Monday, May 10, 2021

in memoriam: my dad, Richard Goetze


my dad, richard goetze, preaching at Presence in London Ontario, ca  2009. Photo by rob goetze (me)
In memory of Richard Goetze
December 16, 1938 - April 26, 2020


Like me, many people have been positively influenced by Richard's ministry as a pastor over the years, and have missed his good teaching and preaching.

Here's one more opportunity to learn and grow:

No, it's not a never heard before sermon, found tucked away in the back of a filing cabinet. It was a conversation...


But before that, some background, some remembering about my dad:

Richard wanted to know more about grace and mercy, about the love of God for us. He wasn’t into petty rules and gatekeeping and the many other things that keep people out of the church. He hoped everyone would end up with our heavenly father; he wanted to open wide the gates of heaven. He was not content to believe that a God of love would let millions of beloved children end up in eternal torment.

That was my dad. Hoping and believing that God is so much bigger than we are and better than our theology. Believing in a God who would find wonderful amazing ways to bring all their beautiful children home in the end, so that when we all find ourselves in heaven there will be far more people than we expect to see there.

This was my dad. This was Richard, believing in grace and love and mercy for everyone. Believing that God’s arms are open wider than the church imagines, wider than you and I can imagine.


So, the opportunity to learn comes from a short conversation he and I had some time after his retirement. I was perhaps 40 at the time, and, honestly, and sadly, really hadn't expected that I would learn anything life-changing from him at that point. 

But I did - I learned something that changed my heart and mind in an important way, and I'd like to share it with you too.

Richard - my dad - said, "If I was still pastoring and two men asked me to marry them, I would."

Yes, you heard me correctly.

Richard said that if he was still pastoring and two men asked him to marry them, he would.

Well as you can imagine, I almost fell over - this was contrary to everything church life and Bible college had taught me - but having good German blood fortified by Swiss chocolate, I maintained my composure and said, "oh yeah?" But inside, I was thinking, how can he say that? I respected his teaching my whole life, yet here he was saying something contrary to what many evangelical churches had taught for years.

It took a few years and some conversations and God working in my heart and mind to see my dad’s comment as truly a gift. To understand that he had thought, read and prayed about this carefully, with a deep commitment to scripture and a backdrop of knowing God’s love is bigger than we can understand and taking that love seriously.

By sharing this with me, he helped me move beyond the strict rules of our denomination and to get past the unreasonable anger that many of us who grew up conservative have towards some of God's children just because they love differently...

He helped me to address some of my own biases and to enlarge my understanding of kindom and family, and to move to equal and just embrace of people without discrimination. And I saw that my dad -- even in retirement - had kept thinking, exploring, wondering, growing, hoping … until eventually dementia took these away from him.

Now, Richard wasn't public about this, perhaps because at the church where he worked, he was busy advocating for women to be allowed in leadership, something that only came to fruition after his retirement.

But I mention this conversation specifically because some people who love Jesus wonder if there's another way of looking at this than their church has told them.

And some people who are sexually diverse or gender expansive wonder about God and themselves -- I want you to know that Pastor Richard believed in the full equal inclusion of all people in the kingdom, regardless of anything, and there are other pastors who love Jesus and preach the gospel who also believe this and who embrace queer Christians.

In closing, I want to share a picture I drew…
 
Alt text below image
Image description: Picture shows the entrance gate to heaven, with an angel with a brown face. A multi-racial group of people is already through the gate and heading upwards. One is wearing a dress striped with light blue, light pink, white, light pink and light blue. Some people are wearing clothes that are red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple. A young child is at the head of the group. My dad, just having entered through the gate, has turned back and is asking the angel,
“Can’t you make these gates wider? I’m sure God’s love is so much bigger than this.”

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