Seeking to Become Whole: Creating a Transformed Church for ALL the Children of God

By Patricia Ambrose Welker

Seeking to Become Whole: Creating a Transformed Church for All the Children of God approaches the issue of marginalized persons-the other-by interpreting Jesus's parables in the context of progressive Christianity to create a church of love and justice for all God's children. Our society and church face a historical crisis. White people in America enjoy privilege just by being born. The other-the nonwhite, homosexuals, poor, prisoners, enemies, women, and those of other religions are not like "us." Jesus's parables and teachings form the heart of our understanding about how we treat the other. Jesus's parables spoke to the everyday problems of his society. Modern-day parables speak to today's problems, and Jesus's teachings guide us to dig deeply for the message he conveys. I submit that this book is particularly relevant to the current racial and ethnic crisis in our country and the continuing oppression of the LGBTQ community and women as they relate to the church. What can bring reconciliation to the divisions in the church? This book challenges the church and Christians to look deeply into our theology, our witness, and our teachings and seek to reconcile the marginalized in Jesus Christ. To receive a free group discussion guide on the book and more information please go to the author's website: www.seekingtobecomewhole.wordpress.com

• Language: English
• Publisher: Covenant Books, Inc.
• Release date: May 23, 2019
• ISBN: 9781644719176

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Seeking to Become Whole

Creating a Transformed Church for All the Children of God

Patricia Ambrose Welker

ISBN 978-1-64471-916-9 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-64471-917-6 (Digital)

Copyright © 2019 Patricia Ambrose Welker

All rights reserved

First Edition

Cover design by Carol Welker, designer. A caterpillar spins itself into a hiding place from which it emerges, a butterfly, beautifully transformed with light and life.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Covenant Books, Inc.

11661 Hwy 707

Murrells Inlet, SC 29576

www.covenantbooks.com

Table of Contents

Introduction

A Parable of Jesus—Judging Matthew 7:1–5

Becoming Whole

Transforming Hate into Love in the Community

A Parable of Jesus—The Abused Woman John 4:4–42

A Parable of Jesus—The Friend Luke 11: 5–8

Transforming Inferior into Equal in the Community

A Parable of Jesus—There Is Room at the Table Thomas 64

Transforming Enemy into Friend in the Community

A Parable of Jesus—The Samaritan Luke 10:25–37

Transforming Judgment into Compassion in the Community

A Parable of Jesus—The Judge and the Widow Luke 18:2–5

A Parable of Jesus—A Member of My Family Matthew 25: 33–45

Transforming Poor into Rich in the Community

A Parable of Jesus—The Vineyard Owner Matthew 20: 1–15

A Parable of Jesus—The Rich Man and the Poor Man Luke 16:19–31

Where Are the Parables in Today’s World?

A Parable of Jesus—Let Us Break Bread Together Mark 2:13–17

What Is the Church and Who Are the Christians?

A Teaching of Jesus—The Great Commission Matthew 28:19–20

A Teaching of Jesus—The Great Commandment Matthew 22:37–40

A Parable of Jesus—The Kingdom of God Is Here Matthew 10:7–11

A Transformed Church for all the Children of God

A Parable of Jesus—The Shepherd Luke 15:3–6

A Parable of Jesus—The Woman Luke 15: 8–9

A Parable of Jesus—The Two Sons Luke 15:11–32

A Parable of Jesus—The Merchant and the Pearl Matthew 13:45

Epilogue

Selected Bibliography

End Notes

Dedicated to the honor of son, Donald, daughters, Carol and Joanna, and to the memory of son, David John and husband, David.

A LITANY: SEEKING TO BECOME WHOLE

Worship God in spirit and truth

Empower us to expand beyond the church walls

Help a friend who has a need

Make us available after hours

Guess who’s coming to dinner?

Welcome and make room at the table

The enemy proved to be the neighbor

Be moved in your heart

And justice for all

Bring true justice in compassion and reconciliation

Love all members of our world family

Enable us to love the—the other—

An adequate living for everyone

Teach us to give generously of our abundance

Care for the stranger in your midst

Engage with one another and become friends

Eating with tax collectors, publicans, and sinners

Eat with African Americans, Indian Americans, Hispanic Americans, women, LGBTQ, and the poor

That they might have enough

Bring food and a living for everyone

Care for the stranger

Learn their names

And Jesus went to her house and stayed two days

Invite the—the other—to dinner

The kingdom of God is here/now

Widen the circle to include everyone

Become whole in Jesus who transforms

All God’s children to participate in God’s kingdom

Introduction

All Jesus’ parables have multiple interpretations.

You need history to get the context.

—Amy-Jill Levine

A Parable of Jesus—Judging Matthew 7:1–5

Jesus said, "Do not judge so that you may not be judged. For with the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. Why do you see the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye."

—Matthew 7:1–5, NRSV

Negroes (that is how we spoke of African Americans in the 1950s) lived down behind the courthouse spreading out about a mile in three directions in the small town of Fayetteville, Arkansas, where I was born and raised. White people named this area Tin Cup. Shaped in a white, middle-class society, I became an adult before I realized the meaning of this term. A tin cup is not china or pottery or even glass. It is cheap and ugly. I don’t know what the people who lived in this area called themselves, but I feel sure it was not this demeaning name.

My mother once told me this true story. As a young teenager and a prolific reader, she learned that the town library had been moved into the courthouse. She commented to her father that it was lucky for the Negroes because the library would now be very close to where they lived. In her first real confrontation and understanding of race, her father replied, It won’t do them any good because Negroes are not allowed at the library.

In the summer of my junior year at the University of Arkansas, as a young, idealistic, adventurous, and mission-minded Christian, I traveled alone from my home state of Arkansas to New Jersey. Persuaded by my campus minister to embark on this mission experience, I served with several other college students as a counselor in a day camp sponsored by the Seabrook Frozen Food Corporation. The Presbyterian Church operated the camp. Under the guidance of a professional staff, we provided an entertaining, fun, outdoor adventure throughout the summer for Japanese American children while their parents labored for the corporation. I fell in love with the children, became less naïve, and experienced my first interracial friendship. My roommate, an African American woman from Rutgers University, became my first real friend across racial lines.

The children arrived each day by charted bus, and although they carried rice ball sandwiches (my name) in their lunch sacks, I found them no different from the junior high students I had counseled the previous summer at my church’s camp in Fort Smith, Arkansas.

On the day after my college graduation, I boarded a plane and flew to Haines, Alaska, to involve myself again on a mission of the Presbyterian church. That summer, I served as the housemother for a group of ten teenage Tlingit Indian girls at the Haines House Orphanage. Again, I fell in love with all my girls, instructing them in cooking and sewing, taking them hiking and picnicking, and experiencing life in an unfamiliar environment.

These experiences greatly shaped my perspective of the world, judgement of people, and my outlook for the future. Perhaps this is the first time I thought about adoption as when I left that summer I wanted to take my girls with me.

In the fall, I enrolled at Princeton Theological Seminary, met and married my husband—a senior theological student, and traveled west to serve our first church in Wyoming. After one year in this location, we accepted a call to serve with the National Council of Churches in three overseas union churches in Eastern Venezuela. These churches, each sponsored by a major American oil company, were located in remote areas isolated from access to other English-speaking people.

Following our Venezuelan experience, we served the Balboa Union Church of Panama in the Canal Zone where we adopted our first child, a Panamanian infant.

In succeeding years, after returning to the states, we adopted three additional children of diverse races, ethnic background, gender, and sex. I grew up in the era of Jim Crow. My children entered school as school integration became widespread and white flight and heightened homophobia entered the public arena.

In my life as a mother, teacher, church worker, minister’s wife, and participant in community activities, I feel privileged to have experienced interaction and relationships with many people unlike myself especially those within my immediate family.

I grew up as a North American, a citizen of the United States of America, where I believed freedom, democracy, justice, and equality existed. A member of a traditional and conservative Presbyterian church, I became aware that the church often denied and ignored these freedoms and justified their actions toward—the other—as this is just the way things are. My journey in life has taught me through life experiences that the church and my country have at times been racist, judgmental, hurtful, and unloving. Stereotyping people who are—the other—whether of a different race, economic class, gender, sex, or from a different culture denies rights, opportunities, respect, and most importantly, love and compassion.

I believed in and prayed to a god who existed in some place no one has ever been and who entered the world to change things for the benefit of those who prayed to him. At times, I prayed earnestly for God to change things, to fulfill my needs, and to protect me from the evils of the world. I prayed especially that God would protect my children from the people who did not love them.

At age twelve, I joined the Presbyterian church committing myself to a life of love, compassion, caring, and working for the betterment of all people. These words sounded wonderful, but as we said them in the liturgy each Sunday, my life experiences began to cast doubt and distance between the words and the actions of the church and its Christian members. Does God hate, dislike, and consider inferior the same people I do and many of my church friends do? Of course not; God loves everyone. However, how can I love everyone? There are people who lack my approval. There are people who do evil things. There are people who are not like me. If church members and Christians accept, ignore, or actively participate in the abusive treatment of the other, we have created God in our own image.

In 1980, my life changed. It began when my oldest son committed suicide. I questioned God. Why did God let this happen to me? Was my son committed to hell because he took his own life? Whose fault was this? Was it mine? Would God make an exception for my wonderful son who was a deeply committed Christian? My reading of the Bible would not allow this. This pain of denial, blame, and a literal reading of the Bible led me to question the whole meaning of my faith. Even though I continued serving in the church, married to an ordained Presbyterian minister, ordained as a ruling elder, and teaching youth, the doubts and questions did not go away or get resolved.

The change began to take form when my husband and I read the book Why Christianity Must Change or Die by Bishop John Shelby Spong.¹ A retired bishop of the Episcopal church, Bishop Spong has written many books under the theme a new Christianity. He, along with writers like Marcus Borg, John Dominic Crossan, Bernard Brandon Scott, Mark Sandlin, Robin Meyers, and many others, revealed to me my misunderstanding and misguided way of seeing the Bible, Jesus, and even God.

They stripped away the layers of misinterpretation that required a system of beliefs and repentance of sins, and gave a guarantee of eternal life leading me to a new understanding of my faith. In progressive Christianity,