Good morning. If you don't know me I am Bob Fellner. Cheryl and I have been coming down to Springfield for several years because you have a congregation and a Service that fits my understanding of a progressive congregation. It is good to be back. It is because of our similar beliefs; there are some issues that I would like to address. You need to know, I did not always hold progressive views.
One of the nice things about preaching is that I get to choose the topic. In choosing a topic I tend to choose issues that I believe I need to address in myself. There is an assumption here, and I apologize because I assume that if I need to face an issue, so do you. So I apologize to any of you who do not fit the stereotype that is based on my life.
Last month Cheryl and I attended the 60th anniversary of my graduation from 8th grade. There were about 20 former classmates attending. That is about half of our class. Thirteen of our classmates have died over those 60 years. It was a pretty good turnout.
Many memories. It was a parochial school emphasis on the word 'parochial'. We never considered our school as 'parochial. We were a Catholic school. That should tell you something.
Belleville, just across the Mississippi from St. Louis was a small town and it was about 1/3 Catholic. We were taught to believe in our uniqueness. In fact we believed that we had to TRUE path to heaven. If you were not Catholic, you were doomed.
My school, St. Mary's, was located on 18th street. The local public school, Henry Raab was located on 13th street. This permitted to two groups of students pass each other on Raab Ave on our way to school. The Henry Raab students kept to the north side of the street and we stayed on the south side. That was convenient since we could taunt each other without physical contact. We called them Puplickers and they called us Catlickers.
This attitude has been present in Christianity for a long time.
At this point, this sermon could go in several directions. We could talk about the influence of religion on our upcoming elections. That could be fun. We could discuss candidate's use of religion to gain votes. The fun continues. Or simply, should religion have a place in our elections?
- It began in the early church with the doctrinal fights over the divinity of Jesus.
- Later we declared war on Islam when we invented the Crusades.
- With the Reformation, we not only got to argue on a Protestant vs. Catholic basis, but we were able to build these disagreements into war.
- Catholic declared war on all heretics when we invented the inquisition.
- We destroyed Native American cultures by giving the Native American the choice of being baptized or executed.
As tempting as this is, I am not going to address any of these topics. I would simply like to address our attitude in the face of people who disagree with us.
I gave that long preamble about my childhood religious training to give you some idea of my original religious beliefs. (You might call that Original Sin.) It was that early childhood training that led me to become a priest. However, it was in the seminary that I began to change. I attended St. John's Seminary in Little Rock for both under grad and graduate studies.
In the catholic seminary, everyone is a Philosophy major. You can never tell what will happen with a philosophy major. I was encouraged to think on my own. What a novel idea. In that process, I did begin to change.
By the time I was ordained, I had developed a personal theology that made me a minority. But as a minority, I decided that I had an obligation to help free my parishioners from the bindings that were imposed by Rome. I started some 'theology' classes for our parish. I discovered that many people were truly interested began to grow personally.
- I had to reject an elsewhere God. In fact for a couple of years I rejected God altogether. Even that changed.
- In the process I rejected Atonement theology. A father who would send his only son to die for sins that I had not yet committed almost sounds illegal. We would arrest such a father for child abuse.
- The church's teaching on divorce and remarriage is not based on scripture but a celibate's interpretation of scripture.
- The prohibition on birth control obviously is not mentioned in the bible, but is based on ancient Greek Cosmology. Science has moved past that at least 300 to 400 years ago.
- The whole idea about infallibility is one grand circular argument. It is very simple. I am infallible because I say I am.
However, I had a problem. It is so easy to isolate yourself and consider the rest of the world a bunch of idiots. I learned rather quickly that this attitude turned people off. I gradually saw the effect that my attitude had on others. Some people agreed with me. But others avoided me as much as possible. I never did anything overtly to imply that someone was an idiot. I discovered that it is next to impossible to disguise these feelings. Even acting kindly toward people, they could tell that deep down, I considered them idiots. When I finally came to a realization of what I was doing, I had to overhaul myself.
As you can tell, I left the priesthood for all of the above reasons and also I wanted to get married. Cheryl likes to point out that my first marriage did not involve her. However, it was in marriage that I learned that a relationship required a change in my attitude. If I was going to believe that I was superior to you because I had discovered the truth, I was never going to have reach you.
I had to change my attitude. That is difficult. Imagine someone with whom you disagree having the same right to an opinion as you. I struggled with this. I finally came to one of those Eureka moments when I realized that the person with whom I disagreed was me 50 years ago.
We all reflect our history and experience. The fact that my background is different than yours does not make you an idiot. What sharing my story and listening to your story does, is allow me to respect you and develop a relationship with you. I have discovered that I can form a relationship with someone with whom I disagree if I truly respect that person. If we do form a relationship, there is no limit to where that relationship will take both of us.
What I had to learn the hard way, is that if I do not respect someone for any reason there is no chance of anything happening. No matter how clever I am or how good of an actor I am, I cannot hide that deep seated negative attitude. Have you ever had that feeling that someone is talking down to you. You are experiencing a lack of respect. I hope that you have not had that feeling about me and if you have, please let me know.
If we respect each other we can actually discuss our differences. That can be the beginning of a relationship. If we want to be able to form a relationship it must begin with RESPECT.
