accountability – Salvaged Faith

UMC 101: The Local Church & Membership

Posted on February 27, 2022Leave a comment

Text: 2 Corinthians 3:12-13, 3:18-4:1, 5-6; Book of Discipline 201-204, 214-221

Over the last seven weeks, we have explored together some of the foundational beliefs and practices of the United Methodist Church.

Our focus on grace and faith put into practice.

The call to reach out and share the love of God with all people.

A charge that makes room for difference and invites us to use our brains and celebrates diversity.

All grounded and centered in the core of Christian tradition… praising the God of all creation who became flesh and lived and died so that we might truly know life and who continues to empower us by the Holy Spirit.

As we come to the close of this series, we also come to a transitional date on the Christian calendar: This Sunday before the season of Lent is Transfiguration Sunday.

It is the day that a few of the disciples retreated with Jesus to a mountain top and witnessed the glory of God.

They experienced for themselves the very presence of God, radiating with light, in the person of their rabbi, Jesus.

He shone like the sun and they could hardly take it in… much like Moses before them.

Moses, too, had been to the mountaintop.

He had spent time in the presence of God and for more than just an afternoon.

In the account of Exodus 34, Moses spends forty days and forty nights with the Lord learning about the covenant God wanted to make with the people.

Exodus 34:29 tells us that when Moses came back down from the mountain, his face was radiant. He shone and reflected the glory and the presence of God. But the people were afraid and so he put a veil over his face (34:33).

The Apostle Paul picks up on this idea in his second letter to the church in Corinth.

He describes the law of Moses as a ministry of condemnation, because as individual human beings we couldn’t live up to what it asks of us.

That doesn’t mean that it wasn’t a reflection of God’s glory… it was!

But Paul believes that the ministry of righteousness we receive from Jesus through the Holy Spirit is even more glorious, because we are set free to truly reflect God’s glory in all that we say and do.

We are transformed by God’s glory and Paul describes the church in Corinth as Christ’s letter… written not with ink, but with the Holy Spirit.

They are the reflection of Jesus Christ to the world and all who see what they say and do will come to know the glory of God.

That local community and its members reflect the light of the knowledge of God’s glory to everyone they meet.

And so do we.

As our Book of Discipline proclaims, “The function of the local church, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, is to help people accept and confess Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior and to live their daily lives in light of their relationship with God” (¶202, p. 147).

It goes on to say that the members of the church gather for worship, to receive God’s grace, to be formed by the Word, and then we are sent out to do the work of Christ. (¶203)

Or as that familiar song from our childhood reminds us:

This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine…
Everywhere I go, I’m gonna let it shine…

That light, however, it isn’t my own light.

It isn’t your light.

It is the light of Jesus Christ.

I was thinking about the solar lamps that I installed in my garden last summer. Every evening they light up the path.

But the lamp has no light of its own… it simply captures and stores up the energy from the sun.

The more time it spends soaking up those rays, the brighter and longer it will shine.

Much like Moses shone radiantly after those forty days and forty nights in the presence of God’s glory.

And to keep our lights shining…

To fill up our lamps…

We need to continually spend time in God’s presence.

So as United Methodists, we don’t believe that membership in the local church is simply a box that we check.

It is a commitment and a covenant we make together with God and with the other members of our congregation.

In the coming weeks, our confirmation students will be exploring these vows deeply, but maybe it is good for all of us to get a refresher.

Membership Vows

Renounce, Reject, Repent
Accept God’s freedom and power
Confess Jesus as our Savior
Serve as Christ’s representative to the world
Strengthen the ministries of the UMC
Participate with our prayers, presence, gifts, service, and witness
Receive and profess the Christian faith

Just as John Wesley brought classes and societies of people together to focus on their spiritual life with one another, our membership vows are a commitment to “a lifelong process of growing in grace.” (¶216.1).

We turn away from sin and evil and turn our lives towards Jesus. Then, empowered by the Holy Spirit, we become ambassadors of Jesus to the world. We see each member as a vital part of the church and we have “method” for helping one another to keep these vows.

First – a local church provides opportunities for a member to grow in their discipleship. From small groups to worship, from mission events to our stewardship campaign, this local church offers ways for you to go deeper in your faith and to discover the will and grace of God. Each one is an opportunity to spend time in the presence of God.

Second – we share a mutual responsibility for one another. We need you, just as much as you need us, and together we shoulder burdens, share risks, and celebrate joys. We encourage one another along in this journey. After all, the people that make up our church are the body of Christ and we also experience the presence of God in one another.

Third – each person is responsible for their own participation. We can have all the opportunities in the world, but ultimately, you are the one who prays, who shows up, who gives, and who reaches out to share God’s love with the world.

However, as part of our Wesleyan heritage, we are called to hold one another accountable to these commitments. Those early Methodist class meetings were designed for members to keep one another on track, it is the responsibility of the local church to reach out in love to invite people to return and to nurture people back into community.

Sometimes that might look like a call or a note from the pastor, but this is the responsibility of all of us.

It is the phone call you make to invite someone to join a small group with you.

It is the note you put in the mail to let someone know you have missed them in worship.

It is the way you speak up if someone in a meeting has said something harmful.

It is the advice you offer when someone seems to be taking a wrong turn in their journey.

We do all of this, because we believe that through these ministries and this community, the glory of the Lord is transforming us more and more everyday into the image of Christ… and that we reflecting that glory to the world.

In Sara Groves’ song, “You are the Sun” she writes:

You are the sun, shining down on everyone.
Light of the world giving light to everything I see…
I am the moon with no light of my own
Still you have made me to shine
And as I glow in this cold dark night
I know I can’t be a light unless I turn my face to you.

The work of the local church and our responsibilities as members of that church is to turn our faces to the Light of the World and let God shine through our lives.

As the Book of Discipline says:
Each member is called upon to be a witness for Christ in the world, a light and leaven in society, and a reconciler in a culture of conflict… to identify with the agony and suffering of the world and to radiate and exemplify the Christ of hope” (¶220).

And we don’t do it alone. We do it together.

The work of the local church is only possible because all of us have gathered our resources and our talents and our time together so that we can reach out to the people in this community, and work to help one another grow. And we also are part of a larger connection, so we partner with other local churches – like inviting students from Windsor UMC to join us for confirmation. We work to be stewards not just of our resources, but of God’s creation as we participate in the mission of the larger United Methodist Church. (¶202, p147-148)

Let us keep soaking up the light of God so that in all of these things, the glory of God might shine through us.

Amen.

Untitled

Posted on October 7, 2018Leave a comment

Text: Mark 9:38-41

Sometimes the best thing a preacher can do is to be real and authentic.

And so I’m going to confess that I’m really struggling with how to share this text with you this week.

This fall, we are loosely following the lectionary – the three-year cycle of texts that help us to explore the fullness of the scripture. Rather than just preaching on my favorite texts each week, the lectionary challenges us to think outside of our comfort zone.

But we also are building up to our Stewardship Sunday at the end of this month, and as we organized the texts and the themes, we wanted to ask the question – Are you able to support the ministry of others? Are you able to invest in the work of your fellow siblings in Christ – even if you don’t always do things the same way? Are you able to encourage people you disagree with?

I still want to preach that sermon.

But I admit that it is harder to preach today than it was a month ago or a year ago.

And that is because what we see all around us, in both the church and our larger political landscape and indeed in our world, is a whole lot of us vs. them mentality.

I was sitting at an event in Chicago two weeks ago with other members of the General Conference delegation from our jurisdiction. And there is this particular person with whom I have a very difficult time finding any common ground. They weren’t even sitting at the table with me, but I could see them across the room and every single time they caught my attention, I could feel my anxiety rise. My heart beat faster. My chest clenched up a bit.

I realized that I see this person as my enemy.

We are on the same team.

We both love the United Methodist Church.

And yet everything we believe appears to be so diametrically opposed… and not only that, but I feel like their position actually harms people I love within the church.

I don’t want them to win.

And I don’t know what to do about that and how it is impacting my own soul.

Politics is the social life that we share together and we have witnessed our political discourse crumble to pieces.

In these past few weeks, anyone who has tried to say something about what is happening in our nation, particularly around the Supreme Court – for or against it – is immediately swarmed by people who both criticize their position and criticize them for not going far enough.

We are so entrenched that we cannot even see clearly.

The red side and the blue side are enemies and the slightest mention of anything political and you can watch a room fill with tension as people discern when to engage and how in order to be victorious.

But, friends, there simply have not been any winners in these political battles.

We have all lost.

As we have been following the gospel of Mark this fall, we come to a moment of struggle for the disciples. They have worked so closely with Jesus and even though they don’t always get it completely right, they understand who their tribe is.

To use a sports metaphor, Jesus is the coach and they can point to the other eleven players.

They know who their teammates are.

But as our pericope begins, the disciple John tells Jesus about how he and some other disciples noticed these other people who were doing ministry in his name. Specifically, they were casting out demons, something that the disciples themselves had just failed to do successfully a few verses earlier.

What was their very first response to encountering these people?

Resentment. Hostility.

They tried to stop them.

If they aren’t part of our team, our tribe, we have to shut them down.

Into our tribalism and partisanship, into our entrenchment and division, Christ speaks.

From the message translation:

“No one can use my name to do something good and powerful, and in the next breath cut me down. If he’s not an enemy, he’s an ally. Why, anyone by just giving you a cup of water in my name is on our side.”

Whoever is not against us is for us.

Those are really hard words to hear when you feel like you are on the battlefield.

They are hard words to hear when you consider someone your enemy.

They are especially hard words to hear when you look at the actions or the policies or the attitudes of someone and you actually believe that they will harm you or people you love or things you care about.

And maybe that is why I have struggled so much with this text this week.

Because there are bigger issues out there in the world than simply accepting or encouraging the ministry of someone who sets up communion a different way that I do.

I think our division is so intense because we believe there are issues of life and death, holiness and faithfulness, justice and covenant, on the line as a result of the direction we take… from either side.

But I wonder if what Jesus is really calling us to in this passage is a different way of engaging those battles.

What if instead of seeing those on the other side of the aisle or the other side of the church or in another part of this world as enemies, we saw them first as allies.

Jesus says that you demonstrate you are on his side by giving others a cup of water, giving the hungry food, clothing the naked, comforting the mourning.

Not by destroying those with whom you disagree.

If we continue just a bit farther in this chapter, Jesus talks about how if your hand or foot or eye causes you to stumble, cut it off. And then he reminds us that everyone will go through a refining fire sooner or later… and we need to consider how our actions demonstrate our faithfulness.

I think Jesus is calling us to get busy doing good, to worry about our own actions and our own failings, and to let God sort out the rest.

I got to thinking about my friend, Doug, as I thought about this work.

Doug was a Missouri Synod Lutheran pastor in the community that I first served in Marengo.

While we are both Christian, our two traditions have very different understandings of communion, ordination, and the place of women in the church.

The very first time I met Doug, I admit I had a lot of anxiety.

This was a person whose faith taught him that I couldn’t and shouldn’t be a pastor.

Everything in my being was preparing for an argument or to figure out a way to defend myself and my personhood. I had already drawn lines in the sand. I had already thought of him as a potential enemy.

Do you know what Doug wanted to talk about?

He wanted to ask if I would be willing to join him and some other pastors for breakfast every Wednesday morning to talk about the lectionary.

He didn’t see my as an opponent or someone he had to convince, but as an ally, a colleague, a friend.

He was offering me a cup of water…. Or coffee in this instance, in the name of Christ.

He was doing ministry in Jesus’ name.

And he recognized that I was doing the same.

We shared breakfast every Wednesday morning for four years.

And when we are invited to this table, we are called to set aside our weapons and our armor and to see people we believed to be enemies as brothers and sisters.

We will not agree.

We will not do things the same.

We might even believe that the actions of another person might harm our witness or people we love and care about.

But if we engage one another in love…

If we greet them in the name of Christ…

If we offer them a cup of water…

If we open ourselves to allow them to do the same for us…

Then at the very least we are preserving that place in our own souls that dies a little bit every time we consider someone to be our enemy.

Once we allow someone to sit with us at the table and break bread and share a meal, we discover that there are new ways to have a conversation about our differences.

We find there are good things that we can do together in Christ’s name.

And we have a chance to build the kind of trust and relationship that will allow us to truly hold one another accountable for our actions. We will finally have the authority and respect in one another’s life to call out actions that are done in the name of Christ that harms the body. And we can do so in love, with compassion, trusting and knowing that we are on the same team and that if our sister or brother is calling us to account it is because they want what is best for not only our own soul, but for the church and the world that we share.

So are you able to invite someone you disagree with to the table?

Are you able to point out the good things they do in Christ’s name?

Are you able to encourage them and love them so that one day you can both hold one another accountable?

May it be so.

The Spirit of Surrender

Posted on August 13, 2017Leave a comment

A little bit later in the service today, we will be receiving a new member of this Body of Christ.
And we will ask Tom some questions… questions that all of us were asked when we joined this church, questions that our parents and sponsors were asked when we were baptized.
Do we accept the freedom and power God gives us to resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves?
Do we put our whole trust in God’s grace and promise to serve him as our Lord in union with the church Christ has opened to people of all ages, nations, and races?

In light of those promises, I want to invite Pastor Todd to read a statement that Bishop Laurie has invited all churches in Iowa to share this morning:

Many of you have heard about the violence that took place in Charlottesville, Virginia, earlier today. White nationalist and other right-wing groups had scheduled a “Unite the Right” rally to protest the removal of Confederate symbols in the city, including a statue of Robert E. Lee. This afternoon a man drove his car into a crowd of counter-protesters, killing one person and injuring nineteen others. Two others have died. Self-proclaimed Neo-Nazi and hate groups were very open in their intentions to provoke violence, and Virginia’s Governor declared a state of emergency.

The United Methodist Church condemns the evil, hatred, and bigotry that led to this violence, and we ask you to pray for those who have been injured and the families of those who have been killed. We also ask you to pray for the restoration of order and peace for the community of Charlottesville.

At this tragic time, may each one of us renew our commitment by our words and actions to create a world where all people live out the words in this prayer of Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
Goodness is stronger than evil;
Love is stronger than hate;
Light is stronger than darkness;
Life is stronger than death;
Victory is ours through Him who loves us.

In today’s scripture from the book of Acts, we find a scene from the early Christian community.
In many ways, those early followers of Christ were trying to create that world in which their whole lives exemplified the teachings of Jesus. In the chapters before this, twice we hear tales of how the believers sold everything they had and made sure there were no needs in their community.
Twice, we have been told of their love and faithfulness and how everyone who joined this community of Christ was full of prayer and devotion and the church was growing exponentially every day.
They were standing up for what was right, willing to die for their beliefs, and always sought to share the love, grace, and mercy of God with one another.

But, living in community is not easy… in fact, to truly commit to living with one another is dangerous.
A community that truly cares for the needs of others is a community where people can share their needs without being embarrassed with them.
A community that heals the sick is a community where people are not afraid to speak the truth about their own disease.
A community that cares for the widows and the orphans and the oppressed is a community where people sacrificially put their own lives on the line for the lives of others.
A community that offers grace and mercy is also a community that speaks the truth and names evil and sin in the world when they see it.

And I imagine that many of us in this room today would hesitate and pull back from that type of life, because there are great risks involved in being vulnerable, open, honest, and accountable to a community.
We might have to take off our fake plastered on smiles and tell the truth about the problems in our lives.
We are afraid of our own tears, afraid of our own weakness, afraid that the community around us will turn their backs if they really knew what was going on.
We are afraid of what those outside the church might think if we took a stand for something that we truly believed in.

In Acts chapter 5, we find the story of this couple who just couldn’t surrender it all to God.
They had seen the acts of sacrificial love and were on the fringes of this community who shared everything in common without worrying about what belonged to whom. And perhaps they were inspired by a man named Barnabas who sold a plot of land and laid the proceeds at the feet of the disciples.
Immediately following his sacrificial act, Ananias and Sapphira decide to do the same… sort of.
They, too, sell a plot of land and bring the proceeds from the sale to the disciples… except they lie about how much they sold it for and keep some of it back for themselves.

In the midst of a community where all are of one heart and mind…
in the midst of a community where everyone cares for everyone else and no one has need…
in the midst of a community – united by the Holy Spirit – where no one says “that’s mine, you can’t have it…”
… Ananias and Sapphira are looking out for themselves.
They essentially embezzle money from the sale and hide it for themselves. In doing so, they reject the community, reject the Holy Spirit, and seek to provide for their own welfare.
Ananias and Sapphira were telling the church – it’s nice what ya’ll are doing, and we want to help, but we’re not going to become beholden to you.
We’re going to stand over here on the sidelines and get praise for our giving but we sure as hell are not going to let you take care of us.
We can take care of ourselves just fine, thank you very much.

What they fail to understand is that the Body of Christ asks every person, every member, to fully participate.
No one is more important than another.
An eye can’t see without a brain to process the information.
A hand can’t reach out to help without an arm to support and extend.
A stomach is pretty worthless without a mouth to bring it food.
For this Body of Christ to work, for it to witness to the world, it asks us each to play our part and to do so with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength.
We can’t hold back.
And we have to allow others to do their part.

In the last question we will ask Tom as he professes his faith, we invite him to confess Jesus Christ as his Savior, to put his WHOLE trust in his grace, and to serve him as his Lord, in union with the church which Christ has opened to people of all ages, nations, and races.

The reason that we, as Christians, as baptized members of the United Methodist Church, have to look out on the actions of white nationalists and Christian hate groups and denounce their words and actions as sinful is precisely because they go against everything we proclaim in that profession of faith.
As Bishop Trimble wrote, “naming hate, injustice, and the sin of “-ism” is the only way for us to tackle the forces that would divide us and that would have any of us believe that there is less opportunity to reach our highest God-given potential because of one group of people or another.”

I used to think that the greatest sin of Ananias and Sapphira was the fact that they lied to God and the community about how much money they had sold their land for.
But the more I put this story into the context of this community of believers who relied upon a spirit of trust and vulnerability and risk in order to be united, I realized that their sin wasn’t so much that they lied, or stole the money, but that they believed they could follow God without relying upon the rest of the community.
They thought they were better than everyone else.
They thought they had the right to stand apart.
They were not just clinging to their money… they were clinging to their ideology and trying to carve out a space in their life where God and God’s people couldn’t exist.
And in the process, they were denying others the opportunity to reach their “God-given potential.”

We are asked to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength.
We are to become “living sacrifices.”
Jesus Christ died for us and he wants our whole selves in return.

And here come two people who want to be a part of the community and want to walk with Jesus, but who don’t want to dive all the way in.
They pretend that they do – they want the prestige, they want to be a part of this awesome new movement, but they just are not ready to commit ALL THE WAY.
And you know what is really sad – they didn’t have to. They could simply have said that. They could have been up front with Peter and said “Hey, we want to support the church and see what you guys are doing and maybe someday we’ll be at the point where we can do what Barnabas has done and really place ourselves in community.”
Peter even reminds Ananias that the land was his to do with as he pleased and he didn’t have to sell it and he didn’t have to give it to the church…
but when they did so, and when they lied and pretended to really surrender themselves, when they hid who they were, they were actually putting the whole community in danger.
They were acting directly against the Holy Spirit and the unity it brought to the church.
In their act of holding back their resources, of refusing to fully give in to the power of God, in their lack of surrender of their ideologies and power, Ananias and Sapphira let a Spirit of Discord into the body of Christ.
They said with their actions, “it’s okay God, I’ll take care of myself.”
And God’s response… well – this is the difficult part of the story.
First, Ananias and the Sapphira fall dead.
I find this so troubling because I sometimes hold back, too.
We don’t always let God have our hearts and minds and soul.
We are timid with our faith.
We surrender some… but not all.
This passage makes me uncomfortable, because I realize that I’m really no different than Ananias and Sapphira… what on earth prevents God for striking me dead, right here and right now for holding back, myself?
What we learn in the story of Ananias and Sapphira is that we still worship a holy, awesome, and fearful Lord.
In a world full of grace, we do not simply have a free pass to act however we want.
God is still righteous and just and has every right to punish sinners by death or other means.

We are tempted to simply believe that grace covers all and to run through this life as if our actions do not matter.
We are tempted to rest in the love of God and not consider what the consequences of our sin might be.
And, we are tempted to sit back and not speak out when we see the words and actions and beliefs of others in our community or neighborhood or world… we are tempted to not hold one another accountable for the sin and evil that is perpetuated out of fear.
And yet the consequences of sin in the world is real.
Three people died yesterday… communities and families can be destroyed… when we allow sin to run rampant in this world than we have essentially turned our back on God.
Christ demands all and we give some.
We hold back and don’t fully let the Holy Spirit build up this Body of Christ.
We refuse to surrender and therefore we deny the power of the Holy Spirit to transform our hearts, this church, and the world around us.
We might not be struck dead here in this place at this moment, but what do we stop from growing and living and thriving by our blatant denial of the Holy Spirit?
This path of Christian faith is not easy.
While the book of Acts has begun with all sorts of joyous accounts of healing and transformation and triumph over the powers of evil, these passages remind us that discipleship is hard.
It is a warning to those who are considering this faith: think twice.
Think about the price you are being called to pay.
Think about what is being demanded of you.
But also think about the joy and the possibility and the abundant life that awaits if you are willing to let go of what you think and what you believe you deserve in order to embrace what God knows you need.
Are you willing to let go?
Are you willing to dive in?
Are you willing to let the Holy Spirit transform us into the body of Christ?

The Spirit of Goodness

Posted on July 30, 2017Leave a comment

We’ve heard of goody-two-shoes…
Good riddance…
Goodness gracious great balls of fire…
Goodbye…
Things can taste good, we like to read good books and tell good stories.
We tell our children to be good and to get good grades.

But what does it really mean to be good?

The Random House dictionary has 41 different definitions for the word… and that’s just the adjectives.
But in general, I think we usually say that something is good if it fulfills our expectations – if it does what it is supposed to – and if we get some kind of benefit from it.

Take the cookies we just gave the children, for example. If they had taken a bite of the cookie and it was old or dried out… they wouldn’t be so good. They wouldn’t have been all that they were made up to be.
In the same way, we are good when we fulfill the expectations of ourselves and others and if we benefit others as we do so.

I keep using the word benefit, and that is because there are lots of things that fulfill their purpose that we would never call good.
An example – those cookies might taste good – but for all of you adults who didn’t get to eat them, since we didn’t have enough to share, they are only good for our children.
Or, think about what makes a good chef’s knife.
It is sharp, it cuts the way it is designed to, and we can use it to prepare food and eventually be fed. We benefit from the design and use of a good chef’s knife.
But, in the hands of someone unskilled, like a child, the knife becomes dangerous and what we thought was good could harm them.
In the hands of someone who is angry or revengeful – the very thing that we called good only a moment ago, can turn into a weapon.
It still has the same qualities that fulfilled its purpose… only it is being used to harm instead of help.

So… to be good, something or someone must fulfill the expectations and be a benefit.

Throughout the scriptures – we hear stories of men and women who were good:
Noah was a good man and so his family was saved from the flood.
Lot was a good man and so his family was rescued from the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Even Rahab the prostitute was good. She fulfilled the expectations God had of her by taking in the spies from Israel, benefitting the people of God, and because she did so, her family was saved in the battle of Jericho.

Culturally, morally, we might wonder how could such a person be considered “good.”
Well, God has a tendency to upend our assumptions about a person’s worth or value. All throughout the scriptures, God chooses unlikely people to accomplish God’s will.

Throughout the scriptures, there are also people that are not good.
They didn’t do what was expected of them.
They lived not to benefit others, but only themselves.
And It is to such people as these that the prophets were sent.
Prophets like Samuel, Elijah and Elisha, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Habakkuk, Hosea… and our prophet for this morning: Nathan.
Today’s story is one of paradox.

You see, David was a man after God’s own heart.
We always think back on all of the good things that he did – his trust in God, his loyalty to Saul, his music, and his love…
But in some ways, David was a kind of bad dude.
As we heard this morning in our scripture, David breaks two commandments all in a week’s time.

First, he sleeps with another man’s wife. Bathsheba was married to one of his soldier’s Uriah and David saw her from afar and decided that he wanted her. Her husband was away at war, and so David took what he wanted.

Then, to cover up the fact this terrible thing he has done, David breaks another commandment. He has Uriah killed out on the battlefield.

Neither of these are good things. His actions go against God’s expectations for David and they harm both Uriah and Bathsheba and they mar his moral leadership, harming the entire nation.

Nathan’s job here is simple. He is called, he is expected, to bring God’s judgment upon David for these acts.
So this morning, we are going to look at how the goodness of Nathan shines through and how WE might be called to be good in the fact of another person’s wrongdoing.

First, Nathan helped the truth to come to light.

In Ephesians 5 we hear that God’s children should live as children of light and that “the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth.”
With the Holy Spirit living inside of us, we are expected to allow the truth to be seen in the world.

Grace and mercy, forgiveness and love are all good and holy things, but they only have meaning in relation to the truth of what has gone wrong.

When I attended the General Conference in Tampa, Florida five years ago, we spent one evening participating in a service of truth-telling about how United Methodists and our predecessors had harmed Indigenous Peoples across the world. As people of faith and in the name of Jesus Christ, we perpetuated crimes against our brothers and sisters. We took land, forced our values upon others, and destroyed cultures. We actively resisted peace processes and in some cases were the instigators of violence and bloodshed. That night, we heard stories about the role that Methodists had played in the Trail of Tears, and in the slaughter of peoples in Philippines, Africa, and Norway.

The act of betrayal that hit closes to home was that of the Sand Creek Massacre. A Methodist preacher, U.S. Army Col. John Chivington, ordered the attack on an encampment of Cheyenne and Arapaho. These native peoples had come to that site to fulfill their side of a recent peace treaty that had been made with the U.S. Government. While their men were away hunting, Chivington attacked the camp, killing mostly women and children.
It was hard to hear. It was hard to re-live. It was hard to dream that the damage could ever be reversed and that wounds could ever be healed.

And that night, one of the things our leadership focused on was that this night was not the full act of reconciliation. That night was only the first step. Repentance has to begin with understanding what we have done.
Nathan did not ignore or shy away from the wrongs and the harm that David had perpetrated. Rather, he made sure that the truth came to light and that David knew that he had done wrong.

Second, Nathan provided a way for David to turn away from his harm towards good.

The prophet was fully aware of David’s sin.
Had he followed the letter of the law, the right thing to do as soon as David confessed would be to have him stoned. The law was clear that the punishment for adultery and murder were death.
But Nathan shows us that goodness goes beyond simple righteousness. It is far more simply pointing out the wrongs in others.
Nathan spoke the truth about David’s sin, but his first instinct is not to carry out a sentence, but to wait for a response from David.
As people of faith, too often we are quick to bring judgment and condemnation upon others. We are good at bringing unrighteousness to light. We demand that justice be carried out swiftly through every possible means available.

What we aren’t good at is leading people into repentance.
When righteousness is only about the letter of the law, judgment can become a weapon, leading us to harm people or communities.
But by telling David a story, Nathan creates an opportunity for David to confess, to repent, and to choose to live a different life.
In the years that have followed that night at General Conference, United Methodists in various parts of the world have been working to listen and to repent of the various ways we have harmed indigenous peoples. One group in particular was formed to learn more about the tragedy at Sand Creek and to explore whether or not healing could be possible.
Four years later in Portland, a member of the Northern Cheyenne, William Walks Along, shared that although that date “can never be erased from the memory of our people… together let us discover the treasurers we can learn from hardships and from the deeds and misdeeds of our fellow human beings.”

He was extending a hand of friendship to the United Methodist Church and the willingness of fellow descendents of those victims to reconcile and move forward together.

Third, Nathan blessed David because of his repentance.

Not only did the prophet bring the truth to the light, not only did he invite David into a spirit of repentance, but Nathan also gave him the encouragement he needed to faithfully follow God in the future.

Nathan did what was needed to set David back on the right path… what was needed to build him up so that he could once again fulfill God’s expectations for him and live to benefit the children of Israel.
That does not mean that there were no consequences of his actions…. But Nathan reminded David that there was also room for God’s grace and mercy to flow back into his life.

That is a reminder that we all need.
As Christians, we have all have fallen short of the glory of God.
That is the plain and simple truth.
Every single one of us have places in our lives where we need to repent, where we need to turn around and seek God’s forgiveness.
On our own, we are unrighteous and our hearts seek our own benefit and expectations instead of God’s.
And yet, through the grace of Jesus Christ, we are made righteous.
I believe the basis of righteousness is fact that God sets us right.
God forgives us.
God leads us on the right paths.
It has nothing to do with how many answers we get right or how many good deeds we do.
It has everything to do with God and the divine goodness that exceeds every expectation and whose great love seeks only our benefit.
And when we are made righteous, when we are made good, we are meant to let that goodness become contagious. God’s grace and mercy is not ours alone… it is meant to be shared.

Friends, you are armed with a powerful tool that can be used for good or for harm in this world.
The truth of God, the reality of God’s expectations in our lives is now in your hands. And you are invited to let that truth to be know, but you are also invited to share it in a way that brings blessing and benefit to all.

The Side of the Road

Posted on November 20, 2013Leave a comment

I had an experience last week that deeply shook me.

My dad asked me to come help him move farm equipment as he moved from one set of fields to another for harvest. In essence, I was a chauffeur and would follow the tractor or combine and then take him back to the farm to pick up another.

As we came around a corner on the quiet gravel road, we discovered a person lying on the edge of the road in the ditch.

It all happened so fast. We stopped the car and leapt out and into action. 911 was dialed. We assisted the person the best we could – the wind whipping around us, the cold seeping in, the reality that we really had no unique skills to care for someone in a medical emergency causing anxiety and yet we were there and help was on its way.

After the emergency responders arrived and the statements had been made, and we breathed a little bit deeper, my dad and I made our way back to my car… which I then discovered was still running. We had been so quick to rush into helping, I forgot to turn off the car.

I remember later that day, after I had time to process what had happened, feeling incredibly angry. Someone had mentioned in passing the idea of being a “Good Samaritan” and all I could think about was how I didn’t have a choice. Of course we were going to stop. Anyone who could have passed by and kept going… well, that’s where the anger came in. Having experienced a person in need on the side of the road, I cannot understand how a pastor or religious leader could have crossed to the other side and not stopped to help.

Luke 10: 25 A legal expert stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to gain eternal life?”

26 Jesus replied, “What is written in the Law? How do you interpret it?”

27 He responded, “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your being, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.”[a]

28 Jesus said to him, “You have answered correctly. Do this and you will live.”

29 But the legal expert wanted to prove that he was right, so he said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

30 Jesus replied, “A man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho. He encountered thieves, who stripped him naked, beat him up, and left him near death. 31 Now it just so happened that a priest was also going down the same road. When he saw the injured man, he crossed over to the other side of the road and went on his way. 32 Likewise, a Levite came by that spot, saw the injured man, and crossed over to the other side of the road and went on his way. 33 A Samaritan, who was on a journey, came to where the man was. But when he saw him, he was moved with compassion.34 The Samaritan went to him and bandaged his wounds, tending them with oil and wine. Then he placed the wounded man on his own donkey, took him to an inn, and took care of him. 35 The next day, he took two full days’ worth of wages and gave them to the innkeeper. He said, ‘Take care of him, and when I return, I will pay you back for any additional costs.’ 36 What do you think? Which one of these three was a neighbor to the man who encountered thieves?”

37 Then the legal expert said, “The one who demonstrated mercy toward him.”

Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”

Part of me wants to take that priest and Levite by the shoulders and look straight into their eyes and demand to know why on earth they refused to stop. The scripture doesn’t tell us. We make plenty of excuses for them… they were on their way to worship, they were maintaining ritual purity, the law prevented them from helping. But to see a person dying on the side of the road and to NOT stop… There is no excuse.

Lately, instead of a person in need on the side of the road, I’ve been witnessing a church that is not quite sure what part of the road we are on. In the midst of the work of ministry and church we are also distracted and focused on statements and trials regarding pastors who performed same-sex marriage ceremonies.

As I read the testimony of Tim, whose father, Frank, was found guilty this week for officiating his wedding, I couldn’t help but think about the injured man on the side of the road. Too often, the church has played the roles of the thieves in this story – battering and bruising our LGBT brothers and sisters by telling them they have no place in the church and leaving them on the side of the road… without hope, grace, or mercy.

I’ve listened to voices on all side of the arguments about homosexuality and the United Methodist Church and I try to be someone who does more listening than talking. I try to hear the good and find common ground. And the deep nugget of difference lies in the fact that one side believes that to be an LGBT person is to be who God has created them to be and the other side believes that six verses of scripture demonstrate that the actions of LGBT persons are sinful and therefore incompatible with Christian faith. One side is talking about conscious, willful decisions to sin that requires us as people of faith to hold one another accountable… but the other side is talking about the core of a person’s identity that includes gender and sexual orientation and ethnicity. Because it appears as if we are talking about two very different things the conversation and conferencing is immensely difficult. We are all people of faith but right now we are stuck.

I know the deep faithfulness of persons who are trying to uphold the ideals of Christian teaching and I do believe we need to hold one another accountable in love and grace for our sins. But today, I have to speak from the experiences in my life and prayerful nights and studying of scripture and admit I am faithfully standing on the other side of the argument. I believe in many of those passages we are taking the words of God out of context; the scripture is actually talking about pedarasty or ritual sex and not LGBT relationships. In others, the passages are simply wrong for our time; just as we have come to understand scriptures on slavery and the prohibition of female pastors and divorce differently in a different time, through the Holy Spirit, God is leading us to new understandings of what it means to be faithful people today. My friends and family who are gay and lesbian and bi and trans do not choose their reality. They are some of the most faithful and compassionate and God-fearing people I know. And as they work out their own salvation with fear and trembling and experience attacks that shoot to the very core of their identity… it does harm. Tim Schaefer is simply one voice among many who have been turned away at one point or another and who felt like his very existence was “incompatible.”

Part of who I was, my sexual orientation, was broken and evil, according to them. I felt incredible shame.

Every night I prayed, begging God to make me normal. I pleaded with God to fix me. Many nights I cried myself to sleep. I was in the 10th grade when I came to the realization that my attraction to men was not going to change. I began to think that the only way to avoid bringing shame to my family and community was to take my own life.

But thank God, Tim’s family supported him. Thank God there are churches who surround LGBT brothers and sisters (and all people) with love and compassion. Who allow God to speak through them. Who baptize their children and who hold their hands as they watch loved ones pass. Who serve them communion and welcome them into the church and allow the gifts God has blessed them with to bear fruit in the kingdom of God. Thank God there are people who have stopped on the side of the road to be engaged in acts of ministry and care and love.

These past few weeks, the core of what we are debating in official circles and in church trials is whether we are going to be a church that stops by the side of the road to do the work of Jesus… the work of the gospel and the core of the Law… or if we are going to hold fast to tradition and rules and step over to the other side of that road and keep going. If we are going to focus on “upholding the Book of Discipline in its entirety” or if we are going to get about the ministry of Jesus in his world.

Do you know what I hear in Luke 10? That we are called to go out into a harvest that is “bigger than you can imagine.” That we are to locate ourselves among the people God has led us to – healing the sick and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom. That we are to love and serve God with all of our heart, being, strength and mind. That we are to love our neighbors as ourselves. That the law demands mercy. That it is more important to sit at the feet of Jesus than to do the upkeep of the house. I firmly believe these things we can all agree on – no matter what side of this particular division… and that is what gives me hope.

I would be lying if I didn’t say I’m traditionally a rule follower. I love our church. I love our connection. I love our accountability. I even love our Discipline. But I have been called to love and serve God and God’s people and sometimes I just want to weep at how we set up barriers to the kingdom.

Christ have mercy, for the times we have been so distracted by rearranging the chairs that we forgot you were among us.

Lord have mercy, for costly trials that distract all of us from the work of saving the lost and hurting in our very midst.

Christ have mercy, for the times we have focused on following the letter of the law and didn’t help you lying on the side of the road.

what you may not realize about the loss of guaranteed appointment #gc2012

Posted on May 4, 201215 Comments

Tonight, my heart was stilled from its racing on the guaranteed appointment issue.

I have felt the both/and of a desire for a clear, mission process for appointments AND the deep desire to protect my brothers and sisters who might unfairly be discriminated against in the process where homophobia, sexism, and racism still exist. I was not of one heart on the issue. When asked how I would have voted on the floor had I been seated, I honestly could not answer… perhaps I would have abstained.

But tonight, a colleague of mine – Sean McRoberts – and I dove deep into the legislation to figure out what the actual implications are.

1) this is not a simple power given to the bishop or cabinet to dismiss you to ministry… there are checks and balances all throughout the process. According to the legislation we passed and the BoD, either a lack of missional appointment placement OR an ineffective pastor who is not appointed has to be approved by the Board of Ordained Ministry AND the clergy session. Someone who recieves the status of “transitional leave” must be voted on by the order and so as clergy, if we feel uncomfortable with this process, we need to remember that we have the ability to vote and support one another if the process/boom/cabinet is acting discriminatorily…

2) the appointive cabinet, Board of Ordained Ministry, and Clergy Session all have to agree for a person to move to transitional leave (it is a status change). Transitional leave has a two year maximum according to the discipline. A person cannot simply be returned to transitional leave again and again. If a person is being transitioned out of ministry due to ineffectiveness, that two years gives time for a process of healing, discernment, counseling, and new calling to occur. In Iowa, we currently have a three year process to counsel and support clergy who are ineffective so that they can either grow or discern a new calling.

3) some important work was done in the legislative committee. They added a requirement for accountability that says statistical reporting on the people put on transitional leave and/or appointed to a less than full time position (age, gender, race) has to be sent to the executive committee of the BoOM and the conference and jurisdictional committee on the episcopacy. Committee on Episcopacy should then include those statistics in the annual evaluation of the bishop. (we also approved at this general conference a switch from bi-annual to annual episcopal review).

Prior to this GC, bishops were not evaluated on their appointment making activities, only on the other areas of their ministry. If there were complaints, we could use administrative process to require remedial action and/or bring charges. This is still the case, only this way we have a process of statistical information to help evaluate if their are patterns, intentional or unintentional, that exclude persons from the table. The process already is in place for helping ineffective or discriminatory bishops transition out of ministry (we just never use it!)

4) there is an important addition, also from the legislative committee, that calls for a group of four laity, two clergy, a district superintendent and the bishop of the annual conference to determine annually criteria for missional appointment making. These criteria are then to be used by the cabinet in their process of discernment. This adds the voice of clergy and laity into the process.

So… with these four clarifications/implications… what do you think?

putting your money where your mouth is… even if it hurts

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Recently there has been a call on some of the social media outlets I follow… a call to take money out of the big banks.

As a part of the larger “occupy”movement, people are being asked to put their money where their mouth is… literally… and close their accounts with the the big guys on Wall Street and to move that money to local banks and community credit unions. A link to the pledge can be found here: http://www.rebuildthedream.com/move-your-money/

I like this idea. I appreciate local businesses. I like the accountability that comes when you are in personal contact with the people who take care of your money. I like that it is more than just feet on the ground complaining about things they don’t like, but people willing to make changes in their personal lives based upon the message they are preaching.

I don’t like what doing this would do to my personal credit rating.
When the pledge first crossed my desk, I immediately went and started searching for information on the statewide United Methodist supported credit union. I looked at loan rates and credit card rates and started doing the math to see what kind of a personal financial impact it would have if I closed my accounts with the “big banks” and moved my debt and my checking account somewhere more local.

My Bank of America credit line has been around for over 11 years. As a freshamn in college, I caved to the credit card pressure… but it was a “Working Assets” card – and they donated 1% every year to non-profits that you get to choose. At the time, I justified my decision, thinking it was the “conscientious choice”… if I was going to have a credit card, that’s the one I wanted. But they were bought out by the big guys and I’ve been with BoA ever since. Because I have been with them for a while, and pay my bills faithfully, it is also my largest line of credit.

The only line of credit I have with Citigroup is fairly new… and I opened the card to transfer some balances with no interest so that I could work on paying off debt from college/seminary/long-distance-relationship-plane-tickets…

To close the first account and to open a new one would drastically reduce both my average age of open credit lines and my open card utilization percentage… thereby significantly affecting my credit score (especially since I have that newer line of credit from only a year ago).

To transfer balances would involve fees and especially with the Citigroup account, I still have another year of no interest and would rather spend that time paying off that little amount, rather than incurring another fee and having to pay interest.

Argh…

Sometimes, doing something that is seems right, hurts. Taking a stand involves personal cost. Finding the courage to literally put our money where our mouth is… priceless.

(sorry, I couldn’t resist).

But we should spend time wrestling with financial questions.

Where is my money invested?
Who benefits from my money/debt?
What kind of transformative change does the power of a single dollar have?

Does my bank align with my values?

What kind of damage does debt do to my spiritual life?

What does your spending say about your spiritual life?
All sorts of thoughts are rolling around in my head, all as a result of a little tweet.

Knowledge and knowledge

Posted on July 18, 2011Leave a comment

Many have been discussing lately social media monitoring of clergy and candidates/ordinands. A post by sheyduck on Everyday Theology got me thinking about my one hesitancy regarding the issue.As I posted there…

There is a tendency of some who do not understand social media, to use it as an evaluation method, rather than understanding online discussions as works in progress. 20 years ago if you were to publish something, it was final and complete and authoritative… Now, you push a button and your best understanding of something at a particular moment is out there… But it can be edited and critiqued and the knowledge can grow in comments and follow-ups. It’s a different way of thinking about what is true, and I worry that some who monitor ordinands conversations won’t understand that.

Earl Creps described generational differences in knowledge in his book, Reverse Mentoring: How Young Leaders Can Transform the Church and Why We Should Let Them. I heard him talk about the book to a small group at University of Northern Iowa’s Wesley Foundation.

One of the things that struck me most was an analogy he used regarding knowledge.

He described folks his parents age (60+) who saw Knowledge as something important, rare and treasured. It was kept inside of beautiful buildings that you had to have special passes to access, aka, libraries.

People in his own generation (40-60) started to have access in much more profound ways. At the library, a whole world of microfilm was available, the internet started making its way in and so the scope of Knowledge expanded. Tools helped you to access what you needed.

But younger generations see knowledge in a completely different way. Knowledge itself has become a tool. There is so much knowledge, and all of it at your fingertips, that it is almost a worthless, commodity. Instead, its about using the hacking the system, using the knowledge for other things like community, status, work, etc. It is chopped up into bits and bytes and reassembled in a thousand different ways on blogs and forums.

I understand that Knowledge isn’t one right answer out there, but the way that knowledge changes and grows and expands through conversation, exploration, experience, revelation, and any number of other means. That means my answers will never be complete. That means I will probably have more questions than answers. That means what I write or say or do might never end up in a vault of information we call a library.

And that means that there will be doubt, waffling, changing stories, confessions, errors, and growth shown on these pages… And similar pages from my peers.

My only fear is that someone “monitoring” our interactions will mistake our quest for knowledge through these forums as not living up to the standards of truth from another generation…