Two things happened in the last two days that have inspired this post.   First, a new friend and commenter here reminded me of Chuck Cook, a United Methodist pastor who is now a District Superintendent here in NC.    And second, since sharing that one of my new year’s resolutions is to attend a weekly mass I have gotten a few pokes in the blogosphere, many of them of the I can’t believe you’d do that variety.  If they only knew.   I am convinced that irony is a divine attribute.  The angels no doubt got a good laugh as me and my family rolled into our first parsonage here in North Carolina, a nice ranch home situated in the middle of a 400 acre tobacco farm and me, an ex-smoker.    They are probably still laughing as they  remember how Chad used to look at Catholics with deep suspicion, almost disdain, thinking them as potential converts rather than neighbors and is now getting flack for desiring to worship with them weekly.   God loves irony.  I am learning to laugh more.

But first, Chuck Cook.   

Two summers ago I spent 8 days in Rocky Mount for licensing school with about 30 other men and women following God’s call into pastoral ministry.  One day of our training was devoted to worship and Chuck Cook led it.   It was phenomenal.   That was the day I discovered a hunger for Eucharist and a profound respect for Baptism.  I was humbled to tears at the prospect of offering both to the masses.   I still am.   There is no greater joy I get as a pastor than to baptize or serve communion.   I have Chuck to thank for getting me started on that awe-filled journey.

He did something else as well.  He made me proud to be a Methodist.  

Most of my life I have been a mutt.  I was raised in the Nazarene church where my dad was a pastor.   It was here that I got much of my theological moorings, some of them have been tried, tested and discarded.  Others cherished.  One thing that never left was the strong Wesleyan underpinnings that made the Nazarene church distinct.   But it was also here in this “holy huddle” that I developed a strong sense of elitism.   We have it right, I thought.   Being the son of a pastor gave me even more reason to believe that this denomination was the bastion of truth for which child does not want to believe that their parents would only desire the best for them?  It was easy to think that within our four walls we were special – we had God’s ear whereas others only thought they did.    And to keep this elite status all we had to do was remain holier than the prevailing culture.    Don’t go to movies, don’t listen to rock-and-roll, don’t drink, dip or chew or run with girls who do.   Oh, and don’t associate with people of different stripes, especially them Catholics down the street or those tongue-speaking Pentecostals (Want more irony?  Guess what my wife is?)  

To be sure none of this was taught from the pulpit.   My dad was and still is one of the most ecumenical minded people I know.    However, the ethos I describe above seemed palpable to me.   It was an aire we just gave off, I think.   Sadly, it is one that many churches still stink of.  

It was my dad who disrupted this tidy system I had all worked out as a youth.   After I left home and the church my dad became a Lutheran (ELCA) pastor.   He, too, fell in love with the sacraments and found a home in the Lutheran church, one that was far more ecumenical.  I will never forget the morning we were sitting in a breakfast joint in Brookville, PA, discussing faith and family when he dropped the bomb.   I was struggling with a friend who was a devout Catholic and sharing my troubles with him, knowing how supportive he would be, when he told me that if it weren’t for his present calling he would be very happy as a Catholic.    What???!!   My matrix was unraveling.

So I have mutt in me.   I am Nazarene and Lutheran.  I found a Presbyterian church while in the Navy that I attended for 2 years.   After that I bounced around in non-denominational churches and attended a Pentecostal church while courting my wife.   I believe all of this prepared me to be  a Methodist and is what made my heart feel strangely warmed when Chuck Cook told our class of would-be pastors that as Methodists we are “Mongrels.”    Methodists, by their very nature, are mongrels- we are mutts.   I was home.

I think the Church of Jesus Christ needs to affirm her mongrel status and embrace it.  

It is not hard to trace the mongrel-like history of us Methodists.  Our founder, John Wesley, was a devout Anglican priest to the day he died.   His Anglican roots made him charitable to Roman Catholics and Protestants, allowing him to borrow the best from both worlds.   Early in his ministry the Moravians had a profound impact on him, awakening in him a desire for holiness as well as a personal experience of the divine.   Methodists in America got their start through camp meetings and revivals where they were known as “Shouting Methodists” and reports of charismatic outbursts and slayings in the spirit abounded.   They are also known for their liturgy and hymns (Charles Wesley penning thousands of them) and their willingness to embrace truth wherever truth is found.   John Wesley was not too proud to preach revivals with George Whitefield, a Calvinist, whom he did not agree with theologically yet befriended and determined to do God’s work where God led with whomever God sent.    And let us not forget that it was during the reading of Luther’s preface to the book of Romans that John Wesley had his “heart warming” experience.    Wesley was a mongrel and Methodists after him have been ever since. 

I think it is important for all people in all churches to discover the mongrel in them.   No matter how young or new a church is, whether they are emerging, non-denominational or mainline, it is important that they do not fall into the trap of creating an ethos like the one I knew as a youth – one that may not be taught from the pulpit but nevertheless lingers.   It is so easy to fall into the trap of thinking you have God’s ear better than others because you celebrate in what makes you distinct and separate rather than what makes the people of God so beautifully diverse, colorful and cosmic.   Embracing one’s mongrelness can, in my opinion, be the antidote to isolationism and elitism.  It can open pathways to ecumenism.  It can render the literary jabs and pokes one gets for attending a Catholic Mass obsolete (I am an eternal optimist!). 

Chuck Cook closed his session with a story of 4 clerics, a Roman Catholic, a Lutheran, a Baptist and a Methodist going on a weekend retreat.   It was a spiritually invigorating time for all four and as it came to a close they thought it a good idea to share in Eucharist together.  As the bread and wine were gathered they looked sheepishly at each other.  Who will serve?  The Catholic, Lutheran and Baptist demurred in turn, feeling somewhat silly for their ecclesial restrictions.   The Methodist pastor, however, gladly took her place behind the altar, broke the bread and poured the wine and said, “Friends, the body of Christ, broken for you….”

May you find and embrace the mongrel in you this day.