This is Ben, and this is Keith.

And this is main street Lutherans.

So today we're going to talk about why do we accept everyone? And by we, we mean the ELCA and our churches. And this sort of gets. Gets sprung on us as we go into June. Of course, we're recording this in July, but. But we just went through June, which is Pride month, mostly around the country. I've been thinking about diversity in our church and. And Pride, the pride festivals for our LGBTQIA folks and the celebration of those folks in our church. So, Keith, as far as pride celebrations in York and church's participation, is there much?

Yeah, there's a pretty good sized pride festival in York. My family was not able to participate this year because we had some personal kinds of family emergency things going on. There is a decent festival, history of festivals in York this year. It was out at the York fairgrounds, which kind of ramps up its validity a little bit.

Oh, yeah, major.

Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of a big deal. So there is a neighboring congregation, Union Lutheran Church, which is four city blocks down the road from us on West Market street. They're also in the 400 block of West Market. We're in the 800 lot, and they are what's called an RIC congregation, or reconciling in Christ congregation. And just to explain that a little bit, reconciling works is an organization that started as a parachurch organization, is now sort of officially recognized by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and works within the church to empower and educate and advocate around issues of lgbt persons to be welcome in congregations, to be welcome in ministry as rostered ministers, and encouraging churches to be active in social justice around lgbt issues in society. And so this congregation down the street from Mount Union Lutheran church is an RIC congregation. And so they make certain that they have a presence at events like this. For that reason, St. Matthew is currently on the journey to become an RIC congregation. We're not yet, but it's a process that was created by reconciling works, and it's based on their experience and knowledge of how congregations work, how people work, and how we can move through a place of perhaps skepticism or even criticism towards welcome and acceptance and advocacy. Yeah. So union would have had a presence there at that festival. There are some other congregations, Lutheran and otherwise, that would have made sure to have a presence there in a positive way, to have, you know, whether it's booths or tables or whatever, to show support for people in the lgbt community and allies to their community, and just to demonstrate their own allyship. Yeah. What about you guys at unity?

Yeah, unity. So we were in sort of an interesting position, I think, as a relatively newly organized church because of the merger. We've talked about the pastor, Jack, who just retired last year. He declared the church most likely would have become Ric under his leadership, but he put it off because he'd been attempting to retire for several years, and so he didn't want him to lead into that when maybe the later clergy would not be for that. But we have since had an intern who was in a same sex relationship, and our pastor now is as well. And so we've sort of hurtled over the Ric fence, and now we're going back to sort of fill out the paperwork and bring the rest of the things to. I think we've committed far enough beyond it. So now, as far as we're in the downriver area of Detroit, and downriver is blue collar. It isn't. Well, you know, it's well known for not being very progressive.

Okay.

They do vote democratic, but. But they're not progressive. And so there hasn't been sort of a unified pride festival for all the suburbs that are around us until this year. And so that happened just a couple weeks ago. One of our members is on the board that organized it, which is really nice, but because of situations, we had folks traveling, and so we weren't able to be part of that festival, but not officially with our presence, but like you guys, neighboring congregation is, and they're also on the same street we are, but a bit further than four blocks away. But they were present, and they were our ELCA presence, our conference presence, if you will, for that festival. And it looked like they had quite a group to help represent the ELCA churches in that space, which was really nice. I think in the future, we'll probably participate more. I think it just wasn't on the calendar for our congregation for whatever reason. So I think we'll do better about that. I've been thinking about further diversity, too, though. The LGBTQ diversity isn't always something you can see. I think the congregations I've been in, and often you wouldn't know that the two guys that are sitting next to each other aren't brothers or friends and that they're more. Right. I think we struggle with having more diversity in color and background, maybe socioeconomic as well.

Yeah. Age sometimes in a lot of congregations, that's for sure. Yeah. Yeah.

I think we're doing better as a congregation with that now.

Okay. Yeah. St. Matthew, you know, a lot of listeners wherever you are probably aware that Pennsylvania is known as a swing state in election circles. And what that sometimes gets kind of reduced down to is that Philadelphia and Pittsburgh are blue and the rest of the state in between is red in the country areas in between those two big rural areas. And you know, there is, there's always a grain of truth to those stereotypes, but, but the reality is that it's a little more complicated than that. York, for example, is the only city in York County. York county is predominantly an area of lots of farms and lots of very small towns and communities. And then this, this one city of York in the center of it, which is the county seat. And again, the city of York is pretty staunchly democratic in its population and politics. And the county around it is, you know, a little more mixed, but definitely would lean more towards the republican end of things. And so St. Matthew being a congregation that sits inside the city limits of York, but has a congregational draw from, from people, you know, that are all over York county, we have the blessing of being a kind of more, I don't know if you describe it as moderate or purple or middle ground. Yeah, a little more middle ground in terms of politics. And for the most part, that tends to be a good thing. We have a slightly more diverse set of viewpoints than some other congregations that tend to lean all of one way or the other. And theres advantages and disadvantages in all of that. Its one thing to be in a community of like minded folks that all kind of think the same way you do, and that can give you a lot of energy and impetus in sort of a social justice world, for example, of really trying to make some things happen. The other side, maybe in a congregation that has this, a little more diversity, you tend to have a little more sort of engaged conversation and deep thinking about these, these issues because you're not only talking to people that agree with you, but you're talking with people that disagree with you in a maybe more friendly and discerning way than might be in other settings, because it's the church that's able to do that. I'm not saying that we do it perfectly, but there are some opportunities to really share some different points of view and really feel like you're actually in dialogue about it and now just trying to outshout one another.

Right. Well, let's move into what the ELCA says about accepting folks. On the ELCA website, there is a page that has who we are, and it has, I think, six questions on it that people might be thinking about when they consider joining or at least going to an ELCA congregation and includes things like, what should I expect when I walk in? And. And things. But one of them is. One of these questions is, in my experience, not all churches are very welcoming. Am I welcome in the ELCA? And we have three bullet point answers to this, and we're going to sort of go through these each at a time. The first one, this is actually the third one. We moved it up because I think the bullet points hit a little strong at first. And so the first one we're going to talk about is actually a third one. How is the ELCA committed to welcoming, including everyone? And it talks about how God's love for everyone compels us to stand against anything that harms or divides us from each other, such as injustice, prejudice, and systemic oppression. And then it talks about how we might have some complicity in this, but that we're committed to doing the hard work of examining and engaging in honest dialogue with those who challenge exclusion and domination. And so it is our desire to do our part in God's great work to bring reconciliation, restoration, and wholeness to the world. So that's sort of answering how we're willing to put our neck out on the lines or out on the line to be open and accepting of folks.

Yeah. And I think that gets to. We did an episode on social justice statements as an example and how the ELCA really wants to be a church that wrestles with the full implications of what we believe. If we believe that God does indeed welcome and love everyone, then what are we doing to try to make that love a reality in the world today? So whether you're talking about homelessness or caring for military veterans or advocating in the LGBTQ world, you know, that's. That's sort of a stamp of who we are and what we believe. Again, we're not perfect at it, but it's organizationally what we're trying to work towards and become and live into.

Yeah. And then the hard hitting part, this is the first question in there is, what is sin? And am I judged for my sin?

And I love that we start with that.

Yeah. It seems to need some background. Right. And I think it comes from, and I pretty sure I'm right in this, is that a lot of people are told by other churches that they're sinners and that we can't be accepted as particular sins are forbidden in their church. And so the question is, what do we consider to be sins?

I think that's an interesting question because I think that our answer to it as Lutherans is to shy away from talking about sins as in things that we do or don't do that are wrong and instead talk about, and, you know, a simplistic way of describing this is talk about sin with a capital s or sin with a lowercase sins with a lowercase s. Is that notion that, you know, we either do things that we shouldn't do or we don't do things that we should do. You know, I didn't remember to call my mother on Mother's day, and so God's going to be upset with me or I threw something at the back of a kid's head in school and so God's going to be upset with me. And then if I would avoid doing those things or forgetting to do those things, that then I'd be a better person, that God would like me more. But instead we talk about sin with a capital s, which is really this condition that we live under as being separation from God. And so that notion of sin gets played out not just in individuals but in communities, in nations, in kind of tribal groups throughout history, and the things that we perpetuate as oppression and evil that is done to people in the world. And so everybody, including christians, falls short of the standard that God has set for us. And that's difficult to admit, but we trust that God's grace has the power to continually forgive us and heal us and free us to love others, as it says on the page.

Yeah. And of course that bleeds in with the second question in there, our third what would cause someone not to be good enough for God or Jesus? In the first 1st word of the whole thing is one sentence, nothing. And thats kind of the answer thats really powerful. It is. Of course theres more to it that when we confess our sins, were assured of gods forgiveness, and we respond to that grace by serving and loving our neighbor. The thing I wanted to move on to talk about is, is there anything about this message that we like? And would you go further? And immense thinking right now that I wanted to go further in that the message of acceptance is that there is no ideal person right there. There is no ideal person who fits the model that God tells us we have to be. We all are imperfect in different ways. But your imperfection is not your gender, your identity. Both know in whatever form, it's not your beliefs. I think something that's missing from this is that we do not have a set of beliefs that are forbidden in our church. Right. That we believe that. And I mean, I'm sure there are exceptions to that. There are certain things that we would not tolerate actions, but that the church does not have. You know, did you vote for this person? Do you believe that schools should be funded for X, Y and Z? Do you, you know, there is no list of things that you have to check off on the box in order to walk forward to receive the communion or be baptized. You know, it's beyond just. I think this points directly to sexual identity issues where I think our acceptance is much broader than that of. But I think this is an honest answer to the people that ask that question because I, as a straight white man, am not going to be wondering if I can walk into any church and be accepted.

Yeah. Yeah. Because we recognize that place of privilege that you and I both live in. And you'll be able to say, you know, to go back to the RAC example for a moment to that designation, being on a church's website or having the logo in the window or on the sign is a. Is a clue that, you know, when it says, you know, every church has a sign outside that says, everybody welcome. But, you know, then the sub question is, do you really mean that? Is everybody truly welcome? And of course, for people in the queer community, many times they have felt that they were not fully welcome. And so to be able to explicitly say that has a lot of healing power in their lives and in their community in particular.

Well, and welcome to more than just to sit in the pew and put your offering in the envelope. Right. To be a fully functioning part of our church.

Yeah. Yeah. To be able to be a pastor or a Deacon or a council president, you know, a communion assistant or a bishop, whatever it might be, and every, any big way to small or go.

Back and not do any of those things.

Yeah. Or to teach. To teach vacation Bible school or a Sunday school class, you know? You know, but yeah. Cause there is sort of this kind of sub, this quiet resistance that you encounter sometimes. They're like, well, yeah, of course we want you to come in the door. Well, no, well, no, we don't want.

You to teach kids, you know, we.

Wouldn'T want you to be in leadership in an official way or an unofficial way. But that's what the RAC program is pushing back against, to say. No. Not only do we want you here in the pew that we want offering in the plate, we want your participation, want you to be using your gifts and skills in the leadership of the congregation, whatever way that may, that God may be calling you to be.

Yeah. So is there anything particular that you like? I mean, what's, what's your favorite thing about this message of acceptance?

I think that it, again, gets at that notion of really looking at the full implications of what we believe. So, for example, if you say is a racist welcoming your congregation, you'd say, yeah, they are. Because for one thing, in some level, we can say that many of us could confess in ways that we know and don't know that we are racist if we look at our lives and our values with true honesty. But beyond that, you'd say, of course. Now, are they going to be challenged in that particular perspective by their welcome? I hope so, because they're going to see that other people, that perhaps they would not want to be in the room with them or in the pew next to them are also fully welcome. And so that challenge of racism, and again, this is an oversimplified example, that challenge of racism is going to be. That position of racism is going to be challenged, but that person should be. Should be welcomed. And if they ever repent of a racist perspective, you know, they're perhaps guilt over their past actions and past beliefs should not preclude them from being fully welcomed and embraced. And that's a reality that we all live with because there are ways that we live up to that. You mentioned before, there's no ideal person. There are ways that we are pretty good people sometimes, and there are ways that we're not. Luther called that being simultaneously saint and sinner.

Yeah, I always found it interesting. So. Particularly at Calvary. We'll talk about Calvary forever because, well, it can't talk back to us because it's been gone for a while. But one of the things I felt a strong welcome at Calvary was that Calvary had a mix of ages, of identities, of relationships. We had multicultural relationships. We had just such a wide variety of people, and there weren't that many there. You know, you're talking about a group of, like 45 to 50 people and. And representing a wide swath of America.

Yeah.

And that, I mean, there were. There were groups missing, but. But what? You know, I, as the person I am, I felt welcome because I don't hold traditional, you know, what people would. I had too much Bible. I learned too much Bible stuff to take the Sunday school version of church and live with it. And I felt like my different perspective on things was truly appreciated. But I felt like that could happen because the church accepted people who other churches were obviously not accepting at the time. You know, we are talking about 20 years ago, so. Or any more.

Yeah.

So I think seeing, seeing acceptance in a congregation can show acceptance to people who feel like they may not fit in for other reasons.

Yeah.

You know, that could be near neurodivergence, for instance, people who have hearing difficulties or blindness and things.

Yeah. Yeah. Because diversity in one capacity can lead to diversity in others. Right. Yeah. When you see one segment of the population being welcomed and included, that opens the door for, for others. And so. Yeah. Diversity. And say your gender or family relationships may lead to diversity in the racial makeup of your congregation. May lead to the diversity of the economic makeup of your congregation. Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. You know, we've got a lot of diversity in catechism questions.

Yes.

Because our guests last week, in the last episode, drew, Pastor Drew left us with the question, what animal appears in the ten Commandments? And we had muskrat, parrot, bear and squid. And the answer, of course, is, you shall not bear false witness, your neighbor or your ox, too.

Right. Yeah. I really feel like he kind of kicked up our, our catechism questions up a little bit with that one, so.

Absolutely.

We'll try to match that this week. The question that we have for this week, again with, you know, just coming out of pride month now, is what does the rainbow act as a reminder of in Genesis? What does the rainbow act as is reminder of in Genesis? And here are the possible answers. A. That Adam and Eve would never bite into another apple b that God will never again destroy the world in a flood c. That Abel would never taunt Cain about his offering not being good enough or d that the volume of a prism is equal to the area of the base times the height.

That is a tough one.

It is. And we will have the question answered for you in the next episode.

Yes. And you can respond with what's contained in our ending here. Main Street Lutherans is hosted by Keith Fair and Ben Fot. You can reach us by [email protected] dot our website is mainstreetlutherence.com, and it has a way to share our, our podcast with other folks. We're on the socials as Main Street Lutherans on Facebook, Instagram threads and YouTube. You can also call to leave us a message at 734-25-0954 that is in the episode notes. The show is produced by Folk media Productions. Until next time, go in peace. Serve the Lord.

Thanks be to God. I.