prevenient grace – Salvaged Faith

UMC 101: Summon to Grace, Growth, and Love

Posted on January 9, 2022Leave a comment

Text: Luke 3:15-18, 21-22, Book of Discipline pages 47-54

Every time we turn the pages from one calendar year to the next, it feels like a fresh start.

A new beginning.

A chance to revisit where we have been and where we are going.

A few years ago, we took time as a congregation during this season to look at the Bible with fresh eyes in our series, Bible 101.

And as so much of the future of the United Methodist Church is up in the air, this is a good chance to dive into who we say we are and what we say we are about as we figure out what is next for us as a people.

So… welcome to UMC 101!

Today, we start by the waters of the Jordan River with John the Baptist, calling people to repent and to change their hearts and lives.

This is such a great place to launch into our discussion of what it means to be United Methodist, because our forebearers in this tradition, like John, were not planning to create something entirely new.

John the Baptist understood himself as nothing more than a sign-post… pointing to the truths of his tradition, the promises of the prophets, and the movement of God all around him.

He was calling people back to their faith…

Calling them to reclaim what it meant to be the people of God and to bear fruit in the world…

And he was inviting them to look out for what God was stirring up in their midst… the Savior who had been promised.

In other words, John the Baptist wasn’t inventing a new religion.

In fact, the early Jesus followers weren’t trying to start a new religion either… they just wanted to answer God’s call to live their faith more deeply.

And our United Methodist denomination never set out to be a new tradition either.

As the Book of Discipline reminds us, the core of our faith is the same as other Christians (p.49-50):

We hold and affirm our belief in the triune God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – just as our baptismal liturgy invites us to profess.
We hold in common faith in the mystery of salvation… a precious gift… that redeems our brokenness, in and through Jesus Christ.
We believe that God’s redemptive love is realized in our lives by the movement of the Holy Spirit – both in our personal experiences and in the community – the church.
We see ourselves as part of Christ’s holy catholic church – catholic with a little ‘c’ meaning Christ’s universal church. The church is one in Christ Jesus – sharing the authority of scripture, creeds, liturgies, and ministries.
We recognize that the reign of God has already begun, and just as we proclaimed all throughout this Advent season… it is not completely here yet, and that the church itself is a sign of that kingdom – but it is also continually being reformed so that it might be more like what God intends for us.

When John the Baptist stood on the banks of the Jordan, he didn’t have a new teaching to offer. He wasn’t trying to get people to believe something new. He simply wanted them to wash themselves clean of their past, to change their hearts, and to really and truly live out their faith in their daily lives.

If we look back to what John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist tradition, was trying to do, it isn’t all that different.

As our Book of Discipline reminds us, the early Methodists “tasks were to summon people to experience the justifying and sanctifying grace of God and encourage people to grow in the knowledge and love of God through the personal and corporate disciplines of the Christian life.”

They heard a call to “reform the nation, particularly the Church, and to spread scriptural holiness over the land.”

In other words… John Wesley and his early followers… like John the Baptist before them… were simply calling people to put faith and love into practice.

Over time, as we continued to focus on “practical divinity” – or the presence of God moving through our daily lives, the Wesleyan tradition began to take on it’s own unique emphases… or our own spin on those core Christian beliefs.

The first of these is that everything is grace. Grace is the act of creation, the revelation of Jesus Christ, and the restoration of all things… no matter how much we have failed. It is all undeserved and it is all an act of love.

In our United Methodist tradition, we talk about three different ways that grace is present in our lives.

There is prevenient grace… the grace that goes before us. Before we even know who God is, it is the spark of love present in our lives. It is one of the reasons that our tradition baptizes little babies… because God’s grace goes before us. Prevenient grace is the tug at our heart and the unconscious push in our lives to get us to the place where we are ready for God’s love to change us.

Then there is justifying grace… the grace that forgives and restores us. We sometimes talk about this as our conversion experience – whether it happens in a moment or over a lifetime – as our hearts and lives change by God’s grace and the power of the Holy Spirit.

This is the moment that John the Baptist was pointing to in our scripture for today… acknowledging our sins, turning our lives around, and then through the power of the Holy Spirit and the work of Jesus Christ, actually being transformed. He knew that simply repenting of your sins wasn’t enough. You needed the Holy Spirit to sift out the fruit – the grain – from the husks.

As we often talk about with our confirmands, simply accepting God’s redeeming grace is not the end of our journey. So much of our United Methodist beliefs stem from asking the question – what now?

Or maybe a better way of thinking about it is – what do you do with that grain of wheat that is your life? How do you plant it so that it might grow and nourish this world?

So our tradition focuses also on sanctifying grace… the grace that continues to nurture and transform and perfect us so that each day we are more filled with the love of God and our neighbor than we were the day before.

One of the perpetual conversations amongst different Christian traditions has to do with faith and good works. Because the Wesleyan tradition emphasizes that what we do in this world matters, we sometimes get accused of focusing on works… of trying to earn our salvation.

And God’s grace does call us to respond… but faith is the only response essential for salvation. To accept God’s prevenient, and justifying, and sanctifying grace in our lives.

The thing is, when you let the Holy Spirit work in you… there will be fruit! People will be able to see the good works that God is doing through you.

Related to this, personal salvation always involves mission and service. Love of God is always linked with love of neighbor, a passion for justice and renewal in the world. We’ll talk more next week about some of the ways our own personal piety is linked with social holiness – like two sides of the same coin.

Finally, we can’t do any of this on our own. United Methodists don’t believe that all you need is Jesus – you also need the Body of Christ. For it is in community that we grow and are equipped for our service in the world. For Wesley, there is no religion but social religion. So the nurture and mission of the church brings us together as a connection. Even our congregations don’t operate on our own, but reach out together to witness and seek love, peace, and justice in this world.

When John the Baptist called for people to be baptized, he wanted them to show that they were changing their hearts and lives and wanted God to forgive their sins. (Luke 3:3)

But it wasn’t just about them as individuals getting right with God.

It was so that all humanity would see God’s salvation. (Luke 3:6, Isaiah 40:5)

“What should we do?” the people cried out.

“If you have two coats, give one away” he replied.

Our faith, our salvation, is not just about what we are saved from.

It is about what we are saved for.

We were saved to be disciples, and to make disciples of Jesus Christ, for the transformation of this world.

Friends, through the love and grace of God, the Holy Spirit is ready to descend onto your life…

Whether you are just getting started in the faith and are still unsure of what your next steps are…

Or whether you are finally ready to accept the gift of God’s love…

Or whether you have long ago given your life to God and are ready to keep growing in faith…

God’s grace is here.

You are God’s beloved.

And the Holy Spirit is ready to wash over you…

To fill you…

To empower you…

To transform you…

So that this world might see and know and experience the good news of God.

Do you hear that summon?

Do you hear that call to experience the grace of God? To grow in the knowledge and love of God?

If you have never been baptized, I’d love to have a conversation with you about what that next step might look like in your life. Fill out one of our cards – either from the pew or online – and let me know about that nudge in your life.

For the rest of us, this is an opportunity to remember.

To recommit.

To respond.

So that we might not only be redeemed and restored, but so that we might reform the nation.

Again & Again, God Loves First

Posted on March 14, 20211 Comment

Text: John 3:14-21

One of my favorite books is “Hope for the Flowers.”

It tells the story of a little caterpillar named Stripe who is looking for something… he just isn’t sure what it is.

He just knows, deep within, that there is something more out there.

One day, he comes across this mound… this heap… this mountain of other caterpillars, all climbing on top of one another trying to get as high as they possibly can.

There are rumors of something wonderful at the top of the pile.

So Stripe joins them. He wants to see and understand and know what is up there, even though he has no idea what it is.

Along the way, he makes some terrible choices. He hurts others. He pushes them out of the way.

He has to stop looking other caterpillars in their eyes so he doesn’t feel so bad about what he is doing.

He was looking for life among things that were sucking the life right out of him.

The story reminds me of my good friend, John.

For years, he worked in the corporate world and successfully built his own company.

He climbed to the top, seeking success and power and telling himself when he got to the top, he could finally enjoy life.

But when he got there, he still had this longing that he just couldn’t fulfill and he couldn’t be sure that anything he had done was worth it.

It also reminds me of Nicodemus.

He was part of the ruling class in Jerusalem and had done everything right.

He was the epitome of power and privilege.

And yet, deep within, he knew that there was something he was missing… a longing he couldn’t quite put his finger on. An empty space in his soul and answers he couldn’t grasp.

Have you ever felt like that?

Have you ever been stumbling your way through life, doing what you thought you were supposed to be doing, and woke up and wondered… what am I missing?

In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul writes that we all do this.

It is the life of sin.

“[we] let the world, which doesn’t know the first thing about living, tell [us] how to live. [We] fill our lungs with polluted unbelief, and then exhale disobedience. We all did it… all of us in the same boat. It’s a wonder God didn’t lose God’s temper and do away with the whole lot of us… “ (Ephesians 2:1-6 MSG, selected)

Actually, pause here for a moment, because if we remember from the first Sunday of Lent, God sure does have the capacity to wipe away humanity and start from scratch…

Only God has chosen not to do it.

God set the bow in the clouds as a reminder of the promise to keep meeting us where we are.

Paul goes on to say, “instead, immense in mercy and with an incredible love, God embraced us. God took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ…. with no help from us!” (Ephesians 2:1-6 MSG, selected)

It is an echo of those words of Christ we read in the gospel this morning.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” (John 3:16, NRSV)

Salvation, life, wholeness… this is what God wants for us.

This is God’s gift to us.

This is God’s plan for our lives.

Our God wants nothing more than to hold us in love and grace and mercy, like we might hold a newborn infant.

Before we can understand it…

Before we deserve it…

God loves first.

In our United Methodist tradition, it is what we call prevenient grace.

From the latin: pre-venient, “before” “to go”

God’s grace, God’s love, comes first.

This week, I learned about some experiments done in the 1970’s by Dr. Benjamin Libet. He was a neuroscientist who wanted to understand what was happening in our brains as we make decisions.

We think that we make a decision… say to flex our fingers… then, our brain initiates the electrical impulses, and then our muscles respond, right?

What he actually discovered is that before we consciously make a decision to do something, our brain has already started the process!

FIRST our brain activity begins.

THEN we make a decision.

Finally, our body responds and our fingers flex.

So, it kind of seems like our decision wasn’t actually the CAUSE of the action.

But he kept working and discovered that we CAN consciously make a decision to stop an action that our brain has already initiated.

He asked people to resist the urge to flex their fingers as soon as they become aware of it.

When we become aware of an urge to act, we can choose to stop.

Libet called this ‘free won’t.”

We can’t choose to DO something… but we can choose to stop.

What does this have to do with grace?

Well, let’s change the outcome we are seeking.

Instead of trying to flex our fingers, what if we are trying to be saved?

Scripture tells us over and over again that there is nothing we can do to earn God’s grace.

There is nothing we can do get salvation for ourselves.

No matter how much we want it, or strive for it, or choose it.

And that is because our conscious decision to love God is like our conscious decision to wiggle our fingers… it is always secondary.

What comes first is God’s love.

God’s prevenient grace.

The very way that God built us for relationship and salvation.

God laid the foundation and the groundwork for us to receive salvation before we could even conceive of the idea to love God back.

We love… because God loves first.

Now… we can consciously reject that love.

We can resist it.

We can try to do our own thing.

Like my friend John… or Stripe the caterpillar… or Nicodemus…

But God’s love and grace is always there, sending out signals and nudges and glimpses of the possibility that awaits us if we stop resisting.

In the book, “Hope for the Flowers,” one day Stripe sees something that makes his heart stop.

He catches a glimpse, a possibility of something he can’t quite comprehend. He sees a butterfly.

He stops climbing, curls up on a branch, and builds a cocoon.

He doesn’t know how he knows to do it, but he does.

That’s what happened to my friend, John.

One Sunday, the Holy Spirit showed up at church and he caught a glimpse of another life that was possible for him.

He went home and put his business up for sale and enrolled in seminary.

John had no clue what was waiting for him, except that everything was about to change.

And Nicodemus?

He may have come to Jesus in the middle of the night, unsure of those nudges with his soul and afraid of what others might think.

But, he, too, is forever changed by the grace of God.

The next time Nicodemus appears in the gospel of John, he has stepped into public view after the crucifixion to ask for the body of Jesus.

It is when Jesus is lifted up on the cross that he fully understands the life that God intended for him.

God loves first.

God holds us and shows us what life, real life, is all about.

And that longing deep within us…?

We want to hold God back.

We want to curl our tiny fingers around God’s and cling to what is possible.

We can get ourselves distracted.

We can resist.

We can say we don’t deserve it because of the things we have done.

But none of that changes the fact that we are held.

That we have always been held.

And that if we just let go of trying to do it all ourselves…

If we stopped saying no…

We would discover that God has already given us the life of salvation we long for.

Amen.

Follow the Star : Epiphany

Posted on January 3, 2021Leave a comment

Has God ever spoken to you?
Have you ever seen a sign?
Heard a voice?
Met God in a dream?

As I was finishing up my senior year of high school, I was kind of a mess. I could not figure out where I wanted to go to college, and my indecision was creating a lot of anxiety. I worried that if I made the wrong choice it would affect everything from that point on in my life.
I had this portable filing box filled with folders and acceptance letters and brochures and applications and I was overwhelmed by it all.
But one afternoon, I found myself driving home from a youth event and I knew….
Like a light bulb turning on above my head…
I knew that I was going to Simpson College.
Never mind that it wasn’t even one of the schools in my folders or that I hadn’t even applied yet.
It just came to me and felt like everything was suddenly right with the world.

The word Epiphany means “an appearance or manifestation” and the twelfth day after Christmas we celebrate how God’s love became manifest in human form
And we remember all of the people who first experienced this revelation of good news: the shepherds in the fields, Mary and Joseph, and the wise men from the East.

I keep thinking about how God acted and spoke and moved and showed up in the lives of these totally unrelated people from different background and realities.
Some of them might not even have known the God of the Israelites.
But through dreams and signs and nudges and messengers, God showed up in their lives.
As the prophet, Isaiah, cried out…
Arise! Shine! For your light has come… though darkness covers the earth and gloom the nations, the Lord will shine upon you… Nations will come to your light and kings to your dawning radiance. (60:1-3)
Not just the faithful people of God would be drawn near, but nations! Kings! Strangers! Unbelievers!

As Matthew tells us, it wasn’t simply a star in the sky that drew the magi to Bethlehem.
They recognized that the star itself was a sign, a message of something bigger. It was the light of Christ himself, revealed to the entire world, that pulled those magi over mountains and deserts and seas to the countryside surrounding Jerusalem.
Before they even knew who he would become or what it meant for their lives, this epiphany, appearance, manifestation, changed their lives.
They felt a nudge to move, to act, to respond.
And they did.

When John Wesley talked about the grace that transforms our lives, he started out by talking about prevenient grace.
The grace that goes before us.
The grace that shows up in the lives of people before they even know who God is.
Prevenient grace is why we baptize little babies.
It was the neighbor who reached out to invite you to come to church.
It was website you stumbled across when you were looking for a new faith home.
It was the faithful actions of your parents and grandparents that laid a foundation for you.
Prevenient grace is that first nudge.
The invitation.
The awareness of a different kind of possibility.
A sign. A star. A word.
Something that shifts.
We don’t always know yet how, or why, or what it means, but it changes us.

I saw how many of you were drawn out of your homes just a couple of weeks ago to catch a glimpse of that great conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter in the sky. While it was possible to see with your naked eye or through binoculars, this particular photo was made available by Greg Hogan. It was taken as a long exposure shot from central Georgia.
This was a once-in-a-lifetime experience… after all it has been 800 years since these planets appeared so closely.
But I think part of what was so powerful about this experience is that we are hungry for light.
We are hungry for hope.
We are hungry for just a glimmer of possibility and joy.
We find ourselves at the start of a new year, and yet still in the midst of a pandemic.
Our world, feels kind of bleak right now.
But so it was at the time of Jesus’ birth and in the time of Isaiah.
Forces of death and violence, power and pride lurked around every corner.
They knew the despair of exile and occupation.
They knew isolation and helplessness.
But into their midst, Isaiah heard God’s call:
“Arise! Shine! Lift up your Eyes!”
In the midst of everything that is going wrong, LOOK!
Look for those glimmers of grace.
Those indications of hope.
Those moments of possibility.
Pay attention to the invitation…
See what God is doing all around you…
The magi in the East recognized that this star was leading them on a journey into the unknown. And they chose to follow the star that led them to Jesus.

This Epiphany, in the midst of everything happening in our world that feels bleak and difficult, I want to invite you to get up. To shine. To pay attention.
I want to invite you on a journey.
For the last few years on this Sunday, we have come forward to draw star words.
Each star came with a word, an intention, a little nudge from God… something to pay attention to in the coming year.
This year, rather than each drawing our own words, we are going to follow the stars together.
We are going to take time each Sunday to focus on how a few star words speak into our lives.
How they call us to go deeper.
Live more faithfully.
Grow in our discipleship.
And just like the magi, I want to invite you to not only be willing to offer your gifts with God… but I want to invite you to be open to what God might be giving to you in this journey.

You know, when I had that epiphany to go to Simpson College, I had no clue what God had in store for me.
Heck, Simpson didn’t even have a meteorology department and that was what I intended to study.
But I opened myself to the possibilities and how I could best serve God and just look where I ended up.
It was all because I allowed myself to pay attention to those nudges and I decided to take a risk and follow them.

Whether we are new to this faith or we have been coming to church for nearly a century… God is still shining in your life.
God is still guiding you.
God is still speaking… nudging… showing up…
God is still creating a new thing in you….
Renewing you…
Transforming you…
So that every one of us might become more and more like Christ.

Friends, a star is shining in the sky.
In a world that is bleak and frustrated and tired and worn out, there is a glimmer of possibility.
Of something new.
Unknown.
And if you open your life up to it…
If you take one step… and then another…
If you bring along some friends…
If you let that nudge work in your life…
It just might change everything.

May it be so…

Prayers from under a blanket

Posted on February 19, 2013Leave a comment

Today’s prompt begins with verse 6 of the familiar Psalm 139 (NRSV): “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high that I cannot attain it.”

Look up today. Let the high places catch your eye and your imagination. Be full of wonder as you pick up your pen to pray.

Holy God, we turned up the thermostat tonight.

Outside our walls the wind is rushing and swirling and stirring up everything in sight.

It is a cold and bitter wind.

It is the kind of that makes you want to hunker down and drop your head and close the hood of your coat in tighter.

It is a wind that humbles you.

Brings you to your knees.

It moves with such power that it goes through your very bones.

Goes through the bones of the house.

Gets to the core even if you are wrapped up tight.

Sometimes, God, you blow like that in my life.

Your Spirit moves so fiercely through me that I have to back away.

I want to curl up in a ball.

I want to become small so that you won’t notice me.

But you do.

You get to me.

You get into the depths of me.

But instead of a cold and bitter wind, it is a touch of fire, a spark of movement, a calling to go and to do.

And when I hunker down and try to resist, you get me anyways.

You fill me up so that I can’t take it anymore.

And brought low to my knees I have to respond.

Speak Lord, for your servant is listening.

self-awareness, faith, repentance and the Lord's Supper

Posted on May 31, 2012Leave a comment

In the past two weeks, I have had a number of conversations with colleagues and family about the Lord’s Table… not necessarily about who is welcome, but about what MAKES that person welcome.

My friends in the LCMS church have been discussing what kind of understanding of faith is required for a first communion experience. I am not completely versed in their traditions, but from what I was told (and then understood) current practice is for children to have to be old enough to express the faith for themselves before participating in the sacrament. But as the practice of infant baptism and baptism of younger children has increased, they wonder if a) communion should also be extended to young children or b) both sacraments need to remain as practices reserved for those who understand and have claimed their faith personally. I think it is a wonderful conversation for them to be having, as we should always make sure that our theology is consistent with our practices and that those practices are then consistent in and of themselves.

One of the important factors in their conversation is that the sacrament of communion (in particular) is a gift for believers of the faith and that there is some danger in coming to the table unprepared, with wrong intention, or misusing the sacraments. The primary place in scripture they (and other Christians) draw upon regarding this issue is 1 Corinthians 11:26-29:

Every time you eat this bread and drink this cup, you broadcast the death of the Lord until he comes. This is why those who eat the bread or drink the cup of the Lord inappropriately will be guilty of the Lord’s body and blood. Each individual should test himself or herself, and eat from the bread and drink from the cup in that way. Those who eat and drink without correctly understanding the body are eating and drinking their own judgment. (CEB)

If we are not old enough or developed enough to test and examine ourselves, to be self-reflective, then there is a danger present there.

In the United Methodist tradition, one of the ways that the Lord’s Table is emphasized is as a means of grace. In fact, communion is not necessarily reserved for only the baptized, as John Wesley believed it could bestow even prevenient grace… grace that goes before us… and that partaking of communion could be a converting act. As the Holy Spirit transforms us through the ritual, we might let go of our old life and finally become ready to accept the faith for ourselves.

George Lyons has modernized John Wesley’s sermon “The Means of Grace” and shares these words on the duty of constant communion:

“all who desire an increase of the grace of God are to wait for it in partaking of the Lord’s supper.” By meditating upon his saving death, by expecting his personal presence, by anticipating his coming again in glory, we prepare ourselves to receive his grace. Those who are already filled with peace and joy in believing, or anyone who longs for the grace of true repentance may, No, must eat and drink to their souls’ content. “Is not the eating of that bread, and the drinking of that cup, the outward, visible means, whereby God conveys into our souls all that spiritual grace, that righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit, which were purchased by the body of Christ once broken and the blood of Christ once shed for us Let all, therefore, who truly desire the grace of God, eat of that bread, and drink of that cup.”

Wesley was convinced that communion was not only a confirming, but also a converting ordinance.

In some ways, our tradition in the United Methodist Church has taken 1 Cor 11:26-29 with a grain of salt… Yes, we believe that one needs to be of the right heart and mind before you come… BUT, we see so much grace in the ritual that it not merely confirms the faith we have, but can even overcome our lack of belief and faith and repentance.

This is possibly why my mom recently became a little angry at the dinner table. She had attended worship with my brother and sister-in-law at their non-denominational church. I have never been to their church, so I can only relate her experience as she shared it. In their tradition, communion is open to those who have faith in Jesus Christ, but the pastor made a special plea right before the time of communion that those who were not right with God and their neighbor should not participate.

As my mom exclaimed to us later, “If they mean everyone is welcome, then EVERYONE SHOULD BE WELCOME!”

The conversation continued and as I heard the experience recounted, my sister-in-law talked about how the service was running long and the pastor skipped some of the more “pastoral” instructions that typically go with that plea. To my parents and brother who were guests that day and were unfamiliar with their traditions (and also from the United Methodist tradition), the words sounded cold and off-putting.

And yet, I gently reminded my mom, even in our tradition do we speak similar words. In every service of Word and Table, we have a time of not only confession, but also of reconciliation where we have the opportunity to pass the peace with one another and seek forgiveness with our neighbors. And our invitation clearly states:

Christ our Lord invites to his table all who love him, who earnestly repent of their sin and seek to live in peace with one another.

Therefore, let us confess our sin before God and one another.

As I think about it more and more, the United Methodist tradition tries to hold in tension both the particularity of scripture (1 Cor 11) and the depth and breadth of scripture and our theological understanding of God’s grace.

In his article “Admission to the Table and Recent United Methodist Debate” Hoyt Hickman lays out the history of how we came to our current understanding of who is welcome to participate at the table and points to these words (which I can’t remember having ever read before) in our Book of Worship:

All who intend to lead a Christian life, together with their children, are invited to receive the bread and cup. We have no tradition of refusing any who present themselves desiring to receive… Every effort should be made to make each person, and especially children, welcome at the table. It is particularly effective to look directly at the person being addressed, touch each person’s hand while giving the bread and cup, and if possible call each person by name.

We don’t talk about baptism being a prerequisite. We welcome children, even young children who have no full concept of what this meal means, as a part of the covenant and care that their parents make on their behalf (Acts 2:39 – This promise is for you, your children, and for all who are far away—as many as the Lord our God invites. – CEB). And while we encourage personal confession, make opportunity for doing so available, and invite people to be earnestly repentant before they come, we will not refuse someone who comes. We believe that God just might act in their lives anyways… in spite of where there heart is at the moment.

Or as George Lyons puts it, ” It is not only for those who already believe and long to deepen their relationship with the Lord, but for those who truly want to believe, but seem to lack the grace to do so.”

I am not sure where my LCMS brothers and sisters will end up in their conversations. And I don’t know fully the practice of my brother’s church. But with all of its nuance and tension, I love where my own United Methodist tradition lands….

So come to the table if you seek to love God. Come to the table confessing the truth of your heart. Come to the table and bring with you your children and grandchildren and your friend who is hurting and the stranger who needs to be loved. Come to the table where God’s grace is ready to meet you and to welcome you home.