Month: November 2024

As we head into the holiday season – a time where we often gather with our loved ones around tables and share in delicious food, and one another’s company – I keep being reminded of the image of God’s endless table. 

 

For me, the image of the eschaton being like a large banquet, with a never-ending table with enough room for all, has been an image of hope, liberation, and admittedly, also confusion. This idea that no one is separate from the love and grace of God, that our God is one who craves wholeness with us, and among each other. That in God’s desired future, we might all share in a meal together, even those we might disagree with most vehemently in this lifetime. That one day, all of creation might be reconciled to God, and that can look like gathering over a meal that never ceases, full of joy, abundance, and pleasure. 

 

This image of a banquet table being a place of God’s salvation is a repeated metaphor throughout scripture, found in Isaiah 25:6-10, Luke 14:15-24, and Matthew 26:26-29, and so, has been a common metaphor in our practice of Holy Communion. In the Lutheran tradition, we trust that in the Eucharist, all are gathered in a mysterious union with God, to share in the sacrament with us, and that this is just a small taste of the feast that is yet to come. Every time we share in communion together, we are at the same time preparing for, and participating in, this endless table.

 

While thinking about this tradition, where the Kingdom of God is like gathering around a dinner table, I couldn’t help but be reminded of kitchen table polyamory. For those unfamiliar, kitchen table polyamory centers around the idea of polyamorous relationships being anchored in building community, sustaining relationships, and found family – so much so that a polycule (partners, and partners’ partners, and everyone connected in a great web of relationship!) might be so comfortable around each other, they hope to regularly gather around a kitchen table and share in a meal together. This style of polyamory is the closest definition for what my relationship structure looks like, where my partners (though not together romantically) are family to one another. 

 

Kitchen table polyamory is itself a metaphor for the style of relationship the practitioners of it want to achieve – that of closeness, proximity, and interconnected relationships. It is especially fitting then that the Kingdom of God is said to look like all of us gathered together, around food, around abundance, around love and around reconciliation. In this way, kitchen table polyamory is a fitting metaphor for how the Kingdom of God might one day look. To me, this is not a flowery or utopic metaphor – polyamory, just as life in the Church, or in any relationship structure, is not all sunshine and rainbows. There can be hurt feelings, grief, miscommunications, and more – and yet, we are drawn back to the table, drawn to being reconciled to one another, created by God to be in community.

There is something beautiful too about how a seemingly small, daily act that my family (and incredibly queer polycule) regularly does – sharing a meal together around a table – might in some way, be re-enacting or foreshadowing the world to come. In her book Emergent Strategy, adrienne maree brown talks about how our imaginations can aid us in thinking of our future, and I find it fitting here. “Science fiction is simply a way to practice the future together. I suspect that is what many of you are up to, practicing futures together, practicing justice together, living into new stories. It is our right and responsibility to create a new world.” (pg.19) Through living kitchen table polyamory in the flesh, we are practicing God’s New Day together. We are practicing what it is like to meet one another across difference and difficulty, to share in nourishing our bodies, and building lasting community – in this act, we are in fact, living and creating the Kingdom of God together.

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This blog post was lovingly submitted by an anonymous author and has full support of ELM’s Board of Directors. If polyamory, relationship anarchy, ethical nonmonogamy, or any other relationship structures are new and unfamiliar, we ask that you approach this topic with curiosity rather than judgment. Relationship structures outside of a monogamous paradigm are not for everyone, and that’s okay, but it is not okay to do harm to a sibling in Christ who finds it right for their relationship. Here are some further resources to check out if you are curious: The Triad Fam: a Polyamourus Christian Family or the book Polysecure by Jessica Fern.

By Bergen Eickhoff

I was almost too intimidated to join Proclaim.

I know that never feeling Queer enough is a part of the modern bisexual/nonbinary condition. Still, I was apprehensive to join an organization filled with living Lutheran legends. As a closeted Queer kid in small-town Minnesota, Proclaim members were the legendary defenders of a bright future I needed to believe in even though it felt far away. How could I now be in the same group as my heroes when I was just a mere intern pastor?

I joined Proclaim in 2020. So it’s safe to say that my experience in Proclaim has been marked by instability. Heartbreak. Hurt. Change upon change upon change. Like the wider Lutheran church, ELM and Proclaim are in a period of self-discovery. Gone are the days of growth and advancement. Here are the days of discernment, adaptation, accountability, advocacy, and change upon change upon change.

Self-discovery is a beautiful period of life, but one defined by pain. To quote Jimmy Eat World, “We’re in the middle of the ride.” Everything might be alright one day. But not until we endure a lot of struggle and the seemingly endless onslaught of questions and tasks of becoming. Being in Proclaim and ELM right now feels like writing the perfect poem but struggling to come up with an appropriate ending.

When I was discerning an invitation to become the Proclaim relator to the ELM Board, I felt that all too familiar intimidation returned. Proclaim, to me, seemed in need of healing. I am a pretty new pastor. I’m still pretty new to being out. What place did I have in that healing process?

I still don’t know what place I have in the healing process of Proclaim. But my discernment told me that I have a place in the self-discovery process. We in Proclaim, in ELM, in the Church, in the world, are being called to change. And as Queer people of faith, we trust that the call to change is a holy call from God in the Holy Spirit. When the world screams at us to be normal, we respond by changing with the brilliant and loud enthusiasm as a Lollapalooza crowd singing “Hot to Go.” When the church tells us it isn’t ready for our change, we reform it by sharing our transformation loud and proud like a Pride parade. We do this because we know our change is holy.

Now is the time for us to give attention to the millions of ways that each of us individually and collectively are being called by God to change. We’re in for some holy chaos in the middle of this ride. But leaning into that call to change is what we’ll need to do if we want to get to a place where everything might once again feel alright.

And that’s why I’m here. As the new Proclaim relator to the ELM Board, I am here to give attention to your call to change. Proclaimers, use my Calendly page to schedule a time to meet with me, and tell me about how you are called to change and how Proclaim or ELM is called to change in this moment. I promise never to minimize or put down your call to change. My commitment is to be a presence in the world of ELM and Proclaim whom you can trust to carry your call to change. And I will do everything I can to prove worthy of your trust by representing your call to change in ELM’s self-discovery process.

It’s going to take some time to heal. Especially as America is kind of a political tirefire right now. But I hope that these conversations about your call to change help make ELM and Proclaim a community that sustains and nourishes your vocation to love and serve in this weary world.

Please do not be too intimidated to find a time to talk. Please do not be too intimidated to dive into the middle of Proclaim and ELM’s questions of self-discovery. As we figure out how we’re called to change, we don’t need legend and heroes.

We need you. Thanks be to God that you’re here.

 

Peace,

Pastor Bergen Eickhoff (they/them)

 

P.S. If you’d like to get in touch with Bergen or the ELM board, please reach out via board@elm.org

Bio: Bergen Eickhoff (they/them) is a pastor, poet, and mercenary pianist living in Tacoma, Washington. They currently work in Children, Youth and Family ministry in Olympia, Washington, where they enjoy great Music and better coffee. They are bisexual and nonbinary, and love to be loud about both of those identities. They have been a member of Proclaim since 2021 and currently serve as the Proclaim Relator To the ELM Board. You can find their writings on their Substack pages (Standard) (Bible Rewrite Project). Go be Queer!

Those of us reading this in the United States have a pretty big responsibility today. We have stressed over the election for months, prayed about it, and maybe talked about it with friends and family members.

As the hours pass today, and more and more of us have completed our voting duty or voted early by some means, all that is left is the waiting.

As Christians, we have seasons when we contemplate waiting intentionally. Even though the stakes feel high, like we are in the midst of Good Friday, observing a kind of Holy Saturday Vigil, or approaching the tomb early at sunrise…

I wonder if this is more like how we wait in Advent?

In the comforting night. Contemplating what the deeper meanings of Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love might really mean to a weary people. Contemplating more than the birth pangs of a newborn baby, but the birth pangs of a whole people. A whole people delivered like how the Hebrew people were delivered from Egypt, or the Judeans living under colonial Roman rule.

Salvation did not come to all people through a political candidate in the time of Jesus, and it will not come through this election today. The grace, love, and peace of God remain the foundation we stand upon.

As people of faith – we put our trust in Christ Jesus, the one who calls us to love God and love our neighbors. Now, I am not saying don’t go vote. I hope you already have! And as we vote, we remember that we follow the one who restores us into community. The one who heals. The one who forgives. Who reconciles. Who brings us to new life.

Whether the election is called today, tomorrow, or legal proceedings drag this out to the very last minute up to the inauguration, may we know we are not alone in the waiting.

I pray you have already started the steadfast work of cultivating your network – the network of loving support – the kind that James Baldwin writes about – so that even when we do not feel like we are shining the light of Christ as brightly as we could be, our light together radiates.

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About this author: Mycah McNett graduated with honors in Biblical and Lutheran studies from United Lutheran Seminary. She was called as the second pastor at Saint Luke Lutheran Church in Devon, PA in the summer of 2023. Before seminary, she served in church communication and youth ministry roles in Harrisonburg, VA, and was an ELCA Young Adult in Global Mission participant. Since 2022 Pastor Mycah has served on the Board of Directors for Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries and is an active member of the Proclaim Community for LGBTQIA+ Lutheran Rostered Leaders. Pastor Mycah lives in Downingtown with her spouse, Alyssa, and three cats, Minnie, Clio, and Clem.

“Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries anticipates a church in which queer leadership is valued, empowered, and celebrated: queer-led ministries are dynamic and thriving; all marginalized communities are liberated and honored, and justice flows from the sacraments as they overwhelm us and bring us to life”

As the liturgical calendar closes in on the end of another year, and as I continue in my service as a board member in this season of ELM’s ministry, I cannot help but reflect upon the arrival of All-Saints Sunday. Whenever I think of the saints throughout history as well as those in my personal life, one thing that stands out to me is the way they all rose up in their particular context, to boldly live out lives of faith rooted in the grace and peace of our Creator. From the bold witness of members of the early Jesus-movement, to family and friends whose lives leave a lasting impact upon us, I am perennially struck by how vast the cloud of witnesses is, and how fortunate we are to remember, honor, and reflect on the impact of their lives.             ELM also has its own cloud of witnesses, as it were. There is certainly no shortage of saints who boldly and faithfully committed themselves to the work of living out God’s love even when the systems and powers that be actively resisted their efforts. Leaders, volunteers, witnesses, and allies, each a precious and beloved child of God, rose to the occasion of their specific context and showed the Church through their very lives how expansive, how inclusive, and how radical the love of God truly is. It is for the historic and ongoing witness of these saints that I give thanks today.             And, now, ELM finds itself in another specific time and place. In a recent meeting, the current members of ELM’s board partook in a ritual of recommitment to this storied and important ministry. In this ritual, we spoke aloud our intentions to stay committed to the vision, direction and values that have always been at the core of this ministry, while prayerfully letting go of what was not serving us in our endeavors. In this current moment, the board’s efforts are focused on: making expedient progress in the process of hiring a new director, working to lock down the day-to-day operations of ELM so when a new director is hired, they can transition into their position smoothly and easily, and return the board to the work of visioning and guiding the direction of ELM’s ministry.             In all of this work, we continue to follow the Spirit’s guidance towards a church where queer leadership is valued, celebrated, empowered and normalized. We anticipate a churchly reality where marginalized communities are liberated and honored, and the radical, world-changing justice we encounter in Christ through the sacraments may imbue us all with new life and new passions to boldly step into this moment as faithful followers of the One called Love.

Bio: Tom Gehring (He/They) is a pastor currently working as a chaplain in Metro Chicago providing spiritual care for individuals living with, or at risk for HIV. In their free time Tom loves to DJ, spend time outside, play lots of games (both video and board), read excessively thick fantasy novels, and work out with his lovely gym community. Tom has been serving as a member of ELM’s board of directors since October of ’23 and is honored to be a part of this ministry