Discipline in Faith, Discipline of Self, Discipline with Church

How a pastor learned from a same-sex marriage and what came after– Tara Spuhler McCabe

In the past year, I’ve come to know something about discipline. But the experience has helped me see that disciplines are how I have navigated and interpreted my life and ministry for as long as I can remember.Back in the fall of 2011, through a neighbor, I met two women who asked me to perform a religious wedding ceremony for them in the District of Columbia.  They both were Catholic and, more importantly, so were their families.  They were seeking a religious terrain that would affirm their love for each other, their love from and for their families, and their faith in God’s great love for which they, to this day, are still grateful.  I said yes and officiated a religious marriage ceremony for them, in a restaurant, in the District of Columbia.  During this same period, I also agreed to stand with my friend and colleague, the Rev. Neal Presa, as his candidate for Vice Moderator of the General Assembly. I never informed him of my action with this particular couple because, though it seems strange to say now, I did not recognize that what seemed so removed from denominational debates would end up affecting others so drastically.Someone (I still don’t know who) published evidence: my signature on the license and a picture of me standing with the women.  Neal and I decided I would continue to be his candidate for vice moderator.  He was elected, and I was confirmed by the General Assembly.  Three days later, out of concern for distracting tension in the church and the risk of damage to the office of Moderator, I resigned as Vice Moderator. Later, I was informed that a written allegation had been filed against me by a group of Presbyterians that included no one from my own presbytery.  Since August,  I have been through an investigation and disciplinary process.  National Capital Presbytery’s Investigating Committee and I agreed to a censure that was read aloud at our January Presbytery meeting.I have experienced discipline at a new level to be sure, but even in this process, I see the disciplines of my life coming together for such a time as this.

Three disciplines

Discipline in faith is, for me, the practice of navigating and relishing the mystery of it all.  It is daily acknowledging that I am a part of others within the embrace of the Sacred.  For me, faith has always been.  Faith is not nothing and never just something.  It is a cultivated awareness of how the intricacies of creation are connected to one another. Disciplined faith is not unlike the way I have taught kids to be with the ocean while at the beach: Always be in awe of its beauty and power.  You get to be a part of this and enjoy it, but you are never more powerful than it.  Know your place within the beauty and power of it all.This discipline in faith leads directly to discipline of self:  Knowing my place within it all.  Not arrogantly but relationally.  There is wisdom to offer and to gain.  There is humility to learn and to teach.  My discipline of self is the practice of connecting to the great creation I experience in my faith.  My filter and lens have always been “What celebrates this life we have? What builds up my relationships and community?” Therefore, my actions, while sometimes for me, are never just about me.  My actions have to stand in relationship with the whole, building up or breaking down in relationship to all.  And to live faithfully as self, I have always been blessed to live that life in the church.Discipline with church hems in what can be, at times, the madness of it all. But it also magnifies the incredible beauty of it all.  The great mysteries that go beyond what I can manage, comprehend and explain are ordered and practiced in a day-to-day reality.  My church has been and continues to be the place where I can undertake the other practices, being my self in a faith that encompasses all.This understanding of disciplines of faith, self and church was cultivated throughout my life, beginning with my growing up in a predominantly African-American neighborhood and school while attending the mostly white downtown Presbyterian church.  On the surface, the two places had nothing to do with each other--except when my parents invited friends from our ’hood to join us at church or friends would invite me to theirs.  I found then a faith that was consistent, and a self that was fully realized only when we were living life more fully in relationship with whole.Fast forward to today.  I love being hemmed in with a church and called into ministry as a pastor. This is my place, my part, in the whole of faith.  Living into my calling, with a church and a faith that are greater than me, struggle and tension are regularly present. This is not a bad thing!  Church discipline comes out of a history of people stepping beyond their ordered church, sometimes with great faithfulness and conviction. This historical reality helps me as I seek to live into a call that could pull me beyond the practices of my church, but never away from the discipline with church.

Standing at the intersection

I offer that any of us can never know when we will have to stand at the intersection of our disciplines and then need to step forward into the next moment engaging all three, even with tension and conflict.  When the moment came to me, officiating a wedding for a same-sex couple, as a pastor, I could not turn away.   My conviction of faith, of my humble place before the mystery of it all, was deeper than I have known before.  I acted with full integrity in that faith and true to the self I am called to be. This is why I can accept the discipline of the church with whom I have committed to be in relationship.  I could not deny the call as a pastor to a gap where two people, seeking to have their love explained and professed through the ordering of worship, would celebrate and praise God’s work in bringing them together as no civil union or priest of their own tradition would do.Not often do I find deep tension with our ordination vows. But here I did. I am a teaching elder in a church that baptizes children of couples and grandparents.  Nowhere do we require the parents of children being baptized to be of different genders.  Our polity and our liturgy speaks to them as people of faith, parents or grandparents—no other qualifications.  We also serve communion to all people who have been baptized.  We confirm our baptized children as they make a profession of faith, never singling out sexual orientation as a matter for their confirmation discernment. As Presbyterians, we discern a calling to ordered ministry, ordaining leaders in our congregations and denomination, not based on sexual orientation but on commitment to Christ and the church.  And that commitment is a high and honest bar!  In all of these decisions and moments, as a pastor, I am to engage fully in the spiritual nurture of the people and offer ritual and ordered worship that celebrates their lives in response to God's presence.Here is the rub and the theological bankruptcy I feel I am “pastoring” in.  I am not permitted to order worship and celebrate the love of God in the covenant of marriage for the same folk whom I have baptized, confirmed, served communion, and even ordained as pastors.  There is a gross error in how we as pastors and congregations are then honoring the whole child of God whom we have started with in baptism.And so, with this struggle and love of church, I enter willingly in faith into the discipline of church. I trust these relationships.  This, too, was a vow: That as individuals we will offer our whole selves to this church constantly navigating the realities and complexities of our faithful living.  Out of discipline in faith and discipline of self, I and we can stand with the discipline of our church.  And as I have noticed these last few months, there is transformation within the discipline.  In my particular disciplinary process, there has been honest wrestling with the integrity of our embodied community. Our conversations were able to honor the importance of my sense of call in officiating this marriage while also needing to embrace and be embraced in the judgment of my presbytery. In living out my sense of call, I have risked offending the constitution of my church. We remain in relationship and the church keeps struggling.  And the church and I can both go on stronger from this threshold moment.Discipline—and specifically my disciplines of faith, in self and with church—have prepared me for such a time as this.The Rev. Tara Spuhler McCabe is an at-large member of National Capital Presbytery. Tara's reflection was published on ecclesio.com as part of Covenant Network week. 

Tara further reflects on her censure and the process that led to it:

It was my request that my censure be read aloud out of a desire to have this process, which has been quite public, be as open as possible.CENSUREWhereas you, Tara Spuhler McCabe, admit the offense of officiating at a same-sex marriage ceremony on or about April 28, 2012, and admit that by such offense you have acted contrary to the Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (USA); now, therefore, the Presbytery of National Capital, in the name and authority of the Presbyterian Church (USA), rebukes you. You are enjoined to be more watchful and avoid such offense in the future. We urge you to use diligently God’s grace and to be more obedient to the Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (USA). Furthermore, we encourage you to continue to provide pastoral care to all couples, including the blessing of same-sex couples who have previously been married by civil authorities.I, personally, am at peace with this. I am not at peace with the gap and tension that still exists for congregations and pastors who are open and affirming within our denomination and who serve communities where same-sex marriage is legal. With this reality, I feel it is important to be in hard conversation with one another about the tension. This is why, in negotiation with the Investigating Committee, I asked for the censure to be read aloud at Presbytery. We want to offer honesty and transparency, as best as we could. I cannot speak more highly of the work that myself, my lawyer (Saint Timothy as we say in our home), and the Investigating Committee (IC) has done for the past 5 to 6 months. Many folks have been put through some incredibly tense moments and conversations in this process. National Capital Presbytery has shown great dignity towards me in holding space for all the necessary steps to take place.I do want to lift up that no one in National Capital Presbytery ever filed an accusation against me. This specific process was brought to the Presbytery. And in our relationship as a connectional church, National Capital, through our Permanent Judicial body and the IC, needs to honor and uphold the lines and tensions we face within our denomination.  With profound respect, I have witnessed ruling and teaching elders in this presbytery honor a pastor’s personal story and the role of our church discipline. I know what I have gone through has not been the same for other sisters and brothers in the pastoral ministry with LGBTQ members of our congregations and communities. I so wish this was different. And it is not. All I can offer is that I am at peace mainly because once I knew I was to be in this process, I found myself working with incredibly faithful people: Ruling Elder Timothy Cahn as my lawyer; Ruling Elder Doris Mabry; Teaching Elder Mary Beth Lawrence; Ruling Elder J. Mills Williams; and Teaching Elder Henry Brinton; who treated me with dignity as well as upholding and honoring our church and its work within discipline. Members of the IC, and myself, are open to hearing questions and sharing our experience. I ask that all of us respect this decision, as I do and, with dignity and figure out how to move forward together.