To Be a Peacemaker is to Be Evangelical

Part II in a series of posts on the Wild Goose Festival

Written in advance of the festival in reflection on the theme, "Blessed are the Peacemakers." Originally posted here.

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"What's the ELCA?"

It's a question every Lutheran will be asked at some point, at least outside of Minnesota. The Lutheran tradition is, after all, best analogized with a spilled can of alphabet soup. And for those of us who grew up in different traditions, we all sort of wince when we say, "The EVANGELICAL Lutheran Church in America."

Evangelical: it's a weighted term and yet it hangs in the air. It carries with it four decades of right-wing politics and quasi-religious rhetoric which taught the US that God is a Republican who uses hurricanes to punish cities and tells presidential candidates to run for office. It conjures pictures of street preachers confidently assuring angry crowds that...well, almost everyone is going to hell. In the popular imagination, evangelicals are door-to-door Jesus salesmen.

But I'm not selling a brand-name faith with an eternal warranty. So when I explain what the ELCA is, I hesitate. Why oh why couldn't we have picked a less loaded name?

I could give some long explanation about Lutheran history and denominational mergers or a passionate defense of Luther's original use of the term, both of which explain why we ended up as the ELCA, but there is more to the story. It's about our identity as Christians. We are, after all, an apostolic Church, sent out to proclaim the euangelium, or Gospel (and the root word for evangelism).

We tend to think of evangelism as spreading the right knowledge of how a person gets to Heaven, as though we are teaching a secret password to an exclusive club. Knock on a door, share the Good News, and leave knowing that you've won another soul for Jesus. One more person out of Hell.

But what if we thought of evangelism as inviting people into right relationship with God and, through God, with our sisters and brothers, our neighbors and our enemies? What if evangelism took longer than the few seconds required to hand out a tract? What if we viewed evangelism as accompanying people on their pilgrimage towards God? And what if the Gospel we proclaimed had implications on Earth as well as in Heaven?

The early Church understood evangelism as accompaniment. New Christians were sponsored through a long initiation process which led to the Font and to the Table. They were accompanied through poverty. They were accompanied through prison and martyrdom. This tradition survives, in text if not in practice, through the baptismal liturgies which ask for the entire assembled Body at worship to affirm, on behalf of the entire Church catholic, that they will "support [the newly baptized] and pray for them in their new life in Christ" (Evangelical Lutheran Worship liturgy for Holy Baptism).

It's not a simple promise. It requires that we give of ourselves, to offer love unconditionally and forgiveness abundantly. It requires that we feed the hungry, visit the sick and the imprisoned, clothe the naked, and much, much more. It requires that we weep with those who weep and laugh with those who laugh. That we sow peace where there is anger and violence.

It's a way of understanding evangelism which builds peace by proclaiming the Gospel of Christ's Resurrection and acting out of God's abundant love.

To be evangelical is to be a peacemaker. The one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church is sent out to proclaim the peace of God's Kingdom. May we be blessed in doing so.

A Truly Catholic Liturgy: Sharing the Table

Part I of a series of reflections from the Wild Goose Festival
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I spent the past weekend at the Wild Goose Festival in Hot Springs, North Carolina. Wild Goose is a celebration of the intersection between progressive politics and spirituality -- largely from the perspective of post-Evangelical North American Christianity. It's the sort of place where people, without any small talk, immediately begin sharing their stories of hurt and, at times, abuse in the Church and how they've come to find love and acceptance within the same Church (though certainly within a different parish or denomination). It's the sort of place where people give away free food to their fellow campers, where bottles of bourbon are passed like the Pax, and where disagreements become charitable and edifying conversation.

As I prepared for the weekend, looking over the schedule of performances and presentations, I noticed an hour-long block scheduled for Saturday night: "7:00 PM -- Liturgy: Roman Catholic Mass, Justice Tent."

Immediately, I asked the question. With everything that I've heard about Wild Goose and the type of people who attend, would this be an open table? Would I, a Lutheran, be invited to share the Body of Christ? To drink from the Cup of Salvation?

On to my calendar it went, and I looked forward to it all weekend. When people in my group asked me what I was planning on doing that night, I excitedly told them, "Oh, there's a Catholic Mass tonight."

And then they asked me the other question. "You won't be able to take Communion, will you?"

"I don't know. I mean, officially, no. But if there's ever going to be an open table, it's going to be here."

With no small amount of skepticism, my friends saw me off on Saturday night. I found the tent and stood around awkwardly while people filed in. We moved some chairs around to encircle the make-shift Altar as the priest prepared the chalice and paten. We sat as he welcomed us and said the words I'd been waiting for: "This is an open table."

The liturgy started, and I knew the words (with, granted, a few minor changes in phrasing). I could participate.

And then we got to the sermon. The priest read the Gospel and told us he had nothing to add. It was a festival of teaching, and he wanted to know what we had heard among the tents and tables. What were we picking up in this place that we would carry back to our parishes. People shared in the communal homily.

We celebrated the Eucharist. The priest prayed the Canon, we offered our Amen, and the paten was passed, from person to person. And then the chalice. We were all serving each other at the Altar. We were all the Body of Christ.

When the Sacrament got to me, I shared with my Roman brothers and sisters. The five-hundred-year schism between Rome and Augsburg was, for a moment, healed. Through the Eucharist, we participated in a proleptic vision of God's Kingdom. There was neither Greek nor Jew, male nor female, slave nor free, Protestant nor Catholic. We were united into one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. As the grains of wheat, once scattered upon the hill, were gathered to become one bread, so too was the fractured Church united.

After, we were dismissed in peace to love and serve our Lord.

I wandered down to the Episcopal tent and joined in praying Compline.

Gloria in Excelsis Deo.