I knew the day would come. I knew that one day I would finally be called out as the “heretic” I am. I just didn’t think it was going to happen on a Friday morning. In public. In a Caribou Coffee. While I was wearing yoga pants of all things.
Well, maybe not a heretic, but certainly I always knew the day would come when I would be asked to leave the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Church (WELS). For those of you who have no knowledge of church bodies it is one of the more conservative branches of Lutheranism in the United States. Here is a link to give you a little more information: http://www.wels.net/about-wels/doctrinal-statements/introduction. In a nutshell, I grew up in this church. When you glance through their beliefs on the roles of men and women you can see why I have always had a difficult time being a member of such a church. Nothing like being a member of a church, but having absolutely no voice or authority.
It all started when the pastor of the church I grew up in called me out of the blue because he had found out from my parents that I had moved back to town. I have never changed my membership to a different church partly because I have never felt settled enough to actually choose another church home. But, a big part of me always wanted a confrontation. In my life the number of wounds and scars inflicted on me from a place that should have been a safe place are too numerous to count. Needless to say, I was somewhat hesitant about going to this coffee.
The other interesting piece in this whole situation is that just that week (all of this having taken place a little over a month ago) I had started my new job as Director of Youth and Young Adult Ministry at an ELCA Lutheran church in a nearby town. Again, for those not familiar, the ELCA is the most liberal Lutheran body, so I was earning no points.
I knew that I was going to go away from this meeting feeling terrible. I knew the minute he walked in the door that I was not going to be able to remain a member at the church I grew up in because of my new job. What I wasn’t prepared for was the conversation. The conversation that was guised in the form of a question of what the differences were that I had noticed in the two church bodies. I was not prepared to have my gender thrown in my face again. In particular, I was not ready to have my entire vocation called a mistake.
He told me I had made a mistake in taking my new job. He told me that my job as a Christian was to warn those in the ELCA of the sins that they were committing and then walk away, as though to preserve my own purity. I wish that throughout the conversation that I could have been more coherent. I wish that I could have used my massive amounts of education to defend my beliefs. I wish that I hadn’t crumbled into a weepy mess. I wish that I had felt like the 32 year old accomplished theologian that I am, and not the frightened and doubting 16 year old that I used to be.
However, there is one point on which I can hold my head up high. When he told me my new job was a mistake I could fix I looked at him hard and said, “I have been called to work with these kids. They need me. I won’t abandon them.” Moments like that I know the Holy Spirit hasn’t forsaken me. Also, me turning my back on this call would be a little like Jonah running away from Ninevah, and frankly I have no desire to end up in the belly of a whale.
And so I can now say that I have been excommunicated. As a friend said when I told him, “Are we in the 16th century and no one told me?” Or as another close friend said, “You should be proud! You are younger than Luther was when he was excommunicated!” Yep, I have dorky pastor friends. Lots of them. It sounds more dramatic than it is. The WELS church has closed communion, only members of the church can participate, so now that I am no longer a member I cannot commune there, hence, excommunicated. But, I am a rogue. I will find someone to hand over the sacraments to me. I’ve got lots of rebel friends. 😉
I have thrown myself into my new job. I work with high school students at the moment, but the ministry has room to grown into a college ministry as well as those in the first third of life. The students I work with are amazing. They are bright and energetic. They are talented young people with questions that push me to be a better teacher. One of my students asked me the other day about what it meant to be blessed. I think to be blessed means that you are given a clear sign that God has not forsaken you. It doesn’t mean that things will be easy for in this “old world” (our earthly life) sin and suffering run rampant. But, despite all of this God does not forsake us. God sends us hope. In this time of Advent we remember that God sent his only Son to save us from our sin. God sends us hope in the form of his servants, however they may be dressed, whether that is in the form of a listening ear or providing our next meal. These blessings don’t always come on our timeline, but they come.
I’ve heard lots of people at my new church say they are lucky to have found me. What they don’t know is that I am luckier to have found them. I was led to them when they needed me. God waited until I was finally ready and then put me in the place I was meant to be. If excommunication is my punishment for listening to the call of God, well then, I can live with that. As I say, I’m a rogue and a rebel. Might as well scream it from the rooftops.
The Overeducated Girl 