tradition – Salvaged Faith

Nehemiah: Renewing Our Commitment

Posted on February 5, 2023Leave a comment

Text: Nehemiah 8:5-10; 9:1-3, 38; 10:28-29

Last week, we talked about some of the opposition that the builders and Nehemiah faced while building the wall.

He had to deal with scandal and oppression perpetrated by his own officials…

but he also had to create plans to protect the people from enemies who wanted to attack and destroy their work.

And then suddenly, the work was complete.

It took just fifty-two days to rebuild the wall of Jerusalem.

FIFTY-TWO DAYS!

My drive home takes me down 63rd and they have been working to rebuild the bridges on Highway 28 over the Raccoon River since last summer and are only halfway done.

But these everyday folks rebuilt the walls of the entire city in fifty-two days.

So… what happened next?

Did they throw a party?

No. Nehemiah counts up the people.

He takes a census of all of the Israelites and counts up 42,360 people, an additional 7,337 slaves, 345 singers, 736 horses, 245 mules, 435 camels, and 6,720 donkeys.

And they take up an offering.

You know, like you do.

And then do they throw a party?

Nope.

Because all along this has not been a story about rebuilding a wall.

It has been a story about rebuilding a people.

Rebuilding a community that was centered on God.

As we talked about in the first week of this series, in order to get to the good stuff and address their needs related to belonging and identity, they first had to make sure that they cared for safety and security needs.

But once the walls were built and the gates restored and the officials were brought back in line from oppressive practices… well, the people could breathe.

And they could begin to refocus on their relationship with God.

In fact, rather than Nehemiah initiating the next steps, he writes that the people gathered together and asked the scholar Ezra to bring out the Law of Moses.

Ezra also had a calling… to rebuild the faith of the people, and his story can be found in the first half of the Ezra-Nehemiah saga.

As a priest, he understood that a right relationship with God was the only true source for security for the people.

And he understood that God’s law was the foundation for that “right relationship.”

The people are ready to listen.

So Ezra pulls out the scroll of the Law of Moses.

Many scholars think that this was likely what we know today as the Book of Deuteronomy, or “Second Law.”

And from early in the morning until noon, he reads aloud from the scroll to the people.

But friends… here is just how far away from the faith and their heritage the people were…

Ezra read the words, presumably in Hebrew… but the Levites, the priests, had to translate.

These, after all, were people who had grown up and spent their whole lives in Babylon and Persia.

Or, they were the everyday folks who had been left behind and lived under oppression and they didn’t have priests and schools and institutions in place to continue their traditions.

They were all strangers to their own culture and they didn’t understand their own language

And when they understood what the laws of Moses were asking of them, they wept.

Out of shame.

Out of guilt.

Out of frustration.

This did not feel like a joyful discovery… but rather it only highlighted in their hearts how far away they were from God and who they had been called to be.

At one of our meetings with Global Ministries, we spent some time listening to the stories of Native American United Methodists.

I can’t help but think of how the United States brutally removed indigenous people from their lands, when I think about the time of exile in Babylon for the people of Judah.

And in so many instances, our federal government and the religious partners who helped manage schools, focused on assimilation and removal of native culture, rather than allowing their traditions to flourish.

The same happened to Africans who were captured, sent halfway across the world, and forced into slavery.

As the General Board of Global Ministry, we watched together, “More than a Word,” which explores the use of Native American mascots.

What struck me among the stories were the voices of younger people who grew up either on reservations or even in more traditional white culture, but who were rediscovering their cultural identity.

Their identity had been forgotten. Or even worse, it had been described to them as shameful, something that had to be destroyed.

And it was hard for some to find a safe space to explore what that identity and history meant in their lives.

So part of their weeping was about a loss of that identity.

But the other part of their grief came from knowing just how far they had been from keeping God’s laws.

Suddenly, the rules were laid out for them plain as day, and they didn’t know how they could possibly ever make up for what they had left undone.

But Ezra and Nehemiah don’t see this as a moment to pile on shame.

They urge the people to dry their tears, to end their lament, to let go of their guilt and instead to gather in their homes and feast and give thanks.

Because this is a fresh start!

As one of my favorite hymns reminds us:

This is a day of new beginnings,

Time to remember and move on,

Time to believe what love is bringing,

Laying to rest the pain that’s gone.

This is their chance to let go of the past and put into practice the word of God that they have rediscovered.

What has come before this moment is in the past.

This moment they get a clean slate to start afresh and rededicate themselves to God.

As they continue to hear God’s word read, they rediscover rituals and traditions.

One of these is Festival of Booths that takes place in the seventh month… and lo and behold, they are in the seventh month!

So they follow all of the instructions and for the first time in generations, they honor this week-long holiday.

They also hear once again words that shape their identity as a people.

They remember how they were called together out of slavery in Egypt to be a people, set apart and holy.

That meant things like following a certain diet, refraining from intermarriage, and being dedicated to the Sabbath…

None of which were things that they had been practicing.

So, later that month, they join for a fast of repentance and recommitment.

They rededicate themselves to the law, trusting in the God who has been steadfast and merciful.

All of the officials, priests, and officers, singers, temple staff, gatekeepers and all of the people who were old enough to understand joined together in a binding oath to follow what they read about in Deuteronomy.

They recommitted themselves to the law.

Their focus was on crossing every t and dotting every i.

Keeping the Sabbath.

Refraining from intermarriage.

Practicing Jubilee.

Offering to support the temple.

Dedicating their first fruits.

Bringing in the tithe.

As we think about what it means to rebuild our community, a huge part of what we need to do is remember who we are.

A key difference between us and the people of Judah at this time is that we have a different frame of reference and a different calling.

We are not called to be a people, set apart and holy, isolated, focused on following every letter of the law.

God knows that we will fail if we try… because the people of God failed over and over again.

Last year, we joined together in UMC 101 and we explored together some of OUR foundational beliefs and practices.

We remembered things like:

Our focus on grace and faith put into practice.

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

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

All grounded and centered in the core of Christian tradition… praising the God of all creation who became flesh and lived and died and rose again so that we might truly know life.

In Jesus Christ we have been redeemed and made right… not because we followed the law, but by his grace, and God continues to empower us by the Holy Spirit.

And we remembered that our congregation exists for a purpose.. to help people accept and confess Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior and to live their daily lives in light of their relationship with God.

This is who we are.

A people who love God and accept the grace God offers… and then live out that love and grace in our daily lives.

We are called to be a witness… a light and a leaven in society, a reconciler in a world that is divided, to go into places of pain and show Christ’s hope. (Book of Discipline ¶220)

In just a few minutes, we will be invited to the table.

Just like the people of Judah embraced their traditions and practices, this is a practice that is at the core of our being.

This is a place where we are empowered to start again.

This is a place where we recommit ourselves to God and one another.

This is the place where we find God’s strength and grace for the new beginning that awaits us.

Friends, it doesn’t matter what has come before.

There is no reason to weep or grieve or feel shame for what has been done in the past.

Because here we receive the grace of God that is our new beginning.

So may we, too, come and recommit our hearts to God on this day.

UMC 101: Our Theological Task and the Quadrilateral

Posted on January 30, 2022Leave a comment

Text: 1 Corinthians 13:1-13

Over the last several weeks, we have been exploring what it means to be United Methodist.

We’ve talked about some of the core beliefs we affirm, how we came to get our distinctive United Methodist flavor by emphasizing faith and love in action, and both standards for teaching those core beliefs… but also the love, grace, and humility that leaves room for opinions and difference around practices and positions.

After all, as our scripture for this morning reminds us – we could have all the right answers, and do all the right things but if we don’t love – we are nothing.

As long as we seek to love God and love our neighbors, we can join hands for God’s work in the world.

Does that mean that anything else goes?

Absolutely not.

I shared with you last week from a portion of John Wesley’s sermon, “Catholic Spirit,” in which we talked about those core essential things and how love gives us guidance for how we relate to others who disagree.

But he is very clear at the end of that sermon that holding such a charitable spirit that leaves room for others does not mean you are indifferent to other’s opinions.

And, it doesn’t mean that you are unclear in your own thoughts, practices, or community, “driven to and fro, and tossed about with every wind of doctrine.” (“Catholic Spirit”, John Wesley’s Sermons: An Anthology, p. 307)

In fact, he says if you have a sort of “muddy understanding” with “no settled, consistent principles” that “you have quite missed your way…” (p. 308).

In other words, do your work.

Take responsibility for what you believe, how you act, and the community to which you belong.

Don’t simply parrot what someone before you has taught, or change your perspective when a new pastor comes along.

You are responsible for diving into the gospel of Jesus and figuring out what impact it has on the world.

This is the work of theological reflection.

A theologian is anyone who studies God.

Now, I am a theologian. I have a Masters of Divinity from Vanderbilt University and spent three and a half years studying scripture and ancient texts and history and the thoughts of other theologians.

But YOU are a theologian, too.

A theologian is anyone who “reflects upon God’s gracious action in our lives.” (BoD, p.80)

And United Methodists believe that every single one of us is called to this work.

Every generation has to wrestle with what it means to be faithful in a changing world.

We have to figure out how to communicate the good news of our faith to people who are hurting and lost and broken.

But we also need to figure out how to see the problems and challenges around us like the climate crisis or sexual abuse or global migration and ask what our response should be.

And to do that, we need more than just the basic teachings of our faith, or doctrines.

Doctrine is important, because it helps us remember the core of Christian truth in ever-changing contexts… But our task is to test, renew, elaborate, and apply those teachings in the world.

You see, we take the love of Christ for this world and we figure out how to share and live out that love right here and right now.

There are a couple of important things that the United Methodist Church believes are important to remember, and I think that we can think about these through the description of love that the Apostle Paul offers to us in his letter to the Corinthians.

First, as we do this, we should be willing both take apart and put together our understanding of faith in love. In other words, don’t strut around with a big head forcing your beliefs on others, but ask if this position is still true, credible, and based in love. At the same time, we should always be looking forward for where new truth is flowering and helping to creatively put together a message for tomorrow.

Second, the work of theology is both your responsibility and our responsibility. It is about “plain truth for plain people” – every Christian… young and old alike, is called to grow and learn about how to follow God into this world. But we also believe that it is in our conversation and sharing and work together that all of our individual reflections are strengthened. This is why we come together at our church conferences, and annual, jurisdictional and general conferences to make decisions. Like a love that isn’t always “me first” and that cares for others more than self, we believe everyone has something to contribute and we should be aware of how everyone is impacted.

Third, this work of reflection has to be grounded in what God is doing in the world. We believe that God so loved this world that Jesus came to make a home among us… in a particular time and in a particular place. And we believe that God is still present in our time and in all of our diverse places. Paul tells us that love should not be envious or boastful… and I think about how important it is for us not to force a practice from one culture onto another, or for a culture to give up their own practices to be more like another.

Last year, some of us read together, “I’m Black. I’m Christian. I’m Methodist.” and were surprised by stories of how many of these black leaders felt as if they had to become more white in order to be faithful and found great strength as they reclaimed their own identity.

Finally, if we are going to connect the love of Jesus with the world, then we have to focus on what we do. We can say all the right words and have endless conversations, but as Paul would say, if we aren’t dealing with love – then we are just noisy gongs and clanging cymbals. We know what is true when we see the impact in real lives. United Methodists are all about practical divinity.

The Apostle Paul describes how our understanding of the truth changes through time as we mature and grow and put aside childish thoughts. We are continually doing our best to comprehend – knowing that today we can capture the fullness of God’s truth and love only partially.

But still we try. And we keep trying to do our best in faith, in hope, and in love.

As Paul wrote to the Philippians, we can focus our thoughts on what is excellent and true, holy and just. We can practice what we have learned and received from our mentors and teachers in the faith.

Our job as a theologian is simple: What can I say and do that is faithful to scripture as it has been passed down through tradition, and that makes sense in light of human experience and reason? (Book of Discipline, p.81)

Chalkboard with a drawing of four quadrants for scripture, tradition, reason, and experience. — From https://joshuanhook.com/2018/10/24/how-the-wesleyan-quadrilateral-helps-us-understand-god/

These four theological tools we refer to as the Wesleyan Quadrilateral.

All four are important lenses to help us see how God is working and moving in the world.

As we explored a few years ago with our Bible 101 series, scripture is at the center and is the foundation of all that we do so, we had better be reading and pouring over scripture in our lives.

But… and… scripture itself 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 the gospels, religious leaders ask Jesus to interpret scripture for them and his response gives us a general guide for our own interpretation: 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 – tragedies and joys, 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 be revealed through our experiences and the fruit that we are bearing in the world.

One example is how he relented to license women as preachers in the circuits after he saw the call of God bearing fruit in their ministry.

Our final tool for 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 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 and sometimes reveal even deeper truths within the written word.

Why does this matter?

Because as our Book of Discipline reminds us, every day, there are new concerns “that challenge our proclamation of God’s reign over all of human existence.” (p. 88)

A black man is murdered in public on a city street by a law enforcement officer.

A derecho destroys the infrastructure of a community.

A virus takes the lives of 8,501 of our neighbors in this state.

Where is God’s justice, protection, and healing?

What does it mean to love our neighbor in light of these realities?

That is the work of theology… seeking an authentic Christian response to these realities so that the healing and redeeming love of God might be present in our words and deeds. (p.89)

As we affirm in the Book of Discipline:

“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

May it be so. Amen.

Reflections a week after General Conference… #umcgc

Posted on May 29, 20162 Comments

As Psalm 146 reminds us: human leaders and human institutions aren’t everything. They won’t save us.

We are finite and we make mistakes.

Only God is forever faithful.

Yet, any denomination or tradition comes from God’s followers attempting to live out their faith and their discipleship together.

Fully knowing that we are not perfect, we nevertheless seek to do the best we can to respond to God’s movement and calling in the world in a given place and time… based on where our forefathers and mothers have led us and based on where the Holy Spirit is calling us anew.

That is what we tried to do at General Conference. Over 10 days, we attempted to be faithful to God’s leading and yet we are not God and our plans are just that… ours.

Over these last two weeks, we very nearly split our denomination into pieces. Our differences are stark. Our life together is marred by conflict as much as collaboration. And I’m going to be honest… I’m not quite sure yet what comes after General Conference.

We asked our Bishops to help us find a way forward out of our predicament and that way forward is still vague.

So rather than making predictions, maybe it would be better to share who we are and how we got to this place. I think fundamentally, there are three key things to keep in mind as we wrestle with what it means to be the United Methodist Church.

First, I think it is helpful to understand that the United Methodist Church is a global church.

We are the only protestant denomination that is worldwide. Our churches span from Manila to Legos to Moscow. And, while the church in the U.S. has been declining, the global church is growing exponentially.

In the last ten years, the U.S. has declined in membership by 11%, while the church in the Africa Central Conference grew by 329%!

42% of United Methodists now live outside of the United States.

One of the most important things we do at General Conference is listen to one another, try to understand more about our contexts, and find ways to help ministry flourish all across the world. And that is not an easy task.

But because of our global partnerships, we can do amazing things like Imagine No Malaria and our United Methodist Committee on Relief is the first to arrive on the scene of disaster and the last to leave.

And we can learn from one another.

I remember listening to a committee four years ago debate the process for closing a church. A woman from Liberia stood and said that she was extremely confused as to what we were talking about… not because of a language barrier, but because she simply couldn’t comprehend why we would close a church. The church in the United States needs that passion for the gospel that is growing so fast we can’t build enough churches!

As we continue to debate the inclusion of LGBTQI people in the life of our church, I also heard clearly from our African delegates, like my new friend Pastor Adilson, that their contextual struggle is not with homosexuality, but with polygamy. Rather than asking if same-gender marriages are allowed in their churches, they are struggling with how to welcome and include a man who has four or five wives. Does the church ask him to divorce all but one? What happens to the other wives? Or the children? How is the entire family welcomed?

We are also learning to reframe our conversations to be more global than United States centric. One of our debates this year was about a resolution for health care that referenced the Affordable Care Act. When 42% of United Methodists live outside the United States, these kinds of statements need to be broader in scope. It was hard to be talking about a system that only applies to some of us, when so many people in that room had little to no access to care, much less health insurance.

One of the realities of being a global church is that multiple languages play a role in all of our meetings. While we have four official languages as the UMC: French, English, Portuguese and Kiswahili, we had simultaneous interpretation in Russian, German, Spanish, and many others.

An ever present reality is also that in many of these global areas Christianity arrived along with colonialism. “Most Africans teach their children that Jesus and other biblical characters are muzungu (Kiswahili, “white”) notwithstanding the fact that Jesus would likely have been dark complexioned because he was born in the Middle East.” (http://unitedmethodistreporter.com/2016/05/11/are-africans-grown-a-response-to-bishop-minerva-carcano-dealing-with-wounded-united-methodist-church/)

We, as a church, have tried to combat colonial impulses by allowing the conferences outside of the United States to adapt our Book of Discipline to their local contexts. However, that means that 42% of the church doesn’t have to abide by all of what we vote on… and that we need their votes in order to make changes to the rules only we follow.

Second, it is helpful to know how we make decisions.

The roots of our church lie in England, but we were born during the American Revolution. And our polity, our government is modeled upon our national government.

Just like the government, we have a judicial branch and a Judicial Council.

Our Bishops function as the executive branch.

And the General Conference itself is the legislative branch… just like Congress.

864 of us were elected as voting delegates to represent the worldwide church and we were half clergy and half laity.

The General Conference is the only body that can speak for the United Methodist Church and everyday people like you and me are the ones who make the decisions.

So those of us gathered there had the responsibility of pouring over legislation and making changes to our structure, rules, and positions… four years worth of work condensed into two weeks.

I believe that to discern the Holy Spirit, one has to be humble, empty yourself, and allow other voices to influence you.

The first week of conference is largely spent in legislative committees and in those smaller groups some of that discernment could happen. I had truly transformative experiences in my committee and the work felt good and holy.

But all of those relationships and trust falls apart when an item comes to the floor of the plenary session. There, the decision making process moves away from consensus building and instead creates winners and losers.

On the FIRST DAY of conference… we spent hours debating the rules that we would use in order to debate. We used and we abused Robert’s Rules of Order.

And when we were presented with an alternative decision making process (what you might have heard as Rule 44) to use for particularly contentious issues, we debated it for two days and then voted not to use it.

But we did accomplish some things. We approved the creation of a new hymnal for our church. We strengthened our process for the affirmation of clergy. We created new pathways for licensed local pastors. And we added gender, age, ability, and marital status to the protected classes in our constitution.

Third, it is helpful to understand that while it appears that our conflict as a church is centered around the inclusion of LGBTQI people, our division is deeper.

Our church is a very broad tent and the likes of both Dick Cheney and Hilary Clinton call our church home. This is one of the things that I love about the United Methodist Church.

But I think what came into focus for many of us at this General Conference is that our disagreements may no longer be sustainable.

Perhaps fundamental to our conflict is how we interpret scripture. For some, scripture is absolutely central and the only tradition, reason, or experience that matters is that which scripture can confirm. For others, scripture is absolutely central and yet we have to interpret scripture through the lenses of our tradition, reason, and experience. That shift might seem subtle, but it can make the difference between allowing women to be ordained or not in our church.

We also fundamentally disagree about whether we are a church of personal piety or social holiness. Of course, John Wesley thought it had to be both… but where we place our emphasis determines how we engage with the world and the moral stances we choose to take.

All of this difference is floating beneath the surface of any conversation about how LGBTQI people are included or not in the life of our church.

If you asked me a month ago what was going to happen at General Conference I would have been full of optimism. You see, I’m a bridge builder.

And so I went to General Conference with all kinds of hopes about how we would make decisions to benefit the church all over the world and how in spite of our differences we would find a way forward together.

I don’t think it was naïve to believe this going in.

But in the midst of our gathering in Portland, something shifted. Something shifted in my own life and in the hearts and minds of countless other delegates.

We realized that we could no longer keep doing what we have been doing together as a denomination.

We realized that our differences were tearing us apart.

And in Portland, we made a very conscious choice to avoid the end of our denomination through our votes. We voted to seek unity, to try to find a way to remain together for the sake of God’s mission in the world. But there is a phrase we kept using that I think is important. Unity does not mean unanimity.

As we look at our differences, particularly in the three areas I named, for many, we avoided the end, but are only delaying the inevitable.

Maybe our global structure is unsustainable.

Maybe our decision making process has to change.

Maybe our fundamental disagreements will only continue to allow conflict to rule our work together and we would be better to split amicably and allow each part of our church to be the most faithful it can be to God’s will.

The next four years as United Methodists will not be easy. We have asked the Bishops of our church to lead us in discerning a way forward and that might mean that in the next two or three years we will call a special gathering to decide how to move forward… on what it means to be a global church, on our structure, on our polity, and on our stances regarding human sexuality.

I have about 45 more minutes of things I could share with you and I’m happy to continue to have conversations about our work. But I want to leave you with this one request.

Pray for our church.

Pray for God’s will to be done.

Pray that we might follow the one who is faithful forever, who as Psalm 146 reminds us…

defends the wronged, and feeds the hungry. God frees prisoners— God gives sight to the blind, and lifts up the fallen. God loves good people, protects strangers, takes the side of orphans and widows, but makes short work of the wicked.

In spite of all the good and all of the mistakes that we made at this past General Conference, I take comfort in the knowledge that God’s in charge—always.

Thoughts on “UMC: Revisiting Human Sexuality”

Today, I saw an article by Rev. Dr. Steve Harper, the former Vice President and Dean of the Florida Campus of Asbury Theological Seminary called “UMC: Revisiting Human Sexuality.” He writes about a topic that has arisen at every General Conference in my lifetime… and will again in May.

My only experience of this discussion at the GC level was that of entrenchment, pain, and grief. Nobody really listened to one another. Everyone stuck to their talking points. And those who are most closely and personally impacted by our current position – LGBTQ persons (lay and clergy and their allies) – felt like they had no choice but to interrupt proceedings in order to be heard. I wrote about that day as it happened and you can read it, if you want, here.

But he brings up four points to bear in mind in May. He claims the terms of the conversation have changed since 1972; there is new information that needs to be heard:

Scholarly work has shown you can be a “biblical Christian” and hold a non-traditional view of the “clobber passages.”
Scientific research has transformed how we understand human sexuality.
the actual witness of LGBTQ Christians – “There is no doubt that gay Christians are living as faithful disciples and serving effectively as clergy.”
Our myopic view on LGBTQ persons has kept us from the conversation we should be having about human sexuality and ethical behavior in general.

Points one and three are probably the ones that have the most impacted my own position on this topic. I simply do not read six verses of scripture the same way some in our church do. But I firmly believe that we are all doing our best to be faithful to the scriptures. And perhaps my reading is impacted by my experience and relationships with LBGTQ persons… in the same way that our understanding of verses like 1 Timothy 2:12 has been impacted by the experience of women actually teaching (umm… like myself….). I can’t read those passages the same way after knowing the couple with three adopted kids who sat on the church board. Or the pastors who have challenged me with the gospel and provided care and comfort in difficult times. Or the friend who turned his back on a promiscuous life, found Jesus Christ, and is now happily married to the man of his dreams.

I think of all Rev. Dr. Harper’s points, maybe the fourth is the most compelling reason to change the conversation. I think of that friend I just mentioned who wasn’t able to separate his sexuality from his behaviors because he thought the church was rejecting all of it… until finally he heard that God loved him as a gay man and he found the ability to make different choices. Or the dinner conversation I just had at Easter about marriage: if the only criteria we use to define marriage is that it is between one man and one woman, then we lose our ability to speak about abuse, covenants, respect, mutual love, and a whole host of other biblical principals… and in fact, we ignore much of what the bible actually says about marriage (some of which, we happily reject).

I pray fervently that we can all truly hear one another at General Conference this year. I hope that the alternative process for these conversations might bear fruit – if we have the courage to vote for and use them on this topic. Above all, I pray that God would guide us and help us to be faithful, honest, and gentle with one another and show us a path forward as a people.

Momentum for Life: Who is your Elisha?

Posted on January 24, 2016Leave a comment

This morning, we continue to explore what DRIVES us… the momentum that Christ is trying to build in our life to help us keep following him.

Today, our focus is on how we INVEST IN RELATIONSHIPS. How are we reaching out and building up those who will be the leaders of the future? How are we teaching and mentoring our children so that they might carry this faith forward through the ages?

Just a few minutes ago, Doug/Pam shared with us a piece of the story of the prophets Elijah and Elisha.

Elijah knows that God is calling him away from this earth and he has been trying to prepare his protégé Elisha for the task of carrying on his work.

Elisha doesn’t think that he is ready and so he keeps clinging on to his master, his teacher. He isn’t quite sure that he can do it without him.

Most of us have had a mentor or a teacher, a parent or a family member who helped to shape us in our lives. One of mine was my youth pastor, Todd Rogers. He knew the lyrics to all the rap songs and would bust out in rhyme while we stood in line for events… which was a really strange thing for a tall, white guy to be doing. But he had this way of helping every person feel connected and important. He took our questions seriously… In fact, he helped me understand that the questions are just as important as the answers.

When I headed off to college, I wasn’t sure if I would find that same kind of love and support. But Todd laid the foundation, helped me to have confidence in myself I didn’t know was there, and had prepared me. I discovered, just like Elisha, that God was with me in this new phase of my life, too.

As we grow and mature in our faith, one of the tasks we are called to is to nurture the next generation. Like Elijah, like my youth pastor, like your own mentors…. We are now called to pass on the faith and share what we have received with others.

Our psalmist for this morning focuses his words on how we can do this in our families. So many of you have shared with me how your grandparents or parents faithfully brought you to church and formed in you the convictions that you have today.

One of the ways we are helping to equip parents to share faith with their children is our new children’s church curriculum. The truth is, we only get to see your children and grandchildren for an hour or two a week. You are the ones who are helping them to learn and grow every single day. And so our new curriculum provides some easy ways that you can reinforce the message we share on Sunday mornings. We send home with the children these sheets that include scriptures, prayers and thoughts so that together, you and your kids can grow together in faith.

But we are also called to mentor people outside of our families. In every aspect of our lives… whether it is our work or our area of service, we can be on the lookout for those who are our Elishas.

While we might love what we do, we can’t do it forever.

We get to a point where we retire, or take a break, or transition to a new ministry and at every one of those points, one of the marks of our legacy is not what we ourselves have accomplished, but how we have prepared others to carry that work forward.

And that means we need to invest in the lives of other people.

This is one of the lessons I am learning as I grow in my ministry. It probably won’t shock you to learn that I’m not an expert at what I do…. And I’m grateful for how you have been patient and graceful with me as I learn what it means to be the lead pastor of a church like this.

Last November, I was at a continuing education event where I was reminded, just as Michael Slaughter was in the book, that I need to set aside more time to strategically invest in the work of our leaders in the church. There are so many tasks on the to-do list… but it doesn’t matter what we accomplish if we are not mentoring and moving together.

So one of the commitments I’m making this year is to meet one-on-one with the leaders of each of my committees and teams each month. And I’m encouraging each of our staff to do this with their leaders as well. My hope is that all of us will grow in our faith in the process.

And I started living out that commitment these past two weeks by setting aside time to sit down and talk with some of you about your ministry here at the church. So far, I have had about 30 of these one-on-one meetings and I certainly have been blessed in the process. I’m excited about continuing this work and want you to know that you don’t have to wait for a phone call or email from me… I’d love to sit down with you and talk about whatever is going on in your life!

Slaughter writes that there is an “invisible line of people standing behind you” who have helped to shape your life and your ministry.

But you also are called to stand behind others. “Who are you parenting, mentoring, coaching, encouraging, managing, or leading?”

Who is your Elisha?

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.

selling the good silver

Posted on May 14, 2012Leave a comment

Our church hosted a rummage sale as a part of our city-wide garage sales this weekend. We invited congregation members to bring us their items, we sorted and priced them and the church kept the proceeds. About 8 people put in a bunch of work and over two days we made almost $600… not too shabby!

One of our big ticket items was a silver coffee and tea service set from the church. It had been stored under a cabinet for years and then made its way up to a third floor storage room. I’m not sure when it was used last, but I can verify it has been at least five years. Also for sale were silver spoons, forks, and knives from the church – many complete with a “Methodist Episcopal Church” engraving. They could be purchased for 10 cents each.

As we priced out the items and wrung our hands about whether or not to add them to the garage sale, we came to a conclusion… we are not the church of 1950. It is rare for someone to wear a tie in our church. Sports jackets and suits are rarely seen on a Sunday morning and are becoming less common even for funerals. Our congregation is full of casual everyday folks… and silver isn’t for casual everyday use.

Rather than clutter up our cupboards with items we will never use, we can offer them to a good home and use that money for the current ministry of our church. $175 will send two kids to camp, or buy a full years worth of sunday school materials for the nursery class. $175 will nearly purchase two new lighter-weight tables for our fellowship hall or it will pay one months worth of the electric bill this spring. It will do a whole lot of things that a fancy silver set in the storage room will not.

But I think more than the money we received for that set, we also were reminded that our identity has changed.

Marengo is a blue collar town. Marengo is full of older folks on fixed incomes and young folks struggling to raise their children. Our mission field has changed and instead of being stuck in old ways, we are excited and willing to sell off a few of those old contraptions in order to become and live into the church of the 21st century in small-town Iowa.

I heard not one peep of disappointment in our decision to sell the good silver. A few folks picked up a set of silverware for nostalgia. And the coffee/tea set found a good home.

That, I believe, is a good day of ministry.

understanding ritual

Posted on July 2, 20111 Comment

Today I get to co-officiate my first inter-denominational wedding.

Well, that may not be completely true. There have been plenty of folks from different protestant and even different Christian backgrounds who have married under my authority. But each couple chose to go with the Methodist order and flow and style… their traditions weren’t so important, or different, that it made a difference.

But today’s wedding will be in a Catholic church, with a Catholic priest and I doing the ceremony. I’m preaching and reading and praying, and he’s generally presiding and taking care of the vows.

I have to admit that going into this wedding I wasn’t sure what to think. I have my own authority and traditions and ways of being that are being set aside for this particular ritual. In my church we don’t normally hold the gospel in such high respect and honor. In my church we don’t typically bow before the altar and the cross. It’s not better, or worse, it’s just different.

As someone who is outside of these traditions, they feel a little unfamiliar as I do them, but I am also hyper-conscious of why we are doing them. I understand the respect and honor and submission involved in these ritualistic acts. And that makes them beautiful to me. Yet I also understand that just as ritual acts in my own tradition become rote and familiar that we sometimes take them for granted and go through the motions without any remembrance of why we are doing them.

This experience makes me want to go back with an open eye and look at every action of our typical Sunday morning worship. When do we stand and sit? When do we make motions? What is the purpose of our acts of worship? And then to talk about them… To spend a few weeks or months, or maybe at least one Sunday every month reminding folks as we worship what we are doing and why we are doing it.

“Let us stand together as we hear the gospel to honor the words of Jesus.”

“Let us bow our heads together in prayer as we surrender ourselves to the power of God at work among us.”

“Let us sing with exuberant voices as we give thanks for these blessings God has given us.”

A few words make a world of difference. And they might be enough to jar us out of complacency and to truly worship.