This morning, I woke up remembering how often I’ve said “A virtue of Methodism is it’s not in our DNA to wake up in the morning and think ‘We’re right, and everybody else is wrong’ – and how within Methodism, we can disagree without killing each other, or getting a divorce.
This recollection probably drifted into my head because last night, like so many nights in recent weeks, I went to bed grieving questions that had come my way about some Methodist church or another ramping up to a vote on whether to disaffiliate from the United Methodist Church. When I hear this, I shudder, and try then to recall the humorous truth of a clergy friend of mine who will snap a photo of the crowd during an especially tedious, cantankerous and dull denominational meeting, and text it to me across the room with the caption, “Another unintended consequence of the resurrection.” I saw a Facebook photo of church I love holding hearings to help them decide. Not what Jesus had in mind.
An analogy: Lisa and I have stayed married
for 36 years. What if, for Christmas, we entertained speakers on the virtues of
divorce (“I finally found the love of my life,” “No more socks on the floor”)
vs. staying married (“He’s getting creaky but he’s a dear”) – and then we took
a vote on whether to aim for 37 years. Thankfully, we don’t have to vote. We
have disagreed with one another on a great many issues (as has our church) all
along. What I find, with her, is that when it gets tense and I am sure I am
right, I quite often am wrong. Being right is way overrated anyhow. As best I
can tell, it only hurts the other person, and puffs up my ego.
Some say to me “We have to draw a line!”
Did Jesus say this? Here’s maybe the single most important reason not to vote
to disaffiliate: at the 2008 General Conference, I spoke from the floor and
said "We have for decades declared that ‘We do not condone the practice of
homosexuality.’ This has not prevented one person from being gay. It has,
though, alienated tens of thousands not just from our church but from any
church." Want to talk about an unintended consequence of the resurrection or
incarnation? The question isn’t Who’s right? but, as in my marriage, Who’s
hurt? I meet them all the time: people who used to go to church, don’t and won’t
now, and the first or second reason they give is because the church is
judgmental, and specifically because they judge and exclude gays.
Those who lobby churches to disaffiliate
argue “It’s not about LGBTQ inclusion.” I’ve been wrong in saying they are
wrong. I’ve been right, in that Methodists have strongly disagreed and stayed
together over dozens of huge issues – but it’s this one that has created congregational
votes. And yet, they are right. It’s about how to be the Body of Christ in this
moment in history, when division is little more than a mirror image of what’s
going on in our country politically. Instead of healing America, voting
Methodists are letting themselves be ruined by America.
On sabbatical several years ago, I found
myself in a pub, sitting next to a guy. I asked what he does in life. “I’m a
shepherd.” This piqued my attention, so I quizzed him about shepherding,
including this question: “Why are there always sheep and goats, never just
sheep, never just goats.” He glanced upward as he stroked his beard and said “We
just find that they do better together.” That’s United Methodism; we're better together. Instead of a
smattering of broken-in-half churches all over this country, none thriving while
all claim they are right, if we simply don’t vote, and stay with the one who
brought us to the point, we can still be better together – an intended
consequence of the resurrection and, since it’s Christmas, the incarnation.
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