The 2016 General Conference May 22, 2016 Background You re about to hear the background to a fascinating OT story. The year is 520 B.C. The hated Babylonians, who had destroyed Judah, the Southern Kingdom, and had made the Jews their slaves, had been defeated by the Persians. The Persians, under their King Cyrus, had been less brutal. They allowed some of the Jews who had been taken to Babylon to return to their homeland. The king allowed the Jews to rebuild their destroyed capital of Jerusalem, starting with the wall. And more importantly, they could rebuild the Temple, which had been destroyed by the Babylonians. This is where the story you re about to hear picks up. It deals with starting work on a new temple, which starts with building its foundation. Listen, and pay very close attention to how the passage ends. Ezra 3:6b-7, 10-13 The foundation of the LORD s temple had not yet been laid. 7 So they gave money to the masons and carpenters; and food, drink, and oil to the Sidonians and the Tyrians to bring cedarwood by sea from Lebanon to Joppa, according to the authorization given them by Persia s King Cyrus 10 When the builders laid the foundation of the LORD s temple, the priests clothed in their vests and carrying their trumpets, and the Levites the sons of Asaph with cymbals, arose to praise the LORD according to the directions of Israel s King David. 11 They praised and gave thanks to the LORD, singing responsively, He is good, his graciousness for Israel lasts forever. All of the people shouted with praise to the LORD because the foundation of the LORD s house had been laid. 12 But many of the older priests and Levites and heads of families, who had seen the first house, wept aloud when they saw the foundation of this house, although many others shouted loudly with joy. 13 No one could distinguish the sound of the joyful shout from the sound of the people s weeping, because the people rejoiced very loudly. The sound was heard at a great distance. I ll be talking today about some results from our denomination s General Conference that concluded day before yesterday, after ten days of meeting in Portland, Oregon. This is the policy-setting conference of the UMC; this is the group
of delegates that will revise our Book of Discipline, not to be confused with the Bible. Here are some facts: There were 864 delegates elected world wide; I admire their dedication, because the work is long, tedious, and exhausting. The cost was $10.5 million. It dealt with 1,043 petitions. Do not fear, I will not go through each one. I m just going to lift up a few, and give a theological reflection as well. However, if you d like to know how each of the petitions fared and what happened, you can cruise to www.umc.org; there ll be a link you can click, and you can spend days of joy-filled reading. Now even though I will be focusing on issues, it should also be noted that the GC is a time to celebrate the good, strong work United Methodism is doing in this country and around the world. Mission work, relief work, educational work, spiritual formation work--all that is celebrated at GC as well. Before I talk about GC happenings, though, I want to first talk about a GC that happened a long time ago, in Israel s history. Intro: So get this picture clearly in your mind s eye. There is a sign of new birth in front of the people of Israel. They were gathered on the foundation of what would be a new temple, a new start, a new beginning. They were standing on ground where the sacred stories could be told once more. The festivals could be held. Worship, with its sacred rituals, would be celebrated again. They were standing on the promises of God, literally, concretely. God has brought the people back, back from exile in a foreign, pagan land. And now, with the future unfolding before them, what was the reaction? Loud shouting, singing, praising God by many. BUT, more curiously, there were some who weren t happy about God fulfilling God s promises. Many of the older priests and Levites and heads of families, who had seen the first house, wept aloud when they saw the foundation of this [temple], although many others shouted loudly with joy. 13 No one could distinguish the sound of the joyful shout from the sound of the people s weeping, because the people rejoiced very loudly. The sound was heard at a great distance. Some were WEEPING???? Why, in God s name, literally, were they sobbing, with a whole new future opening up before them? Well, they couldn t see that future. They couldn t see God moving, fulfilling promises like a faithful husband or wife fulfills promises. They couldn t see God s actions, God s dreams, God s love.
They could only see the foundations of a new temple, and this one couldn t measure up to the old one. You see, these were older priests, and they remembered the glory of Solomon s temple before it had been destroyed. It was enormous, its beauty and opulence unmatched. They remembered the ceremonies and festivals held there. They were young then, and the temple symbolized their security and their future. And now they re old, and they look at the size of the foundation for the new temple. It wasn t nearly as big. It wasn t going to be nearly as richly decorated. So they wept their disappointment. THE TEMPLE IS NOT WHAT THEY REMEMBERED. I. THE CHURCH IS NOT WHAT I REMEMBER, EITHER. A. I remember church. There was only one way to worship, and one time to worship, and that was on Sunday morning. You always dressed up when you went to church--that s a sign that you honored God. The older women would wear mink stoles, which seemed to absorb the White Shoulders or the Chanel No. 5 they dabbed behind their ears before leaving home. (I believe this is why old church buildings, like our Chapel, have that distinctive aroma.) You needed a printed bulletin and a hymnal, because it s well known that Jesus disciples never used multi-media, so we shouldn t either. You had groups called MYF and WSCS. What s more, every month you d get a paper newsletter that you could hold. And every month you d have a potluck where you d sit with your old friends and share the latest news. B. And it s a small step to go from remembering to dictating: We need to go back and claim the glory days of the church. We need to go back to where the Word of God meant something--the law of the land, you know. We need to go back to when things were clear, right and wrong outlined in black and white. Saying all this, I can claim my membership card entitling me to stand with those old priests before the foundation of the new temple and cry, When the church becomes something people use to give them security or status, rather than use to honor God and God s wishes, then the church s foundation weakens. And if the foundation weakens, the whole building will crumble, just like Solomon s temple. C. Luckily, however, GOD WON T GIVE UP. From the ruins of the old will come the foundation of the new. It is something God will build, not us. It will fulfill God s promises, not satisfy our memories. And with the new foundation laid before us, we will be faced with a choice: Will we cry, grieving the good old days? Or will we rejoice, celebrating that God will not be denied, that God is starting something new? We have a choice.
I ve given you this little devotional message, to frame what I want to say to you about the future of the United Methodist church as seen in the actions taken by the recent General Conference. II. As I said earlier, there were over a thousand petitions submitted to GC. Here is one. B. RELEVANT ISSUES FOR US. 1. Deacons and sacraments. There was an emphasis upon sacramental privilege for the Order of Deacons. Currently Elders administer the sacraments. The Book of Discipline will now outline means for enabling Deacons to administer sacraments as may be needed in their areas of ministry. With four Deacons on staff here at MUMC, this is very important. Second: 2. UM Hymnal. There was a proposal to start work on a new hymnal that would be ready for adoption in 2020. This hymnal would have a core set of hymns for use by all congregations. There would also be additional hymns that could be downloaded by congregations as they saw appropriate for them. So, instead of buying a thick hymnal that had some hymns that were simply unsingable in our culture--when was the last time we sang a Malagasi hymn?--the hymnal could be customized for a congregation. This uses technology in a smart way, it makes it cost-efficient, and it respects local congregations. The GC passed this measure, and work will start. The third issue, that I want to spend the remainder of our time on, is, of course, the hot-button topic of LGBTQ, and I want to be precise in what I say about this. 3. LGBTQ. a. The official stance of the UM church, for forty-four years, is that homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching. It prohibits self avowed, practicing homosexuals from being ordained. It also prohibits same-sex marriage from being performed in UM churches, and from UM clergy from officiating. Going into the GC there had been a lot of rhetoric. Those who were traditionalists, wanting this stance to remain, threatened to separate from the church if it liberalized this. The progressives, wanting the stance liberalized, threatened to challenge church law by performing weddings and ordaining LGBTQ clergy. b. There were a couple of proposals brought forth as a compromise, trying to hold the two sides together at the table. One proposal was sponsored by the Connectional Table, a group of representatives from different UM jurisdictions and agencies. It proposed removing the prohibitive language from the Discipline, while recognizing that that had been the historical position of the church. It
removed being gay or officiating at same-sex marriages as grounds for chargeable offenses while at the same time leaving it to the discretion of the pastor as to whether or not to officiate. It also would have let each annual conference determine suitability for ordination. I think this proposal would have been a positive step forward. It would not have made people on both sides of the issue totally happy, but that is the nature of holy conferencing, to decide on something that would keep us still at the same table. The result? It was voted down. I believe that if it had been only delegates from the United States voting, it would have passed. However, 30% of the delegates were from Africa, where the UMC is rapidly growing; those delegates, culturally and theologically, were traditionalists. c. This helped throw the GC into chaos. There was increasing talk over breaking apart the church over this issue, with the two camps going their separate ways. Last Tuesday, when it looked like there would be this schism, the GC asked the Bishops for help. The Council of Bishops met and recommended that the GC push the pause button on this debate--after all, there were dozens of petitions submitted regarding human sexuality. The Bishops proposed appointing a commission that will study every paragraph in the Book of Discipline related to human sexuality and possibly recommend revisions. These revisions could make allowances for geographical/cultural differences. Such recommendations could come before a special called session of the GC in the next two years or so. The President of the Council of Bishops, presenting this proposal, said: We accept our role as spiritual leaders to lead The United Methodist Church in a pause for prayer to step back from attempts at legislative solutions and to intentionally seek God's will for the future. Mike Slaughter, pastor of the huge Ginghamsburg UMC in Dayton, applauded the proposal as a way of keeping unity. He said he believed that 80% of United Methodists get along well, and it s the 20% on one side or another ideologically and theologically [who are a] disaffected contingent that don t feel they ve been dealt justly. http://www.umc.org/news-and-media/bishops-head-to-address-rumors-of-split After much debate, the Bishops proposal was accepted. The vote was 428 to 405--it passed by a scant 23 votes. Like the proposed way forward, this didn t make everybody happy. Some traditionalists said the church is afraid to take a traditionalist stand, afraid to split, and that this may get pastors who are gay or who perform same-sex marriages off the hook. Some progressives felt the same way, that the church was afraid to take a progressive stand; at least, though, they felt this decision to defer would buy time and avoid church discipline against more than 100 clergy and clergy candidates who came out as gay in advance of the conference. (NYT, 5/18/16) [conclusion] Thus is what happened at GC. Here are my reflections.
a. I confess my deep disappointment in the GC for the rampant talk about breaking apart. (That s more the mark of other churches that have 2 nd, 3 rd, 4 th, or 5 th in front of their names.) I confess my deep disappointment on the unholy language some people used while they were holy conferencing; I followed this on Twitter, and sometimes wished I hadn t had social media. This is NOT the way United Methodists are supposed to act. The hallmark of United Methodism is where we respect each other s differences, and learn from each other. Traditionalists can learn a lot from progressives. Progressives can learn a lot from traditionalists. We need to discover, appreciate, and RESPECT how others think about sin, about grace, about how to interpret the Bible, about the nature of the church. We need to learn from each other--but no one can learn anything from anyone unless they re at a place where they can talk and listen. That is what I want our church here at MUMC to embody. There is a place at the table for ALL. Our Welcome Statement is front and center for that. It does not mean that we are in agreement with each other; with the exception for faith essentials, we do not need to be, and shouldn t be, in conformity of thought. Rather, we insist upon a conformity of compassion, because ALL are in the need of grace, of a nurturing community, and of ways to be fruitful disciples. This is why we acknowledge this place to be a judgment free zone in the face of extremists on all sides who say you must be this way or that in order to be Christian: hearts of grace trump fingers of judgment every time. b. I m disappointed at the contentious debates at GC. However, all that just makes me appreciate more the wisdom from the Old Testament passage we ve talked about today. As they stood on the foundation of a new temple, the sound was loud, and it was difficult to separate the crying over the past from the rejoicing for the future. It was difficult to separate the crying over what God had done yesterday from rejoicing over what God was about to do tomorrow. This is the cycle of communities of faith. There will be a part that dies, and lies in the past. There will be a part that will be reborn, thanks to God s faithfulness, and move on into tomorrow. It s always been that way. Paul, Martin Luther, John Wesley, John Calvin-- through them one part of the church died so that a new part could be born. In our country, slavery tore open the church, and one part died, and a new part was born. I believe the struggle our denomination is going through will result in new birth, and that new birth must rest in God s restless Spirit moving within and outside church walls. The church, the community of faith, will move on. Its future is not dependent upon conferences, caucuses, and collaborations. It will move on because followers of Christ stand on the foundation of a new temple, and look ahead. Christ said that the old temple he will tear down, and a new temple he will build.
It s a temple that still under construction. It s a temple that slowly grows. With each voice for justice, where the oppressed are set free. With each voice for hospitality, where the excluded are welcomed in. With each voice for compassion, where the wounded are healed. With each voice, another building block is cemented into place. A new temple is being built. It is not our doing, it is not according to our plans, it is not dependent upon our opinions, and it will not be finished according to our time frame. However, rest assured, it will be built. Because it will be built according to God s promises, where all people--regardless of human distinctions, regardless of progressive or traditionalist --will have an equal place at the table. We must always see things from a larger perspective. It s not a time to grieve the past. It s a time for new beginnings.