July 2021: Update from Pastor Nate

When I came out, Love itself changed me. Love itself saved me from death. That experience of God saving me from death, well, it created new wine in me. It created new life in me. As Jesus says, “new wine needs new wineskins.” That new wine needed a new container. 

But such a container, unfortunately was not to be found in any of the forms that people handed me in my upbringing in the evangelical world—the pastors who dressed in jeans and flannel shirts every Sunday while leading burgeoning megachurches with huge PR budgets, phenomenal bands, and swelling attendance were the very voices who were insisting that I had no place in the kingdom of God (which I knew to be a load of bunk). So, I had to dig deeper. I had an encounter with the risen Christ that I needed to hold, and evangelicalism wasn't it. 

I found peace, solace, depth, and power in the rhythms, practices, and yes, even the garb of historic Christianity—practices which are older than this congregation for certain, practices which predate the troubled history of Christian colonialism in the West, and some practices which even predate the very existence of Christianity as a world religious tradition. I found old cloth to patch up the worn garment of my faith, and in so doing, God turned that old garment into a new wineskin. 

Those rhythms and practices became the wineskin that was able to hold my resurrection, allowing me to preserve my faith in Christ when every other voice I was hearing in my limited world was telling me that I was better of dead than gay, and that the Christian movement had no place for me. 

Those rhythms and practices transformed me—and are still transforming me—from an angry, petulant, fearful, and self-righteous child into a man who is learning at every moment to live with his chest cracked open, offering his heart in love. New wine for new wineskins.

I come to you packaged in the wineskin that I needed to put the wine of my new life in.

And I come to you as everything I am.

I typically wear the white robe of my baptism, called an alb, in worship. That white garment connects me, every time I don it, not only to my own baptism, but to the baptism of every other Christian who has ever lived and died and lived again in the family of God. That garment, and the other ones I wear with it on a typical Sunday morning, were never meant to be the garments of the oppressor: the alb (the white robe, that is), the stole, the chasuble, the cassock—those garments were the garments that men and women since the very first days of the Christian movement wore to their execution at the hands of the State, simply because they chose to submit to the authority of Love over against the authority of Caesar and his empire.

And yet, because of the history of Christianty being what it is in the West, and because of the histories that some of you have with the traditions that preserved those garments, and the other outward practices that became the material from which I made my new wineskin, I know that this container—which some describe as “Catholic” but that’s not factually correct, “liturgical” is a better word—has been an adjustment for some of you, a disruption for others, and unfortunately, a dealbreaker for others among you.

Which is why I chose not to wear the alb in worship on the 20th: I am willing to yield my wineskin so that I can make new wine with you.

But it is part of who I am. It is my authentic outward expression of Christian faith and practice. If that is something that is a challenge or source of discomfort to any of you, I invite you to interrogate deeply where that discomfort is coming from, and to consider how you came to the particular containers and practices that you've arrived at.

Because here’s the deal: way before your kilt-wearing, psalm-chanting, weirdo of a new pastor arrived just in time for a global pandemic, y’all already discerned and established an ethos here of inclusion, a spirit of “come as you are.” 

We’ve got big ol’ banners on the building that say it in so many words, and we sing about it when we sing Embodying God’s Love every Sunday in our worship service. But “come as you are” does not mean “stay as you are.” I actually do expect you to change, because I also expect myself to change—for the simple reason that loving changes people, and I love you, and I hope that you find it within you to love me, too. 

I’ll say it again: I am willing to yield my wineskin so that I can make new wine with you.

Because, in the end, the wineskin isn’t the point. The wine is the point. The world needs wine, not wineskins. The world needs people, people who are being changed by love. 

As we approach my installation as your settled pastor on July 18th, it feels important to say these things, and to be honest and vulnerable about what these conversations have meant to me. I’m so grateful to be part of a congregation and a tradition where we don’t have to check any part of ourselves at the door when we come to worship or participate in other aspects of the life of the Church.

And at the same time, growing pains are a real thing, and as we grow together, we’ll continue to run into each other’s rough edges as life in community. Those conflicts don’t have to be scary; they can, in fact, generate sparks that kindle new life in our community, if we let them, but that only happens when lines of communication are open and we’re committed to being for one another.

One way we’re working to nourish a culture of open communication is through a series of Completing the Circle gatherings that will begin after worship later in this year. In these gatherings, we will invite a group of individuals from inside and outside the congregation to reflect on the experience of worship. The hope is that these reflections provide specific, constructive, actionable feedback on our worshipping life together in conversations facilitated by Church Council members (not me!). These will be opportunities to share what’s working and what’s not working in worship, and the feedback from these conversations will be key in shaping our approach to worship in the transformations that are to still come in our future. 

(I can feel you getting anxious as I write this, but, I assure you, nobody will be left behind unless you want to be!)

Now, personal preference will always play a role, but what’s most critical at this moment in our history as a congregation is not whether our personal preferences are being met, but whether our worship is facilitating an encounter with the Divine that aligns with our values of hospitality, healing, beauty, spiritual formation, diversity, justice, and learning. 

I don’t believe that Sunday morning is the only important thing that the Church does, but I do view Sunday morning as the heart of what we do, pumping life-giving energy into the limbs of the body of Christ so that the work of healing the world can go on. And hard work needs a strong heart.

So, as I speak from the heart, and as I continue baring my heart to you in our Sunday gatherings and throughout the week, I hope that you are able to hear from the heart as well, and to perceive with the eye of the heart that we’re in this together. I can’t wait to see what God does with us!

Peace,

Pr. Nate