The Gospel Agenda
Debate within the church about who is eligible to be “in” and who must be excluded is nothing new. It was a main feature even of the very first years after Christ. That first debate was so long ago, and so decisively settled, that it is hard to realize today just how difficult of a question it really was: Can Gentiles be included in the Christian church?
Gentiles (non-Jewish persons) were responding to the good news of Jesus in great numbers. But the question for those already “in” the early church (the Jewish followers of Jesus) was: don’t they first have to become Jewish? The scriptures (the Old Testament, the only scriptures that Jesus had) were very clear about access to God. Gentiles were unclean. Their access to God was limited because of that uncleanliness. They were so unclean that it was contagious: contact with a Gentile or eating a meal in a Gentile home would render a Jewish person unclean and ineligible for access to the temple for a period of time. According to scripture and tradition, to have access to God Gentiles must first convert and become Jewish. Which meant they had to take on the outward sign of that Jewish covenant with God - the sign of circumcision.
So what about these Gentiles who now followed Jesus? According to the scriptures, they were still unclean Gentiles. If they wanted to be part of God’s community, shouldn’t they do what was necessary to be clean and holy? Shouldn’t they follow all the parts of the law? Shouldn’t they first be circumcised? The argument from what seemed to be a clear and unquestionably correct reading of Scripture could have appeared unassailable, except that it was met by the experience of the working of the Holy Spirit in the midst of this new community of faith. Jewish Christians spoke up on behalf of the Gentile Christians, speaking about what they had seen in their lives. They had seen repentance, forgiveness, and transformation as these new believers had welcomed the gospel message. They had seen evidence of the presence of the Holy Spirit in the lives of the Gentile believers, just as they had seen it in their own. After much personal internal struggle, the apostle Peter baptized Gentile believers without requiring them to first be circumcised. When challenged about this, he defended his actions in this way: “If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?” (Read Acts chapters 10-11 and 15 for the story of this debate and its resolution.)
The Gentile believers already knew that they had been accepted by God. But allowing them into the human expression of that - the church - took the work of those already inside. It took the “in” group to argue on their behalf. Otherwise, it could have just been passed off as “the Gentile Agenda.” It took the Jewish Christians to recognize it as “the Gospel Agenda” for the church to move into places where God had already gone. God had to work within the community of faith to help it live into what God was already doing. Peter recognized God already there within the believers who were Gentile. Peter chose, rather than to try to hinder it, to embrace it in the face of resistance and the seemingly clear meaning of scripture about Gentiles. Peter chose to speak out for the Gospel, as he spoke out on behalf of the Gentiles.
Can we similarly find God already at work, and choose not to hinder that within our own lives and our own faith communities? “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28) Can we see the full inclusion of blacks as not “the Black Agenda” but rather “the Gospel Agenda”? Can we see God at work in the lives and ministries of women, and support it, recognizing “the Gospel Agenda” rather than “the Feminist Agenda”? Can we recognize holiness of life and the working of the Spirit in the lives of gay and lesbian Christians, and welcome their presence and their ministries as part of “the Gospel Agenda” rather than “the Gay Agenda?”
It’s not an easy place to be, in many ways. Many still accuse women of having a “Feminist Agenda” when we exercise our equality in Christ. How fortunate I am that I have so many faithful Christian men speaking out on behalf of that equality for me. They help the world hear my ministry as “Gospel Agenda.” They allow me to strive to be known as a “good priest”, and not just a “female priest.” They allow me to be a minister of the Gospel. But, in doing so, they have been the target of scorn and rejection themselves, from those who cannot see my ministry as being of God.
Now it is time for me, as a straight person, to speak up. I can bear witness, like Peter, to seeing the work of the Holy Spirit in the lives of those whom the church has traditionally said were “unclean” and “unfit” for consideration as members of Christ’s body. I can bear witness to seeing and experiencing in my gay and lesbian brothers and sisters lives of repentance, forgiveness, and transformation through Jesus. (And “transformation” does not mean that Gentiles become Jews, blacks become whites, women become men, or gays/lesbians become straight!) I can speak out for “the Gospel Agenda” and in doing so, I hope that the gay and lesbian members of our church can be recognized as being a part of that Agenda as well. I pray that our bishop can focus on his Gospel ministry, being a “good bishop” rather than just a “gay bishop. ” It is up to you, and to me, to be like Peter and not hinder God but to welcome God’s grace in the lives of others. That, my friends, is the good news of the Gospel. That is the Gospel Agenda.