Whenever Garrison Keillor starts his monologue in the second hour of his show, he always starts it with the same words: "Well, it's been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon, my hometown out on the edge of the prairie."
But I'm here to tell you today, it's not been a quiet week in our hometown. Some of you know about this occurrence in our church locally that involves this congregation directly, and some of you don't, so I'm going to bring you up to speed...
Our sister Damayanthi Niles, who is a professor of theology at Eden Seminary in Webster Groves, has been approved for the ordination of Minister of Word and Sacrament. Damayanthi is not going to become a pastor, but she will be ordained to the ministry of teaching in the church. It is a very noble calling, one where she is directly preparing - with both her intellect and her generous and loving spirit - men and women to be pastors in the church.
Ordination is never an easy process. It involves getting a master's degree - In Damayanthi's case a PhD in Theology, with a minor in Hinduism and Buddhism. It is a lengthy process of being under the care of a Presbytery. You must pass five ordination exams, and then when all of that is done and you've been approved to accept a position in a church or a seminary or as chaplain of a hospital. You appear on the floor of the Presbytery meeting, where the entire Presbytery - both minister and elder representatives of churches - can ask you questions about theology, scripture, the governance of the church, and your own faith.
It can be a very intimidating thing. There can be a couple hundred people there asking you questions, mostly based on your statement of faith. Every candidate for ministry is required to write that statement, and read it before the Presbytery.
On February 10th of this year, after completing all of her exams and all of the requirements, Damayanthi appeared before the Presbytery of Giddings-Lovejoy. Damayanthi read her Statement of Faith, and she then took questions. Now, this was no ordinary examination because last summer our national body sort of reinterpreted how we are going to examine people. Damayanthi was like the unlucky soul who drew the first card out of the deck. Some people came ready to grill whoever it was that day.
There were some tough questions, and some very challenging questions, and Damayanthi with her usual intellect and grace and wit answered these questions beautifully, and we all held our collective breath because we hadn't heard the questions asked before. What would she say?
She did a beautiful job, and then as always happens, someone makes a motion that the examination be arrested - that is we stop asking questions and now vote on the person - not just based on the questions they've answered but this multi-year process that has led up to this day, overseen by committees of this very Presbytery. There were a couple of questions asked, again arising somewhat out of this confusion of how we're even supposed to conduct these examinations in this new time after our national body has changed the rules, but those moved along, and then we proceeded to vote. Damayanthi overwhelmingly was approved by our Presbytery to be ordained to the ministry of word and sacrament.
The date of April 14th was chosen. Her parents, who are coming from England will be here that day, friends and colleagues from around the country and this region will descend on Trinity Presbyterian Church, and we will have an ordination the likes of which this Presbytery has never seen before.
...And then last week, I started getting some odd calls. One was from Damayanthi herself. A former student of hers was to be ordained today in southeastern Illinois. It was suggested to her that perhaps she might want to have a different preacher (she had invited Damayanthi to preach at her ordination) because there was this controversy surrounding her examination at the Presbytery meeting.
I got email from another person. Apparently at a very conservative church in our Presbytery, there was concern that Damayanthi had denied the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Now, she was asked doctrinal questions: For those of you who like such things, it was about the literal virgin birth, substitutionary atonement, and the physical second coming of Jesus. Damayanthi answered those with answers that I would guess most of the pastors and elders there that day would agree with. Someone was now saying that she had denied the resurrection, but she hadn't been asked about the resurrection, and her Statement of Faith included a statement about the resurrection.
I started making some calls, because something was going on here, and we finally go to the bottom of it. There are a couple of churches in our Presbytery that are on the very conservative side of the spectrum. Presbyterians have always been sort of a "big tent" denomination, with very, very liberal and progressive churches, and very conservative ones. Sometimes we've actually had schisms and some have left and formed new Presbyterian denominations, but for the most part, we've held. We're kind of splitting right now over lots of different issues. For the last thirty years, the presenting issue has been sexual orientation and ordination, but the real issue has been how we interpret scripture and what it means for our daily living, and for us as the Church.
Apparently, a couple of the most conservative churches in our Presbytery are so upset that the Presbytery approved Damayanthi for the ministry of word and sacrament that they are planning to challenge it in church court.
Let me say a word about substitutionary atonement, because it's a big word and it's a very old doctrine of the church. All Christians believe that on the cross Jesus accomplished something we couldn't accomplish for ourselves. In the sixties when the church was wrestling with this, they called that action of Jesus "reconciliation" - bringing us back in right relationship with God.
In other times, it's been seen as the perfect sacrifice. As the Jews used to sacrifice a lamb to atone for our sins, now Jesus was sacrificed. In the Middle Ages, there came an understating of atonement where it was understood in economical terms: We have a debt sheet, and the debt is caused by our sins, and that debt must be paid back to God in order for us to have salvation. We of our own accord cannot pay that debt, because it keeps growing every day and our acts are too feeble. Even to believe you can pay back for the sin is a sin, and the debt gets larger. It is understood in this doctrine that God's perfect justice demands full payment, and the only way that it could be paid would be for one who is sinless (Jesus) to freely offer his life to pay the debt of all.
Some Presbyterians hold very fast to substitutionary atonement and others do not, and this, it seems, is where the controversy has arisen. Some churches are aghast that a Presbytery would approve someone for ministry who does not strictly hold to that doctrine. Our Presbyterian process allows people who feel aggrieved to file a complaint to be adjudicated in church courts until it can be sorted out and a declaration of what is proper can be made by a higher court. Because that can take a long time - three, four, six months or more - in order to keep that action from happening they may also file a stay of enforcement, which means that the Synod, which is the next highest body, would say to this Presbytery: You may not ordain this person yet, until all of this is sorted out.
Now, these churches haven't filed yet, but the officers of the Presbytery believe that they will. If they do, the Synod could reject it outright as a frivolous case, but given the dynamics in our denomination right now, that's probably not likely. If they take the case, it will take months to adjudicate, and until that time, Damayanthi's ordination is put on hold.
We are in limbo right now. The Presbytery has definitively spoken. The culmination of Damayanthi's years of work and faithful application of herself to this calling to ministry and the work of countless committees and the whole Presbytery is now likely being put aside until our church courts can adjudicate it. It's a very troubling and bitter thing because the vast majority of the Presbytery has said she has not only the gift, but the calling, and now that is cast into doubt, and will probably have to wait, maybe up to a year.
One of the questions that occurs to me, and I know it occurs to Damayanthi and to many who have been struggling is "Why would you even want to be ordained to such a church?" Today we are welcoming four new members, and they may be asking that same question of themselves. That's a tough question, and doesn't have a simple answer, but let me at least begin to suggest a way forward...
During Lent we think about Jesus' barren time in the wilderness, where nothing really made sense. He was cut off from all that was familiar. All the procedures, all the processes that help us know who are as we go through life evaporate. He was not only thirsting physically, but thirsting spiritually to be grounded, and to know who he was and why he was on this path. I have to imagine that one of the things that held him and encouraged him was the words we've already read this morning:
O God, you are my God. I seek you. My soul thirsts for you. My flesh faints for you as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.
This has felt like a waterless week, hasn't it?
Then the psalmist goes on:
So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory. Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you. So I will bless you as long as I live; I will lift up my hands and call on your name.
In her teaching, Damayanthi always, always, always reminds us that the fundamental reality of humans is that we are broken. We are sinful and we can't put things together on our own.
The Church - a collection of humans, certainly seeking to discern God's will and show the love of Christ in all of its actions - is also broken. There is no whole church. There is no perfect church. But there is a whole God. A perfect God, who is always embracing, and satisfying that deep thirst for justice, righteousness and truth. The Church may be broken. If you want to join an unbroken church, I wish you luck. But we don't really join a church. We praise God in a collection of broken people who support each other, express God's forgiveness to one another, and help each other on the way.
It's not just about Damayanthi being ordained. It's not just about gay and lesbian persons being ordained. It's about all of us. Each of us was called by God. God has put an amazing beautiful holy image on each one of us, and has given us gifts to share God's love.
And so, we stick with it, because all of us are outcasts and none are worthy, but God is holy and merciful, and in God's love all of us are holy. That's why we baptize children. That's why we don't wait for people to be perfect before they come to be baptized or to join the church - because we're not. God calls us and draws us in, and sends us back out in our imperfect ways to share God's perfect love.
And so, in the face of disappointment and frustration and bitterness, Damayanthi has made a critical decision that - whether her ordination will go forward or not on the fourteenth of April in the year of our Lord two thousand and seven - on that day, in this place, our lips will praise God. We will have a service of celebration. We will remember our baptism. We will celebrate Damayanthi's - and everyone's - gifts for ministry. Even though the Church is imperfect and struggles to embrace someone with such amazing gifts, and struggles to embrace so many of us who are gifted and called by God, God satisfies us, and we can do nothing but allow our lips to praise, and in the wings of God's love, sing with joy.
It's not been a quiet week in our hometown. It's been a hard and tumultuous and barren week. But that's OK because some of God's best work is done in those barren places - in those dry and thirsty places, and that's where God's water and grace flow without bounds, and all of us are claimed, and know that we are loved.
In the words of Julian of Norwich:
And all shall be well.
And all shall be well.
And all manner of things shall be well.
Damayanthi Niles:
A lot has been said about, and for, and to... well, actually not to me... but about and for me, so I asked Dan if I could speak for myself...
I want to answer the question: "Why be ordained and why belong to the church?"
Part of the examination is the question "Do you have any scruples?," which means "Are there things about our Book of Order and Book of Confessions that you hold in question?"
I didn't declare scruples in my affirmation of faith - I like to just stay in the background - but I was not given that choice. I was asked if I had scruples.
I'm a straight woman. I can pass. As I stood in front of what felt like a hostile space, I thought "I can slide right now. I can just let this go, and everything will go fine." As I opened my mouth, I saw the face - the beloved face - of Paul Vasile. I knew that the next morning, I would have the privilege to pray with Paul. If I said at that moment "I have no scruples", I've lost that privilege.
Paul kept me faithful to the gospel message - The least of these is who I am with - even with the least of these, those ones being persecuted. Those of us who are not, it is our job to say "No", because we are children of faith. It is our job to say "You will not hurt God's people, and I who pass tell you - You may not do this."
The doctrine stuff is interesting, and there I stand with characters like Karl Barth, D. T. Niles and Schleirmacher in my doctrine, so I feel pretty safe.
I have the right to be with Paul, and with Tom and Terry and Dana and Meleia and all of the others who sit in these pews. I get the right to be faithful because you are faithful. I get to be a child of God because I am one of you. That's why I'm a member of this church. That is why I am glad to be baptized. Those of you who take membership here are entering a membership with a holy people. In their faces, you will see God pouring out.
I thank you for that. I thank you from the bottom of my soul. There's an African saying: "I am not unless we are." I am not without you. I am not unless I am one of this great priesthood of believers.
Today, I got to pray with Paul.
And for that, I am eternally grateful.