Reaching Out
Every week on Thursday, from about 4pm to 8pm, I play Dungeons and Dragons with a small group of people from around Rochester, and even one person who drives out from Buffalo each week. It’s one of my Sabbath routines, a space where I can set down the yoke and just be Sam, not Pastor Sam. For the first month or so that I was part of this group, most of them didn’t even know what my day job was. That changed one week when everyone else was talking about how they are able to marry their friends or family members because they had done the thing through the Universal Life Church. And then they asked if I was able to marry people, and I said “yes,” and then they said “Universal Life Church?” and I said “no, the United Methodist Church,” and they were like, “oh, you’re like, legit,” and I was like, “yeah, but that’s all good.” One of the reasons that this weekly routine is so important to me—aside from the social aspects, the opportunity to exercise my creativity, and the fact that someone always cooks a meal—is that it’s humbling. It takes me out of spaces where religion, and specifically United Methodism, is the norm, and out of spaces where I am given authority or privilege because of my clergy credentials.
When I’m there, I’m surrounded by people who were either never raised in religious communities or who have left the churches that they grew up in. I’m not there to be their pastor, or really to lead in any way. In fact, there’s specifically a Game Master there, whose job it is to loosely direct the story and keep us more or less organized. As we sit together and eat and play our game, I listen to the others talk about the world and its problems, or their lives and the ups and downs. Everything from education policy to attempts to legislate trans people out of existence, from new jobs to engagement announcements is discussed. While God is never mentioned, I believe that They are present still, in each conversation and moment of connection. And while I love that this group has trusted me enough to ask questions about theology and the church, I still appreciate the beauty of knowing that God still moves in the moments when we don’t hear Their name. Not in trying to convert or dominate the conversation with doctrine and dogma. But in stepping outside of what is familiar, taking time to listen beyond what is comfortable, and simply being in a place where your experience is not the norm and your way of thinking carries no presumed authority.
This, after all, is the ministry that Jesus models in the first section of this passage. Jesus is not seen here trying to fix the so-called sinners, those outside the fold, outside of organized religion. In fact, the only place he directs his teachings is towards the Pharisees, the religious establishment, who question why a man who claims to be a religious teacher would waste his time with those who have been rejected by, or perhaps have rejected, the structured religion. All Jesus does with these folks is gather them—and eat. He brings his disciples along with him, outside the Temple, outside of any holy place, to the home of a tax collector who had accepted an invitation to host. Jesus’ ministry in this passage, before he tells his disciples to go and make disciples, is to go into the world and listen. Maybe he did some correcting, and maybe he did some pointing out where God is in the midst of messy lives and a messy world. But what we see is dinner. And, even though Anna will tell you that every time we have dinner with friends the topics of church and theology somehow come up, when we sit down for dinner we usually just talk about life. We talk about the world, what seems terrible and what gives us hope. And in every word traded, even if that word is not “God,” God is still present in those conversations, and in the sharing of the meal.
So, our ministry is to look outside of the church. To foster trust and curiosity and relationships among us, yes. But also to share bread and conversations with those who are done with church or who have no connection to church—and simply to embody presence with them. However, Jesus’ ministry does not stop there, as nice as it would be to just say that we are called to gather for dinner together. While eating with the people who have been labelled as “sinners” and “unrighteous” is already a boundary-crossing in itself, Jesus takes this rejection of cultural limits a step further. As he is being ushered away from his dinner slash listening session, so he can casually bring a man’s daughter back from the dead, Jesus is stopped by a bleeding woman who reaches out and touches his cloak. Rather than dismissing her or snapping at her, Jesus calls her faithful, and says that it is her faith that has healed her. Here is a woman who, by religious law, was considered ritually unclean, reaching out and touching Jesus. He doesn’t reach out and touch her, nor is she escorted to him by her friends or community, though we can probably assume from her status as ritually unclean that she doesn’t have anyone who would go with her to be healed. She has been left behind by a dogma that left no room for her, and so she seeks out Jesus on her own, and uses her own agency, her own will, her own faith to reach out and touch him—and find wholeness for herself.
There are many who would share this woman’s story. The religious nones and dones, those who have no connection to church. The queer and trans people who have been ostracized, even in churches that claim a welcome. There are those who have banded together in other ways, built spiritual communities outside of the church that still reach out and touch Jesus, still have their faith affirmed and their personhood recognized as whole. But it often takes us looking outside the church to find them, and then stepping outside the church to hear them, and then standing outside the church to begin to build relationships and trust—and then to reconcile with them. This woman was unclean, untouchable for twelve years. That’s a long time to wait to have someone step close enough to you for you to grab on, and have them not pull away in disgust. Will we follow this call, will we follow Jesus, out into the world, stepping close enough to those deemed “unclean” that they could reach out and touch us? Will we pull away? Or will we look into their eyes and see God’s eyes staring back at us, reminding us that those we push away bear God’s image, too? This, after all, is where Christ is leading us.
In 1986, the Right Reverend John T. Walker, then Episcopal Bishop of the diocese of Washington, wrote a pastoral letter to the diocese urging parishes not to be afraid to minister to those in their communities who were HIV positive. He reminded them that there was no reason, either from a faith perspective or a scientific one, to shy away from casual contact with HIV positive individuals. He even explicitly urged his parishes not to bar anyone who was HIV positive from sharing in the common cup, the practice of everyone sipping the communion wine from the same cup. His urging was for the church to reject the label of “unclean” for those whom they had been told to fear, and to instead minister to them with extra care and attention, as Christ would have—affirming their faith and affirming their personhood as those whom God had created. The National Cathedral leadership responded to this letter by requiring HIV-positive members to identify themselves to church leaders, and encouraged those who continued to fear to dip, rather than sip. In the midst of a society that was othering HIV-positive persons, the church chose to continue that othering, rather than follow the example of the Christ who crossed boundaries of cleanliness and uncleanliness and tore down the walls we put up between us and those who don’t conform.
How will we, as Christ’s body the church, break these patterns? How will we choose courage and discomfort over fear and insulation? How will we rebuild the trust that was broken and lost over generations of othering and betrayal? These are big questions, and ones that we don’t have time to unpack right now. But we can begin by reaching out, and by listening. Not with an agenda, not because we’re waiting for an inroad we can take to bring those outside into the fold. Simply to listen, and to build and rebuild the relationships that are nowhere to be found. Perhaps there are those here who are already doing this work, and that’s great. It takes courage, and it takes humility. And it is the work to which each of us is called—the work of healing the world. As we remember this pride month that we are a reconciling church, may we reaffirm our commitment to restore relationships that have been broken by the church, to see God in those whom we have been taught to see as “sinners” and “unrighteous.” May we be bold in our humility, and daring in our willingness to build bridges and leave doors open—not only so that all know that they are welcome here, but so that we might remember that Christ calls us out into the world. So go, and listen, and be not afraid, and find God in the places where God is waiting. May it be so. Amen.