Sermon for Transfiguration Sunday, Year C, "Transfiguration," Luke 9:28-36

Sermon 3/3/19

Luke 9:28-36

Transfiguration

It isn’t often that The United Methodist Church makes front page news in the national mainstream media. But this week, almost every major news organization was running stories about The United Methodist Church in the aftermath of the Special Session of General Conference. From the New York Times: United Methodists Tighten Ban on Same-Sex Marriage and Gay Clergy - NYTimes, ‘We Are Not Going Anywhere’: Progressive Methodists Vow to Fight Ban on Gay Clergy, and Why a Vote on Gay Clergy and Same-Sex Marriage Could Split the United Methodist Church. From the Washington Post: United Methodist Church tightens ban on gay marriage, LGBTQ clergy. From NPR: United Methodists Face Fractured Future. We’re in the news, but I don’t think the headlines are the kind we want. I don’t think, certainly, that folks thinking about exploring their faith, trying out a relationship with a church, are going to be particularly drawn to The United Methodist Church by those headlines, which reflect a denomination in pain and turmoil. I experienced a taste of this even closer to home this past week. Some of you know we hosted an event at church this past week - the New York State Council of Churches came to lead a conversation on Budget Principles for New York State. As people of faith, what would a “just” state budget look like? We invited members of the press to attend, and it was my responsibility to contact folks from the Watertown Daily Times. In my email correspondence, my contact person immediately shifted the conversation to ask about what had happened at General Conference. He said, in essence, that he couldn’t imagine that the news would be helpful in building up church attendance. And indeed, I had folks in our community contacting me this week to ask - what does this mean for gay and lesbian people I know? Are they welcome at our church? I know, friends, we have a variety of points of view in our congregation, and folks supported different plans coming to General Conference. But I also know that we strive to be a congregation that welcomes all people. In fact, we write that on our bulletin covers every week. All people are welcome here. We are not always perfect at embodying those words, but I think we can agree that that is our intention, our aim, what we strive for. Still, though: What do we do with the painful experiences of this week? How do we respond to the hurt and harm folks are experiencing? How do we respond when we’re in the news, but the news doesn’t sound so good?

Two summers ago now, I preached a series here on women in the bible - do you remember that? One of the Sundays we looked at a story from the book of Judges, the story of the Judge Deborah, and the story of a woman named Jael. When faced with a conquering army, Deborah oversaw the battle, and Jael, finding herself with the main enemy of Israel in her tent, drove a tent peg through his skull while he was sleeping. The Bible is full of fascinating stories, isn’t it? As I was preparing my sermon that week, I was sharing with friends that although I felt like folks would learn from my sermon, learn a Bible story they didn’t know, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to say about the story. What should we learn about our own lives from Deborah and Jael? And one of my friends responded with a question: “What’s the good news in the text?” That simple question helped me so much - in that sermon, and since then. We can talk about Bible stories until we’re blue in the face. But if we don’t have any good news to share, we don’t have anything meaningful to share at all. We’re a people of the good news. The word “gospel” means good news. Jesus is the embodiment of good news. That God loves us, offers us grace without condition is good news. That we don’t have to wait until we die to live in God’s kin-dom, but instead can be part of bringing God’s reign to earth right now is good news. We’re people of good news. And so when we read the Bible, we read looking for good news. So that’s what I’m asking today, even as I am grieving the heartbreak in a denomination I love: Where’s the good news?

Today is a - well, a weird Sunday in the liturgical calendar, the calendar that sets the rhythm of our church year. It’s the last Sunday before Lent begins on Ash Wednesday. And today, we celebrate a Sunday called Transfiguration Sunday. Transfiguration Sunday celebrates the transfiguration of Jesus. And the transfiguration itself is hard to describe, but we might understand it as Jesus’ true nature – all his divinity, his godliness – momentarily being seen while he still walked on earth with us, revealed to Peter, James, and John. For a brief moment, Jesus is transfigured, and his holiness is unveiled in a sense, and three of his closest disciples witness it. To be honest, this probably still doesn’t sound very exciting to us, does it? Maybe just more confusing than anything. And indeed, I don’t think reading about it will ever convey to us exactly what happened on that day, or what Peter, James, and John actually saw and felt. But I think we can study this passage and get a better sense of things, and learn to relate to their experiences – and I think that’s what’s key for us to finding good news today.

The text opens with “eight days later.” Eight days after what? The previous chapter tells us it is eight days after Peter answered the question “Who do you say that I am?” with “The Messiah of God” to Jesus, and then Jesus proceeds to tell them that he will suffer, be killed, and raised, and that anyone who wants to follow him should be prepared to take up a cross too. So eight days after this, Jesus takes Peter, James and John up the mountain. There he is transfigured, changed in some way, face shining like the sun, and seen speaking with Moses and Elijah, who represent the law and the prophets, the pillars of Judaism. Together, Jesus, Elijah and Moses talk about what Jesus is trying to accomplish in Jerusalem. What exactly does it mean to be transfigured? The text is vague, but here’s what we can figure out. Transfigured is like but not exactly the same as transformed. To transform means “to make a thorough or dramatic change in the form, appearance, or character of.” In other words, there’s a change, but the change can be positive or negative. But transfigured is transformation with a direction. It means “to transform into something more beautiful or elevated.” (Source: google) Writes Vanessa Chan, “While a transformation simply signifies a drastic change, a transfiguration gives it direction – towards greatness, grandeur, majesty. And in a sense,” she asks, “isn’t this what we’re ultimately all aspiring towards? It occurred to me one day that these successes I’m aiming towards are really just the surface to a deeper desire: holiness. The more we can be like Christ to those around us and in the things we do, the closer we can grow in our relationship with Him. I want to be the best version of me, and God knows what that is better than anyone else.”

Meanwhile, as Jesus is transfigured and joined by Elijah and Moses, Peter, James, and John are witnessing these events unfold. Peter, Luke tells us, doesn’t really know what he’s saying, which cracks me up, that the gospel-writer paints Peter in this act-first think-second sort of way. He just barrels ahead. So, not knowing what he’s about exactly, Peter still offers to build dwellings so that they can all just stay there on the mountain. But God speaks from the overshadowing cloud that frightens the disciples: “This is my Son, the Chosen; listen to him!” The words from God echo those spoken at Jesus’ baptism. And then Jesus is back to “normal,” and alone again with the three disciples, and they head back down the mountain, not telling anyone what they’ve experienced - at least not right away.

From texts like this one, we can easily see why we might talk about having “mountaintop experiences.” We generally use this phrase to describe a particular time when we feel close to God, where we can hear God’s voice more clearly, and where we can see the world from God’s perspective, more clearly. Mountaintop faith experiences are intense, spiritual times where it seems so much easier to see God and to understand what God wants us to do. It’s how I used to feel spending a week at summer camp when I was little – I couldn’t wait to get there, and I couldn’t wait to go back when it was over. It seemed pretty hard to capture that mountaintop experience when in the real world. I found myself thinking like Peter - couldn’t we just stay on the mountain? If God’s voice is so clear on the mountain, shouldn’t we try to be there all the time?

I’m reminded of a passage from C.S. Lewis’s The Silver Chair, Book 4 in The Chronicles of Narnia. In The Silver Chair, we meet Jill, who almost immediately makes a series of mistakes. Beyond mistakes, actually. She does some things that are hurtful. But nonetheless, she finds herself in the magical land of Narnia on a high, high mountain, and face to face with Aslan, the Great Lion, who is the Christ-figure in the series. Aslan overwhelms her. She barely knows how to be or act around him. But she wants to be there, with him, on the mountain. But instead, Aslan sends her down to the land, with a mission, actions she has to take to undo some of the harm she has caused. Aslan gives her careful instructions to follows, and Signs she will encounter to help her carry out her mission. As she is traveling, floating down off the mountain into the world, Aslan speaks these words to her. "I give you a warning," he says, "Here on the mountain I have spoken to you clearly: I will not often do so down in Narnia. Here on the mountain, the air is clear and your mind is clear; as you drop down into Narnia, the air will thicken. Take great care that it does not confuse your mind. And the Signs which you have learned here will not look at all as you expect them to look, when you meet them there. That is why it is so important to know them by heart and pay no attention to appearances. Remember the Signs and believe the Signs. Nothing else matters."

If the air is so clear on the mountain, if we can hear and understand God so easily on the mountain, if it is on the mountain that we see Christ transfigured, elevated in glory, shouldn’t we - couldn’t we please just stay there? After all, when it is just me and God - when it is just me and Jesus, when I’m just in God’s holy presence, when I’m immersed in prayer or scripture or meditation, when I’m just “all in” to my time with God, it all seems so clear. When other people get involved, back down on the ground, it all gets so muddled and messy. Isn’t it best to stay where everything is clear?

To these heartfelt questions, God says: Nope! As cool as it is for Peter and James and John to be on that mountain with Jesus, and as awesome as their vision is of a transfigured Christ, the truth is that our move toward “greatness,” the way we transform into something that is more beautiful and more elevated is not by hanging out on the mountain, but rather immersing ourselves in life in the valleys. Jesus may have appeared in his glory on the mountain, but his ministry was among the people. His holiness came not from separating himself from others, choosing a select few to witness his holiness, but rather it came from his ministry of loving people, healing people, eating with them, listening to them, and submitting himself to being beaten, tried, and crucified rather than giving in to anything that deterred him from God’s mission for him. There is no resurrection glory without taking up the cross. Jesus’s majesty comes not from being above - literally or figuratively - the mess of the world, but from being right in it, right where the pain and hurt and suffering are.

And so it is for us. We cannot withdraw from the world. We can’t abandon God’s hurting people. We can’t stick our heads in sand, or shroud ourselves, or protect ourselves and still experience transfiguration. Jesus calls us to draw strength from the clear voice of God on the mountaintop, and to live and serve in the valleys. When we’ve heard God’s voice clearly on the mountaintop, we can learn to be translators for a world that is confused and longing to hear a voice of love amidst the cacophony of hatred and judgment and violence. We have to be the clearest pictures of Christ for the world that we can be. And so the good news is this: It is in the messiness of the world that Christ’s glory is revealed most fully, and it is exactly in the mess of the world that we find our calling. Maybe the headlines are right: We are a fractured church, a fractured world, a fractured people leading fractured lives. Thankfully, Jesus heals. Thankfully, Jesus calls us onto the mountaintop, shares his power, his life, his being with us, and sets us into the world to be healers too. God’s voice is clear on the mountaintop. And the work God calls us to is clear in the valleys. Let’s share the good news. Amen.  

Sermon, "A Way Forward: Which Way?" Acts 15:1-31

Sermon 2/24/19

Acts 15:1-31

A Way Forward: Which Way?*

This morning, as we gather for worship, delegates from the United Methodist Church around the world are gathered in St. Louis for the Special Session of General Conference. The Conference officially began yesterday, with delegates and bishops and visitors coming together for a day of prayer. Today, the legislative session will begin. They will do their work from today through Tuesday, the 26th. The Special Session is meeting to hear the report of a body that the last General Conference, General Conference 2016 created: The Commission on a Way Forward. Delegates who gathered in 2016 expressed to the Council of Bishops their desire to find some way to move forward as a denomination in light of our enduring disagreements over same-sex relationships and church practices. And the Council of Bishops, in turn, created the Commission to present possible plans for action to this specially called General Conference.

Here’s what the Commission on a Way Forward has had as part of their vision statement as they’ve worked together over the last few years: “The Commission will design a way for being church that maximizes the presence of a United Methodist witness in as many places in the world as possible, that allows for as much contextual differentiation as possible, and that balances an approach to different theological understandings of human sexuality with a desire for as much unity as possible. This unity will not be grounded in our conceptions of human sexuality, but in our affirmation of the Triune God who calls us to be a grace-filled and holy people in the Wesleyan tradition.”

Their vision really captures my attention - their hope has been to guide us in a way forward that allows for both “as much contextual differentiation as possible” and “as much unity as possible.” That’s a pretty tall order! Contextual differentiation is another mouthful - we seem to be pretty fond of those in The United Methodist Church. But what it means is that we want to allow people to adapt the way of being church as much as possible so that it makes sense in our own setting. Think about the two United Methodist Churches we have just in our community. I’m the pastor of both North Gouverneur and First UMC. We’re both United Methodist congregations, and we both function under the same guidelines, but we don’t do things the same way. It wouldn’t make sense! We don’t have lots of committee meetings in North Gouverneur when we, a small group, can take care of most of our business on a Sunday morning before or after worship, meeting when we need to. At First UMC, we have to pay for some services that at North Gouverneur we accomplish through volunteers, because of the different scale, different size we’re talking about. We often sing the same songs in worship, but sometimes we sing different music that better suits each congregation. Our order of worship is similar each week, but adapted to reflect each setting. That’s “contextual differentiation.” So the Commission on a Way Forward set as part of its vision the idea that maybe there is a “way of being” related to same-sex relationships and church practices that is contextual. Maybe it doesn’t make sense for there to be only one way of doing things that works for congregations that are big and small, diverse and homogeneous, in countries all around the globe.

At the same time, the Commission has worked with a vision of “as much unity as possible.” Unity doesn’t mean sameness. It means that we’re not whole unless we’re together. It means that we have a shared purpose, values, and vision. For example, at both First UMC and North Gouverneur, and in United Methodist Churches around the world, we share the same mission: to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. The Commission on a Way Forward has worked, then, to craft a plan that has space both for contextual differences, and the unity of the whole church. A tall order!

As a result of their work over the past few years, three primary proposals came out of their work. I want to share with you very simplified details of each plan. One plan is called the Connectional Conferences plan. In this plan, the denomination would separate into three groupings, based on our theological point of view. We’d be either part of a “progressive,” “traditional,” or “unity” conference, that shared some resources, but were mostly independent of each other. This plan requires a lot of amendments to the Constitution of the church, and hasn’t gained a lot of traction.

The Traditionalist plan keeps the current language of the Book of Discipline, The United Methodist Church’s book of rules and order, which prohibits same-sex marriages in the church and performed by United Methodist Clergy, and which prohibits openly gay and lesbian clergy from serving as pastors. The Traditionalist plan focuses on increasing accountability to these rules and increasing the penalties for violating them. It also provides a pathway for those who feel they are unable to comply with the rules to form a separate network of churches outside of, but loosely connected to The United Methodist Church.

Finally, the One Church Plan would allow individual pastors to decide whether or not they would officiate at same-sex weddings, individual congregations to decide whether or not they would host same-sex weddings at their churches, and individual clergy sessions of an annual conference to decide whether or not they will recommend the ordination of gay and lesbian persons as pastors.

After studying these three plans, the Commission on a Way Forward presented them to the Council of Bishops and the Council of Bishops voted to present all three plans to the General Conference, with their noted preference that we adopt the One Church Plan. Now, during these next few days, delegates will have an opportunity to perfect and vote on these plans. There are two additional plans, presented by other groups: The Simple Plan would remove all language from the Discipline that restricts same-sex relationships and related church practices, and another plan calls for the dissolution of the denomination - deciding that we have no path forward that is together as one body. It is also a real possibility that delegates will not be able to agree on any of these plans. If that is the case, delegates will meet again on the regular schedule in 2020, and probably consider similar legislation all over again. Whew. Are you all still with me? I know it is a lot to take in!

So, where is God in all of this? How are we carrying out the work of Jesus in the midst of this? How is the Spirit moving among us? Is there some good news to share? Thankfully, there’s always good news from God, and to find it, we turn to the scriptures. Today, we find ourselves in the book of the Acts of the Apostles, the collection of stories about the first leaders in the church that was birthed after a resurrected Jesus returned to God’s home, and the disciples received the gift of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost to give them the courage to spread God’s message to everyone. But as we talked about last week, the new church quickly realized that they had some things to work out. They didn’t have a common understanding of how to proceed given that some Gentiles - folks who weren’t a part of the Jewish faith - were hearing about Jesus and wanting to follow him too. And so the church leaders, like Peter and James and Paul, had to ask some hard questions: When should the gospel be adapted to these new settings they were preaching in? What was essential to the faith to maintain? Which traditions and practices should be enforced and which were merely contextual? Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

We see this question come up repeatedly in the book of Acts. Peter, in Acts 10, has a vision of the God calling him to eat foods normally considered unclean by Jewish law, and then he is brought to the home of a Gentile centurion. Moved by the Holy Spirit, he baptizes the entire household… even though it was forbidden for a Jew to share at the table with Gentiles. In Acts 11, Barnabas goes to minister to the Gentiles who have become Jesus-followers, and Paul joins him, and many are converted. In Acts 14, Gentiles are converted in Iconium and Lystra, but tension grows between Jews who follow Christ and those who do not. Some who reject the message of Jesus stir up conflict between new Gentile converts and Jewish Christians. And “to complicate matters, other missionaries began to visit some of these places and the messages being shared about which practices must be followed as a part of the faith were different.” One particular question seems to emerge after all these incidents that sort of encapsulates the whole tension: Do new followers of Jesus have to be circumcised in order to be part of the new Christian community? Circumcision was, since the time of Abraham, an important marker of identity. It was part of the cohesiveness of the Jewish identity, a way people marked their devotion to God. And now suddenly, some people were arguing that it wasn’t necessary. Jesus was Jewish. Jesus was circumcised like other Jewish men. He never said you shouldn’t be circumcised. But some followers of Jesus are interpreting his teachings and the freedom they’ve experienced through God’s grace in Christ and concluding it isn’t necessary for new followers of Jesus.

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

So, testimony is given by a variety of people. James, the brother of Jesus, is one of the primary leaders of the young church, and he seems to hold a great deal of responsibility in his hands. After hearing what everyone has said, he reflects on some of the writings of the prophets that speak about Gentiles responding to the word and work of God, and he concludes, “I have reached the decision that we should not trouble those Gentiles who are turning to God.” But, he says, they should be encouraged to follow certain provisions - not circumcision, but things like abstaining from meat that has been sacrificed in rituals of religions outside of Judaism.” The group chooses several leaders to be sent out to the surrounding areas to share the results of the Council. Remember, no facebook live streaming, so people were waiting to hear the news. And we read that when the gathered congregation in a Gentile region heard the news, that space was being made for them in the church without them converting to Judaism, they rejoiced.

The folks who attended the Jerusalem Council didn’t leave all sharing the same opinion about how to do things. Instead, they left agreeing that they could make space for each other to be in ministry in some very different ways, and yet still be part of the same one body of Christ together. This was not the end of disputes over ministry to Gentiles. Paul was fighting for the legitimization of his ministry to the Gentiles and getting pushback right up to the very end of his life. But it was a turning point certainly, the allowed the gospel among the Gentiles to thrive.

In our study group’s book Holy Contradictions, one of the essay we read was by Rob Fuquay, a pastor in Indianapolis. He wrote an essay called “Multiply or Divide?” In it, he poses several questions: “What if we just show grace to one another and assume we all want to see people brought to Christ, grow in their faith, and transform the world? … What if we approached our current divide in United Methodist not as a right or a wrong, but as an opportunity to expand our mission? What if we gave room for all sides … to coexist as one church and welcome the change to reach more people for Christ? What is this potential schism has arrived not to divide us but to help us multiply?” What if? What if we decide that we don’t want to trouble people who are longing to turn to God, but instead, we want to encourage them, build them up, help them grow in faith? What if we bless each other do to this in very different ways - ways we don’t always understand, or even agree with, but we bless because we are one in Christ? What if? Maybe God’s grace is multiplying our impact, not dividing us. After all, that’s just the upside-down kind of thing God is fond of doing!

Friends, like with the Jerusalem Council two thousand years ago, regardless of what is (or isn’t) decided at General Conference, we won’t be finished with these conversations. Because everything about our life with God and living out our faith is always up for conversation. The early church found a way to move forward  and still do God’s work together. Can we?

Yesterday, I was watching snippets of the day of prayer at General Conference. As folks came back from lunch, some people started singing, and eventually many joined in. They were singing words from a song called “I Need You to Survive,” written by Brooklyn pastor and gospel musician Hezekiah Walker:  I need you, you need me. We're all a part of God's body. Stand with me, agree with me. We're all a part of God's body. It is [God’s] will, that every need be supplied. You are important to me, I need you to survive. You are important to me, I need you to survive. I pray for you, You pray for me. I love you, I need you to survive. I won't harm you with words from my mouth. I love you, I need you to survive.” These words are my prayer today. My touchstone. My offering to you. Friends, you are important to me. I pray for you. Pray for me. Pray for each other. I love you. Let us love each other. We need each other - we need each other to survive. Amen.

* This sermon series draws on the themes, structure, content, and excellent work of Rev. Katie Z. Dawson, and the sermon series of the same title featured on her blog, Salvaged Faith. Used with permission. Direct quotes from Dawson’s sermons are so noted. Her series can be found at: http://salvagedfaith.com/2018/09/02/a-way-forward-which-way/

Sermon, "A Way Forward: Essentials and Non-Essentials," Roman 14:4-12

Sermon 2/17/19

Romans 14:4-12

A Way Forward: Essentials and Non-Essentials*

I’ve known for a while that we would need to spend some time preparing together for the Special Session of General Conference this February - we’d have to find a way to talk about complicated, difficult, things that are close to our hearts, that impact people we love, and that can sometimes cause pain and division in the community of faith. I was blessed, then, to come across a sermon series preached by one of my colleagues in ministry last year. Katie Z. Dawson preached a beautiful sermon series on A Way Forward for The United Methodist Church, and I’m thankful for her permission to use her work to help me shape this sermon series.

The Special Session of General Conference begins on Saturday. Delegates from United Methodist Churches around the world will meet for four days to look at different proposals for structuring our denomination based on our significant ongoing disagreements when it comes to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people and the life of the church. As I mentioned last week, we’ve had a study group going, reading a book together (Holy Contradictions, Brian K. Milford, editor) that focuses on this question: “How might United Methodists bear witness to graceful and mutually respectful ways of living in the Wesleyan tradition amid the enduring disagreements about same-gender relationships and related church practices?” And last week, we talked about how as we seek to answer that question for ourselves, we turn first to scripture, but then we use the tools of tradition, experience, and reason to help us interpret what we find in the text.   

Today, we’re asking more questions, as we reflect on a statement oft-quoted by United Methodists. “In Essentials Unity, In Non-Essentials Liberty, In All Things Charity” or sometimes, “In All Things Love” - love and charity were used somewhat synonymously when this phrase was coined. The quote has been misattributed a lot over the years, and is sometimes wrongly assigned to John Wesley, the founder of Methodism. But actually, it was written by a German Lutheran theologian named Rupertus Meldenius in a tract he wrote on Christian unity in the early 1600s. (1) However, in the way things work over time, these words, never spoken by Wesley, have become tied to our understanding of who we are as United Methodists. This phrase “In Essentials Unity, In Non-Essentials Liberty, In All Things Charity” was even the theme of General Conference in 1996. Certainly, I think they express a sentiment Wesley would support.

So, today we’re thinking about what it means that we Methodists cling to this motto, that we’ve made it our own even though it doesn’t come from Wesley. What do we mean when we say, “In Essentials Unity, In Non-Essentials Liberty, In All Things Charity”? The general sense of these words is that when we talk about the main things of faith, we should be unified in our hearts and understanding. When we’re talking about non-essentials, things that aren’t critical for right relationships with God and neighbor, we should allow people freedom for their own expressions of faith. But in everything, we should interact with charity and love. It makes a lot of sense, this approach to disagreements, doesn’t it? “In Essentials Unity, In Non-Essentials Liberty, In All Things Charity.” I can support that. But...what is an essential of faith? What things are not essentials of faith? How do we decide? And what if you think something is an essential, but I think it isn’t? And above all - do we really have charity, have love in all things? In the midst of all disagreements? I know that I’m not always feeling very charitable when I’m not seeing eye to eye with someone! How can I change my heart?  

One of the essays we read in our book study quoted Wesley’s sermon called “On Schism.” Wesley was preaching at a time when many churches were experiencing divisions, when groups were breaking apart and forming new faith communities. Wesley was part of the Church of England, and he very much never meant to start a new denomination. He remained an Anglican priest his whole life, in fact. For Wesley, the idea that you might break apart a faith community over theological disagreements was an extremely serious matter. In his sermon, he wrote, “To separate ourselves from a body of living Christians, with whom we were before united, is a grievous breach of the law of love. It is the nature of love to unite us together, and the greater the love, the stricter the union. And while this continues in its strength, nothing can divide those whom love has united. It is only when our love grows cold that we can think of separating from our brethren … The pretences for separation may be innumerable, but want of love is always the real cause.” (2)

What things are essentials? What things are non-essentials? Are we wanting in love for our siblings in the body of Christ? The very first Christian faith communities faced some of these same struggles, as we see in our reading today from Paul’s letter to the Romans. Paul writes, “Who are you to pass judgement on servants of another? It is before their own lord that they stand or fall … Let all be fully convinced in their own minds … We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves. If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s ... [E]ach of us will be accountable to God.”

Katie Dawson writes, “In Paul’s time, the conflict he saw in the Roman community was a clash between Jews and Gentiles – people who followed the laws of the Old Testament and those who had never lived under that law but who were accepting Jesus Christ. At this point in time, Christianity was not really a separate thing from the Jewish faith…  It was a movement that had begun within the Jewish community, but it was also quickly taking root in Gentile communities who had no knowledge of or cultural connection with the Jewish faith. This created all sorts of problems:

“Should someone be circumcised into the Jewish faith before being able to follow Jesus? Did the Jewish dietary laws have to be followed? What are the holy days that must be honored? When you got to a cosmopolitan, diverse place like Rome, you had folks in the same community who held vastly different opinions about how the faith should be practiced. People who ate meat and people who didn’t. People who were circumcised and those who weren’t.” In general, keeping in mind that we should always be wary of generalizations, Paul and his contemporaries answered these questions in two ways. Some thought that of course you would continue to follow all of the laws of Judaism as Jesus-followers - why wouldn’t you? And some thought that of course, being followers of Jesus set you free from some of the laws that seemed impossible to live up to. Salvation came through God’s grace, not through earning God’s love with obedience. So, Jesus-followers should have freedom from oppressive religious laws. In general, those were the two “camps,” and they played out in a big way in the diverse context of Rome, home to many peoples and cultures.  

Again in general, and being mindful that generalizations oversimplify things, we have two schools of thought in The United Methodist Church right now as well when we start talking about same-sex relationships and the life of the church. Folks we might call “progressives,” who read the scripture, faithfully interpret what they read, and reflect theologically conclude that the scriptures do not condemn LGBT persons. Dawson writes, “They believe that some these passages refer to culturally bound understandings of holiness that no longer apply in Christian community. These passages are not talking about loving, mutual, relationships between two persons, but instead about exploitive violent actions and abuse or cultic sexual practices. Progressives would call us to look for the fruit in the lives of all persons who claim the Christian faith – do they love God and their neighbor?  And for those who have experienced the call of God in their lives to serve, it wouldn’t matter if they were gay or straight … Progressives also would point to the marginalization of LGBT+ persons, not only in history but all around us today as well. They see current prohibitions in church law as harmful not only to our witness, but to the actual lives of LGBT+ persons.”

Other folks are “traditionalists,” who read the scripture, faithfully interpret what they read, and reflect theologically conclude “that scripture is clear about the prohibition of homosexual acts.” Dawson writes, “While justice might be a key word to describe progressives, covenant might be a key term for traditionalists. They believe that these passages, along with others, describe what personal holiness looks like within the Christian community and that if we interpret the meaning away from these scriptures, [then] all of our understandings of personal holiness might be compromised.  God has created us in a particular way, man and woman were designed for one another, and only within the covenant of marriage between one man and one woman are sexual acts pleasing to God. When we choose to follow Christ, traditionalists would argue, we reject the ways of this world and allow ourselves to be conformed instead to Christ. That is the covenant under which we now live. Traditionalists believe we are called, in community, to hold one another accountable to this covenant.” You might find yourself connecting to one of these points of view more closely than the other, or find yourself somewhere along the long spectrum inbetween. I believe strongly that progressives and traditionalists love the church, love Jesus, and love scripture.

When we turn back to our text for today, I think Paul has wisdom to share with us. Paul appears to be saying something like, “These practices, these convictions, they are not essential to what it means to follow Jesus. If you are celebrating particular holy days in the Lord’s name – great! If you choose to refrain from participating in the Lord’s name – great! Because you are doing it all in the name of Jesus. Whether or not you keep kosher laws or are circumcised or whether you prefer pew chairs or pews – as long as you are focused on your Lord – that’s all that really matters. Paul goes on to say that we should not judge one another for our various convictions.  Each person will stand before the Lord in their own time. We are not to force our own convictions about practices upon one another, nor are we to be a stumbling block to another person’s faith by allowing our practices to interfere with those of others.” (Dawson) Sounds good, right? But that last sentence - that’s such a hard balance to strike: Neither forcing our own convictions on each other, nor allowing the way we practice our faith to interfere with the faith of others. As I’ve mentioned before, Jesus speaks clearly, definitively about being stumbling blocks that keep others from getting closer to God. Sometimes, in the midst of the divisions we’ve been facing, I feel like we are just stumbling all over each other. How do we live into Paul’s words?

Thomas Lambrecht, one of the contributors to the book we’ve been studying together, talks about “compatibilists” and “non-compatibilists” - two “mouthful” words that I think are actually easy to understand in meaning. We’ve talked about progressives and traditionalists. Within each of those groups, there are those who “understand [that] people who have been wrestling with these questions arrive in different places.  These folks also don’t believe that the answer to this particular question is essential to our faith. Lambrecht … would refer to these folks as compatibilists. Compatibilists are willing to remain in community with those who disagree with them.” They focus on “what unifies us as United Methodists …. [W]hat IS essential is our understanding of grace, our focus on personal and social holiness, and the connection that allows us to be in ministry across this globe.” (Dawson)

There are those within each of the progressive and traditionalist groups, however, who believe that how we view human sexuality and faith is an essential. “They would argue that what Paul is talking [in today’s text] … practices like what we eat and wear – [are] truly non-essential things.  But values like justice and covenant are not something you can compromise. Traditional non-compatibilists believe that our call to covenantal holiness requires us to maintain these standards across the church … Progressive non-compatibilists ... want the church to be faithful to what they believe are the obvious cries for inclusion within scripture.” (Dawson) These perspectives bring us to the crossroads we find ourselves at in The United Methodist Church today.

Essential, or non-essential? Progressive or traditional? Compatible or non-compatible? Nothing is quite so black and white, so either/or as that, but thinking about these groupings helps us understand the perspectives folks are bringing to the table when General Conference begins this week. The proposals delegates are considering reflect those points of view, and if you want more information about the proposals, I encourage you to check out the link in your bulletin worksheet, or talk to me and I can share some details with you. And we’ll hear a bit more in worship next week.

So, “Is the question of human sexuality an essential of our faith? Will our response divide the church? Or is it a non-essential? Is it a place where we can respectfully disagree and create space for one another?” How would you answer these questions? My take: how we love people is essential. How we act as neighbors is essential. How we fulfill the commandments of loving God and loving neighbor is essential. So, to the extent that our divide is impacting our ability to love - to the extent that we’re displaying a want of genuine love like Wesley talks about? We’re indeed talking about essentials. But to the extent that we’re talking about differences in faithful interpretations of scripture, perhaps we’ve lost sight of the main thing. Jesus - following Jesus - is our main thing. I hope, I believe that we have room for lots of people and lots of ways in the body of Christ of doing just that, as we build each other up for the sake of God’s kin-dom.  Helping people meet Jesus, follow Jesus, serve Jesus? Our main thing.   

In essentials, unity. In non-essentials, liberty. In all things - in all things - love. "May God continue to lead us as hold fast to the essentials of our faith and respect differences in non-essentials, and may love be the source of all that we do." (Dawson) Amen.

(1) Ross, Mark E., https://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/essentials-unity-non-essentials-liberty-all-things/.

(2) Emphasis mine. Wesley, John. “On Schism,” Sermon 75. 

(3) Dawson, Katie Z., http://salvagedfaith.com/2018/08/26/a-way-forward-to-each-their-own-convictions/

* This sermon series draws on the themes, structure, content, and excellent work of Rev. Katie Z. Dawson, and the sermon series of the same title featured on her blog, Salvaged Faith. Used with permission. Direct quotes from Dawson’s sermons are so noted. Her series can be found at: http://salvagedfaith.com/2018/08/26/a-way-forward-to-each-their-own-convictions/

Sermon, "A Way Forward: A Quadrilateral," Philippians 4:8-9, Matthew 22:34-40

Sermon 2/10/19

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

A Way Forward: A Quadrilateral*

Some of us have been gathering each week to read and reflect together on a book called, Holy Contradictions: What’s Next for the People Called United Methodists (editor: Brian K. Milford.) The book is a collection of seventeen essays, all written in response to this question: “How might United Methodists bear witness to graceful and mutually respectful ways of living in the Wesleyan tradition amid the enduring disagreements about same-gender relationships and related church practices?” As part of our time together, we started by going over some guidelines for having holy conversations. After all, we see “unholy” conversations at work in the world all the time. We live in a world right now where we feel like we can’t talk to each other. We assume things like “if you believe this, then you must also believe that,” and that means you must be such and such kind of person, and I can’t possibly be friends with that kind of person.

Can we talk about things differently in the church? In a world where we’ve started to disengage and close ourselves off when we disagree with someone, or alternately when we shame and degrade anyone who doesn’t share our point of view, is it possible to do things differently? I think we can. And so in our study group, we’ve set some guidelines for holy conversation. We’ll try to listen, and not always jump to speaking, and to listen carefully to what others say, and not misrepresent their views. A good way to check this is to say, “I heard you saying” and then try to rephrase your conversation partner’s point of view. And then if they say that you didn’t quite hear them right, listen while they rephrase it. Make sure you understand, even if you don’t agree. We’re trying to use “I” statements when we share. Instead of saying, “You said this” or “They think that,” we’re trying to see, “I believe, I feel, I think.” We’re owning what we say. And we’re remembering to speak with love and kindness about people, and to remember that we’re talking about “people” and not “issues.” When we talk about “issues,” we can sometimes speak in careless ways. When we remember that when we’re talking about same-gender relationships we’re talking about people who are beloved to God and us, we remember to speak with care and love.  Hopefully, the church is a place where we can talk about things that are hard, things that make us uncomfortable, things where we know we might disagree with the folks sitting near us in the pews, and talk differently than folks elsewhere might talk.

In this sermon series, we’ll be thinking together about The United Methodist Church and same-sex relationships and the future of the denomination, but it is really about more than that. It’s about how we understand God, how we read scripture, how we figure out what God is saying to us, and how we live as beloved community when the way we do those things - understand God, read scripture, and hear what God is saying - differs significantly. We’re talking about this now because at the end of this month, delegates from The United Methodist Church around the world will gather in St. Louis for a special session of General Conference. General Conference usually happens every four years, and it is where we make decisions as a denomination about what we believe and how we structure our church. But this month is a special session of the General Conference, meeting for the soul purpose of figuring out if there is a way forward for us in light of the fact that we have, across the denomination, some significantly different understandings of scripture, and how we interpret it, and what conclusions our interpretations bring us to in relation to same-sex relationships, inclusion in the church, marriage, and ordination.

We have to be able to talk about hard things sometimes. In a way, we are endeavoring to answer for the congregation the same question as the book from our study group poses. “How might United Methodists bear witness to graceful and mutually respectful ways of living in the Wesleyan tradition amid the enduring disagreements about same-gender relationships and related church practices?” This sermon series isn’t about trying to convince you of a particular point of view, or telling you the “right” answers. Instead, we’re going to be focusing on better understanding how we interpret scriptures, and how we relate to each other, and love each other when we don’t see eye to eye. I do want to be clear, as we talk, about some things that I think are “givens,” things you can count on for sure. I love you, and God loves you. God loves you no matter what your “side” is, and no matter whether your side is “right” or “wrong.” God loves you if you are gay or lesbian, bisexual or transgender, and God loves you if you are heterosexual. God loves you if you can’t wait to talk about these things for the next few weeks, or if you wish we never had to talk about things that make us uncomfortable! And, importantly, the church - this church, and the church universal - the church belongs to God, and God will continue to have a task for us, for the world, will continue to call us to make disciples and be disciples of Jesus regardless of what is decided at General Conference.

So, where do we start, as we seek to understand our own hearts and minds, each other, and above all, what it is God is leading us to know and do? One of our tasks as disciples, according to our Book of Discipline, the book of order and rules for structuring our denomination, is to ask: “What can I say that is faithful to scripture as it has been passed down through tradition, and that makes sense in light of human experience and reason?” (paraphrase of Book of Discipline, 81, by Dawson) In our Wesleyan heritage, that is, following the teachings of the founder of the Methodist movement led by John Wesley, we United Methodists say that we turn to four sources to help us articulate our faith - a quadrilateral. Wesley never used the word quadrilateral, but students of Wesley’s over the generations have turned to this model as a way to help us remember and think about the sources of our theology. We believe that “the living core of the Christian faith was revealed in Scripture, illuminated by tradition, vivified in personal experience, and confirmed by reason.” (Book of Discipline, 82) Scripture, tradition, experience, reason.

Along with Wesley, and with other Christians, we believe that scripture is our primary source for understanding. In other words, we start with the Bible. That’s our first place, the first place we look to understand what God is saying to us about how to be followers of Jesus in the world. So, studying the scripture is really important. But how do we figure out what the scriptures are saying? People have wrestled with this ever since there were scriptures to read, or even since there were sacred stories to listen to. How do we know how to understand what we read in the Bible?

“First, scripture is interpreted by other scripture.” (Dawson, emphasis mine.) We learn that it isn’t helpful to take a single verse out of context. We’ve talked about how knowing what comes before and after a verse or passage helps us make sense of what we read. And knowing when and where stories take place helps us understand. We also understand better when we see how a passage fits in with the major themes of the whole Bible. In our gospel lesson today from Matthew, the lawyer, a Pharisee, who asks Jesus a question asks Jesus to “interpret and prioritize scripture” for them. (Dawson) The lawyer’s motives aren’t the best - the Pharisees want to call Jesus out and somehow prove him wrong. But the results are good, for that audience and through the millennia. Jesus gives us a rule of thumb to guide us as we interpret scripture. When we read texts that are confusing, we can ask, “How do these words help us to love God and love neighbor?” John Wesley, you’ve heard me mention, talked about looking at “the whole scope and tenor” of scripture when trying to figure out what verses mean. For him, a guiding principle was that “God is love,” and so when he read other passages that were difficult to understand, he would hold them up against that guide - “God is love.” Any interpretation of the scripture that contradicted that guiding principle he felt was off-base. We are theologians, interpreting the scripture we read, using guides like the rest of scripture, and the way Jesus teaches us to prioritize the greatest commandments and read everything else in light of these teachings - love of God, love of each other.  

Another source for our understanding scripture and God’s call to us is tradition. The Book of Discipline describes tradition like this: “Christianity does not leap from New Testament times to the present as though nothing were to be learned from that great cloud of witnesses in between … Tradition is the history of that … environment of grace in and by which all Christians live.” (85) Tradition is a guide for us in that it “represents a consensus of faith” over time. (86) So, one way we figure out what God is saying to us is by looking at how followers of Jesus have interpreted the scripture over the years. We read in the Bible what the gospel writers and apostles had to say about scriptures from the Hebrew Bible. We can study what theologians in the early church from the 3rd and 4th century had to say about the scripture. We can read John Wesley’s notes on the entire Bible, and see his verse-by-verse comments from Genesis to Revelation. And we look to the tradition and wisdom of our own context too - what did we learn from grandparents and parents in the faith about God?

A third source is our own experience. When we read the scripture, we bring ourselves - we are one of our own sources for understanding scripture! We’re shaped by everything that’s happened in our lives. We’re shaped by where we live - whether in a small town or a big city or in the US or in South Africa. We’re shaped by our economic situation, by our genders, by our emotions, by our experience as children, or parents, or grandparents, by our occupations. Our experiences are why we “can read the same passage of scripture repeatedly over time and discover something new with each reading.” (Dawson) God can speak to us in new ways through our experiences, and help us understand the scripture. For example, John Wesley started supporting the licensing of women as preachers in part because of his experiences with strong women in his lives whose call by God he witnessed personally. His experience helped him read the scripture in a new way, and thus he shaped the direction of the church.

Finally, we interpret the scripture using the source of reason. We recognize that we can’t fully know God. God is beyond “the scope of human language and reason.” (Book of Discipline, 88.) But we also believe that God gave us sharp minds that we might carefully use reason to better understand God and the scriptures. We use reason to ask questions about faith and scripture. We use reason to organize our understandings. We use reason to test our findings. We use reason to making connections between scripture, tradition, and experience. We use our reason to help us bring science, philosophy, and nature to bear on our reading of sacred texts. The scriptures themselves prize sound reason. In Proverbs we read, “Turn your ear toward wisdom, and stretch your mind toward understanding. Call out for insight, and cry aloud for understanding.” (Proverbs 2:2-3, Dawson)

The Book of Discipline, reflecting on these sources for understanding the scripture, concludes: “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.” (89)

We have not yet been able to come to a consensus in our denomination when it comes to how we approach human sexuality and in particular same-sex relationships. We draw on the same sources of understanding, but some of us are drawn more to tradition, and some to experience. Our faithful reasoning leads us to different conclusions, both in the church at large, and here in this congregation. When we think about LGBT persons and the life of the church, I may have a different perspective than you, and you may think differently than those in your family, or in your study group, or in your pew. “We are all theologians after all, all tasked with using scripture, tradition, reason, and experience to weigh what we believe to be faithful responses in the world today … My prayer … is that we would continue to lift up as our number one priority” the very things Jesus lifted up for us:  “the love of God and the love of one another – and that includes those who don’t agree with us. Our call as people of faith after all is to provide a welcome so vast and so radical that all might come to know and experience the saving grace of God lives.” (Dawson) Let us seek to be followers of Jesus, who, through our love of God and neighbor, are always inviting others to journey with us in grace. Amen.

* This sermon series draws on the themes, structure, content, and excellent work of Rev. Katie Z. Dawson, and the sermon series of the same title featured on her blog, Salvaged Faith. Used with permission. Any direct quotes from Dawson’s sermons are noted as such. Her series can be found at: http://salvagedfaith.com/2018/08/19/a-way-forward-25-cent-words/