January 21, 2007
Trial of Pastor Bradley Schmeling – day three
Today started with a slate grey sky, and it was sprinkling. By 2:00 pm it was raining enough that the streets were wet. It continued to rain the rest of the day. It was in the upper 40s / lower 50s [Fahrenheit].
The first agenda item this morning was getting to the Eucharist at St John's. I was very pleased when we came down into the lobby of the hotel to find it almost completely devoid of people. If you had some grudge and were looking for a place to hold the shotgun duel, you could have used the lobby and not taken collateral casualties. Of course, I assume that the lobby was empty because Atlanta was on its way to church. Right?
The Hearing Committee elected to have their own service in the hotel.
At St John's, the usual Sunday congregation was swelled by well-wishers and those working in support of the Defense Team. There were more than 200 in celebration. An interesting coincidence was found in the lectionary assigned texts for this Sunday being the texts that were used for Bradley's installation at St John's six years ago.
During the service, there were laughs, some tears as prayers were being offered up. As with the service on Thursday evening, we began with a reminder of our Baptism, the renewing force that water is in our lives, the power of baptism in our spiritual lives.
Bradley presided, with Ann Gerondelis as Assisting Minister, Jeanette Burgess leading the worship music and choir. Paul Arne read the lessons.
Bradley did the Children's Sermon, gathering a dozen or so youngsters from 4 to 8–9 years old on the floor at the far edge of the sanctuary. He said that today's Gospel reading was about first words. He asked the kids if they knew what their first words had been. The answers ranged from "Mommy" and "Dada" to nonsense words whose meaning had been lost. Bradley said that, though we don't know what Jesus' first words as a baby were, today we hear about his first words in public. He asked who the kids thought Jesus would talk about with his first public words. The kids said His Mom and Dad, His Friends. Bradley said, "the poor," and that it was our job to go out of our way to see if someone needed help and give it to them. He told the kids they should think about that and be helpful. He dismissed them back to their places. As Bradley was proceeding back across the sanctuary, a 6-year-old stopped in his return to his pew, turned and said across the sanctuary "God loves us all." Bradley turned and said, "Yes, He does."
The Rev Gladys Moore preached. Gladys is Assistant to the Bishop in the New Jersey Synod, ELCA, where she serves as transformational ministries coordinator and faith-based community organizing liaison. She also serves 2/3 time as pastor of St Matthew Lutheran in Jersey City. All of which she will leave behind in June as she assumes her new position as Dean of Religious and Spiritual Life and Director of Diversity and Inclusion at Holyoke College in Massachusetts.
Gladys referred to the day as a day of filling and fulfillment – joy at the care the Spirit has been doing for the congregation, the pastor and Bradley's family. She reflected how filled with longing we are for the Spirit to continue reforming the church in its acceptance of gay and lesbian pastors. And that we are filled with hope for the outcome of the trial. She likened St John's to a filling station – a place one comes to be filled with Word and Sacrament, singing and solace, community and courage. She said that the Spirit is what gathers the congregation to St John's to hear the Word and be strengthened for God's mission.
Christ said in today's text, "today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." Gladys reminded us that too often the day of fulfillment of promises is not today, but "someday." Someday violence will end in our country, as will violence against Black young men because of their color. Someday war and oppression will end, hunger will be resolved, everyone will hear the Gospel. Problem with that is, if we believe that God is going to do this, the temptation is that we need not work to heal.
She said that her "news flash" was that for Christians the someday of deferred dreams is the today of God's promise. Jesus preached that which reversed the world-as-is into the world-as-ought-to-be. Poverty, injustice, imprisonment, and blindness of the soul abound, but Christ's message leans the present into the future, and makes at hand the reshaping.
Christ's message was to the poor, not just those needing life's necessities but any who found themselves looking in from outside the borders of God's people, turning those outsiders into insiders. The way into God's family is open to all.
She said that if Jesus can be so clear about the "poor," if congregations like St John's can understand that the Spirit has named Bradley as a servant of Christ, it is baffling that the ELCA could spend huge sums of money on this trial when the money could have gone to the relief of suffering.
She enjoined us to continue to accept the filling of the Spirit, and do so with joy, spirits strengthened, bodies blessed.
[The full text of her sermon will be posted to our website as soon as possible.]
Today, the following people left the Defense witness room and testified before the Hearing Committee:
- Joshua Love, 18, member of St John's
- The Rev Dr David Fredrickson, New Testament professor at Luther Seminary, St Paul
- The Rev Dr Eric Gritsch, retired professor of the Confessions and Church History (translated the Book of Concord), Gettysburg Seminary
- Dr Jonathan Strom, Associate Professor of Church History and Chair of History and Interpretation of Christianity, Candler School of Theology, Emory University
- The Rev Ben Stewart, member of St John's, PhD candidate at Candler School of Theology, former chaplain at Holden Village Retreat Center
- John Ballew, member of St John's Lutheran, former President of Lutherans Concerned/North America
The trial ran later than anticipated this afternoon.
At St John's, Holden Village Vespers service was held at 5:30 pm.
"For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body – Jews or Greeks, slaves or free – and we were all made to drink of one Spirit."
Phil Soucy
Director Communications LC/NA
communications@lcna.org
