acceptance – Salvaged Faith

UMC 101: An Inclusive Church

Posted on February 20, 2022Leave a comment

Text: Luke 5:17-26, Book of Discipline – Constitution Preamble and ¶1-5, ¶140, and the new 6

Over this last month as we have worshipped with one another, there has been a recurring theme at the core of our tradition: God’s grace and love is for all.

The prevenient grace of God stretches out to all people, inviting them in.

When we become disciples, we are called to reach out in love to do no harm and do good to all we meet.

Grounded in the core of our faith, we create space for difference and open our arms to encounter people with varying languages and cultures and traditions.

We believe that God reigns over all of human existence, and we trust in the Holy Spirit to guide us as we seek responses that share the healing and redeeming love of God with all people.

And we go out, each uniquely gifted and equipped, to make disciples of all peoples and transform the world.

In our statement on inclusiveness in our Book of Discipline (¶140) we say:

“We recognize that God made all creation and saw that it was good. As a diverse people of God who bring special gifts and evidences of God’s grace to the unity of the Church and to society, we are called to be faithful to the example of Jesus’ ministry to all persons.
Inclusiveness means openness, acceptance, and support that enables all persons to participate in the life of the Church, the community and the world.”

In our Constitution, we proclaim that “all persons are of sacred worth” and “all persons without regard to race, color, national origin, status, or economic condition, shall be eligible“ to worship, participate, receive the sacraments, and become members of the church. (¶4)

The church… the Body of Christ… is for all… and needs all.

But the truth is we need these kinds of statements, because we have not always lived out this truth.

As we talked about last week, sometimes we have been more of a fortress protecting those inside, rather than a force out in the world seeking all people.

We have placed barriers on who was welcome and how they could participate.

We have created separations between races, genders, and classes.

Over the last few weeks in our Confirmation class, we have been exploring our United Methodist history. Each student presented on a different topic or person from our past and together we learned about people who did not experience the church as inclusive and open to all.

We learned about Richard Allen, a freed black man and ordained pastor who was sidelined in the Methodist Episcopal Church. He left our denomination due to the discrimination and formed the African Methodist Episcopal – or AME Church.

We learned about Anna Howard Shaw, who felt a call to ministry but was denied ordination in the MEC. In her journal she wrote, “I am no better and no stronger than a man, and it is all a man can do to fight the world, the flesh, and the devil, without fighting his Church as well.” (Story of a Pioneer, p. 123-124). She left the denomination and was ordained by the Methodist Protestant Church in 1880.

The Methodist Protestants themselves had left the denomination after growing concerns about the power of clergy and the exclusion of lay people from decisions.

The Free Methodists broke away from the denomination over their concerns for the poor after New England churches began the practice of charging for your spot in the pew!

Or what about the story of Bishop Andrews who gained slaves through each of his marriages and refused to set them free… his story became part of the rationale for why the Methodist Episcopal Church, South broke away from the rest of the denomination.

When the MEC, MEC South, and Methodist Protestants eventually merged back together in 1939, we learned about the segregation of the African American clergy and churches in the Central Jurisdiction.

We can find throughout our history these stories of exclusion.

But along the way, there were also folks who exemplified the spirit of our scripture reading for today… friends and colleagues who have torn down walls, built new structures, shattered glass ceilings, and burst through roofs in order to bring people to Christ.

Mark and Luke tell us the story of the crowds who gathered to hear Jesus preach in Capernaum. Five friends came together, four of them carrying their friend who was paralyzed.

But as anyone who might be vertically challenged like myself can attest, it is difficult to see over a crowd.

And it must have been even more so for this man on his mat.

The group tried to shoulder their way in closer, but to no avail.

And then they got creative.

They climbed to the top of the roof and began taking a part the tiles to make an opening above Jesus so they could lower him down.

They refused to let their friend sit out on the curb.

He, as much as any other, was a child of God who belonged at the feet of Jesus.

Do you know what I noticed in this pericope reading it this week…

It doesn’t say that they brought their friend in order to be healed.

There are many stories where people specifically brought people to Jesus to be healed, but that phrase is not used here.

The crowds gathered wanted to hear Jesus preach and to hear the good news.

Why would we assume anything different about this paralytic man?

In fact, Mark Arnold reminded me this week of how Jesus responds to this act of home vandalism. “Jesus sees the faith of the man and his friends first and includes him in his ministry of grace and forgiveness… only referring to the man’s disability when challenged about his authority.” (https://theadditionalneedsblogfather.com/2019/09/11/disability-sin-god-heaven/)

He goes on to write, “everyone, including disabled people, are made in God’s image.”

When we talk about inclusiveness in the church, we speak of our call to share the ministry of Jesus with all people and make sure that every person is able to participate fully in the life of not just the church, but the community, and the world. (¶140, p. 101)

It means “the freedom for the total involvement of all persons who meet the requirements… in the membership and leadership of the Church at any level and in every place.”

Our call to inclusiveness does not ask someone to adapt or change who they are in order to have a place at the table. It is a recognition of their faith and gifts and belovedness in God’s eyes… just as they are.

And it entails our commitment to “work towards societies in which each person’s value is recognized, maintained, and strengthened” through basic human rights and “equal access to housing, education, communication, employment, medical care, legal redress of grievances, and physical protection.”

It means speaking out against acts of hate or violence against people based on who they are.

And within the church, the call to inclusiveness means that sometimes we have to tear the roof off the house to make sure that everyone has access… or add a ramp or an elevator to the church.

It means utilizing assistive hearing devices and closed captioning on our facebook live stream.

One of the things that I think we have gained during Covid-tide is broadening how we make our worship accessible for our members who were homebound and we continue to mail the entire worship service to more than fifty homes every week. Where we can’t bring folks to church, we bring the church to them.

It means including youth and young people on our leadership teams and making commitments to protect children through our Safe Sanctuaries policies.

Here at Immanuel, it meant changing our maternity leave policy to a parental leave policy.

And it also means, as we say in our Constitution, that the church “shall confront and seek to eliminate racism, whether in organizations or in individuals, in every facet of its life and in society at large.”

I mentioned before the how we institutionalized racism through the Central Jurisdiction here in the United States. Just as those four friends literally changed the structure of that home, Confronting racism sometimes means changing our denominational structures and I give thanks that the Methodist Church eliminated the Central Jurisdiction with the insistence of the EUB church as part of the merger that formed the United Methodist Church in 1968.

But this also includes learning about and repenting of our history, as well as actively seeking to not just make room at our table for neighbors who are black, indigenous, or people of color… but building new tables – together.

As a predominately white congregation, this might entail intentionally building relationships with people and church neighbors that look differently than us.

And, it means that we bust open the glass ceiling and do the same for women and girls who have faced discrimination in the church. In fact… this new paragraph on gender equality was only added through a constitutional amendment approved in 2016 and then ratified by annual conferences in 2019.

Still, there are more walls to tear down.

Another constitutional amendment failed by just 5% to meet the 2/3 threshold for implementation by annual conference votes.

Currently, our constitution proclaims that “no conference or other organizational unity of the Church shall be structured so as to exclude any member… because of race, color, national origin, status or economic condition.”

That amendment would have expanded our protected classes in the constitution to add gender, ability, age, and marital status.

We continue to go on to perfection.

As I think about what it means to be United Methodist today, I think about those five friends from our scripture.

I think about how each one of them was beloved by God and a person of sacred worth… just as they were.

And I think about how they worked together to make sure that all were able to be in the presence of Jesus.

Our call to inclusiveness in the church is a call to relationship and faithfulness.

It is about invitation and welcome.

It is about breaking down walls and tearing apart ceilings and fighting so that our friends and neighbors can all gather at the feet of Christ.

But it is also about owning up to the reality that along the way we have not always lived into this ideal and acknowledging the people who either chose to leave or were forced out of the church simply because of who they were.

I am reminded that my access and privilege to even stand here in this pulpit is not something to be taken for granted.

I remember the people who fought to make this a reality and look for ways to use my voice to speak up on behalf of others who are excluded.

May we, as United Methodists, continue to work to ensure that the doors of the church are open to all people, may we embrace one another with love and acceptance, and may we provide the kind of support that is needed so that all of our siblings can fully participate in the life of this church.

No Christmas Without Joy and Acceptance

Posted on December 13, 2020Leave a comment

All through this Advent season we are exploring the complicated family tree of Jesus of Nazareth Matthew shares with us.
Their stories are a legacy of courage and faith, justice and peace, that shape how we understand our Savior in the manger of Bethlehem.
Today, we remember that there would be no Christmas, no Jesus, no salvation without Ruth.
Salmon was the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab.
Boaz was the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth.
Obed was the father of Jesse.
Jesse was the father of David the king. (Matthew 1: 5-6)
So let us listen today, for how God moves through unexpected people and in unexpected ways to bring to us a redeemer…

Our story begins in Bethlehem itself.
Bethlehem, or “House of Bread.”
A place of abundance is overrun by famine.
Naomi and her husband, Elimelech, had two sons and lived contently within the city in the time of the judges.
It was a time without a centralized government, with great instability and turmoil.
When they could no longer make a future for themselves within their hometown, they fled and became refugees.
We might see their faces in the images of refugees from Syria and Iraq and northern Africa today… Camping in muddy fields, clothes wet from the journey, their only possessions what they could carry, completely unsure if they will be welcomed wherever they arrive.
The place they come to call home is the land of Moab.
Now, it is important at this point to consider what it meant for them to find a home here. The Moabites were actually distant cousins of the Israelites, tracing their lineage all the way back to Abraham’s nephew, Lot and his daughters.
The Ammonites and the Moabites are their descendants and were regarded with disdain and suspicion.
As the story of the people of Israel continues, these distant cousins became enemies.
They refused hospitality to the Israelites as they fled from Egypt and watched with great unease as Joshua and his people conquered the land.
Our story today is just one generation removed from this conflict, yet Naomi and Elimelech seek refuge there.
Just as they establish themselves, Elimelech dies, leaving Naomi and her two boys, Mahlon and Kilion.
Years pass. They grow up and they each marry women from that land… Moabite women… Ruth and Orpah.
But then one son after the other dies.
As Helen Pearson notes, “This healthy family had earlier departed a sick land only to become sick in a healthy land. Death canceled hope, and Naomi became a stranger in a strange land.” (p. 115)
She plans to return to Bethlehem to live as a widow… resigned to beg for the rest of her sad and bitter life. And she sends the Moabite daughters-in-law away, releasing them from any obligations with the opportunity to start anew.
Naomi prays that God would show them the same kind of loving-kindness, chesed, that they and their people had shown to them as strangers.
They weep. They grieve. They lament all they have lost.
And then… one of these daughters, Ruth, refuses to leave Naomi’s side.
It is an act of loving-kindness… unmerited love and grace and mercy shown to Naomi.
Even more than that.
Ruth casts her lot with the God of Naomi.
Ruth commits herself to a life where she will be the stranger and the foreigner, a grieving widow with no tangible possibilities.

You know, this year we have ourselves experienced grief, loss, tragedy, and disruption.
The loss of jobs and income.
The grief over loved ones we have lost.
The disruption of our routines where everything normal and familiar was taken from us.
We have been cut off from one another and have had to miss out on times of celebration.
There have been moments where we felt like Naomi and Ruth in this moment… grieving, lonely, and depressed.
As they make the journey back to Bethlehem, this despair so overtakes Naomi that she begs people to call her Mara – The Bitter One.

What she fails to recognize in this moment is that she is, in fact, not alone.
Ruth is by her side.
She had not been completely abandoned.
And friends… you have not been abandoned in this season either.
In small ways and in big ways, we have walked with each other through the dark and shadowy valleys and show up with cards and calls and food and connection.

Ruth takes the initiative to provide for them by going out to glean in the fields.
She is essentially going to pick up the small grains that are left on the ground after the harvesters have done their work.
It was back-breaking work, demeaning work, dangerous work.
She was a Moabite stranger, with no one to look out for her, utterly at the mercy of the field hands.
Remember how Naomi prayed that God would show her daughters-in-law kindness?
While she is out there working, a man named Boaz sees her.
Boaz, the son of Salmon, whose mother was Rahab.
Rahab the prostitute.
Rahab who herself was a foreign woman.
Rahab who herself risked everything to secure a future for her family.
Rahab who had faith in the God of Israel.
Rahab who welcomed the spies in hospitality and in peace.
You can’t ignore that her story has impacted the character of her son.
Boaz is moved not only by her work-ethic, but also by the way in which she sacrificed and acted to stand beside Naomi. He decides to show her favor and protection.
He make sure she has access to the best fields, has plenty to eat and drink, and protects her from his own men.

This act of favor and kindness is like a spark of life for Naomi.
She realizes that Boaz was a distant relative, someone who could redeem her husband’s property and provide for their future.
The law of levirate marriage that we heard about in the story of Tamar couldn’t apply here because Naomi had no other children.
But a kinsman redeemer could intervene. As Helen Pearson notes, they had “the obligation and duty to provide security, especially for widows and the poor; to restore the honor and prestige of the family; and to protect the interests, property, and inheritance of his extended family.” (p. 128)
Boaz could act to protect Naomi, but Ruth would remain vulnerable.
And so Naomi hatches up a plan for them to both get what they needed.
Ruth would present herself to Boaz as a potential wife.
If I had more time today, we’d get into the details of this drunken encounter on the threshing floor, but let’s just say, Boaz is willing and eager to take Ruth as his own and to take on the role of redeeming Elimelech’s property.
After going through all of the proper channels, Boaz marries Ruth and protects the legacy of Elimelech, Kilian and Mahlon.
They give birth to a child, Obed, and Naomi rediscovers the meaning of joy and life and abundance through her grandchild.

One the scriptures we will explore this week in our daily devotions is Psalm 126.
It is a song that rings out in times of exile and struggle:
Lord, change our circumstances for the better, like dry streams in the desert waste!
Let those who plant with tears reap the harvest with joyful shouts.
Let those who go out, crying and carrying their seed,
Come home with joyful shouts, carrying bales of grain!
Ruth and Naomi went out with tears, but God acted in their lives and they came home with joyful shouts.
And as we continue this journey to the manger, we see their legacy in the story of Jesus.
You see, when Joseph discovered his fiancée was pregnant, he probably cried out: Lord, change our circumstances! But he stuck by Mary, like Ruth stuck by Naomi.
When the holy family had to feel to a strange land and flee from the wrath of Herod, they probably cried out: Lord, change our circumstances! But God journeyed with them, as God did these weary refugees.
All along the way, acts of hospitality and gifts of kindness sustained their parched spirits.
We see how Christ takes up this legacy as he acts to bring life and joy and abundance in the midst of moments of despair and hunger and longing.
He brings the dead to life.
He feeds the multitudes.
He shows compassion and kindness upon strangers and foreigners.
Those who plant with tears reap a harvest of joyful shouts.

In this season of Advent, we are called to prepare our hearts and our lives for Jesus Christ.
We are called to make a home in our hearts for Christ to dwell.
And we do so by remembering the legacy of these faithful ancestors and allowing it to transform our own lives.
After all, there would have been no Christmas without Ruth.
When we find ourselves, as Naomi did, swallowed up by despair and grief, joy is discovered when we realize that others are journeying with us and that we are not, in fact, alone.
Your acts of connection, the cards you send and the calls you make, the cookies you drop off at a neighbor’s door… all of these things are like seeds of joy that you can plant every single day.
But I’m also struck by the larger forces that this story brings into focus.
This is a world in which asylum seekers and refugees who have left their homes with tears are crying out. At the end of 2019, an estimated 26 million people had sought refuge from violence war, famine and climate disasters. Another 33.4 million people were internally displaced, living in shelters and camps within their own country due to violence or disaster.
But we don’t have to even think globally to be aware of the deep need and hunger for support for people right here in our own neighborhood who rely upon the food pantry and our social services to stay in their homes or to make it through a long, cold winter.
Lord, change their circumstances for the better!
And then I realize that God acts through you and me.
God acted through the Moabites who welcomed refugees into their land.
And God acted through the compassionate hospitality and protection of Boaz and the community in Bethlehem that provided for Ruth and Naomi.
Your acts of kindness, generosity and welcome can make an incredible difference, changing circumstances, providing possibility, filling mouths with laugher and joy and abundance.
This next weekend, we are hosting a drive-through food drive for the DMARC Food Pantry Network. Let us pour out joy and abundance and grace and love to our neighbors during this difficult season.

The art of cuddling

Posted on January 30, 2020Leave a comment

I remember as a little girl when my mom would sit leaning on her side on the sofa and I could curl up in the cozy little spot that her legs made. It felt like it was a spot just for me. A place of safety and warmth and love.

As an adult, my spouse and I don’t have children – but we do have cats that like to cuddle.

Turbo is very extra particular about how he likes to cuddle. Usually, it is at the most inconvenient time (like when you are sleeping) and he has to be touching a minimum of two body parts at once (like an arm and your chest, or your head and your neck, or your leg and your stomach) and it takes him 15 minutes of moving around and going back and forth before he flops down exactly where he wants to be.

Tiki on the other hand wants a spot that is just far enough away for him to be self-differentiated. He’s a cat after my own heart, because his favorite spot is the same one I gravitated towards as a child, snuggled in the bend of a leg when someone is reclining or sleeping.

During this time away on renewal leave, I’ve had some really great time available to cuddle with my spouse. For some reason, cuddle time had been relegated to bedtime and we had found ourselves in the habit of keeping our own spaces the rest of the day. On the couch there is often a throw pillow or a whole cushion between us. Or we find ourselves in separate rooms all together, watching our own shows or doing our own thing. That is when I’m not spending my evenings and weekends at church.

But one afternoon last week, we cuddled on the chaise together for nearly two hours in the middle of the afternoon. There was nothing on the television… it was just us. We watched it snow. We giggled. We made plans for the coming week. We discussed some things we had been neglecting. We simply rested in one another’s presence. It was a place full of warmth and safety and love.

It struck me how long it has been since we had simply spent that time with one another… in not just close physical proximity, but that mental and emotional and spiritual kind of way, too. In that kind of way that blurs the line between where one begins and another ends.

I’ve been reading Cloud and Townsend’s book “Boundaries” during my renewal leave ( I have a lot of thoughts about this book – some positive and others not so much – but that’s probably another blog post), and one of the key messages throughout is that bonding is key to building good boundaries. In order to set boundaries, you need to know that you are loved, safe, and accepted. You need to know that in conflict, those things don’t and won’t change.

It’s why that space curled up with my mom was so important as a kid. I knew that no matter what, she was going to be there for me.

It was vital in the early stages of my relationship with Brandon. We would sit for hours in the back of his truck and cuddle up stargazing. We would sit close at movies with arms around one another. We would hold hands in the parking lot at school and talk until it got dark. Whenever we traveled with family, especially in those early years, I could tell the anxiety of the new places and people and relationships could all be soothed away at night when we snuggled in close together… just the two of us.

But it is also something that my spouse and I have been neglecting a bit in our relationship. When our time was occupied with chores and dinner and television watching an arms length apart, we were not reinforcing that message for one another. And in fact, some of the other messages we were sending had nearly the opposite effect.

We’ve been cuddling a bit more. Creating space for one another on the couch while watching a show. Intentionally stopping by one another’s space even when doing separate things to offer a squeeze or rub a shoulder or just cuddle for a minute. And taking time to literally stop everything and simply be present with one another.

I think it’s helping us to re-establish for one another that safe place of acceptance and love that has allowed us to engage in some other conversations in our life with a different sort of energy.