much. We want the potholes to be patched… until someone reminds us taxes will increase. We want the litter from the roadside gone, but balk when we are asked to be part of a neighborhood cleanup day. We know there is a drought but still water our lawns. Change is what other people do for us. We are not so good about being part of the change. Going from the generalization to the personal is hard for human beings!
Next, there was a quote widely shared across the UCC from Rachel Hackenburg’s blog about the luxury many of us in the mainline church have of not talking about institutional racism and white privilege: “To Jesus who is tossing tables, to Jesus who is cursing the fruitless fig tree, to Jesus who says ‘Get up and go,’ to Jesus who says ‘I did not come to bring peace,’ conversations about race that do not result in conversions about race miss the urgency of the Gospel.” I caught something completely aside from the main topic of her posting, that so many of us are privileged to be removed enough from daily racism and over-policing and economic threats that it is a topic of discussion instead of a day-in-day-out reality. And even when we bring ourselves to talk about those injustice issues, it is from a safe step away. Further, says Hackenburg, we have the luxury of ignoring the problem because is does not actually come to our church doorsteps. In fact, we generally use our religion to counsel those on the streets to be patient, forgetting that the Gospels often portray an impatient, prophetic, provocative, insistent Jesus who demands change not just from society but from his followers. A powerful meditation on justice and racism and not deflecting the conversation into politeness— http://rachelhackenberg.com/the-luxury-of-talking-about-race/.
But in the midst of that discussion of racism, I was caught by her words that if our “conversations” do not yield conversion of thought and conversion to action, we accomplish nothing. Again, we in churches often settle for talking about something and never getting to doing something, let alone being changed by what we learn from others in the holy conversations, especially the difficult conversations when the others’ experiences are so different from ours. It is so hard to listen to others’ experiences, especially of race and violence, without becoming defensive. But a true conversation must take seriously that what another person says will change what we think and do. If we are not open to our thoughts and actions being converted, it is not a true conversation but two monologues. Allowing ourselves to be changed is hard work, perhaps harder work than trying to change society.
Some changes, of course, are much smaller. We had a sort of “test” of a different gluten-free element for communion last Sunday which raised a very practical conversation about changing things. While I have been here as interim, there has always been an undercurrent about the bread used for communion. In fact, the ongoing nature of the conversation indicates a mini-collision of two positive values. In this case, the desire to make communion safe for those with gluten sensitivity bumps up against the various expectations of what is “good” communion bread. The charm of the UCC (and its everlasting struggle) is our effort to be welcoming to everyone, which means we have the full spectrum of backgrounds and upbringing when it comes to communion elements. We have former Roman Catholics reared on daily Mass using flat wafers, mainlines used to cubed bread served in the pews, and Baptists who rarely had communion. Some had no religious background before attending here. Some grew up on flatbread (think pita), some on unleavened bread (think matzo), some on a big loaf everyone tore a chunk off, and some, like me, grew up with trays of cut-up Wonder Bread (seriously!). On World Communion Sunday we sometimes celebrate the breadth of our backgrounds with an assortment of world breads, but picking just one can be a trial!
James Forbes, former senior pastor at Riverside Church, has said the church is a compromise between many people’s wants and needs, observing that he thinks Christianity is a “70-30 proposition.” In short, we get about 70% what we like, but have to put up with 30% we don’t. He goes on to say that the problem is that our cherished 70% may include someone else’s 30% dislike! Or the 30% we want to punt is part of someone’s precious 70%. No wonder change in the church is so hard for us, and why it is so hard for a congregation to manage change.
So I kind of like our little “test” with communion elements because it is, in truth, an effort to balance the different expectations and preferences by talking about and trying options instead of the long-term paralysis some congregations have to avoid any changes, even on small matters. That we will “experiment” a bit to find out how we most comfortably welcome worshippers to the Lord’s Table is a lovely thing. As FCCI moves into its near future, there will be a number of conversations and adjustments and, yes, even changes to navigate. Some will be big and get to core values and mission and vision, yet some will be simple and small. How we converse about the small changes can be practice for the significant ones and the societal ones. So far, it seems like this church can have truly gracious, grace-filled conversations about change.
I think that if I asked from the pulpit, “Who wants to change?” most folks here would raise their hands…. perhaps slowly, perhaps with a tentative grimace on your faces, perhaps not all the way, perhaps some days and not others, but you would raise your hands. And I believe Jesus would be pleased!
In Christ,
David
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