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The Weeds Among The Wheat

Ginger Jorgenson was an eager young Lutheran pastor just six
years out of seminary. Her first call had been as an assistant
pastor in a large midwestern congregation, but for the past year
or more she had been in the process of organizing a new Lutheran
congregation in rather non-Lutheran territory -- in California.
The national church body had called her to serve in one of the
typical sprawling California suburbs, and she had brought into
existence an enthusiastic group of people which was now
officially known as St. Andrew Lutheran Church.
"I pushed for that name because I think of St. Andrew as an
evangelist," she had told her nearest Lutheran clergy neighbor
Lloyd Thompson. "There were lots of weird suggestions for the
name of the congregation when we were considering that item," she
said, "But I really wanted a more traditional name, something
that was scriptural and that had a sense of the evangelical to
it."
"We get lots of weird ideas, even in older and more
established congregations such as the one I'm serving," Thompson
had said at the time.
Lloyd Thompson had been in the ministry more than 30 years
when Ginger arrived on the field to start the new congregation.
He had made it a point to meet her within days of her arrival,
and began what would turn out to be a continuous source of help
and encouragement in her work. In addition to helpful advice, he
gave her a list of his members who lived in the territory she
would be serving. "Call on them," he had advised, "I have told my
members that if they live any place close to where you'll be
serving, they should seriously consider transferring their
membership to the new mission."

She had been pleased and almost overwhelmed by Lloyd's genuine
cooperation. He was an old-line mission-minded pastor who wasn't
insecure or afraid that a new mission congregation would weaken
his own congregation. On the contrary, he had prepared his
congregation long before Ginger arrived on the field, to the
point that they had set aside several thousand dollars to
contribute to the new congregation. Later they took the formal
step of voting to have St. Andrew as their mission partner, a
program whereby older congregations could give various kinds of
assistance to newer congregations until they were well on their
way to self support.
But in spite of all the support one might get, there are still
rough roads to travel, and Ginger was discovering some of those
roads. She made it a point to visit with Lloyd nearly every week,
not only to keep him abreast of what was happening, but also to
enhance her own experience by soaking up some of his. And she
often unloaded some of her parish problems on Lloyd.
"It's almost enough to make me want to start smoking again,"
Ginger said as she and Lloyd relaxed with coffee and doughnuts.
Lloyd was a bit puzzled. "Well ... I thought everything was
peachy keen at your church," he said with just slight
exaggeration.
"Oh the big picture is just fine," Ginger responded, "But you
know, there are so many weird ideas floating around."
"Right, tell me about it," Lloyd said dryly, "I've been out
here for nearly 15 years and it seems that someone still comes up
with a new weird idea about every week or so. You gotta get used
to it."
Ginger said with a bit of a chuckle, "I guess I thought I
could just plow ahead with my own concept of what a Lutheran
congregation should be and shape it accordingly. But it's not
quite that way."
"Not at all that way," Lloyd said. "I organized a congregation
back in Minnesota more than 30 years ago, and I was fresh out of
seminary at the time, which was a mistake in

itself. But in those days a pastor could set the tone and
direction for a new congregation with much more authority than is
the case now. And in the procress one could be pretty certain
that the new congregation would be solidly and identifiably
Lutheran in every respect. Not any more, or so it seems. And I
suspect that's true in most denominations."
"Last night we had council meeting," Ginger continued, "and
bear in mind so many of these people are relatively new to the
church. But it seemed as though I spent half the time trying to
ward off stupid ideas and suggestions, at the same time without
offending those who suggested them."
" 'Taint easy," Lloyd stated the obvious. "And you know, we
always have to bear in mind that the church is made up of human
beings, sinful human beings. You and I both know you can't
exclude the rascals who are a pain in the butt. We can't create a
church where everyone is going to think alike or even be solidly
orthodox Lutheran."
Ginger sighed, "Yeah, I know that. Or at least I think I know
that. And I don't want our congregation to be exclusive so that
it will reach out only to Lutherans. That's not evangelism. I
know we need to reach out to the unchurched, and we've done that.
My gosh, of the 300 plus baptized members on our charter roll,
only about 25 percent were active church members -- thanks to you,
Lloyd, a good many of those were from your congregation, and
they're super people. The rest were unchurched, and we're
thankful for that."
"But what are some of the chief concerns you have?" Lloyd
wanted to know.
"Oh, I'm not altogether sure I can spell them out," Ginger
replied with some hesitation. "I guess sometimes I look back at
my home congregation in Minnesota where I grew up. The members
were all solid Lutheran folks -- or so it seems now. We sang the
good solid hymns of our Lutheran tradition, we all knew the
liturgy by heart ... I don't know, it seemed we were a more
doctrinally cohesive people then."
"Or so it seems in retrospect," Lloyd offered.

"Well, perhaps so," Ginger agreed. "But my first five years in
the ministry in Wisconsin were somewhat like my growing up years
too."
"Wisconsin and Minnesota are both solid Lutheran country, and
you've discovered that California definitely is not," Lloyd said.
"Definitely not!" Ginger agreed again.
"Well, those were the days when we were all Norwegians and
Swedes and Germans," Lloyd began.
"In Minnesota it was mostly Norwegians and Swedes," Ginger
corrected.
"Okay," Lloyd continued, "But the point is, then we had good
solid, predictable Lutheran people. We all believed the same
thing -- or at least we thought we did. It's a new day now."
"Yes, I know that," Ginger said, "And really, I'm not trying
to turn the calendar back. I just want to make sure that we
maintain the distinctive character of our Lutheran style of
witness as well as our Lutheran identity. We are Lutheran
Christians, and we can't be all things to all people."
"Paul said he would be, in order to save some ..." Lloyd
started in a whimsical tone.
"Okay, okay," she laughed. "I know that, but Paul also
breathed heavy condemnation on many who disagreed with his
theology. The Judaizers, for instance, as Paul called them. What
would have happened if Paul had succumbed to the very strong move
in the early church to make the Gentiles submit to circumcision
in order for them to be Christian? Paul said he would be all
things to all people, but he set his limits too."
"You got me," Lloyd conceded, "And you're right about Paul. I
was needling you a bit there. But what are the limits you think
you need to set? For instance ..."
Ginger jumped in, "All right, for instance, we've got a few
people who want to teach New Age stuff in Sunday School. Not just
as an information course such as one would do in comparative
religions, but as an addition to our curriculum!"
"That's a real 'for instance.' " Lloyd conceded again.

Ginger continued, "And we've got the usual folks -- many from
totally unchurched backgrounds, and certainly from non-liturgical
backgrounds -- who are bugging the worship committee to kind of
... adulterate, I guess ... the liturgy. I'm sorry, but I
strongly believe the Lutheran liturgy is an important part of our
identity, and I don't want to see it diluted in order to placate
some folks who don't like it."
"I say get tough and kick 'em out!" They both chuckled at
Lloyd's facetious suggestion.
"Yes, right, after the way I worked my tail off gathering this
diverse group." Ginger sat pensively for a moment. "I guess early
on I could have put up a sign that read Only Orthodox Lutherans
Need Apply. But not in this day and age."
"Nor in this church," Lloyd added, then asked, "What else? New
Age and anti-liturgy. Is that all?"
"I wish it were." She sat again for a while before saying
anything further. "You know, this sloppy music some of our folks
want to introduce ..."
"Now wait, you are a trained musician as well as a pastor. You
can't expect everyone to have your high school musical tastes,"
Lloyd broke in.
"No, I know that," Ginger said, "And I don't expect that J. S.
Bach will be played or sung every Sunday. But this slushy, so-
called 'Christian music' that sounds like a tin-horn rock star
wrote it ... it's all sentimental slush, like God and I are just
pals walking down the street holding hands or whatever. It's bad
theology ... and ... and we express and learn our theology partly
through our music." She was on a roll.
"I sympathize with you, Ginger, and I agree with you; but --
and this may sound strange coming from an old duffer like me --
you should be saying this ..."
"Saying what?" Ginger asked.
"That we are indeed in a new age," Lloyd said. "We all might
find ourselves having to put up with a lot of things we don't
like -- if we're to be an all-inclusive church."
"How inclusive are we?" Ginger wanted to know. "I mean, how do
we maintain the distinctive nature of the Lutheran

witness? Or should we? I believe very strongly that within the
Christian fold the Lutheran family has a very positive place."
"I agree, no argument there," Lloyd said.
"Yes, but how far do we allow our Lutheran identity to be
weakened and faded by allowing anything to happen and still call
ourselves Lutheran Christians? What's Lutheran about us anyway?"
Ginger kept pressing.
Lloyd mused, as if chewing on a thought. "I went to a Hispanic
Lutheran worship service in the Rio Grande Valley some time ago
that you wouldn't have recognized as Lutheran. A mariachi band
... of course, the entire service in Spanish -- nothing unLutheran
about that I guess ... the hymns were bursting with Latin rhythms
and lyrics. The appointed lessons were the same -- I think, I
couldn't understand much ..."
Ginger responded, "Well, that's all well and good, that's
great. But I'm talking about ideas or theology if you will ..."
"And music?" Lloyd teased.
"Yeah, and music," Ginger admitted. "But I don't want our
theology, our belief system, to be diluted just to be attractive
to everyone. Or even our liturgy. I want us to be inclusive, but
not at the price of having to accept every idea people want to
plant in us."
"There always has been a tension between being all-inclusive --
with all its attendant potential problems -- and being too
elitist. Look at the church bodies, our individual congregations
for that matter, that have tried to strain out everyone except
the same orthodox and pure believers. What happens? The most
orthodox and pure cadre of those who are left soon find that even
some among them are not quite so pure. And so the process of
weeding out never ends, and there are split-offs and splinter
groups always seeking to be the purest of the pure. All their
energies are spent on that pointless enterprise."
"Well, that's certainly not what I'm after ..." Ginger
protested.
"Of course not, I realize that," Lloyd interrupted, "I'm just
pointing out how difficult it is to know who's in the same boat
with us."

"Or field?" Ginger suggested.
"Yes, or field," Lloyd agreed.
Neither spoke for a moment, as though their discussion had
about run its course. Ginger sat looking out the window of
Lloyd's office, and finally spoke, not necessarily to Lloyd, but
rather as though recalling to herself a memory from her youth.
"When I was a kid on the farm, my two older brothers and I had a
string of chores to do. It just occurred to me now that one of
them was pulling up weeds in the summer from our grain fields. I
don't know what this particular weed was, but my father called it
mustard. It did have a yellow blossom, maybe that's why he called
it mustard. But in any case, when there would be an outbreak of
it in one of our fields, we could easily spot it because of its
color, and we had to hustle out and try to pull it all out. Dad
always cautioned us so we wouldn't pull out the barley or wheat
or whatever. But that was easy ... we could easily recognize the
weeds."
"Harder in the church, isn't it?" Lloyd noted.
"Right," Ginger agreed. "But in spite of all the things we've
said about it today, I still get the urge," she said with a
wicked growl, "to kick 'em out -- that is, everyone except those
who think as I do." They both laughed, as Ginger started for the
door.
"Don't we all get that urge," Lloyd stated.
"Be kind of boring, wouldn't it?" Ginger smiled.
"You said it, I didn't," Lloyd smiled as they said goodbye.