“What does a community of faithfulness look like in the midst of injustice?” ~Dr. Eric Barreto
As we approach Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend, this is a question that captures our attention and begs for reflection. Dr. King imagined a response to this question with his dreams and visions of a beloved community.
This question was not resolved in 1964 with the Civil Rights marches or the death of King. It was not resolved in 1864 with the Civil War or the death of hundreds of thousands of Americans over the question of slavery in the U.S. It was not resolved in the year 34 following the crucifixion of Jesus for announcing a beloved community, as the new measure of human relationships.
In every era the tensions of injustice remain. How do we create a community of faith that embodies both love and justice — in the midst of a world enamored with fear and bent on consolidating power?
How does a community of faith come to embody faithfulness and belovedness in a world where children are locked up in cages at the border, where women still live in subtle and explicit fear of sexualized violence and a lack of autonomy and control over their own health and reproductive rights? Where something so basic as walking through a store or driving down the street stirs up suspicions, if you are perceived as being a person of color? Where one religion remains the enemy of another?
What does Jesus who, was called beloved by God, and who invites us to love one another, to love our enemies as well as our friends and even to love ourselves, have to do with this question?
So when we have hard conversations and think together in community, what is it that we are listening for? See what Dr. Eric Barreto says in this week’s episode of Three Minute Ministry Mentor.
3MMM | Episode 52: Thinking In Community from Eileen Campbell-Reed on Vimeo.
A Story of God’s Voice in Community
Eric says, “When we gather in community and hear one another’s stories, in a very real sense we are hearing God’s voice.”
This sparks for me a memory of a moving moment when I witnessed the power of God’s voice speaking in and through community in the midst of an injustice. Some years ago I was part of a community of faith, and we were delighted to learn that our pastor was invited to preach at an annual denominational meeting. Many of us planned to make the long trip, hours away, to hear her and be part of the meeting.
Soon our excitement turned to disbelief. The church that was set to host the meeting determined that they could not host the session where our pastor was scheduled to preach. Yet they still wanted to host the remainder of the meeting.
The host church was in inner conflict over the idea of having a preacher in their pulpit who is openly lesbian and in a long-standing partnership with another woman. Our pastor and her wife had been married for many years, but the state did not recognize their marriage. These events unfolded a number of years before same-sex marriage was legal, and the struggle for justice was ongoing.
Fortunately, the denominational body elected to move the entire meeting across town to a new venue, rather than disinvite our pastor or move just the one session for which our pastor was set to preach.
How did our congregation take the news? Not very well. We were deeply disappointed and frustrated in the turn of events. We determined that we needed to make a response, and yet we could not simply be driven by frustration and disappointment.
We had ‘come out’ as a congregation to be in solidarity with our LGBTAIQ+ siblings during the process of hiring our pastor and in the months and years that followed. For us clarity grew around our identity as a welcoming and affirming church.
As we talked together our empathy and compassion for the struggles of the host church came to counterbalance our feelings of disappointment and frustration at the injustice of the situation. It was complex. It took some extended conversations. Our pastor stood faithfully through the process, committed to keep her commitment to preach and to remain non-anxious and present. She was our pastor in every way through a difficult time that put her in a very difficult spotlight.
What we settled on for a response was to write an open pastoral letter to the other congregation. There were many connections of friendship and family relationships between the two churches, even though they are geographically distant from each other.
In the process of writing and delivering that pastoral letter, we experienced a profound, extended moment of God’s presence and voice within our community of faith. The letter was received by many in the other congregation with astounding grace and deep emotion.
Following the opening worship service of the meeting, in which our pastor preached a powerful and moving sermon, members from both congregations, more than 50 of us, crammed into a small room with our boxed lunches, filling every seat and sitting on the floor. We shared our stories with each other. We listened and wept and spoke in love to one another. God was in our midst and through our thinking and acting, we experienced the embodied presence of the holy.
The footnote to the story, nearly 15 years later, is that the host church is now also a welcoming and affirming congregation. Our pastor has been invited there to lead retreats and to preach. What started as a rift and potentially deep contention turned over time into a deeper bond of friendship and surprising moment of God’s grace.
Questions for Reflection
Here are some questions about thinking in community that you are invited to ponder:
- What are the questions of justice that animate your practice of ministry?
- How and where have you heard the voice and witnessed the presence of God in the conversations of your community of faith?
- How does the possibility of God’s grace emerging in the thinking of a community shape your practice of ministry?
You can catch the first part of my interview with Eric Barreto in Episode 51.
