The United Methodist Church is at a crossroads.<\/p>\n

On the one hand, we do incredible work together because of our connection across the globe.\u00a0 Missionaries go from everywhere to everywhere.\u00a0 We are present amid disaster and crisis providing relief.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, we are a diverse, expansive, global denomination working in many different contexts from many different backgrounds.\u00a0 Within that diversity is blessing and also conflict \u2013 including conflict about the role of LGBTQ+ persons in the life of the church \u2013 particularly whether they can be married in the church or ordained\/consecrated by the church.<\/p>\n

Next week, we\u2019ll turn our attention to scripture and dive deeper into how they relate to what it means to be Lesbian, Gay, or Queer today.<\/p>\n

But for today, we wanted to start with the big picture of how we got to this place as a denomination.\u00a0 \u00a0Behind any particular verse is the tension between flexibility and permanence.<\/p>\n

What is written in stone?<\/p>\n

What is subject to change in time and context?<\/p>\n

How do we know the difference?<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

How did we get here?<\/strong><\/p>\n

As people of faith, we are heirs of both the tabernacle and the temple.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 (https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/llumc\/sets\/fixed-and-free<\/a>)<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In the midst of the wilderness, the people had no home.\u00a0 They were always on the move, never setting down roots, everything was always changing and uncertain.<\/p>\n

And so God sends them instructions to build a tent \u2013 a tabernacle \u2013 a movable place of worship that would go with them wherever they were.<\/p>\n

Every person within the community was called upon to contribute something \u2013 richly colored yarns, gold, silver, wood, leather, precious stones \u2013 all of them used to create a moveable place for God to dwell among them on the journey.\u00a0 Wherever they traveled \u2013 God was with them.\u00a0\u00a0 (Exodus 25:1-9)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Generations later, the people stopped moving.\u00a0 They had established themselves in the land and they wanted permanence.\u00a0 They wanted a king like the nations around them. And they wanted to build God a temple.<\/p>\n

King David himself looked around at the palace he was living in while the Ark of the Covenant was still residing within the tabernacle.\u00a0 But it wasn\u2019t until his son, Solomon, was established on the throne, that the temple in Jerusalem was constructed.<\/p>\n

This temple, this permanent dwelling place for God, was important for the people in the time of the Kingdoms.\u00a0 No longer did the people all travel together with God in their midst.\u00a0 Now they were settled in far off places.\u00a0 The temple represented something stable and unchanging, the home base to which they could return.\u00a0 God now dwelt somewhere a part from the vast majority of the people \u2013 but if you followed the rules and went to the temple, you could be with God.\u00a0 (1 Kings 6:11-13)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

That tension between what is fixed and free, an institution and a movement, is at the core of our struggle and our identity.<\/p>\n

Are we focused on the God of the tabernacle \u2013 who hears the cries of the oppressed and marginalized and who makes a home among the people wherever they might be?<\/p>\n

Or are we focused on the God of the temple \u2013 who has made a covenant and established laws and who calls us to repent and return home so we might experience life abundant?<\/p>\n

It is both\u2026 a tension we must hold\u2026 but sometimes it becomes a tug of war that threatens to tear apart the church.<\/p>\n

Even when we focus on the Word \u2013 both the one who walked among us and the living word we discover in this text \u2013 we see this tension.<\/p>\n

As the gospel of John reminds us, \u201cIn the beginning was the Word\u2026 \u00a0the Word became flesh and made his home among us.\u201d\u00a0 (John 1: 1, 14) The roots of this passage are that the Word tabernacled among us.<\/p>\n

But Jesus also said that upon the rock of Peter, he would build his church.\u00a0 Solid, foundational, able to withstand time and changing winds. (Matthew 16:18)<\/p>\n

Too often, what we find reflected within the words of scripture are our own predispositions towards temple or tabernacle.<\/p>\n

And, we must be aware that there is also a shadow side to either of these inclinations.\u00a0 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. \u00a0\u00a0 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. \u00a0 The tabernacle needs to be balanced with accountability.\u00a0 The temple needs to be balanced with grace.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There is an awful lot of history between the time of Christ and our denominational roots in the 18^{th<\/sup> century.\u00a0 The church spread and conquered and fractured and reformed.\u00a0 The bible itself was put in the hands of everyday people.\u00a0 The Holy Spirit moved, and institutions grew.<\/p>\n}

One of our beginning points lies with John Wesley, a priest in the Church of England.\u00a0 The institutional church around him was very removed from the people of the day.\u00a0 And so, he felt a call to leave the cathedral and John Wesley went out into the fields, where the people were.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 They gathered people into small groups for accountability and care and formation, but always encouraged them to remain connected to the established church.<\/p>\n

Now, something that is important here is that Wesley never wanted to start a new church \u2013 he simply wanted to reform his church and help the people reconnect and experience the power of God in their lives.\u00a0 From England to Scotland to the American colonies \u2013 wherever the church was, small groups of Methodists were growing.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If you ever have trouble placing our history as a church, remember this \u2013 the Methodist movement grew up alongside the American Revolution.\u00a0 And when England lost and the Church of England left the colonies \u2013 all of those in the Methodist movement were left without churches and leadership.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

And because we were established around the same time as this nation, our governance matches the governance of the United States.\u00a0\u00a0 Our church is a democratic based structure with three branches \u2013 a Judicial Branch, an Executive Branch, and a Legislative Branch.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

When the people wandered in the wilderness, God dwelt among them in a tent that was free to move.<\/p>\n

When the people were established in a kingdom, God dwelt among them from an established temple in the capitol.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I know we\u2019d like to think that book is the bible, and\u2026 well, it is\u2026 but there is another book that holds us together as a denomination: The Book of Discipline.<\/p>\n

In many ways, this has been our attempt to hold the tension between the fixed and the free, the movement and the institution.<\/p>\n

This book provides stability in the sense that it is our reference point and foundational document of our identity.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Like the United States Government, we have a judicial branch \u2013 a Judicial Council of 9 persons who are elected to rule on matters of disagreement.\u00a0 We also have an executive branch, our Bishops, who are tasked with upholding the Discipline and caring for the ministry of the church.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 It is where we gather to discern God\u2019s will for the future of our church in the world.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If you look at the history of our church, it has not been one continuous solid history.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Conflict over slavery and the authority of the bishops split the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1844 \u2013 years before the Civil War.<\/p>\n

Sometimes splits were the result of contextual differences.\u00a0 Sometimes because there was greater freedom needed that the more established church couldn\u2019t hold within itself.<\/p>\n

But the church has also merged and reconnected and joined with others for missional reasons.\u00a0 In 1939, previous splintering was repaired as we became the Methodist Church.<\/p>\n

And in 1968, we merged and formed a union with the Evangelical United Brethren Church.<\/p>\n

One of our own \u2013 Rev. Harold Varce was a pastor in the EUB at that time and he was there at the founding of the United Methodist Church.\u00a0 In fact, thanks to Harold, that \u201cUnited\u201d from the EUB tradition made its way into our name.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What would be the witness of this new denomination?<\/p>\n

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?<\/p>\n

One of the first things that we undertook was to write our Social Principles.\u00a0 While not church law, they are \u201cthe 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.\u201d (Preface)<\/p>\n

And so in 1972 \u2013 with the denomination only four years old, much of the attention was focused on our section regarding human sexuality.\u00a0 It was a time of great experimentation and misconduct in society at large and this was our first opportunity as a church to speak.<\/p>\n

In the midst of our larger statement was a phrase \u201cpersons of homosexual orientation are persons of sacred worth.\u201d\u00a0 An amendment was made and approved which said, \u201cWe do not condone the practice of homosexuality and consider it incompatible with Christian teaching.\u201d<\/p>\n

In many ways \u2013 right there in the midst of that statement which says two very different things \u2013 is that tension between tabernacle and temple.\u00a0 God\u2019s presence dwells in the life of LGBTQ+ persons – they are of sacred worth\u2026 and the practice of their orientation is sinful to God and requires repentance.<\/p>\n

Since 1972 \u2013 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.<\/p>\n

That tension has reached such a point in the life of our denomination that it has overtaken much of our witness and work.<\/p>\n

And so we reached a point in 2016 where we could not move forward without discerning a new way forward.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

Over the next couple of weeks we\u2019ll back up and look at the scriptures behind our conversation.\u00a0 We\u2019ll look at the landscape of our current dilemma.\u00a0 And in the final week, we\u2019ll explore together the implications of the various proposals.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Here is what I want us to remember today.<\/p>\n

When we were in the wilderness AND when established as a powerful nation \u2013 God dwelt among us.<\/p>\n

When the temple was in ruins AND when the church was being persecuted \u2013 God was with us.<\/p>\n

God has been leading, calling, pushing, prodding, rebuilding, connecting, pruning, and forming God\u2019s people from the very beginning.<\/p>\n

Not once has God left our side\u2026 although sometimes we have turned our backs upon God.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 Anything that will help us grasp onto the very simple fact that God love us and calls us to be God\u2019s people.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Amen.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The United Methodist Church is at a crossroads. On the one hand, we do incredible work together because of our connection across the globe.\u00a0 Missionaries go from everywhere to everywhere.\u00a0 We are present amid disaster and crisis providing relief.\u00a0 New faith communities have been formed in West Des Moines, Camaroon, and Russia. And these things…<\/span><\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3486,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,6,9,1166],"tags":[1459,30,1399,1393,249,1401,342,418,474,479,501,597,664,772,929,932,1402,985,1400],"class_list":["post-3485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-image","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-kenotic-words","category-ordinary-time","category-the-body-of-christ","category-united-methodist-church","tag-gc2019","tag-1-kings","tag-a-way-forward","tag-commission-on-a-way-forward","tag-david","tag-denomination","tag-exodus","tag-god","tag-history","tag-holy-spirit","tag-identity","tag-lgbtq","tag-moses","tag-presence","tag-social-principles","tag-solomon","tag-tabernacle","tag-temple","tag-umc","post_format-post-format-image"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/salvagedfaith.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/wayforward.png?fit=2403%2C1353&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7cYpi-Ud","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/salvagedfaith.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/salvagedfaith.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/salvagedfaith.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salvagedfaith.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salvagedfaith.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3485"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/salvagedfaith.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3485\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3490,"href":"https:\/\/salvagedfaith.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3485\/revisions\/3490"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salvagedfaith.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/salvagedfaith.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salvagedfaith.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salvagedfaith.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}