My ordination talk

Welcoming the Stranger
Alison Longstaff, June 26 2009
Ordination talk, University of Washington

Matt 25: 34-40 Then the Sovereign One will say to those on the right hand, 'Come, you blessed of Abba God, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you took care of Me; I was in prison and you visited Me.

Then those honorable ones will answer, saying, “Teacher, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink? When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You? Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?" And the Sovereign One will answer and say to them, "Truly, I say to you, every time you did it for one of the least of my sisters or brothers, you did it for Me."

In ancient Rome and Greece, newborn baby girls were regularly abandoned by the roadside and left to die. Girls were considered a liability. They cost money to marry off, and they couldn’t carry on the family name. By the time of the Lord’s birth on earth Roman society was experiencing a severe shortage of women because of the neglect and abandonment of baby girls. But it didn’t stop the practice.
There are parts of the world where girls are still treated this way. Indeed, the practice of subjugating and devaluing women continues in many subtle ways in every corner of our world. Our culture has come a long way, but we’ve still got a long way to go.

However, this isn’t meant to be a “women’s lib” talk. It is a cry against discrimination in every form. We all know injustice, not just women, not just blacks not just immigrants. Every one of us in this room, at one time or another in our lives has felt marginalized, singled out, or picked on. From playground bullying, to being the last one picked for basketball, to being refused service or support because our income is too low, we have all experienced that feeling of the door slamming in our face---of being deemed unworthy. We all know the emotional experience of having the pack withdraw from us and look at us with dislike. It feels rotten.

If an infant experiences the withdrawal of the pack, it faces certain death. Such abandonment communicates profound dehumanization. That child is considered a waste of time and resources. How can the most helpless and innocent of all human beings comprehend such a rejection? Perhaps that is why all forms of rejection cut so deep. It communicates to our “lizard brain” that we are singled out to die. Though you and I may be relatively mature, and know in our heads that we will survive rejection just fine, experiences of rejection and abandonment can still throw us into a profoundly vulnerable emotional place. Our lizard brain sees the complete withdrawal of our support, resources, and foundation, and it believes we are going to die.

That was essentially what my emotional state was when I knocked on the door of this denomination. I had been cut out of my pack. My spiritual family had left me by the road to die, without a backward glance. I was devastated, kicked out of the only spiritual home I had ever known. After all, the Bishop’s Decree had come down from the top: “God says women can’t be ministers, so shut up and stop your whining.” (I think those were the bishop’s exact words...)

Oh, I was welcome back, if I kept my mouth shut about the injustice and the sexism I was witnessing. I was welcome back if I gave up my call to ministry and suppressed it as unnatural and unfeminine. I was welcome back if I stopped being me. They wanted my body in the pews, but not my heart, not my intelligence, and certainly not my longing to be a minister.
So I stumbled up to your doors, “bleeding from every orifice” as one friend described me. I was an orphan. I was an unwanted child.

“for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you took care of Me; I was in prison and you visited Me."

I began to inquire at SHS, and was astonished to receive heartfelt congratulations and excitement over my call to ministry. Then the local congregation in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada adopted me with unbounded warmth, kindness, and enthusiasm, welcoming me as if I was someone worth loving.

I was a stranger and you took Me in; I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you took care of Me....

You, all of you, whether you know it or not, cared for me, wounded and broken though I was, and nursed me back to health. Though I’m not perfect, you welcomed me with kindness and love. Do you have any idea what that has meant to me?

And now, now that I am strong and well again, and equipped for service, it is my turn to give back to you, with my whole heart and devotion. I bring playfulness and music, a voice of hope and compassion, and a heart full of delight in the new incarnation of God’s love that is this second coming. I wish to be an encourager, a teacher, and perhaps even a pioneer into new spiritual territories, discovering and mapping where this church might go in the future.
I have sat in these meetings and I have heard the concerns for our future. I see the frustration and the discouragement over the declining membership.

But maybe we need to reframe our mission on this world. We keep thinking that it is our job to grow the New Church for the Lord, and that that “New Church” is going to look like lots of new members in this denomination.

But look around you. The New Church is popping up in voices and hearts in all sorts of unexpected places. It lives in that Rabbi and in that Sheikh that spoke so eloquently to us Wednesday night. You saw it and felt it. It lives in the heart and mind of Reverend Jeff, even if he uses different words and has some different ideas. It is showing up everywhere, if we can but realize what we are seeing. It lives in more and more hearts and minds every day, and God is doing it all by ... Herself. God is bringing about the Holy City, and a person doesn’t necessarily have to have heard of Swedenborg to be part of it.

I don’t think we have to worry. We don’t own the New Church. We never did. It is God’s church, not ours, and comes to each person in its right time. We don’t “have it” to give to another. We have it to live, day by day in community with the whole world.

You and you and you and I, simply by loving these ideas and struggling to live them into our ordinary lives, are very much contributing to the descent of the Holy City. We bear witness to it with our lips, yes, but more importantly, we bear witness to it with our quality of being on this planet.
So, we might need to reframe our understanding of our job as a church. It may not be our destiny to grow huge in numbers. It might just be our job to hold the space for love, to keep the flame of the spirit of truth alive while God does the work of birthing the New Church on earth. This tiny denomination has been the mother and the midwife of this new birth for years already. Well done, good and faithful servants. The baby is crowning, and all we have to do is breathe, and relax, and try not to strain. This birth is in the Lord’s hands, and therefore, all is well.

I say again: “the new church” may never be one unified natural organization called “The New Church.” I think we get stuck on that expectation. The New Church may be just what we are already seeing: Rabbis and Sheikhs, Imams and Pagan priestesses, Lutherans and Presbyterians and agnostics who see that the one God is for everyone. Allah is Yahweh is the Goddess is Jesus is: “Goodness embodied in kindness and art and compassion and service” no matter what our holy book or skin colour or country of origin or gender.

Have we failed because we are still so small and so few people have heard of Swedenborg? Not on your life. Every moment that we live our love and our calling, we are doing just what God asks of us. Because it is always and ever about living our love, and not about our status, or glossy brochures, or fancy programming, or packed stadiums and praise bands.

How do I know this? Well, remember those baby girls who were abandoned in Rome to die? Some were found and adopted by a tiny and persecuted group whose mandate was simply to serve the world with kindness and compassion---to feed the hungry and visit those in prison and to tend the sick. Those girls were adopted and raised within the fragile struggling group, learning also to serve the poor and reach out in love to the marginalized. That tiny band was heaven-bent on obeying their radical rabbi’s command to remember the widows and the orphans, to welcome the stranger, and to become the least and the servant of all.
Whatever happened to that tiny, poor, struggling group? You can bet they wondered and worried about their future. What were they called anyway? Something like … Christians? What did ever happen to them?

Anyway, let’s not worry about the future. It will worry about itself. Please, just for tonight, celebrate with me that one little girl who was dead is alive again. And God willing, thanks to you, I am going to be one mighty power for good in the world. Tonight, celebrate with me the miracle of the newest good news: the absolute trustworthy power of God’s love. Of course we will work with all our might for this church because we love it so much. But we don’t have to worry. All will be well with the church because it is not really up to us; it’s in God’s hands … and with God, all things, ALL THINGS, are possible.