By Egeria
Today I shared a meal with two UMC preachers who are trying to navigate riptides of fear within their congregations. They had disagreed with each other about voting for the "All Means All" amendment, and they both disagree with me about what I see as a positive roll for Reconciling United Methodists advocating for full inclusion of LGBTQ persons. Both have welcomed gay and lesbian couples and baptized their children; both hear from members who fear this will lead to lots of gay couples joining (Read that as "too many.") Our meal was a first effort to discuss our visions of local churches and the global UMC in a small, friendly, but disagreeing group.
What came up repeatedly was the fear that some congregants feel toward people who are different: immigrants, ex-offenders, LGBT, students, poor people, people of other races, people wearing rainbow stoles. Some members might acknowledge that churches must care for such people but say "I can't talk to them" or "I won't feel at home here if there are too many of them." These two pastors wanted to address the fears expressed by these members. At the same time, both pastors held a vision of the church as being for all people, with a message that is needed just as much by people who see themselves as the in crowd as by those who want to hear a clear welcome.
Now, this sort of fear can work in the other direction too. I have felt out of place in groups where everyone appeared to be considerably more prosperous than I am. I have been the only white woman at some black church services, where the other worshipers have been extremely gracious; but I have also heard from a black friend whom I first met in such a situation that she had felt suspicious toward me at first. At the RMN Convocation a non-Methodist gay activist asked his gay friends "What are all these straight people doing here?"
We have been told "Fear not." How do we do that?
Reconciling Ministries Network mobilizes United Methodists of all sexual orientations and gender identities to transform our Church and world into the full expression of Christ’s inclusive love.
Reconciling Tools: Prayer for Enemies
It is a bit troubling to discover that Jesus did not share the common view that God agrees with our opinion of others. Instead, he invited us to pray about joining in God’s high expectations and hope for all humanity .
It remains a revolutionary idea. Our traditional social and political arrangements reflect tribal loyalties based on our instincts for self-preservation. They provide us with a safe “home base” to explore our world. Jesus called us to replace those tribal loyalties with a more universal loyalty that finds a “home base” in honoring and respecting (loving) all of God’s creation. (See Reconciliation and Love's Definition).
Jesus’ call for this new loyalty offers a far more likely foundation for human self-preservation than the tribal loyalties we usually rely on. Unfortunately, both biblical tradition and history are full of examples that illustrate a broad unwillingness to respond to Jesus’ call. A few examples: Both Hebrew scripture and significant portions of the New Testament model hostility and even hatred toward enemies. When the church burned heretics it was identifying enemies while using fear to assure at least outward loyalty to its tribal ways. In 1961 Fidel Castro declared that continued loyalty to the Cuban revolution required an enemy. Contemporary political campaigns are often based on describing its opponents as enemies and targeting them with falsehoods and partial truths. Likewise, we can hear church leaders propagate an “us versus them” world view as a tool for creating loyalty to their group and personal leadership. Many LGBT people have experienced the negative consequences of that strategy.
The danger in being someone’s enemy is in returning the favor by accepting their enmity and labeling them as our own enemy. In a real world sense that dynamic is probably inescapable but the danger is in responding in kind. When that happens we give the enemy the power to define who we are and set the rules of our relationships. (More in a later posting.)
The instruction to pray for our enemies has often been understood as a prayer that somehow God would intervene in their values, world view, and behavior so that they would come to accept our perspectives and be more like us. The arrogance of that notion is the assumption that we have “the right way;” that we understand God’s views; or that we have the sole understanding of how creation is supposed to work—the implication being that all other views are wrong.
Over the years I have come to understand that praying for our enemies is less about them than it is about me. Jesus’ Prime Directive is to love or honor and respect all that God has created. To pray for an enemy is to seek insight and understanding sufficient to honor that person’s creation. (Perhaps meditation is a better contemporary word than prayer.)
Any increased insight or understanding does not compel me to agree with such a person, only that I come to understand. Once understood, what do I do about it? Everyone will agree that it is a struggle. Likewise, we cannot focus only on understanding our enemy. We have biases, prejudices, and structures in our world view that have to be examined in relation to our own spiritual health and willingness to honor and respect others. Jesus’ teachings also include strategies to pursue those objectives.
Obviously, there is much more to live and talk out. This is not a solitary adventure. Your comments are welcome.
*The Gospel of Jesus. Robert W. Funk and the Jesus Seminar. Santa Rosa, CA, Polebridge Press, 1999.
Posted in Author: Peter DeGroote, Biblical Commentary, Diversity, Reconciling Process, Relationships, Spirituality | Permalink | Comments (0)
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