Upon the Collect of the Day

O God, whose glory it is always to have mercy: Be gracious to all who have gone astray from your ways, and bring them again with penitent hearts and steadfast faith to embrace and hold fast the unchangeable truth of your Word, Jesus Christ your Son; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns,

one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

This is the collect for the week (The Second Sunday in Lent) from The Book of Common Prayer. As with most of the prayers in this volume this collect has a simple elegance that I find in few other places.  If you compare the BCP to most of the liturgical and prayer resources of The United Methodist Church the UMC material hides its face in shame.  One of my mentors in commenting on Methodism’s rituals told me, “Some day our church will employ a poet as part of the liturgy production process, and we’ll be far better off than we are now.”

Truer words.

But, as I consider the work at hand, one term strikes me.  It is the word “unchangeable.”   It comes in the phrase “to hold fast the unchangeable truth of your Word, Jesus Christ your Son.”  I hear this with the ears of someone who has endured the blather of the United Methodist Church’s special called General Conference of a month ago.  I heard this word and similar ones bandied about by people who seemed to have no idea what their language meant.

Because there is a difference between “unchangeable” and “unchanging.”  Unchangeable is a word that we reserve for God and Christ and the Holy Spirit.  It speaks of Truth with a capital “T.”  Unchanging is a more stubborn word and folks seem to use it to defy the reality that things of the faith and understanding and revelation are fluid in their natures.  The list of things about which the church (or much of the church) has altered the literal language of the Bible is endless.  The role of women, slavery, treatment of children, polygamy, capital punishment and a host of dietary laws do not begin to complete the list of practices that modern-day Christians have modified beyond the letter of the law in Scripture. 

Anyone who says that faith and commandment and law are static terms in the practice of the Christian religion is either naïve or spends their entire life with their head in the sand.  God is unchangeable.  Revelation is ever-changing.  That we are not bound by a rigid set of laws under penalty of damnation is affirmed in the first line of today’s collect: O God, whose glory it is always to have mercy…  If it is God’s nature to put mercy first, it seems only fitting that those who would identify themselves as children of God should do the same.

Take it down.

I heard a great sermon many years ago that examined 1 Corinthians 1 & 2.  Sadly, both the preacher and much of the content are lost to time and faulty memory.  What I DO remember is that the preacher labeled the claim of various Corinthian factions that stated, “I belong to Paul,” or “I belong to Cephas,” or “I belong to Apollos” to base sloganism.  The preacher explored the notion that it becomes easy to hide behind a motto or catch phrase and elude completely the truth behind what the phrase says.

The United Methodist Church claims a slogan of “Open Minds, Open Hearts, Open Doors.”  It has, since its adoption by the UMC in 2001, been a bit hopeful.  Perhaps hope is what the church needs.  But it has also been misleading and even untrue.  I know of one local congregation that loudly proclaimed 2/3 of the promise, saying in their advertisements that they were a church of “Open Minds, Open Hearts.”  The fact that this church did not include “Open Doors” as part of its proclamation spoke volumes.  Whether intentionally or not, its refusal to proclaim “Open Doors” indicated its true mind-set.  The slogan is gone, but the church has a rather unpleasant reputation locally of lacking “open doors.”

Recent events in The United Methodist Church have changed that motto from a misleading statement into an outright lie.  The church’s mind is collectively not open.  The denomination’s heart is anything but open.  Its community doors are not open (although thankfully a great number of local congregations have loudly proclaimed that their fellowship is welcoming to all of God’s children).

The conservative wing of the UMC, which has prevailed for the time being, cannot put any kind of smiley face on their position.  The conservatives – in this country and abroad – have drawn a line in the sand that they prohibit some people from crossing.  Their punitive and even vindictive stance against those who disagree with them causes them to forfeit any claim to openness at all. 

I recognize that a lot of church promotion claims are optimistic and even idealistic.  That probably should be the case.  But not here.  Not now.  At least, church, be honest.

Take it down.

First World Problems

I am not yet to the point where I can speak of the recent United Methodist General Conference without blowing a gasket.  But, I will admit that the proceedings provided one (and only one) humorous moment.  It came as one delegate rose to voice his frustration that it took an entire minute for the electronics to receive ballots, tabulate them and announce the results of the 800-something delegate votes.  He thought that the Conference could save overall calendar time if the group reduced the time allotment.  The chair replied that it took the equipment available that length of time to accomplish the task.

I wonder if the frustrated delegate ever observed General Conference in the day when there was no electronic voting.  The Conference decided all matters by a show of hands.  The chair would announce his/her read of the vote and if it was close the Conference tellers would physically count the votes.  In an event like this year’s, virtually every vote would require a manual tabulation.

So thanks, anonymous protester, you have provided the one smile moment out of this entire debacle.

The ticking of the clock is getting loud

We are less than three weeks away from the United Methodist Church’s Special Session of General Conference.  An important milestone for me is that there is one more weekend before the session convenes.  Next Sunday will be the last opportunity delegates have to assemble in their own churches.  Sometime that week the participants will make their way to St. Louis and the gavel will fall on Saturday the 29^th.

So, this coming Sunday will be (for most) the last regularly-scheduled service of worship prior to their historic meeting.  It will be the last sermon (preached or audited) before the crucial debates of the Conference.  It will probably be the last Communion for a portion of the crowd.  Sunday will be the final opportunity for encouragement.  There will be only one more gathering in a prayer circle.  Last handshakes and parting “Good lucks!” will abound.

It is coming so fast.

So, in these final days before General Conference, I entreat any who read these words to be in prayer.  No matter what your position on the issue of human sexuality, no matter which plan you support, no matter what your long-term vision for the United Methodist Church – please, pray.

There is so much violence to people and to the church that could come about.  Relationships could be fractured.  The delegates could make decisions that would take decades from which to recover.  As important as the issue before the Conference may be, I believe that our fellowship is more important still.  If people get hurt, if congregations and conferences splinter, can anyone truthfully say that this is the better option?

The clock is ticking.  The time is approaching.

Pray.

Please, pray.

Toe the Line?

In his book How to Read the Bible & Still be a Christian John Dominic Crossan says,

…in 621BCE, the high priest Hilkiah informed King Josiah of Judah that he had found the book of Deuteronomy, which he called the “book of the law,” in the Jerusalem Temple (2 Kings 12:8).  Thus began what today is called the Deuteronomic Reform under the slogan “one God in one Temple – at Jerusalem” (note, for example Deuteronomy 12:13-14).

WHAT IS MOST STRIKING¹ and even startling about the book of Deuteronomy is how it is dominated by covenant, with covenant dominated by Sanction, and with Sanction dominated by curses and blessings.²

These sorts of writings – taken out of both literary and historical context – prompt some modern-day folks to take the position that sanctions and curses are the appropriate response toward all with which they disagree.  Some of the horribly vindictive rhetoric coming out of the conservative camps in regard to the Way Forward and United Methodist General Conference that gathers later this month appeals to such passages as a rationale for their attitude.

This “second telling” of the Law (lit. deuteros "second" + nomos "law") surfaced at a time of great political and religious upheaval.  No matter what one’s view of the severity of sanction and curse in the book, Josiah and Hilkiah were of the opinion that it was only by imposing strict regulations and harsh enforcement that the Kingdom of Judah and the faith of the Hebrews was going to be preserved.  It is akin to marshal law or the declaration of a state of disaster.  Such things were not ever the norm in Israel.

I understand that some folks believe the situations to be analogous.  They see these times as a period of religious upheaval.  They see strict enforcement as the only way to preserve the unity of the United Methodist Church.  Things fall apart, though, with the realization that The United Methodist Church is an all-volunteer organization.  Even the highest-paid professional clergy, bureaucrats and agency workers joined the church by choice.  One can always walk away without threat to life or limb.  As a fellowship of believers who relish the doctrine of free will, the church as a whole ought to perceive vindictiveness as abhorrent. 

The Right masks its marshal law plan with words such as “accountability,” meaning that anyone who does not agree with their party line is wrong, even chargeable, and that those with whom they disagree must be identified and punished if the so-called offender refuses to conform with their definition of “the correct.”

Let’s be clear: The Right is not called of God or of anyone else save they themselves to be the Credential Police.  I have heard representatives of their position preach from pulpits about “love” and “grace” and “room for all of God’s children at God’s table.”  Until someone disagrees with them.  Then the vigor of their wrath knows no bounds.

Deuteronomy is not the whole of Scripture.  For every passage on Law there is a corresponding text extolling Grace.  I don’t know where all this will end.  But I trust that Self-Justification will never prevail.

Lord, have mercy.

Christ, have mercy.

Lord, have mercy.

¹Capitals are the author’s.

²John Dominic Crossan, How to Read the Bible & Still be a Christian (New York: Harper Collins, 2015), pp. 89-90.

After February, then what?

In a forum called United Methodist Insight dated January 23, Mark R. Holland comments on the so-called Wesley Covenant Association’s (WCA) announced plans to abandon The United Methodist Church essentially no matter what kind of decision the Special Session of General Conference makes in February.  He examines in some depth the public strategy that the WCA seems determined to follow.

I deeply lament the possibility that The United Methodist Church (UMC) might divide or even splinter.  For the life of me, I don’t understand how a denomination that has survived controversies such as slavery, lay representation, women’s ordination, uniting The Methodist Church and The Evangelical United Brethren, civil rights and interracial marriage can be looking at dissolution over the issues that the UMC is addressing in The Way Forward.  At this point there are folks far more insightful than I who are dealing with the questions at hand.

But I can’t help wondering about one form that any Silver Lining might take.  What if, in the event of a full-blown split in the UMC, that people who are not Wesleyan Methodists at heart go their own way, leaving historic Methodism, albeit numerically diminished, intact?  The UMC has long attracted clergy from other denominations because we would accept them after divorce.  The UMC Pension Plan and Guaranteed Appointment has a certain allure to pastors who are part of communions that don’t offer similar benefits.  The UMC also has a reputation (sometimes deserved) for being willing to take anyone into its ranks who merely expresses a desire to do so.

The same can be said for lay members.  When some denominations would not let people enter into full participation in congregational life because of divorce, the UMC welcomed them with open arms.  And it was right so to do.  But where we failed was in properly instructing or examining these transfers. The church has a right to ask of potential members that they understand and uphold United Methodist doctrine.

The UMC is one of those denominations that champions compromise.  One spouse has spent a lifetime in a particular denomination.  The other is a member of a different group.  Neither person is comfortable in the church of the other, and so they couple chooses the UMC as some kind of middle-of-the-road alternative.  They become titular Methodists even though there is no core agreement with our theology by either of them.

There are other choices that have little to do with embracing Wesleyanism. The choosing of membership in a local UMC might boil down to nothing more than a family moving to a community where there is no congregation of their own denomination.  The UMC becomes their alternative because it is “the only game in town.”  There are also more than a few people on our rolls who have entered for programmatic, social or even recreational reasons.  But they had no sense of choosing The United Methodist Church because it most clearly reflected their own spiritual journey.

So, what if the coming storm is a way of making Congregationalists out of Congregationalists, of making biblical literalists out of literalists and making hard-liners out of hard-liners while leaving the children of John Wesley to pursue this unique mix of knowledge and vital piety?

I know there are those that would say that I am being uncharitable.  Perhaps I am.  I will live with that judgment.  But as I began, I observed that it may be that division is inevitable.  And it may be, may be, that this is that fragment of good that can come out of a bad situation.

It seems clear that we cannot go on the way we are.

In praise of character -- and characters

Sr. Clydia Boose
1907 - 1974

It is funny how the mind works, sometimes.  The Epistle reading for this past Sunday in the New Revised Common Lectionary (NRCL) is 1 Corinthians 12:1-11.  The NRSV renders verse 1, “Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be uninformed.”  Some older translations say, “I would not have you ignorant, brethren.”  It reminded me of The Reverend Clydia Boose.  Sister Boose, as everyone called her, was the first female elder ordained in the Memphis Conference of what was then The Methodist Church.  She was born in 1907.  She was ordained deacon in 1940 and elder in 1948.  She served local congregations until her death in 1974.  I was just starting out then. I had had her pointed out to me a time or two and had shaken her hand once before she died February 7.

What brings her to mind is a comment she made early in life about why she hadn’t married, she said, “It’s scriptural: I would not have you, ignorant brethren!” 

Methodism and the Memphis conference in particular owe Sister Boose a lot.  She opened several doors.  She kicked down a couple more.  She was a pioneer without being a crusader.  We need more folks like her today.

Sister Boose was, and I say this in all respect and care, a character.  She knew that.  She reveled in that.  That was one of the things that made her a terrific pastor.  So many of our people in leadership positions currently (I hesitate to call them “leaders”) are plain vanilla.  They have no variance of hue.  Their leadership style is to be scared of their shadows and to try with everything that is in them not to rock the boat. 

I know I sound like so many of the old curmudgeons that I swore I would never resemble, but we surely could use some characters right now.  I say that in all facets of life: government, business and the church.

I haven’t heard of a person being called a Statesman since Cordell Hull died.  “Public Servant” is a title of a bygone age.  Likewise, Church Leader is a term that no one can associate with a particular name or face.  (Quick: name an active United Methodist bishop that is not appointed to your own area!)

R. I. P., sister Boose.

Of action and reaction

In these pages I stay away from secular politics.  That is both a matter of personal preference and of professional survival.  I believe that a pastor is not only allowed to speak but is bound to talk about issues of justice and the common good.  But, to jump into issues of partisan politics is inappropriate at best.

But I would make the following observations to my friends who are currently members of The United Methodist Church.  Looking at the last fifteen or so years – the Trump, Obama, Bush and even Clinton administrations – have you absolutely agreed with every policy and action of our country?  Were there instances when you disagreed strongly with a given administration, on the left or on the right?  If so, how did you respond?  Did you leave the United States, renounce your citizenship and pledge your allegiance to some other flag?

If not, what is moving you to give up on our connection?  I know that the upcoming General Conference of February 2019 is addressing issues that push a lot of hot buttons.  But, is any resolution that may come about something over which you would leave your church? 

Church affiliation is not like razor blades.  It is not meant to be disposable.  Membership vows in this communion ask, “Will you be loyal to The United Methodist Church, and uphold it with your prayers, your presence, your gifts and your service (and, more recently, with your witness)?  Those who are in good standing in the church have unanimously answered “I will” at some point in their lives. 

No matter what General Conference 2019 does, how can Methodist people not show a little faith and a little patience and see how all this shakes out at General Conference 2020?  Is this how people live their lives?  Do they throw away or abandon everything with which they do not agree one hundred per cent?  I have my differences with the UMC and the way it sometimes does things.  I have a list as long as my leg.  But, in those times when I have been at odds with the church, I have never been tempted to take my jacks and go home.  I am not lifting myself up as an example or some paragon of virtue.  I am merely saying that I don’t get it. 

Our Confirmation Ritual says, “Dearly beloved, the church is of God and will endure until the end of time…”  I know that it is not particularly saying that The United Methodist Church will persist for eternity.  But I do so hope that this is not its death knell.

Lord, have mercy.  Christ, have mercy.  Lord, have mercy.