TO GUIDE OUR FEET
Pastoral Action in Impossible Times

Weldon D. Nisly

By the tender mercy of our God

the dawn from on high will

break upon us

to give light to those who sit in

darkness and in the

shadow of death,

To guide our feet into the way

of peace. —Luke 1:78-79 NRSV

The question was both loaded and straightforward: "What do you think the Bible says about homosexuality and what would you do about it if you were pastor of this church?"

The query did not surprise me, but I did not expect it to be the first question in that 1995 interview when Seattle Mennonite Church was assessing my call to be their pastor. I laughed and lamented, "Homosexuality is the most divisive, destructive, and impossible issue in the church. It will not be resolved in my ministry lifetime. Neither will it go away. I doubt if Seattle Mennonite Church would exist if it were not in some way inclusive. I also doubt SMC will find consensus on it. I am not sure I could be a pastor of a congregation that is not in some sense inclusive.

The pastoral task, as I see it, is to be inclusive without letting homosexuality be the defining, consuming, or dividing issue of the church. My desire is to live out this task as faithfully as I can without fear or shrinking from whatever God sets before us."

In my decade as pastor at SMC, various members have shared with me their delight or distress at our being too inclusive or not inclusive enough. Occasionally we have sent someone to Brethren Mennonite Council or Supportive Congregations Network meetings. We expressed written opposition to the statement on homosexuality included in the 2001 Membership Guidelines of the Mennonite Church USA. Even as we have never sought consensus on homosexuality, we have lived with an implicit inclusion and more recently an explicit blessing for members in same-gender relationships.

The Pastoral Task
Takes on a New Reality

Three years ago, one of our SMC lesbian couples shared with me their commitment to each other for life and asked me to walk this journey with them. I said I would do so in prayerful discernment, trusting God to lead us each step of the way. I also said it would be an impossible journey but that "nothing is impossible with God" (Luke 1:37).

Over the next couple of years, this premarriage journey with two women was consistent with—yet different from—all other premarital preparations I have led as a pastor. We often asked each other what we sensed God was doing in our lives on the journey. I shared with the couple my process of discernment with various church leaders. They assured me they would understand if I decided I could not perform their marriage.

We grappled with many hard questions during premarital preparation, including the language of "covenant union" or "same-gender marriage." Another was over when the two women would share their commitment with the congregation. I encouraged them to listen to God and their hearts, trusting they would know when and what to share. When they did share their good news, most members applauded, though others were distressed. These are the risks and the pain of same-gender love.

A few Sundays after the two women shared their commitment, I shared with the congregation my pastoral role in preparing for their wedding. I confessed that for me, the congregation, and the larger church, it raised many impossible questions about process, decision-making, and pastoral action.

I noted that everyone feels pain over some aspect of homosexuality in general and same-gender marriage in particular. No one has felt more pain than sisters and brothers who are LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgendered) and have been wounded by the church. I observed that I could neither take away anyone’s pain nor wished to heighten the pain of those most hurt by the church.

I was aware that whatever I did as a pastor in this situation, members across the church would express deep distress or strong support. I was also aware that performing a same-gender marriage would lead to review of my ministerial credentials by the Pacific Northwest Mennonite Conference, a regional denominational body to which SMC belongs.

I suspected that if this pastoral act led to division or distrust, my pastoral ministry was over. I also knew I would rather leave pastoral ministry than refuse to do what I sensed God calling me to do in this time and place.

Our discernment led us to hold the July 2004 wedding in a home of friends not connected with SMC, so it would not be a congregational action. Under the circumstances, only a few members were invited. Many members were disappointed that the wedding was not at SMC so that they could attend. Later that summer, one congregational family hosted a reception for the two women and invited everyone who attends SMC. Though not officially a congregetional event, this did gave members the opportunity to celebrate with the two women.

Enlarging the
Circle of Discernment

From the beginning of the pre-marriage journey with the two women, I had shared my pastoral role with our SMC Leadership Council and Pastoral Care Team. These congregational leaders were central participants in our nearly two-year discernment process. I did not ask for their approval or agreement but for both their personal and leadership-role responses.

Early in the process I also alerted conference leaders. I did not seek the approval or agreement I knew they could not give, yet considered keeping them abreast of our situation an essential part of discernment.

In addition, I sought counsel from many spiritual friends and mentors and ministry colleagues across the Mennonite church and beyond. Essential here was the spiritual director I have been seeing for nearly ten years, who helped me stay focused on obedience to God rather than rebellion against the church.

I have spent hundreds of hours with hundreds of people processing this one pastoral act, far beyond any other pastoral task I have undertaken. It is that impossible and that important. While I have taken sole responsibility for my pastoral action, it has never been outside the church or apart from my three decades of ministry in the church. I did not choose this pastoral responsibility or its timing. I accept it as a gift and as grace from God. How else do faithful dissent and essential change come in the church?

I have received many gifts and blessings on this journey, especially from Seattle Mennonite Church. Two women who have shown their love for each other, for God, Christ, the church, and me as their pastor have been a blessing. The last thing in the world they want is to be a "cause" or to cause anyone pain; as lesbian women in the church, they know about suffering. They simply want to live out their loving faithfulness with us as the church.

The love and grace shown by SMC members who do not support my pastoral action has been one of my greatest gifts. The wisdom of our congregational leaders has been a joy and blessing as we have together led the church in this impossible time.

We are the church, and we are a member of MC USA. We need each other, not because we agree but because we are God’s people, the body of Christ.

The Pacific Northwest
Mennonite Conference Process

In light of my early disclosure with conference leaders, the Pacific Northwest Mennonite Conference (PNMC) began a review process before the wedding. Three PNMC leaders met with some of us for an afternoon of praying together and sharing perspectives on what our situation might lead to. The PNMC leaders requested that I not officiate at this wedding.

After the wedding, the PNMC Pastoral Leadership Committee (PLC is responsible for ministerial credentialing) met to begin a formal "review process." The PLC informed me that my act placed me "at variance with PNMC and the Mennonite Church USA. . . . which bring ministerial credentials into a review."

I responded, in part, that

The PLC probed my theological basis for same-sex marriage and "this decision to go against MC USA consensus and to follow your own conscience" without congregational consensus. I responded that MC USA, the conference, and the congregation do not and could not have a consensus on homosexuality. I offered

The PLC designated me as holding a ministerial "Credential at Variance" and requested that I "not perform further same-sex marriages."

I received the PLC’s decision to be a sign of their commitment to continue our relationship and process. I did not promise that I would not perform another same-gender marriage. I considered such a promise to be a violation of my calling in the pastoral context of this congregation and my years of ministry. I wrote that I

The PLC never addressed my questions, invitations, and challenges. Rather, with no further communication or questions, the PLC suspended my credentials.

I was deeply grieved by their decision and by what I consider a breech of trust. Their letter informing me of suspension sounded utterly incongruent in tone and content from our previous process. The PLC charged me with "breaking trust"—yet they had not used that language during the process itself. I had responded in person and in writing to everything the PLC had put to me and to every step of the review.

The PLC was compromised when a member resigned (for health reasons) and a replacement participated in their decision to suspend. That appointee was a member of a congregation that had not only issued strong opposition to my action but has also since withdrawn from PNMC.

With the PLC decision to suspend my credentials, the congregation requested a forum with conference leaders to redress the PLC decision. PNMC has appointed a mediator to guide a new process that will also include SMC leaders and a retired PNMC pastor.

After I received word of my suspension, I asked for a congregational meeting to hear members’ concerns and feelings about my being their pastor with suspended credentials. At that meeting, SMC members gave overwhelming affirmation to my continued call as their pastor. We go on, not of one mind on this difficult matter, but nevertheless, as one body of Christ, the church.

To Guide Our Feet
in the Way of Peace

As I write during mid-autumn, I look out across the water from a cabin on the majestic Puget Sound and see the bright sun dancing with billowing clouds. I am in awe of the beauty and mystery of God’s creation.

Last night the same horizon was concealed in deep darkness while the night air was troubled with the harsh roar of military jets from the naval base on the island across the water. We hear frequent proclamations that these instruments of war keep us safe from the "evils and enemies" we deplore. We know their real purpose is to destroy life created by God. Fear and enmity justifying violence that leaves victims in its wake do not serve the cause of Christ.

Last night I knew this roar of jets was not the familiar sound signifying transport to other cities and lands of God’s world. It was the sound of war! This sound has never been the same for me since "getting in the way of war" with Christian Peacemaker Teams as bombs fell on Baghdad in March 2003. I believe I was called then to the impossible but essential pastoral action of standing with victims of our war in Iraq. I believe that getting in the way of war in the church on sisters and brothers who are LGBT is wholly consistent with and an equally impossible and essential pastoral action. How could I fear or refuse this pastoral calling?

I am inspired by the words of medieval mystic Meister Eckhart: "True followers of Jesus are absurdly happy, totally fearless, and almost always in trouble." I hope I am taking some modest steps along this Way.

May Mennonites seek new and faithful ways to "continue the loving dialogue" we pledged in the 1980s to carry on. We can only do so by honestly acknowledging the utter impossibility of resolving our differences over homosexuality. Yet we know that "with God all things are possible!" Our God of the impossible made possible has become incarnate in Jesus Christ "to guide our feet into the way of peace."

—Weldon D. Nisly, Seattle, Washington, is pastor, Seattle Mennonite Church and a member of Christian Peacemaker Teams.