Surrounded #gc2019

I’ve been here in St. Louis for two days now because of some committee responsibilities and it is hard to imagine that we are here and ready to get started. We have been talking about this special called conference for a long time. And a big part of me really just wants to be on the other side. To know what the answer will be. To know what everyone needs to do next.

But between now and then, there is an awful lot to do.

There will be disagreements.
There will be harmful words.
There will be tears and laughter.
There will be frustration.
There will be moments we get mired down in the minutiae of Robert’s Rules instead of the movement of the Holy Spirit.

But I also know and am surrounded with glimpses of holiness and resurrection and hope.

I’ve shared meals and broken bread with colleagues from across the world as we talk about what we see and experience in our local churches and the hopes we have there.  I hear all around me the excitement of disciple-making and the way people have been pushed into having deeper conversations and engagement with scripture because of this work.  We all know that the church will be forever changed by whatever happens… and we know that God is doing and will continue to do amazing things in our communities and that work does not stop because the institution makes a decision.  We are surrounded by fields of ministry, just waiting to be harvested.

I’ve stopped and talked with a few homeless guys on the streets.  It’s not as cold as it is back in Iowa, but the air is still frigid.  As I think about our local church work with Joppa, I’ve been ever more aware of these neighbors among us who so often are disregarded and avoided.  So I’m pushing myself to stop and listen and look these folks in the eyes.  It was good to be able to share my leftover pizza with Ben and to talk about the day with Clint.  We are surrounded by people who long to be seen and to know that God loves them… whether they are homeless, or speak another language, or because of their gender identity or sexual orientation.

I’ve spent more time than I should on my phone… but facebook and twitter and email has been filled with an outpouring of love and support and encouragement.  I’ve read posts that really are more like love letters to their denomination – urging us to be the best we can be and reminding us of who we are.  I’ve read posts from colleagues from other denominations who just want to let us know that they are in prayer for us.  Even some of my fellow gym members have reached out with encouragement and prayers, even though we haven’t ever talked about more than deadlifts and insane cardio.  I’ve had people reach out to ask how they can offer support from afar and even had a care package show up in my hotel room from our fledgling, ecumenical “millennial minister” group in Des Moines. We are surrounded by people who are praying with us and who will walk with us long after this conference is over.

And I’m amazed at how quickly relationships form and friendships that sustain time and distance are born.  I went up in the St. Louis Arch this morning with members of my Committee on Reference – this quiet little committee that had such important work to do this year.  We bonded in a unique way over those days and it was wonderful to have some fun together.  But I also have had time to visit and greet and hug people that I served with at General Conference in 2016, or the North Central Jurisdictional Committee on the Episcopacy, or Global Ministries,  and as we looked across the room we saw those familiar faces and had to reach out.  I even chatted for a few minutes with a colleague from Iowa with whom I disagree about desired outcomes from this weekend and our desire to remain friends no matter what happens… but what it has reminded me is that we are surrounded by love and compassion and grace, even if/when we aren’t sure we agree about who and what the church should be about.

GC2019: Committee On Reference

This past weekend, I was part of the meeting of the Committee on Reference for the General Conference.

Typically, our work focuses on assigning (or referring) petitions and legislation to various committees of the General Conference. But we were tasked with a new role in light of this special called General Conference.

As Paragraph 14 of our Constitution states:  “the purpose of such a special session shall be stated in the call, and only such business shall be transacted as is in harmony with the purpose stated in such call unless the General Conference by a two-thirds vote shall determine that other business may be transacted.”

When our Bishops issued the initial call, it was “limited to receiving and acting upon a report from the Council of Bishops based on the recommendations of the Commission on a Way Forward.”  And so, they asked our Judicial Council (basically our Supreme Court) – does that mean that we will ONLY discuss the report… or can others submit legislation, too?

The Judicial Council ruled that “petitions which are in harmony with any business which may be proposed in the Bishops’ Report are allowed.”  And it would be up to the committees of General Conference to determine this. That committee – Committee on Reference.

Since then, to help with utter clarity, the call was amended so that the report is not the Bishops’ report… but the COWF report.  So… our Committee on Reference was tasked with evaluating which, if any, of the 98 valid petitions submitted by any group or individual were “in harmony” with the business proposed in the COWF Report.

You can read the official report of our actions here and here.

Here are some of my general take-aways from our gathering. Our committee represents every central conference and every jurisdiction. We worked thoughtfully, carefully, and with a great spirit of openness. Every person set aside their own preferences to create criteria we thought were in line with the call for the conference. Knowing it was an entirely subjective process, I think the clarity of our criteria and the consensus around those criteria was powerful.
It was clear early on that anything having to do with bishops was seen as out of harmony… I think owing to the reality that globally we have very different understandings of the episcopacy. While the accountability piece is important for traditionalists, there was also a strong sense that those petitions were about changing the episcopacy and therefore not related to what we are there to do.

There were other petitions that would also have changed dynamics around the General Conference’s ability to make changes or create charges, or how we legislate. Those were also out of harmony for our more limited call. Same with a petition that would have impacted the judicial council.

What remains are petitions that are seen to directly relate to the inclusion or exclusion of LGBT persons (which is language that came out of the COWF as they narrowed their focus from human sexuality more broadly)… AND/OR petitions that we believe were designed to modify, correct, perfect the three COWF plans. What remains are plans that could essentially be seen as amendments or additions to the three plans.

We were not willing to entertain the possibility that dissolution was even remotely “in harmony” with the call of our special conference.

I think that is really helpful as we narrow our focus. As a delegate, I feel like we don’t have thirty plans to choose from… we have three… with a whole bunch of possible amendments to them. Even the Simple Plan or Fully Inclusive Plan could be seen as essentially amendments to the One Church Plan in that they remove the same things, but in a different way. The other more exclusive amendments to those paragraphs could be seen as amendments of the Traditionalist Plan. The “gracious exit” or “trust clause” petitions were seen as possible amendments to ANY plan – even though all of the plans didn’t include them, because one did, it was seen as something that could be valid for any/all.

THAT SAID… what our committee was NOT supposed to do was to think about the constitutionality of any petition. Some of what has been allowed through is clearly unconstitutional based upon what the Judicial Council has already ruled. It will be up to the General Conference to determine either to vote it down or to change it so that it is constitutional.

A Way Forward? Which Way?

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Text: Acts 15

The book of the Acts of the Apostles is the story of how the good news of Jesus spread from Jerusalem, through Judea and Samaria, to the ends of the earth. Along the way, the culture and traditions and scriptures of our spiritual ancestors encountered a variety of peoples and backgrounds.
When should the gospel be adapted? What was essential to maintain? Which traditions and practices should be enforced and which were merely contextual?
These were all questions being asked by the disciples and the communities they encountered along their evangelistic journeys.
Peter, in Acts 10, has a vision of the clean and unclean together and then is brought to the home of a Gentile centurion. Moved by the Holy Spirit, he baptizes the entire household… even though it was forbidden for a Jew to visit with outsiders.
In Antioch (Acts 11), Barnabas goes to minister to the Gentiles who were being converted. He is joined by Paul and together they not only convert many, but there is prediction of a famine and together the people there gather money to take to Jerusalem in response. This is not only a church of new believers, but ones who understand their connection to a larger community.
Gentiles were converted in Iconium and Lystra, but tension grew between Jews who followed Christ and those who did not. Those who rejected this new message stirred up conflict between new Gentile converts and Jewish Christians (Acts 14).
To complicate matters, other missionaries began to visit some of these places and the messages being shared about which practices must be followed as a part of the faith were different.
In particular was a very important question: Did you have to be circumcised in order to be saved by Jesus?
Now, circumcision had been an important identity marker for what it meant to be the people of God since the time of Abraham.
Jews who followed Christ did not see themselves as entering a new religion, but merely living into a new expression of that faith. Circumcision was still an important part of who they were.
Gentiles, however, were making a much larger change. Some, like the Roman centurion, were God-fearers… Gentiles who worshipped the God of the Jews but who had restrictions on what they could participate in because of their status as Gentiles. Others were pagans and were converting to a totally new faith. Circumcision would have been a significant cultural departure.

Last week, I shared with you a spectrum of theological stands that shape our church today ranging from progressive to traditional.
Imagine for a moment that this conversation was instead about circumcision.
Those on the progressive incompatibilist side might make the claim that since God is revealing a new way – no one anywhere has to be circumcised. Those on the traditional imcompatibilist side might claim – this is the same God we have always followed and everyone who wants to be saved must be circumcised. And surely there were people in the middle, who thought that Jews who wanted to be could, but Gentiles didn’t have to and so on.

Someone had to make an official decision about this so that the conflict among communities might cease. Local churches in these far flung places were confused about what was required and what wasn’t and it was hurting their ability to convert new followers to the way of Jesus.
And so the apostles and elders of the faith gathered together in Jerusalem in the year 48 to consider this question.
They heard testimony from people like Paul and Barnabas, and disciples like Peter and James made pleas. And together, the Jerusalem Council made a decision for the whole church.

In many ways, our General Conference functions every four years like the Jerusalem Council. We gather to listen and to share our stories and our witness and to make decisions that will guide the future of our entire denomination.
In February, when a special session of General Conference gathers, the decisions we make will impact not only our larger cultural witness, but also the practices and the people of local congregations like Immanuel.

As we hear this text from Acts 15, it is easy to focus on the Jerusalem Council itself… the leaders of the faith who have gathered together to make this decision.
But I admit, that in these past few weeks I’ve been thinking a whole lot more about all of the communities back in Antioch and Iconium who were waiting for a decision.
They sent off their representatives, but it would be some time before they heard a final answer. They knew that there were a variety of different directions the Council could take and so I imagine they began to prepare their hearts for a range of possibilities. Would they have to be circumcised? Would they be free to practice how they had been? Would there be other ways the Council might ask them to come into compliance with the faith?

Friends, we are those local communities waiting for a decision to be made. That decision will impact us in one way or another and so now is the time for us to begin praying and preparing ourselves for whatever might come.

Last week, I asked all of those who were here to identify where they personally fall along this spectrum of theological responses to scripture regarding LGBT+ persons. Because the impact of decisions upon OUR local community might look different from that of our neighbors.
Chart_Q1_180827This is simply a snapshot, but these are the responses from 110 of you who were in worship last Sunday morning. Nearly 60% of you identified yourselves on the progressive end, 27% of you on the traditionalist end, with about 13% of you not responding to that particular question. So I’m going to use your responses to help frame how Immanuel might be impacted by any of the particular plans in front of us.  One thing I want to highlight is that in the answers for all of the questions, no matter whether you agreed or disagreed, nearly the vast majority of you continued to say that you would stay at Immanuel.

 

The first thing I want to explore are a couple of options based on this theological spectrum of perspectives. The first one is our current reality… the status quo. If nothing passes at the special General Conference, this is the default to which we revert.

Our Book of Discipline currently prohibits both the ordination of self-avowed, practicing homosexuals and same-sex marriage, which is a traditionalist perspective. However, there are places and people who are not following those prohibitions. In more progressive areas of our denomination, sometimes this happens with no enforcement of the rules at all. In more traditionalist areas, there are often charges filed and sometimes clergy are suspended or their credentials are removed. But there is vast inconsistency.
Currently, Immanuel’s response to this has been to largely to ignore the question. If we agree or disagree with the larger denominational stance, we don’t bring it up. Within our congregation are individuals and families who are impacted by this question, but they don’t push it within the larger church. Unlike other congregations within the greater Des Moines area that have strongly identified with a progressive or traditionalist perspective and have made outreach efforts around that perspective, we don’t talk about it.
And I think this is largely because identify ourselves as a family church. And families disagree about things, but still want to gather together around the Thanksgiving table. We might have private side conversations over pie, but it isn’t going to be the thing that we focus on. So we follow the rules of the denomination, whether we agree or not.

One of the plans included in the Commission on a Way Forward Report, although not recommended by our Bishops, is the Traditionalist Plan (begins on page 67). This plan would end the confusion and inconsistency by determining once and for all that we will not ordain or marry LGBT persons within the United Methodist Church.
There are two ways that accountability and enforcement are increased.
First, all bishops, annual conferences, and members of the Board or Ordained Ministry must certify that they will uphold, enforce, and maintain The Book of Discipline related to self-avowed practicing homosexuals. Those who disagree with the Book of Discipline and cannot make such a statement have three options.
1) Not certify the statement. This will result in all funds from the UMC being withdrawn and the annual conference will no longer be allowed to use the cross and the flame.
2) Certify the statement and break the rules – automatic penalties.
3) Leave the denomination to form/join a self-governing Methodist church, aka a new denomination that might be affiliated with the UMC.

Chart_Q2_180827What would be the impact of this on a local church like Immanuel?
Well, first of all, nearly 85% of you replied that if the current stance in our Book of Disciple remains unchanged [status quo] or strengthened [increased enforcement] you would stay as a part of Immanuel. We’d have a disagreement within our church, but again, I think largely we are focused on our community together and not on the larger denominational dynamics.
One of the complicating factors of this particular plan is that as a local church, we don’t have a lot of say of what happens at the levels just above us.
The Iowa Annual Conference, for example, might decide that it either will not certify the required statement or it might form or join a self-governing Methodist church that is more progressive. If that were the case, then this local church would have the opportunity to decide if we wanted to go with the Iowa Annual Conference, or if we wanted to stay with the United Methodist Church.

Another plan that has been presented along this same theological spectrum is the Simple Plan. This plan was not part of the Commission on a Way Forward report but was submitted by the United Methodist Queer Clergy Caucus. This particular plan seeks to remove all discriminatory language around homosexuality within the Book of Discipline.
It does so by striking statements like “Ceremonies that celebrate homosexual unions shall not be conducted by our ministers and shall not be conducted in our churches.” However, it does not add any additional affirming language, nor does it add language that would increase enforcement towards those who are traditionalist. No clergy or church would be required to perform a same-gender wedding. If and when a congregation wanted to allow such weddings, they could have that conversation and make that decision.

Chart_Q3_180827 Chart_Q4_180827Based on your responses to our survey, that would be a possibility. Nearly 70% of you said that you would agree if same-sex marriages would be allowed in our sanctuary. However, I also imagine that since this congregation deeply values relationship, we wouldn’t jump into any decisions without first having some family conversations and make sure it was the appropriate choice for our church.
Very similar dynamics are at play in the question about the appointment of queer clergy to Immanuel.

So far, we have been working along this spectrum of theological perspectives. The Commission on a Way Forward wanted to break us out of those dynamics a little bit and so the next two plans I’m going to present fall within a sort of compatibilist realm, but are trying to do something a little different.

The One Church Plan (begins on page 19) is a proposal of the Commission on a Way Forward that was supported by a strong majority of our Council of Bishops. The fundamental theological statement within this plan is that our position on homosexuality, whatever it might be, is not an essential of our faith. It is not something that we should divide our church over.
Like the Simple Plan that I just shared with you, it removes all language that is restrictive towards LGBT persons. However, it adds in every one of those locations statements that ensures freedom of conscience for those who think differently. For example, in the section about the ministry of an elder it states:
“In conferences where civil law permits a pastor to perform same-sex marriage services, no elder shall at any time be required or compelled to perform, or prohibited from performing, any marriage, union, or blessing of same-sex couples, or of any couples. Each elder shall have the right to exercise his or her conscience to refuse or agree when requested…”
What would be the impact of such a plan on Immanuel? This particular plan allows us the freedom of conscious, much like the Simple Plan. This plan does specify, however, that same-sex weddings are not allowed in local congregations unless the congregation chooses to approve them by a simple majority vote.
Any congregation that felt like it could no longer remain a part of the United Methodist Church, potentially non-compatibilist congregations, this plan points to already existing mechanisms within the Book of Discipline for them to leave.

The other primary plan presented by the Commission on a Way Forward is the Connectional Conference Model (begins on page 37). This model also affirms that this question is not an essential of our faith and maintains the unity of the United Methodist Church by creating three branches within the denomination based upon our perspectives on human sexuality.
The difficulty with this plan is that it requires changes to the constitution of our church which would have to be approved by 2/3 vote of all of the annual conferences combined. If this happened, there is a plan of implementation with decisions filtering down.
First, each United States Jurisdiction would vote in 2020 which connectional conference it would want to join. After that decision, any annual conference within that jurisdiction could vote to join a different connectional conference if it so chooses. Then, beginning in 2021, any local church that disagrees with where the annual conference has affiliated can choose to join a different connectional conference.
As a result, different churches within our city might belong to various connectional conferences, but we would all still be a part of the larger United Methodist Church.

As a local church, we could decide to just go with the flow and follow the decisions made by the entities above us, or if we disagreed with their direction, we could vote to join another. Whichever conference we ended up affiliating with would determine our policies on ordination and weddings.

The final plan that has already been published and is available for conversation is not a plan of the Commission on a Way Forward. It is simply named, a Plan of Dissolution, and the purpose of this particular plan is to claim that this actually is an essential of our faith and for that reason, we must divide the church.
Rather than any one perspective claiming victory over the denomination, however, the goal of this plan is to dissolve the UMC in its entirety. Then at the 2020 General Conference, delegates will be elected to help form 2 or more new denominations that likely would fall into the same spectrum we have been discussing. As those new denominations are formed, local churches would have the opportunity to affiliate with and join whichever they felt called to join.

In the year 48, the church was at a crossroads. Would they embrace the Gentiles who were following the way of Christ? Would the Gentiles shape the church, or would the Jewish faith shape the Gentiles? Leaders of the faith gathered together in Jerusalem to allow scripture, the Holy Spirit, tradition, testimony, and reason guide them in making the best decision for the church.
I imagine as those local communities of faith sent their delegates, they joined together in fervent prayer.
And so that is what I hope you might do with and for us.
Pray. Pray hard. Pray every day.
Pray for God to guide us as we make these decisions, hard decisions, that will impact our church at every single level, from our local church here in Des Moines to the hospital we have built in Sierra Leone, to our seminary in Russia, to our publishing house in Nashville. Pray.

A Way Forward? To Each Their Own Convictions

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Text: Romans 14:4-12

 

“How do we know we are following the way of Christ?… How do we navigate the culture around us?  What happens when Christians disagree profoundly with each other?”

There are just a few of the questions that Rev. Christine Chakoian believes Paul is trying to answer in his letter to the Romans. (CEB Women’s Study Bible Introduction)

And they are questions that we are wrestling with today.

What should we do when United Methodists, faithful followers of Jesus Christ profoundly disagree?  How do we find our way forward?

 

In Paul’s time, the conflict he saw in the Roman community was a clash between Jews and Gentiles – people who followed the laws of the Old Testament and those who had never lived under that law but who were accepting Jesus Christ.

At this point in time, Christianity was not really a separate thing from the Jewish faith…  It was a movement that had begun within the Jewish community, but it was also quickly taking root in Gentile communities who had no knowledge of or cultural connection with the Jewish faith

This created all sorts of problems:

Should someone be circumcised into the Jewish faith before being able to follow Jesus?

Did the Jewish dietary laws have to be followed?

What are the holy days that must be honored?

When you got to a cosmopolitan, diverse place like Rome, you had folks in the same community who held vastly different opinions about how the faith should be practiced.

People who ate meat and people who didn’t.

People who were circumcised and those who weren’t.

“One group, “Jeanette Good writes, “believes that the ‘right way’ is to rely solely on texts of old interpreted literally, and the other group is adamant that the ‘right way’ is to believe that God is being revealed in new ways to each generation.  Both groups are ‘in their camps’ and are sure their positions are the right ones.”  [1]

 

Sound familiar?

 

It would be impossible for us to talk about what comes next and how the various proposals to lead us forward might play out without getting a sense of the current landscape of the United Methodist Church today and the camps that people have fallen into.

We have them represented here by these four vessels of water.

The way I describe these camps is going to use terminology initially coined by Tom Lambrecht, the vice-president of Good News, a more conservative coalition within the UMC and then adopted by Tom Berlin.  Tom Berlin not only wrote the stewardship book that we shared together this summer, but he serves a theologically diverse church on the outskirts of Washington, D.C.   Both were members of the Commission on a Way Forward and both are noted as authors of two very different plans that have been proposed that we will discuss next week.

 

If you were here last week, we talked about six scriptures that have historically been understood to condemn homosexuality within the bible.  If you missed this message or the one from the week before, you can pick up a copy on the back table.

We also discussed how our task as people of faith is to think theologically:  to ask and reflect upon how God is working in the world today.   We begin with scriptures like these and we interpret and translate and make sense of them in light of other scripture, the tradition that has been passed down to us, and our own human reason and experience.

These four sources, what we call the Wesleyan quadrilateral, helps the church translate the gospel to the world, but also helps the church make sense of the world around us. Last week, I asked some theological questions that we are called to wrestle with as a result of reading these passages:

  • Does the description of people in this passage reflect our experience of LGBT+ persons today?
  • What do scripture, tradition, reason, and experience lead us to claim are taboo sexual acts today, framed by our understanding of Christian community?
  • What is natural for LGBT persons? What are the fruits we see in the lives of LGBT persons?
  • How do we talk about sex, sexuality, and identity that rejects the way people use and abuse one another and helps all people to honor their bodies?

 

Those who would find themselves in the progressive camp read these six scriptures, faithfully interpret them, reflect theologically, and believe that they do not condemn LGBT+ persons.

They believe that some these passages refer to culturally bound understandings of holiness that no longer apply in Christian community.

These passages are not talking about loving, mutual, relationships between two persons, but instead about exploitive violent actions and abuse or cultic sexual practices.

Members of this camp would also point to scriptures that they believe affirm LGBT+ persons within the scriptures.

For example, King David and Saul’s son Jonathan had a close relationship.  After Jonathan’s death, David laments:  “I grieve for you, my brother Jonathan!  You were so dear to me!  Your love was more amazing to me than the love of women.” (2 Samuel 1:26)

They might also point to the time when Jesus healed the servant of a Roman centurian in Matthew 8 and Luke 7.  Here, the Greek word for servant or slave – doulos – is not used, but instead, the word, pais, is used to describe the unwell person.   A pais in this time was either a child – a son,  or a close personal attendant, or was sometimes used to refer to a younger male lover.  Progressives see this as a possible example of Jesus encountering an LGBT+ person and not hesitating to heal… in fact, even affirming the strength of this person’s faith.
Progressives would call us to look for the fruit in the lives of all persons who claim the Christian faith – do they love God and their neighbor?  And for those who have experienced the call of God in their lives to serve, it wouldn’t matter if they were gay or straight.  Progressives believe that the same standards for holiness should apply to all relationships, whether gay or straight.  Is anyone being harmed through this sexual act?  Does this relationship demonstrate mutual love and respect?  How are chastity and fidelity expressed through this person’s life?

Progressives also would point to the marginalization of LGBT+ persons, not only in history but all around us today as well.  They see current prohibitions in church law as harmful not only to our witness, but to the actual lives of LGBT+ persons.  They would point towards statistics that show that LGBT youth are at a much higher risk for both homelessness and suicide than their peers and that LGBT youth for whom faith is important to them had a 5x higher rate of suicidal thoughts than their straight peers. [2]

As Jesus calls us to reach out to the sick, the oppressed, the hungry in order to offer life and life abundant, progressive United Methodists believe that a church that is not actively in ministry with LGBT+ persons and fully inclusive is being unfaithful to the gospel.

Those who would find them in the traditionalist camp read these six scriptures, faithfully interpret them, reflect theologically, and believe that scripture is clear about the prohibition of homosexual acts.

While justice might be a key word to describe progressives, covenant might be a key term for traditionalists.

They believe that these passages, along with others, describe what personal holiness looks like within the Christian community and that if we interpret the meaning away from these scriptures, than all of our understandings of personal holiness might be compromised.  God has created us in a particular way, man and woman were designed for one another, and only within the covenant of marriage between one man and one woman are sexual acts pleasing to God.

When we choose to follow Christ, traditionalists would argue, we reject the ways of this world and allow ourselves to be conformed instead to Christ.  That is the covenant under which we now live.

Traditionalists believe are called, in community, to hold one another accountable to this covenant.  That means there must be a clear, shared understandings of what is right and what is not.  To be faithful to the gospel, one must call out sin and invite repentance and transformation.  If we fail to do so, then we are allowing that person to remain on a path that might permanently separate them from God’s love.

 

So these are the camps in which we find ourselves today.  Progressives and Traditionalists, who each love the church, love Jesus, and love scripture.

 

When we turn back to the Apostle Paul and his description of conflict within the early Christian community in Rome, he appears to have solid advice for us to rely upon today.

“One person considers some days to be more sacred than others, while another person considers all days to the be same.  Each person must have their own convictions.  Someone who thinks that a day is sacred, thinks that way for the Lord.  Those who eat, eat for the Lord, because they thank God.  And those who don’t eat, don’t eat for the Lord, and they thank the Lord too.”

To each their own, Paul appears to be saying.

These practices, these convictions, they are not essential to what it means to follow Jesus.

If you are celebrating particular holy days in the Lord’s name – great!

If you choose to refrain from participating in the Lord’s name – great!

Because you are doing it all in the name of Jesus.

Whether or not you keep kosher laws or are circumcised or whether you prefer pew chairs or pews – as long as you are focused on your Lord – that’s all that really matters.

Paul goes on to say that we should not judge one another for our various convictions.  Each person will stand before the Lord in their own time.  We are not to force our own convictions about practices upon one another, nor are we to be a stumbling block to another person’s faith by allowing our practices to interfere with those of others.

 

Within these progressive and traditionalist camps in the United Methodist Church today are those who take Paul’s words to heart.  Tom Berlin uses sugar packets instead of vessels of water to demonstrate these various positions.

As you can see there are progressives and traditionalists represented here who have their own deeply held convictions about how we should relate to LGBT+ persons – justice and full inclusion or covenant faithfulness.

But there are those within each of these camps that understand people who have been wrestling with these questions arrive in different places.  These folks also don’t believe that the answer to this particular question is essential to our faith.

Lambrecht and Berlin would refer to these folks as compatibilists.

Compatibilists are willing to remain in community with those who disagree with them.  They know and understand that our very church is full of a diversity of perspectives on this topic, but that what unifies us as United Methodists – what IS essential is our understanding of grace, our focus on personal and social holiness, and the connection that allows us to be in ministry across this globe.

Compatibilists might best be described as those who firmly hold their own particular theological convictions, but also respect the theological convictions of others.  As we live together within the church, what is important is that there is freedom of conviction and no one is forced to act against their own beliefs.

As long as you love God and love your neighbor and seek to live and die for the Lord, the non-essentials of our faith should not divide us.
There are those within each of the progressive and traditionalist camps, however, who would reject the idea that this is a non-essential of our faith.

They would argue that Paul is talking here are about practices like what we eat and wear – truly non-essential things.  But values like justice and covenant are not something you can compromise.

Traditional non-compatibilists believe that our call to covenantal holiness requires us to maintain these standards across the church. They want the church to be faithful to what they believe are obvious prohibitions within scripture.  We are not called to be blown to and fro by the winds of culture, but must hold firm to the tradition that has been passed down to us.

Progressive non-compatibilists believe that our call to justice for all people requires us to see anew who Jesus is standing with in the margins.  They want the church to be faithful to what they believe are the obvious cries for inclusion within scripture.  We are not called to a legalistic faith, but must allow the Holy Spirit to lead us and recognize the presence of God in LGBT+ persons.

 

Within the United Methodist Church today, this division has created our current conflict.

Progressives are dissatisfied with the current language within our Book of Discipline and by and believes that it harms our witness for Jesus Christ in the world today.  They believe that they are being faithful to the gospel by disobeying the Book of Discipline in order to celebrate same-gender weddings and welcome LGBT+ folks into ministry of the church.

Those who are Traditional Non-Compatibilists see these actions and feel like the covenant we have made with one another has been broken.  They feel personally harmed by this betrayal and some are leaving these churches as a result.

Traditionalists who are frustrated that the covenant has not been honored are seeking to maintain the discipline of the church by naming and formalizing consequences of these actions.  We have a process for accountability within our Book of Discipline that begins with the filing of a complaint, and you may have heard in the past few years of such complaints being filed here in Iowa against pastors who have officiated same-gender weddings or who have publicly come out as queer.

Those who are Progressives see these actions and feel like it not only personally harms people who are LGBT+ but has also harmed their congregations as people have left their churches because we are not fully inclusive.

Within the United States, there are regional differences that are apparent.  The Western Jurisdiction is more progressive than other areas and in 2016 consecrated Karen Oliveto as a bishop, a woman who is married to another woman.

Annual conferences across the North Central and Northeastern Jurisdictions have committed to ordaining clergy based on their fruit, not their sexual orientation.
Southern Jurisdictions and Annual Conferences throughout the connection are advocating for a church that maintains its faithfulness to scripture and traditional understandings of marriage.

And there are global factors.

The conversation we have had today is largely U.S. based, but the United Methodist Church is a global denomination.  While assumptions should not be made about any particular area of the global church, it is thought that the majority of our African and Filipino brothers and sisters would describe themselves as traditionalists.  In many of their own cultural realities, homosexuality is rejected and in some places even an illegal practice.  Others, in parts of our connection like Western Europe, would align more with the progressives.  The goal of the Commission on a Way Forward was this:  To design a way for being church that maximizes the presence of a United Methodist witness in as many places in the world as possible, that allows for as much contextual differentiation as possible, and that balances an approach to different theological understandings of human sexuality with a desire for as much unity as possible.

 

Is the question of human sexuality an essential of our faith?  Will our response divide the church?

Or is it a non-essential?  Is it a place where we can respectfully disagree and create space for one another?

The plans that we will explore together next week will answer those questions differently.  The impact of these plans on our particular congregation can only be known if we have a sense of where this church itself stands.

For that reason, I want to invite you each to take and fill out one of these yellow surveys.  We will compile these anonymous responses in order to have a sense of the impact any of these plans might have on this church.

I’m going to give you a few minutes to do so right now.  There are four simple questions to answer.

First, based on what we have described today, where would you place yourself on this spectrum of progressive/traditional and compatible/non-compatible?

Next, three questions about how you personally might respond if there were or were not changes to our Book of Discipline.

As a reminder, here is a general description of the Book of Discipline’s current language:

The Book of Discipline affirms that we should be in ministry with all persons and reject homophobia.  It also states that homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching.  Marriage is defined as between one man and one woman.  Self-avowed practicing homosexuals may not be ordained as clergy.

 

What I want to leave us with today is a phrase that John Wesley clung to in his own ministry – a phrase that exemplifies the spirit of our passage in Romans today:

 

In essentials, unity.

In non-essentials, liberty.

In all things love.

 

May God continue to lead us as hold fast to the essentials of our faith, respect differences in non-essentials, and may love been the source of all that we do.

Let’s stand together as we are able and affirm some of those essentials that form the core of our faith.

[1] Jeanette Good.  Feasting on the Word, Year A, Volume 4, p 65

[2] https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/queer-youth-religion-suicide-study_us_5ad4f7b3e4b077c89ceb9774

A Way Forward? 25-cent words

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Texts:  Philippians 4:8-9, Matthew 22:34-40

This past year as I taught confirmation, one of our lessons focused on how we are all theologians.
I wrote that word up on the board and one of our students exclaimed – WOW! That’s a 25-cent word!
There was an old idiom that you shouldn’t use a 50-cent word when a 5-cent word will do.
But just because a word is complicated doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use it.
So we unpacked it. We defined it. And suddenly, that 25-cent word wasn’t so scary anymore.

Today, we need to talk about some 25-cent words.
These are words are important and form the background of both the conflict within our denomination and in how we might move beyond this tension.
So… will you pray with me?
Compassionate God, all creation delights in the presence of your Word.
May the authority of your Spirit bring understanding into our confused minds, and truth into our troubled hearts, that we may praise and serve Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen (from the Worship@North website. https://northchurchindy.wordpress.com/ )

We are going to start in the same place as our confirmands. Our first 25-cent word is… theologian.
I am a theologian.
I have a Master of Divinity from Vanderbilt University and I spent three and a half years studying divine things like scripture and ancient texts and history and the thoughts of other theologians.

But you know what?
You are a theologian, too.
You see, a theologian is simply anyone who reflects upon God’s action in the world today and as United Methodists we believe that every single one of us is called to this task.
Every generation must wrestle with our faith in a changing world.
The church needs to see problems and challenges like sexual abuse or global migration so we can provide a faithful response.
But, we also need to be able to figure out how to communicate the truth of our faith to a world that increasingly can’t understand us.
Theology helps us to do both.
Whether or not you knew it before worship today, you are a theologian.
I want you to claim that! Say out loud and proud: I am a theologian!

And as a theologian, your job is to answer a simple question: What can I say that is faithful to scripture as it has been passed down through tradition, and that makes sense in light of human experience and reason? (paraphrase of Book of Discipline p. 81)
As Paul told the Philippians, we are to focus our thoughts on what is excellent and true, holy and just. We are to practice what we have learned and received and heard from our mentors and teachers of the faith.
That is theology!
And as United Methodist theologians, you have four sources in discovering God at work in the world.
Scripture. Tradition. Experience. Reason.

These four sources make up our next 25-cent word: quadrilateral.
“[John] Wesley believed that the living core of the Christian faith was revealed in scripture, illumined by tradition, vivified in personal experience, and confirmed by reason.” (p. 82)
All four are important. All four are necessary. All four help us to see where God is working in the world.
We start with scripture.
We end with scripture.
Scripture is the absolute foundation of all of our theology… so as theologians, we had better be reading and pouring over scripture in our lives.
But… and… scripture is always being interpreted.

First, scripture is interpreted by other scripture.
You cannot take a single verse out of context but need to look at the fullness of the entire passage and story.
And, we come to see as we read the bible that there is an overarching story within the scripture itself… a story of creation and redemption, a story of mistakes and forgiveness, a story that ends in the restoration of all things.
In our gospel, religious leaders ask Jesus to interpret and prioritize scripture for them. His response is one that provides us guidance when we in turn interpret scripture today – how does this verse lead us to love God and love our neighbor? (Matthew 22:34-40)

Next, we have the witness of how people have interpreted that scripture through time. Tradition shows us the “consensus of faith” that has grown out of a particular community’s experience. (p. 85-86)
Not all contexts and communities are the same. The experience of Czech immigrants in the Midwest was very different than that of African slaves in the Deep South. Each community passed on the gospel and created practices of faith that show us how the scripture made sense in their lives. We also connect tradition with the theology of previous generations that have been passed down to us in creeds and writings.

Tradition shows us how communities have understood God, but we also each have or own unique experiences.
Who you are and what you have been through is always with you when you open up the Bible – your pain, joy, anger, gender, economic reality…
It is why you can read the same passage of scripture repeatedly over time and discover something new with each reading.
But Wesley also talked about how God continues to reveal through our experiences and the fruit that we are bearing in our lives. When he saw the call in the lives of women around him, he began to license them as preachers.

Our final source of theology is reason. As the Book of Proverbs reminds us, each person is called to “turn your ear toward wisdom, and stretch your mind toward understanding. Call out for insight, and cry aloud for understanding. ” (Proverbs 2:2-3)
We believe that God reveals truth in many places, not only in scripture, and that we should pursue such knowledge and truth with our whole selves. Science, philosophy, nature: these are all places that help us to gain understanding.
Where we find contradictions within scripture itself or between a passage and wisdom of the world, reason asks what greater truths a verse might be speaking or how to prioritize and discern which is truer.

Our Book of Discipline reminds us that

“United Methodists as a diverse people continue to strive for consensus in understanding the gospel… while exercising patience and forbearance with one another. Such patience stems neither from indifference toward truth nor from an indulgent tolerance of error but from an awareness that we know only in part and that none of us is able to search the mysteries of God except by the Spirit of God. We proceed with our theological task, trusting that the Spirit will grant us wisdom…” (Book of Discipline p. 89)

The simple truth which lies at the heart of our conflict today is that people of faith, United Methodists who care about the scriptures and who come from diverse backgrounds, cannot come to a place of consensus in how we approach matters of human sexuality and in particular how we understand homosexuality.
We might use the quadrilateral differently or prioritize some aspects more than others.
But I think part of the difficulty is that we don’t even have a common understanding of the question we are seeking to answer within the scriptures.
And that means a couple more 25-cent words:

First, homosexuality. This word was initially coined in the 1880s in German and made its way into English usage in the 1890s. The word itself simply refers to sexual intercourse between persons of the same sex. Some modern translations of scripture use this word, but it didn’t even exist at the time the King James Bible was translated.

Many who seek to answer the question of what we should do today start from this definition. Their concern is largely with the physical acts associated with any given sexual orientation. Many prohibitions in our Book of Discipline focus on this as well, using the phrase  “self-avowed, practicing homosexual.” The question being raised by this group is largely about how we use our bodies and whether or not such use is good and holy.

Others focus on a more expansive understanding of the complexity of human sexuality, referring to a wider group of people through the term LGBTQ+.

Science and sociology have helped us to see in the last fifty years that our identity is complicated.
FINAL-genderbread-for-webThis graphic talks about four different aspects of our identity – all of which are placed on a spectrum. Our biological sex, how we identify our gender and how we express it, who we are attracted to… all of these factors play a role… which is why the terminology we use keeps expanding as well. There is a handout at the back that has this graphic as well as some common definitions within LGBTQ+ if you are interested. The question being raised by this group is also about how bodies, but tends to focus more on embodiment and identity as a whole person.

As a denomination, when we bring these questions to General Conference, we seem to have reached our limits of patience and forbearance with one another.
But as people of a local faith community, my prayer is that we can still remember with humility that now we see through a glass darkly and that we still might extend patience and forbearance towards one another as we explore a few scriptures together.

When we open the scriptures, there are six verses that our tradition has used to condemn homosexuality.
Genesis 19: Sodom & Gomorrah
Leviticus 18 & 20: Abomination
Romans 1: Exchanging Natural Relations for Unnatural
1 Corinthians 6 & 1 Timothy 1: “malakoi and arsenokoitai”
As United Methodist theologians, we start with scripture, and we end with scripture so we need to wrestle with these passages as background for our theology today.

 

Before they went to bed, the men of the city of Sodom—everyone from the youngest to the oldest—surrounded the house and called to Lot, “Where are the men who arrived tonight? Bring them out to us so that we may have sex with them.”

First – Genesis 19: 4-5, the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. Angels from God arrive in order to determine if there are any righteous people in the town. The men of the city knock on the door of the house they are staying and seek to force themselves upon the visitors.
However, this is a great place to start using scripture to interpret scripture. While later Christian tradition adopted sodomy as a term for sinful, non-procreative sex, within the scriptures itself, the sin of Sodom was not sexual in nature. In Ezekiel 16, the prophet names the sin of Sodom as being proud and not helping the poor and needy. This was a culture that relied upon hospitality – when guests arrived the duty of the community was to welcome them and provide for their needs. To violently force yourself upon these visitors, attacking them, raping them, was against every hospitality code of the time. This is a clear violation of the command to love your neighbor.

The question we wrestle with theologically is whether or not our experience of LGBT persons today is reflected in this text.

 

You must not have sexual intercourse with a man as you would with a woman; it is a detestable practice.

 

If a man has sexual intercourse with a man as he would with a woman, the two of them have done something detestable. They must be executed; their blood is on their own heads.

The next two scriptures come from the Holiness Code in the book of Leviticus (18:22, 20:13). In many translations, sex between two men is named as an abomination, or detestable. Both of these chapters are concerned with sexual practices that were forbidden to the people of God as they were entering the Promised Land. It is a rejection of practices both in the land of Egypt and practices that may have been common among others in the land of Canaan.
The Hebrew word that we have translated as abomination or detestible is probably not a fair translation of the word. “Toevah” is understood by many today to instead mean ritually unclean or culturally taboo. The Israelites are called to be holy and set-apart and to adopt cultural practices that are different from their neighbors. In the larger context of Leviticus, these include commands about food, clothing, bodily fluids, and how you treat the stranger among you.
Today, our tradition still considers many of the practices within these two chapters of Leviticus to be culturally taboo, but not all of them. And we have moved away from many of the other prohibitions within these texts that we consider to be culturally bound – like eating shellfish or the cutting of hair. And that’s because we hold a different understanding of what makes us unclean in the eyes of the Lord. Peter’s vision in Acts 10 shifts the conversation within the Christian faith and his encounter with the gentile Cornelius leads him to proclaim, “God has shown me that I should never call a person impure or unclean.” (Actus 10:28)

Theologically, we ask today what scripture, tradition, reason, and experience lead us to claim as taboo sexual acts, framed by our understanding of what forms us as a Christian community that loves God and our neighbor.

 

That’s why God abandoned them to degrading lust. Their females traded natural sexual relations for unnatural sexual relations. Also, in the same way, the males traded natural sexual relations with females, and burned with lust for each other. Males performed shameful actions with males, and they were paid back with the penalty they deserved for their mistake in their own bodies.

Our next scripture comes from Paul’s letter to the Romans. His argument here in the first chapter is that Gentiles and Jews alike are without excuse and full of sin. The Jews have been given the law and claim to follow it but don’t. The Gentiles don’t have the law… instead they should have seen God revealed through nature itself. Augustine and Aquinas and others have carried this concept through our tradition and our use of reason: we can know God through the world around us.
Here in this chapter, Paul argues that the Gentiles should have known God. However, they rejected God and turned instead to idols. As he describes cultic practices of worship, he claims that their idolatry led God to abandon them to their desires. As a consequence, natural sexual relations were exchanged for unnatural ones and these people were filled with jealousy, murder, fighting, deception, gossip, and disobedience to their parents. (Romans 1:29-31)
Theologically, the questions we wrestle with today start with asking what is natural. If one understands homosexuality to be a choice then it would lead you to think that such acts are unnatural. However, for others who believe that persons who are LGBT were created that way, it might be unnatural for them to act against how God has made them.
This is another place where we might ask where our experience shows fruit in the lives of LGBT persons. Paul’s argument here is that same-sex acts are the result of idolatry and cultic worship and these people are filled with other bad behaviors. What are the fruits we see in the lives of people we know who are LBGT? What are the fruits of people who are not LGBT? Do they love God? Do they love their neighbor?

 

Don’t you know that people who are unjust won’t inherit God’s kingdom? Don’t be deceived. Those who are sexually immoral, those who worship false gods, adulterers, both participants in same-sex intercourse,[a] thieves, the greedy, drunks, abusive people, and swindlers won’t inherit God’s kingdom.

 

We understand this: the Law isn’t established for a righteous person but for people who live without laws and without obeying any authority. They are the ungodly and the sinners. They are people who are not spiritual, and nothing is sacred to them. They kill their fathers and mothers, and murder others. They are people who are sexually unfaithful, and people who have intercourse with the same sex. They are kidnappers, liars, individuals who give false testimonies in court, and those who do anything else that is opposed to sound teaching.

The final pairing of scripture is from 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 and 1 Timothy 1:9-10. We group them together because they refer to the same two words – malakoi and arsenokoitai. These words have been translated in multiple ways through our history of bible translation.
Malakoi literally means soft and has been translated as effeminate, as the passive homosexual partner, or as a male prostitute.
Arsenokoitai is a word that appears only two times in all of Greek literature – right here in the Bible. It is a word that Paul appears to have made up from two other words: Men and Bed. How tradition understands this word has changed drastically over time. Some think it refers to the dominant homosexual partner. Others think it refers to pimps – men who sell sex. Others think it is connected with temple prostitution, or the practice of older men taking young men (soft men) as sexual partners within the culture of the time.
In the context of the litany of other acts included in this list however, perhaps the Message translation most accurately captures the spirit of this passage. “those who use and abuse each other, use and abuse sex, use and abuse the earth and everything in it, don’t qualify as citizens in God’s kingdom.”
The truth is, we have all done these things. But the grace of God is present in our lives and has redeemed us and so our call now is to honor God, creation, and our neighbors… and that includes honoring our bodies.

What can we say theologically about sex, sexuality, and our identity that rejects the way people use and abuse one another and helps all people to honor their bodies?

 

As I faithfully wrestle with a theological response to the presence and promise of LGBT persons in the life of the church, I am fully aware that I might end up coming to a different conclusion than you. We are all theologians after all, all tasked with using scripture, tradition, reason, and experience to weigh what we believe to be faithful responses in the world today.
The very conflict within our denomination is the result of this very tension and next week we’ll explore how people of faith have found themselves aligned with various positions today.
But my prayer, above all else, is that we would continue to lift up as our number one priority the love of God and the love of one another – and that includes those who don’t agree with us.
Our call as people of faith after all is to provide a welcome so vast and so radical that all might come to know and experience the saving grace of God lives. May it be so. Amen.

A Way Forward? Fixed And Free

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The United Methodist Church is at a crossroads.

On the one hand, we do incredible work together because of our connection across the globe.  Missionaries go from everywhere to everywhere.  We are present amid disaster and crisis providing relief.  New faith communities have been formed in West Des Moines, Camaroon, and Russia. And these things happen because we pool our resources to do the most good.

On the other hand, we are a diverse, expansive, global denomination working in many different contexts from many different backgrounds.  Within that diversity is blessing and also conflict – including conflict about the role of LGBTQ+ persons in the life of the church – particularly whether they can be married in the church or ordained/consecrated by the church.

Next week, we’ll turn our attention to scripture and dive deeper into how they relate to what it means to be Lesbian, Gay, or Queer today.

But for today, we wanted to start with the big picture of how we got to this place as a denomination.   Behind any particular verse is the tension between flexibility and permanence.

What is written in stone?

What is subject to change in time and context?

How do we know the difference?

In February, our denomination will hold a special session of General Conference and how we answer these questions will determine our identity for the future.

 

How did we get here?

As people of faith, we are heirs of both the tabernacle and the temple.

That is the premise that the pastors of Lovers Lane United Methodist Church shared with their congregation when they addressed our current dilemma at the beginning of this year.  (https://soundcloud.com/llumc/sets/fixed-and-free)

As we heard in our scriptures for the day (Exodus 25:1-9 and 1 Kings 6:11-13), as the context and the people of the Bible changed, God had different ways that the people could come to know and worship God.

 

In the midst of the wilderness, the people had no home.  They were always on the move, never setting down roots, everything was always changing and uncertain.

And so God sends them instructions to build a tent – a tabernacle – a movable place of worship that would go with them wherever they were.

Every person within the community was called upon to contribute something – richly colored yarns, gold, silver, wood, leather, precious stones – all of them used to create a moveable place for God to dwell among them on the journey.  Wherever they traveled – God was with them.   (Exodus 25:1-9)

 

Generations later, the people stopped moving.  They had established themselves in the land and they wanted permanence.  They wanted a king like the nations around them. And they wanted to build God a temple.

King David himself looked around at the palace he was living in while the Ark of the Covenant was still residing within the tabernacle.  But it wasn’t until his son, Solomon, was established on the throne, that the temple in Jerusalem was constructed.

This temple, this permanent dwelling place for God, was important for the people in the time of the Kingdoms.  No longer did the people all travel together with God in their midst.  Now they were settled in far off places.  The temple represented something stable and unchanging, the home base to which they could return.  God now dwelt somewhere a part from the vast majority of the people – but if you followed the rules and went to the temple, you could be with God.  (1 Kings 6:11-13)

 

That tension between what is fixed and free, an institution and a movement, is at the core of our struggle and our identity.

Are we focused on the God of the tabernacle – who hears the cries of the oppressed and marginalized and who makes a home among the people wherever they might be?

Or are we focused on the God of the temple – who has made a covenant and established laws and who calls us to repent and return home so we might experience life abundant?

It is both… a tension we must hold… but sometimes it becomes a tug of war that threatens to tear apart the church.

Even when we focus on the Word – both the one who walked among us and the living word we discover in this text – we see this tension.

As the gospel of John reminds us, “In the beginning was the Word…  the Word became flesh and made his home among us.”  (John 1: 1, 14) The roots of this passage are that the Word tabernacled among us.

But Jesus also said that upon the rock of Peter, he would build his church.  Solid, foundational, able to withstand time and changing winds. (Matthew 16:18)

Too often, what we find reflected within the words of scripture are our own predispositions towards temple or tabernacle.

And, we must be aware that there is also a shadow side to either of these inclinations.  If we lean too heavily upon viewing God through the lens of the tabernacle, we might be tempted to believe that wherever we are, whatever we believe, must be okay because God is right there with us.    On the other hand, if we lean too heavily upon viewing God through the lens of the temple, we might be tempted to believe that faith means being rigid, legalistic, unmoveable.   The tabernacle needs to be balanced with accountability.  The temple needs to be balanced with grace.

 

There is an awful lot of history between the time of Christ and our denominational roots in the 18th century.  The church spread and conquered and fractured and reformed.  The bible itself was put in the hands of everyday people.  The Holy Spirit moved, and institutions grew.

One of our beginning points lies with John Wesley, a priest in the Church of England.  The institutional church around him was very removed from the people of the day.  And so, he felt a call to leave the cathedral and John Wesley went out into the fields, where the people were.

He preached in homes, and from the top of tombstones in the graveyard, and his brother, Charles, took old drinking songs and turned them into hymns.  They gathered people into small groups for accountability and care and formation, but always encouraged them to remain connected to the established church.

Now, something that is important here is that Wesley never wanted to start a new church – he simply wanted to reform his church and help the people reconnect and experience the power of God in their lives.  From England to Scotland to the American colonies – wherever the church was, small groups of Methodists were growing.

 

If you ever have trouble placing our history as a church, remember this – the Methodist movement grew up alongside the American Revolution.  And when England lost and the Church of England left the colonies – all of those in the Methodist movement were left without churches and leadership.  And so reluctantly, John Wesley ordained Thomas Coke and Francis Asbury as superintendents or bishops and sent them to lead the people called Methodist in the new country.

And because we were established around the same time as this nation, our governance matches the governance of the United States.   Our church is a democratic based structure with three branches – a Judicial Branch, an Executive Branch, and a Legislative Branch.

 

When the people wandered in the wilderness, God dwelt among them in a tent that was free to move.

When the people were established in a kingdom, God dwelt among them from an established temple in the capitol.

And when the people were forming a new nation, our church came to look like the new democracy with a book of laws and rules at the center of who we are.

 

I know we’d like to think that book is the bible, and… well, it is… but there is another book that holds us together as a denomination: The Book of Discipline.

In many ways, this has been our attempt to hold the tension between the fixed and the free, the movement and the institution.

This book provides stability in the sense that it is our reference point and foundational document of our identity.  It contains the Articles of Religion that have been handed down through generations and a constitution describing who we are and how we function, and which is very difficult to change.

But it also provides flexibility in the sense that everything else within this book can be changed every four years by a simple majority of delegates to the General Conference.

 

Like the United States Government, we have a judicial branch – a Judicial Council of 9 persons who are elected to rule on matters of disagreement.  We also have an executive branch, our Bishops, who are tasked with upholding the Discipline and caring for the ministry of the church.

Lastly, the General Conference is our legislative body. It is our version of Congress, only our gathering time is much shorter – for a couple of weeks every four years.  It is where we gather to discern God’s will for the future of our church in the world.  It is the place from which we boldly proclaim where God is and sometimes we have gotten it wrong and sometimes we have gotten it right.

 

37814071_10155608720195866_3274315691594874880_nIf you look at the history of our church, it has not been one continuous solid history.

If you trace the line from the Church of England, the lighter brown set of roots, (and the side of our history that I know better), we can see that our lack of welcome and inclusion for African American siblings led to the formation of not one, but three new denominations.

Conflict over slavery and the authority of the bishops split the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1844 – years before the Civil War.

Sometimes splits were the result of contextual differences.  Sometimes because there was greater freedom needed that the more established church couldn’t hold within itself.

But the church has also merged and reconnected and joined with others for missional reasons.  In 1939, previous splintering was repaired as we became the Methodist Church.

And in 1968, we merged and formed a union with the Evangelical United Brethren Church.

One of our own – Rev. Harold Varce was a pastor in the EUB at that time and he was there at the founding of the United Methodist Church.  In fact, thanks to Harold, that “United” from the EUB tradition made its way into our name.

 

What would be the witness of this new denomination?

How would we hold in tension the call to find God at the margins with the oppressed and to boldly proclaim the established truth of God?

One of the first things that we undertook was to write our Social Principles.  While not church law, they are “the prayerful and thoughtful effort on part of the General Conference to speak to the human issues in the contemporary world from a sound biblical and theological foundation as historically demonstrated in United Methodist traditions.” (Preface)

And so in 1972 – with the denomination only four years old, much of the attention was focused on our section regarding human sexuality.  It was a time of great experimentation and misconduct in society at large and this was our first opportunity as a church to speak.

In the midst of our larger statement was a phrase “persons of homosexual orientation are persons of sacred worth.”  An amendment was made and approved which said, “We do not condone the practice of homosexuality and consider it incompatible with Christian teaching.”

In many ways – right there in the midst of that statement which says two very different things – is that tension between tabernacle and temple.  God’s presence dwells in the life of LGBTQ+ persons – they are of sacred worth… and the practice of their orientation is sinful to God and requires repentance.

Since 1972 – we have experienced a back and forth, push and pull, tug of war over whether we will fully embrace and include gays and lesbians in the life of the church or if we will stand firmly against the tides of culture upon the traditions of our established church.

That tension has reached such a point in the life of our denomination that it has overtaken much of our witness and work.

And so we reached a point in 2016 where we could not move forward without discerning a new way forward.  Over these past two years folks have gathered to pray, discern, converse, pour over scriptures, wrestle, and finally we are at a point where their recommendations of various possibilities will come to a special General Conference, focused solely on this topic in February.

Over the next couple of weeks we’ll back up and look at the scriptures behind our conversation.  We’ll look at the landscape of our current dilemma.  And in the final week, we’ll explore together the implications of the various proposals.

 

Here is what I want us to remember today.

When we were in the wilderness AND when established as a powerful nation – God dwelt among us.

When the temple was in ruins AND when the church was being persecuted – God was with us.

God has been leading, calling, pushing, prodding, rebuilding, connecting, pruning, and forming God’s people from the very beginning.

Not once has God left our side… although sometimes we have turned our backs upon God.

 

In some ways, I think God gives us what we need as far as a structure for whatever moment we might find ourselves in history.  Anything that will help us grasp onto the very simple fact that God love us and calls us to be God’s people.

Through the ups and downs of churches that have split and reconnected and reimagined their existence, what is constant is the Lord and Savior of us all.

So whatever comes, whatever changes, whatever new possibilities lie before us, I pray that we would trust that God is present in the midst of it all.

Amen.