It was late February last year when I first heard about the tattooed, foul-mouthed Lutheran pastor who would soon become one of my personal heroes. "Lutheran Minister Preaches A Gospel Of Love To Junkies, Drag Queens And Outsiders." The title of the NPR article stood out against the backdrop of mundane Facebook posts about weekend plans and Buzzfeed videos. What I read made me very excited. Here is someone who finally gets it.
Nadia Bolz-Weber is a paradox (ironically enough for a Lutheran pastor). On the one hand, she is rough around the edges, swears like a sailor, is LGBTQ affirming, a self-proclaimed liberal, and rejects the traditional view of the Bible that the Bible is 100 percent perfect and must be taken literally. On the other hand, she is fiercely dedicated to confession of sins, to death and resurrection, and to God's redemptive grace through Jesus Christ, and affirms that the Bible is the "cradle wherein Christ is laid." (NBW quoting Martin Luther in her book "Pastrix"). She's been attacked by both liberals and conservatives, she's been praised by liberals and conservatives. And this is the first reason I love NBW. She shirks fundamentalism in favor of the "other" (those often overlooked by society) but also hates liberal spirituality or social programs. “This isn’t supposed to be the Elks Club with the Eucharist," she writes, "[Christianity] should be something that’s so devastatingly beautiful it can break your heart. Instead it’s been: ‘Recycle.’ And ‘Don’t sleep with your girlfriend. '” There is something incredibly God-like about not fitting in a box. We see it in Pope Francis, and I see it in Nadia. Jesus speaks through them, calling me to a wholeness that does not fit inside an ideology, set of practices, or a lifestyle, but that only exists in and through Jesus himself.
In keeping with her orthodox/unorthodox paradox, Nadia has structured her church around something almost foreign in today's churches: community. In describing her first Lutheran service, she reflects that "something about the liturgy was simultaneously destabilizing and centering; my individualism subverted by being joined to other people through God to find who I was." Years later in the church she herself founded, House for All Sinners and Saints, Nadia places an emphasis on the communal aspect of the liturgy: "We like to say that we are 'anti-excellence/pro-participation,' meaning that the liturgy is led by the people who show up. The pastors offer the Eucharistic prayer and (most times) the sermon; all the other parts of the liturgy are led by people from where they are sitting. As a matter of fact, even the music is made by the community—with the exception of the four or five times a year that we have a bluegrass service, the liturgy is a capella. So, all the music you hear in liturgy comes from the bodies of those who showed up."
As someone who loves the ancient liturgy of the church, but who has also seen be a meaningless desert for many millennial Christians, this idea of active liturgy fascinates and inspires me. But beyond church service, HFASS not only a space inclusive to LGBTQ persons, atheists, and burned-out Christians, it is a space where all these people are liked. Conservative writer Wesley Hill, known for his books "Washed and Waiting" and "Spiritual Friendship," which detail his experience with same-sex attraction as an evangelical Christian, reflecting on his visit to HFASS, writes, "Apart from any specific programming or practice that a church might implement in order to be more hospitable to LGBT people, I think I’d suggest that churches would simply do well to ask themselves: Do we want—do we really want—queer people walking through our doors and sitting in our pews and sharing in our post-service potlucks? I watched Nadia on Sunday walking around the room greeting people who were there. And my main impression was, this woman just likes this ragtag bunch of people here. She liked them. It’s not that there aren’t enough programs or small groups or Bible studies or retreats or sermons aimed at my particular needs. It’s not that I don’t feel supported and instructed and offered forgiveness and nurtured and held accountable in church. Rather, it’s that I’m sometimes left to wonder, Am I liked? Is my presence enjoyed?" (Read Hill's full article here).
From what I've seen, Nadia creates a space for God's mercy and grace in her church. Some have said she's extended the tent too far, creating an environment where true repentance is not demanded for discipleship, an environment of "cheap grace," in the words of Lutheran theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and these criticisms may be true. But I am reminded of Jesus' parable of the sower. The sower of the seed does not tend to each patch of soil, trying to drag out the rocks or pull out the weeds. He sows the seed. Regarding her congregation's spiritual development, she says: "It's not that I don't care; it's that I don't feel responsible for what people believe. I feel very responsible for what they hear, as their preacher, as their pastor." And here is what her congregation will hear:
“God's grace is not defined as God being forgiving to us even though we sin. Grace is when God is a source of wholeness, which makes up for my failings. My failings hurt me and others and even the planet, and God's grace to me is that my brokenness is not the final word."
“The adjective so often coupled with mercy is the word tender, but God’s mercy is not tender; this mercy is a blunt instrument. Mercy doesn’t wrap a warm, limp blanket around offenders. God’s mercy is the kind that kills the thing that wronged it and resurrects something new in its place. In our guilt and remorse, we may wish for nothing but the ability to rewrite our own past, but what’s done cannot, will not, be undone. But I am here to say that in the mercy of God it can be redeemed. I cling to the truth of God’s ability to redeem us more than perhaps any other. I have to. I need to. I want to. For when we say “Lord have mercy,” what else could we possibly mean than this truth?”
Nadia Bolz-Weber is certainly not perfect and I do not agree with everything she believes or says. But there can be no denying that this Sunday, LGBTQ persons, recovering drug addicts, and atheists will hear the message of Gospel love, and will "find Jesus at the cross, in death and resurrection." They will hear Jesus Christ proclaimed: "This is our God.” Nadia Bolz-Weber is certainly not perfect. But to use Hill's words, she's moving us in the right direction.
