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When I am restless, nervous, or anxious, I begin to bounce my knee rapidly. It's a tic that I share with my mom and sister. I usually don't realize that I'm doing it, but someone lets me know pretty quickly because I shake the floor. Even our four year old has picked up on this and will often say, "Daddy, stop bouncing."
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Last night, I was eating dinner at the McDonald's across from our seminary and my knee was pumping like a piston. I was anxious. A little while later, my night class would be discussing case studies. Case studies are student-written accounts of difficult issues that ministers must face in the church. One of the case studies centered around a member of a church praise team who was a lesbian.
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99.9% of the conversations that I have had in seminary have been productive, but the contentious ones always seemed to center on homosexuality. They tend to get heated quickly. I understand why--loved ones and deeply held beliefs are at the heart of the matter--but it still doesn't make it any better when you're on the receiving end of someone's ire. A couple of years ago, a classmate was incensed at me and a few others for suggesting that homosexuality was a lot more complicated than the church typically interprets a handful of passages. I was so upset that I had to go frantically pace outside during our class break. My friend Tabatha said to another friend, "I think they broke Chris."
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In my head, I knew exactly what I was going to say. I was going to shut down whatever anyone said to shut me down. I was not going to get hurt. I anticipated arguments and thought of ways in which I could gently but decisively bring down the hammer. It was like a training montage from Rocky for intellectual engagement was happening in my brain. I could almost hear "Gonna Fly Now."
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My knee stopped. What was I doing? I was making assumptions. I was seeing classmates that disagreed with me as enemies to be vanquished. I was approaching the whole thing from a place of fear. At the end of the day, my attitude was not going to add anything beneficial to this conversation. The important thing about the dialogue taking places was not who won and who lost, but how we as a body of Christians could work together despite our differences and figure out how to best minister to our brothers and sisters.
I took a deep breath. I did my daily devotional (which consisted of 1 Chronicles and Ezekiel and didn't really help). Then I read a chapter from Brian McLaren's We Make the Road By Walking as I dipped golden french fries in ketchup. The chapter was about Abram, Sara, and their desire for a child. The author pointed out that there are a lot of times when we feel like it is too late for something good to happen, but with God it is never too late. I was thinking that it was too late for our class to have a constructive dialogue about ministering to gay and lesbian individuals. It was too contentious an issue. People, myself included, were too set in their ways.
With God, it's never too late.
I decided that I would start off listening. I would not come in ready to make any sort of case based on assumptions. I'm glad I didn't let my assumptions get the best of me. The tone of the conversation was gracious yet honest. Though we acknowledged that there were places all along the spectrum on which disagreed, we found places where we could agree. We talked about the importance of ministry, compassion, education, setting ground rules for disagreeing lovingly, and more.
As we sat around those tables and struggled with these questions, we did not seem like debaters on multiple sides. We were sharing our thoughts, beliefs, and experiences as brothers and sisters of the same Church.
For the Church to carry on, we are going to have to learn how to work alongside each other in spite of differences. There are so many denominations and sub-denominations that finding other congregations with which you agree on everything is impossible. We have two options. We can stubbornly insist that our side is right about everything and deny table fellowship with everyone that does not fit in.
Or we can admit that we all (myself included) are still trying to figure this out, but are united in Christ. We can serve with one another and fellowship in spite of those differences. It does not mean the disagreements do not matter. They do and we should still talk about them and work them out. But we can work them out in a way where we don't shut out those on other sides of a myriad of issues.
All of this is a lot easier in the abstract. It is another thing to open oneself up to this spirit. It requires vulnerability. It requires extending a hand to people that may reject you. It requires admitting that you might be wrong about something and being willing to genuinely listen. It is not easy, which probably means it is the way we should go.