Vicki James,* a developmentally disabled, African-American woman, lived in a half- way house near Milwood United Methodist Church, the church I once pastored. She spent most of her days walking up and down the streets near the church, sometimes in near zero-degree temperatures. I found her walking one winter day wearing pajamas and a man’s coat that would not close because the zipper was broken.
Every Sunday morning Vicki would come to Milwood to worship. She would come early to share in muffins and coffee. During worship she would sit on the aisle. One Sunday, she stood up in the middle of worship to declare that it was her birthday. Everything stopped and the congregation sang “Happy Birthday” to her.
Vicki lived on the margins of race, gender, ability and socio-economic status. She stood at the boundaries that separate those who have privilege from those who do not. Through her (and through people like her) comes God’s call to the Church to move from its privileged center to the margins and to reach out across boundaries and build community.
I am United Methodist today and continue to choose The United Methodist Church, because Methodism, from its inception, has always sought to reach across boundaries. John Wesley reached across the boundaries of poverty and class to engage those on the margins of his society. Some of the early Methodist circuit riders in America reached across the boundaries of race and ethnicity to engage those on the margins.
Of course, we have not always been successful with reaching across boundaries and engaging the margins. We have often failed in painful ways. There were the divisions within our precursor denominations over the issue of slavery. There was the creation of the Central Jurisdiction that segregated the faithful by race. There was Methodist participation in the massacre at Sand Creek and the marginalization of indigenous peoples around the world. And today we continue to struggle with engaging those we have pushed to the margins because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.
We have had our failings as a denomination. We still have our failings. However, I can find no other place that is better equipped to engage the margins and cross boundaries than The United Methodist Church. That is simply because we have social justice written into our DNA. And that DNA compels us to cross boundaries. That DNA moves us to the margins where people like Vicki live.
The members of that local church that I used to pastor were mostly white and middle class. Yet, they welcomed Vicki. They fed her and gave her coffee. I don’t know that they knew what they were doing. But I do. They were reaching across boundaries. They were inching closer to the margins. They were placing themselves in the busy intersection of justice and community to which the Gospel calls us. They were doing this with one disabled woman. We all will be called to do this with others if we are to thrive.
And we will be called to do more. We will be called to relinquish privilege—the privilege of cherished traditions—the privilege of maintaining mono-cultural norms and traditions within the church—the privilege of complacency around issues of justice. We will be called to relinquish such privilege to erase boundaries.
We will be called to relinquish such privilege to move from center to margin to build community. We will be called to do this in our local churches. We will be called to do this as a denomination. I cannot imagine a more exciting time to be part of a denomination that is hearing and responding to that call.
*Name has been changed for identity protection.
Kennetha J. Bigham-Tsai
This blogpost was written on March 11, 2013 for a series about why CT members chose to be United Methodists. It has been updated.