Expanded response to UMC GC 2019

The last few days have been very hard for me, and I know for many of you. I have learned through my journey with Jesus that God's unconditional love is available --- not just to me --- but to you --- all of you! NOTHING separates us from the love of God -- it is always present (see I am a good Methodist).

While the institution of which I am a part has broken my heart with much hurtful language to God's children that happen to be LGBTQI, I personally do not agree. To all my LGBTQI friends, and to those who call Meridian Street or any UMC church home --- I apologize. I promise, that I will do my utmost to stand with you and support you on your journey of life. I hope and pray that these last few days have not caused you to abandon God --- GOD HAS NOT ABANDONED YOU!

If God has called you to ministry, God has called you. End of statement. God called me; I have resisted repeatedly over the years, but the hounds of heaven would not let me run away. I believe that my call is not unique, God has called many others, some whom happen to have a different sexual orientation than I do, but if God calls, God calls!

As we try to figure out what all this means, do not lose heart. As I have matured in my faith, I have learned that to shy away from LGBTQI friends is not acceptable. But I confess that I have not always stood up like I should. At my baptism, confirmation and ordination as an Elder in the UMC, I promised to “accept the freedom and power God gives me to resist evil, injustice and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves.” I vow to do a better job living that promise. I also promised in my ordination vows to “in the exercise of your ministry, lead the people of God to faith in Jesus Christ, to participate in the life and work of the community, and to seek peace, justice, and freedom for all people”. I do not see an asterisk excluding anyone.

A friend may have captured the moment best when they wrote: “and Jesus wept.” I too am weeping, but it is time to dry my tears and to transform the world with the unconditional love of Jesus.

I do not believe that God asks us to choose between our faith in the Bible text and the compassion that Jesus has taught us.  If you listened to the debate this past week in St. Louis, you would have thought that it was all about one either believing the Bible or standing with compassion and social justice on the other.  Both sides made impassioned pleas for their positions.

But I believe it is a false dichotomy.  We do not need to choose between the two.  There is no need to discount the biblical text in order to accept equality and justice for our LGBTQ friends.  All that is required is reading those few passages where homosexuality appears to be mentioned in the same way we would read any other part of the biblical text.

There is no clearly stated directive in the bible that we should marginalize and ostracize people who have come to understand that God made them LGBTQ.  Certainly Jesus NEVER spoke of it.

The UMC currently states "The practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching" (304.3)), a statement that implies that we understand LGBTQ persons as not fully Christian. If we believe that, then based on what the church and what we believe the Bible has said, it seems easy for us to make the next leap that we have no choice but to exclude them from full inclusion in the life of the church.  It becomes easy to exclude them, and all non-repentant sinners, from full participation in the life of the church.

I have and will continue to assert, that without an explicit command from God to exclude LGBTQ people, that to do so is in violation of the very clear commandment from Jesus to love one's neighbor as ourselves.  I am also do not believe that a monogamous homosexual relationship is any more a sin than a monogamous heterosexual one.

The problem is that heterosexual Christians use a couple of passages from the bible to justify an standard of morality that they are not tempted to commit while at the same time living a standard of relative morality for sins that they do regularly commit.

Jesus never speaks of homosexuality, but constantly calls on us in regards to our wealth, treatment of the poor, widows and other marginalized who live on the edges of our society.

But when I think of the message of Jesus; one thing comes to mind LOVE.  Jesus lived, breathed, preached and embodied love.  As I have journeyed on this way called Christianity, I have become convinced that I am to err on the side of love.  I hope that Meridian Street as a congregation will throw open its doors and let the world know that we choose love.  And we will look at our own sins before we judge others for what we perceive to be their sins.

Sunday, I will share with you how the Holy Spirit has been wrestling with me these past few days.  While I have not sought out this conversation, I am convinced that God has put me here just for a time such as this.

I invited you to join me in this prayer by Rupert Bristow

Creator God,

bring us gently onto the true path,

through revelation,

through explanation,

through exploration.

But let us honour those on different paths,

praying that we all converge on you.

Let us not be sidetracked by condemning those others,

but help us to model your Son’s way,

challenging, asking for and practising

your Son’s love for humankind.

Amen.

A Man After God's Own Heart

Acts 13:15-33     (NRSV)

After the reading of the law and the prophets, the officials of the synagogue sent them a message, saying, “Brothers, if you have any word of exhortation for the people, give it.” So Paul stood up and with a gesture began to speak:

“You Israelites, and others who fear God, listen. The God of this people Israel chose our ancestors and made the people great during their stay in the land of Egypt, and with uplifted arm he led them out of it. For about forty years he put up with them in the wilderness. After he had destroyed seven nations in the land of Canaan, he gave them their land as an inheritance for about four hundred fifty years. After that he gave them judges until the time of the prophet Samuel. Then they asked for a king; and God gave them Saul son of Kish, a man of the tribe of Benjamin, who reigned for forty years. When he had removed him, he made David their king. In his testimony about him he said, ‘I have found David, son of Jesse, to be a man after my heart, who will carry out all my wishes.’ Of this man’s posterity God has brought to Israel a Savior, Jesus, as he promised; before his coming John had already proclaimed a baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel. And as John was finishing his work, he said, ‘What do you suppose that I am? I am not he. No, but one is coming after me; I am not worthy to untie the thong of the sandals on his feet.’

“My brothers, you descendants of Abraham’s family, and others who fear God, to us the message of this salvation has been sent. Because the residents of Jerusalem and their leaders did not recognize him or understand the words of the prophets that are read every sabbath, they fulfilled those words by condemning him. Even though they found no cause for a sentence of death, they asked Pilate to have him killed. When they had carried out everything that was written about him, they took him down from the tree and laid him in a tomb. But God raised him from the dead; and for many days he appeared to those who came up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, and they are now his witnesses to the people. And we bring you the good news that what God promised to our ancestors he has fulfilled for us, their children, by raising Jesus; as also it is written in the second psalm,

‘You are my Son;

    today I have begotten you.’

Even before a new pastor arrives at a church they hear stories about king David.

King David is not the mythical figure of Hebrew Bible lore, but rather the mythical figure in the history of the particular church.

Before I even arrived (and ever since) I have heard stories of Meridian Street's King David

Like most king David stories, they take on a life of their own.

Arriving as I did, on the cusp of the 200th Anniversary of Meridian Street, I have tried to understand the ministries of the previous men and woman whose seat I now have the privilege of occupying.

And the funny thing is --- even thought I have read the histories of Meridian Street, and tried to understand the progression of this wonderful congregation.  The truth is, the history of Meridian Street --- in most people's minds --- goes back at best to the building of this wonderful structure.

In the corporate memory of Meridian Street the years prior to moving to 5500 North Meridian Street seem like ancient history.

But even saying the history starts with this building is a bit of a stretch. 

The real history begins in 1962 with the ministry of Dick Lancaster.

Many, many, many of you have regaled me with Dr. Lancaster stories.

Nobody talks about the pastors who preceded Dr. Lancaster

          Except maybe Buddy Hall, when I have asked him about his dad

          Logan Hall

          Frank Templin

And nobody talks about the pastors that followed Dr. Lancaster except to tell a story of how they broke protocol that Dr Lancaster created, or stepped on sacred ground.

          Walking down the center aisle

I know nothing about

Rev Schwein (unless it is bad --- although my best friend said he was the best preacher he ever heard)

Cindi Alte --- Her brief tenure when Schwein left abruptly but she was then replaced with quite a bit of unhappiness just a few months later

          Rev Miller --- Nobody talks about him --- although I have heard he is a nice guy

Rev Wantz --- even he seems to be ancient history and not the Sr. Pastor just 12 years ago

Anne, of course is a different story --- I have gotten to know her personally and can see the wonderful life changing ministries she instituted here.

I know this is going to date me, and maybe they weren't popular here, but in the early 90's --- Gatorade put out a series of commercials that featured Michael Jordan with an amazingly catchy tune -- inviting us to BE LIKE MIKE -- do you remember them?

Michael Jordan became a mythical figure that everyone wanted (and many still want) to emulate.

David, King of the Jewish people, was the same way.

When Saul was chosen to be the first King of the Jewish people, he failed in his task as king, and Samuel had this exchange with him:

1 Samuel 13:13-14

“How stupid of you to have broken the commands the Lord your God gave you!” Samuel told Saul. “The Lord would have established your rule over Israel forever, but now your rule won’t last. The Lord will search for a man following the Lord’s own heart, and the Lord will commission him as leader over God’s people, because you didn’t keep the Lord’s command.”

And God chose David: "a man after his own heart"

Over a 1000 years later he was remembered by the author of the Book of Acts:

          Acts 13:22

[God] said, ‘I have found David, son of Jesse, to be a man after my heart, who will carry out all my wishes.’

For 1000 years, the kings of Israel had attempted to live up to the ideal that became King David, and for a 1000 years they all failed and fell short of his glory.

And then, sometime around 4 BCE a baby is born in an obscure portion of the Roman Empire.

Both Matthew and Luke in their birth narratives want to make something abundantly clear.

          This is no ordinary baby

This baby, born in a cave in the insignificant town of Bethlehem is not insignificant

This baby is from the line and lineage of David --- THAT DAVID

And this baby will fulfill all the promises that have gone unfulfilled since the time of David

          He will reestablish the kingdom

                   restore and unify it bringing together all the dispersed tribes

          He will throw out the imperial invaders (the Romans)

He will re-establish a corporate relationship with God by being the True High Priest

THESE ARE THE STORIES that are being told about Jesus.

Can you imagine what it must have been like to grow up being told that YOU are the new DAVID, the Greatest King of all time --- that YOU are the Hope and Restoration of Israel

The weight must have been unbearable

From the stories I have heard, the weight of following the King David of Meridian Street was devastating on many of those who followed him

I have told you --- my goal for 2019 is to help you fall in love with Jesus --- maybe for the first time --- maybe in a whole new way

But we cannot fall in love with someone that we don't know

Love is not an intellectual assent to an idea --- it is a relationship

So we must try build a relationship and try to understand what motivated and influenced Jesus

          What made him love God completely?

          So that we too may fall in love with him completely

My goal during this season of epiphany and beyond has been to help you understand some of the key concepts that influenced Jesus in the first century of the common era.

We have looked at seven important concepts

1.       God is creator of all

2.       Sin is what keeps us from a relationship with God

3.       God desires and makes a covenant with his People

                   Israel is God's chosen people

                   But Israel is to be a light to the world

4.       Failure to follow God --- to break the covenant with God --- has consequences

                   The result can be catastrophic

                             Destruction of the Northern Kingdom of Israel 721/722

                             Destruction of the Temple and Judah 587

5.       But even despite the consequences --- God is faithful and restores his People

6.       But it is not the people who restore the relationship with God --- Restoration is all God's doing

                   Humility is the lesson of exile

7.       The people (then and today) long for a savior

Jesus enters humanity with all these factors playing into how people perceived and understood him.

And many of them impact how we understand and build a relationship with him

But throughout his life, Jesus really seems to have ONE goal

          To bring people into a closer relationship with God

And we have been invited to emulate the mission of Jesus

          Loving our enemies

          Seeking God’s justice for all

          Recognizing that ALL are children of our creator God

But first and foremost --- PUTTING GOD FIRST in our lives

          Loving God with our heart, soul, mind, and strength --- with our very being

Only once we love the God we encounter in Jesus --- can we love LIKE God and love ALL of our neighbors

Jesus constantly demonstrates the HE is the one after God’s own heart

          And he invites us to join him on this journey of love

How Could This Happen?

Psalm 137:1-6   (NRSV)

By the rivers of Babylon—

    there we sat down and there we wept

    when we remembered Zion.

On the willows there

    we hung up our harps.

For there our captors

    asked us for songs,

and our tormentors asked for mirth, saying,

    “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”

How could we sing the Lord’s song

    in a foreign land?

If I forget you, O Jerusalem,

    let my right hand wither!

Let my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth,

    if I do not remember you,

if I do not set Jerusalem

    above my highest joy.

Despite what the God is Dead movie franchise tries to suggest, Christians in the United States do not really face religious persecution. 

And when we do talk about persecution it usually is in movies like God is Dead that create a ridiculous straw man to try and suggest how terrible it is for Christians today in the United States.

But for the Jewish people, their lives were filled with persecution, destruction, deportation, and even death.  And those experiences have had a profound effect on the stories that have been passed down and are now a part of our Biblical tradition.

Israel has faced numerous periods of persecution and captivity.

The great narrative of the Hebrew Bible speaks to the most urgent needs all people have:

·         including the need to be connected and grounded,

·         to be protected and to belong,

·         to know who you are and where you fit in.

The Hebrew Bible contains the stories of the people of God when they seemingly lost all of that.

People torn away from their land,

          torn up as a people,

          and torn down by humiliating loss.

And it didn't happen just once or twice --- Israel's history is the history of a people who lived under oppression --- even in modern history.

I don't know how well you know your geography --- but in this case it is very important.

Israel is a tiny land bridge between Africa and Asia.

If you wanted to go to Egypt --- the only way by land was through the tiny country of Israel

If you wanted to go to Asia or Europe --- Israel was the path way.

Thus Israel played a significant geo-political role throughout its history --- even if only as a pawn.

Controlling this land bridge was essential for defense (and for aggression)

The bible is filled with stories of the back and forth --- the tug and pull to control this tiny strip of land.

Our first encounter is when Abraham leaves the security of the rivers of Mesopotamia and settles in and around modern day Hebron before finding his way to Egypt.

While in Egypt, the ancient Israelites become slaves to Pharaoh and eventually fled to the land of the Canaanites and settled in what is now the modern state of Israel.

          That took place somewhere around the year 1250 BCE

David becomes king of Israel in 1000 BCE but the country is never at peace. 

          There is always a tug from Egypt or a pull from Babylon

Following David's death, Solomon his son becomes king, and after Solomon's death the country is in turmoil

The 10 northern tribes split from the Davidic Dynasty and become the Northern kingdom of Israel centered at Dan.

In 721/722 BCE the Northern kingdom is overrun by the Assyrians

The Assyrian practice was to scatter the people whom they overran and move other conquered people in.

Thus the 10 tribes were scattered and lost to history as they were dispersed throughout the Assyrian empire.

125 years later the unimaginable happens --- the southern kingdom of Judah, which was centered in Jerusalem, is over-run by the Babylonians. 

Jerusalem is destroyed, the temple is torn down and ransacked and the people --- the elite --- were gathered up and taken into captivity to Babylon.

It was during this time that the Psalmist wrote:

By the rivers of Babylon—

    there we sat down and there we wept

    when we remembered Zion.

On the willows there

    we hung up our harps.

For there our captors

    asked us for songs,

and our tormentors asked for mirth, saying,

    “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”

How could we sing the Lord’s song

    in a foreign land?

If I forget you, O Jerusalem,

    let my right hand wither!

Let my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth,

    if I do not remember you,

if I do not set Jerusalem

    above my highest joy.

I cannot even imagine what it must have been like for the people of Judah --- forced to live in a foreign land --- pining for Jerusalem and home.

The stories of their captivity and eventual return fill the books of the prophets and have influenced Judaism ever since.

In 538 BCE, Cyrus (the only non-Jew to be called God's Messiah in the Hebrew Bible) let the Jews return home and rebuild their temple and city.

But the conquest of the Jewish people was not over.

In 333 BCE Alexander the Great conquered the known world and Israel was under Greek occupation until the revolt by the Maccabees in 167 BCE.

The Jewish Hamonean's dynasty ruled until about 63 BCE when Rome conquered Jerusalem.

 And once again became a puppet state to a foreign country

This is the world that Jesus was born into.

A world that had been torn asunder from the dream that God had instilled in Abraham and David.

Before the Babylonian exile, Jewish religious life revolved around the Temple in Jerusalem.

When the Babylonians expelled the Jews from Judea, they destroyed the Temple completely.

Jewish law stipulated that certain important aspects of Jewish religious life -- most notably animal sacrifice -- could only be performed at the Temple in Jerusalem.

Since the Jews now lacked both a temple and the ability to go to Jerusalem, changes were needed to retain their cultural and religious identity.

The result was the rise of the synagogue among the Jews dispersed throughout the Babylonian Empire.

The focus shifted from animal sacrifices, to the study and teaching of the Torah -- the Jewish Bible -- which became the focal point of worship in the synagogues.

The results of Exile were predictable.

If you go and read the stories found in Ezra and Nehemiah you read of

·         fears of immigrants

·         a need for racial purity

·         xenophobia

·         an inward focus and a desire to return to some idealized past

But Isaiah, Jeremiah, Jonah and many of the other prophets called for Israel not to turn inward, but instead to become a light to the nations

To welcome the stranger that was in their midst

Jesus is born into this world in turmoil

          A people trying to find their identity while being captives

          A nation trying to seek God

And Jesus was certainly influenced by the communal experience of exile.

And instead of turning inward --- Jesus saw in the exile experience --- humility.

Instead of protecting himself --- Jesus made himself vulnerable to those who were still living in exile even among their own people.

For his entire life, Jesus reached out and welcomed the least, the lost and the last.

Whether it was the woman with a hemorrhage, or the woman at the well --- Jesus is reaching out to those who were still experiencing exile.

          Unwelcome in their own land

          Unwelcome in the community

He is constantly accused of eating with "sinners", inviting everyone that he meets to God's table fellowship.

Ultimately, Jesus pays the ultimate price for his unconventional attitude toward those still in exile

One of the things that I love about being a United Methodist is that we have an open table.

Everyone is welcome to come.

          You don't earn it

          You don't have to believe in it

          You just have to come to it

We are a church that is open to all of God's children

At the table we embody our logo

                    Open Hearts

                   Open Minds

                   Open Doors

          We are one of the few traditions that have a table that is open to all!

I have never been evicted from my land

          My church has never been torn down

          And to be honest, I cannot imagine what exile feels like

Yet in our midst

          In our church

          In our neighborhoods

          At our work places and schools

          Throughout our city, nation and world

There are many, many people who have been pushed into exile

          Told they don't belong

          Shunned because they don't believe the right things

                   Or live on the right side of the tracks

                   Or the color of their skin is wrong

                   Or their sexual orientation is different

Who is living in exile in your midst?

And if you can't think of anyone --- I would suggest you are not looking very hard

Who needs to know that they are loved? --- that they are a child of God.

As you get ready to make your way up to God's table

An invitation that is given to you not because of anything you have done -- but because of what God has done

Who do you need to welcome?

Take some time and ask God to help you to welcome those who still live in exile.