Theological Malpractice

I have tried to soften my response but haven’t found an honest way of doing it. So here goes.

What happened recently among Methodists in Florida was an act of theological malpractice and organizational malfeasance.

Simply put, Florida clergy voted against approving 16 people for advancement toward ordination because two of them were gay.

Here’s some explanation of the admittedly cumbersome process in the United Methodist Church.

Candidates for ordination first must be reviewed and approved by a committee in their local church; then approved by the local church as a whole; then be interviewed by their district superintendent; then be reviewed and approved by the district board of ministry; then be reviewed and approved by the conference board of ordained ministry; and finally be approved by a vote of clergy at a meeting of the annual conference.

Even this final vote is not final. It is for “provisional” membership. Candidates are commissioned but not ordained until after two more years of scrutiny – and, yes, another vote of clergy colleagues.

Usually, the vote on commissioning is routine. Having themselves come up through the system, clergy know how rigorous it is and they tend to trust the system, so they vote to approve candidates.

Also, many of them either know the candidates personally or have watched them come through the system over the several years required to get this far. Most of them know who they are considering. Their vote may be routine, but it is not blind.

But at the recent annual conference in Florida, the system came unglued. You can guess what issue caused the problem. Two of the 16 candidates were homosexual. The vote of clergy came up just short of the 75 percent required for approval.

It should be noted that not all conferences vote on candidates as a group. My conference, Great Plains, votes on each candidate individually. Usually the vote is unanimous. Though the candidates are present during the vote, they have their backs to clergy voting on them, so they can’t see how individual clergy members vote.

But Florida clergy chose to vote on candidates as a group, and the vote fell short. So 14 “straight” candidates were denied commissioning because two others were gay.

Just about everybody agrees that this outcome is a tragedy, but of course each side in the ongoing debate blames the other for causing the tragedy.

Traditionalists say the two should never have been allowed to get this far in the process. Progressives say the two were up for commissioning because the system worked the way it should.

At issue is the part of the United Methodist Book of Discipline that bars homosexuals for ordained ministry. This little time bomb was inserted into the Discipline by “conservatives” right after creation of the UMC in 1968 and has been a source of division throughout the church’s history.

Apparently the full 16-member group would have been approved had it not been for the negative votes of several pastors whose churches were allowed to disaffiliate from the conference shortly after the vote. They just had to get their digs in on the way out.

It should be noted that all 16 candidates will continue to serve in ministry positions as appointed by their bishop. They will just not serve as commissioned candidates for ordained ministry.

The UMC is currently fracturing. “Conservatives” are leaving, many for the new Global Methodist Church, because they can’t get their way anymore. I don’t think they will be much happier under the new system than under the current one. But at least they will, presumably, have their way on homosexuality.

I wish they were just hurry up and go infect some other church with their narrow theology. I wish they would just get the hell out of my church and let us do ministry without their constant undermining of everything we all say we value.

But even on their way out, they seem to be working to spread lies about those of us staying in the UMC. Why next thing you know, they say, we’ll be ordaining atheists or Buddhists or who knows what sort of alien critter.

Yet they call themselves followers of John Wesley. And Jesus Christ. Actions speak louder.

Fight Like Jesus

“And in this corner, weighing 150 pounds and wearing a purple robe and crown of thorns, is Je-SUS CHRIST!”

That’s the kind of intro you might expect in a book titled Fight Like Jesus. Happily, there’s nothing of that kind here at all. Instead, it’s a timely and useful guide to how Jesus confronted the powers that be during the last week of his life.

Author Jason Porterfield has direct, on-the-ground, experience working for God’s vision of shalom among the urban poor in Canada and Indonesia. His book not only demonstrates how Jesus fought peacefully but also reveals how such tactics might be pursued today.

The book is subtitled “How Jesus Waged Peace Throughout Holy Week.” It is valuable for its examination of how Jesus negotiated the social and political minefields of first-century Jerusalem. It’s also helpful in offering lessons in how those insights might be applied today.

You can, if you like, read it as a review of what Jesus did during Holy Week. Porterfield has studied some of the best scholarly work on the subject, and his presentation is clear and compelling.

The book includes insightful discussion questions, making it a good Lenten study for a small group. It’s main strength may be how cleanly it integrates historical study with practical application. You can’t read this without being drawn away from normal violent knee-jerk reactions to provocation and toward risky but non-violent ways of standing up to oppression and abuse.

Starting with Palm Sunday, Porterfield shows how “Jesus was crucified on Friday precisely because of how he sought to make peace on the previous days of Holy Week.” The palm parade leading him into Jerusalem is both a parody of Roman military might and a declaration that God is acting decisively through Jesus.

Jesus’ use of a “whip” of cords to clear the temple marketplace on Monday is often cited as a violent act, but Porterfield argues that the cords were lightweight wicker, useful for shooing away sheep and cattle but unlikely to cause injury to livestock or humans.

Tuesday is a day of rhetorical duels. Jesus stands his ground against verbal attacks and denounces those trying to lure him into political traps. He warns his followers that the violent ways of the nation’s leadership will lead to a horrible war and the destruction of Jerusalem. (It is not, Porterfield notes carefully, a “prediction” of “the end times,” and certainly not a rapture away from the mayhem.)

Wednesday also is a day of contrast. While religious leaders huddle to find a way to get rid of him, Jesus has dinner with friends and praises a woman who honors him as king by anointing him with oil.

One point here is that good ends don’t justify bad means to achieve them. Means are “nothing less than the end coming into existence,” Porterfield comments. So you do reap as you sow, and as Jesus will say soon, those who rely on the sword will die by it.

On Thursday, Jesus prepares for Passover. He gives his disciples a new command, “Love one another.” It can be done only in and through a community where all are welcome and nurtured to grow.

On this day there arises the issue of Jesus telling his disciples to buy swords. The point is not that they should be armed and prepared for violence (as Peter soon shows). Rather, because of Peter’s act, Jesus will be numbered with violent offenders.

Friday, of course, focuses on Jesus’ death. Porterfield shows how Jesus could be considered a scapegoat, but he totally rejects the popular notion that God has to smash Jesus with a mighty hammer to defend the divine honor. He notes: “Christlike peacemakers live by a spirit of mercy, never vengeance.”

The choice offered the crowd between Jesus and Barabbas is the same choice we face today. Which Messiah will we choose: the violent offender or the peacemaker? Which way shall we follow: the way of violence or the way of peace? Even while he’s being murdered, Jesus prays for his murderers. It’s a tough act to emulate.

When the risen Jesus first greets his disciples, he says: “Peace be with you!” It’s more than a greeting. It’s a vision of how he wants them – and us – to live as his followers.

Ultimately the book justifies its title. Jesus is no namby-pamby who is easily brushed aside. He fights fiercely for what he knows is right. But he uses an array of non-violent “weapons” to achieve his goals.

For these polarized times, when we are tempted to view neighbor as “other” and “other” as enemy, Fight Like Jesus offers a difficult alternative: the way of peace pioneered by Jesus Christ. It’s a welcome antidote to our un-Christlike thought and rhetoric.

(This book review is through Speakeasy, which offers free copy of the book in exchange for a fair review of it.)

Another Lost Generation

Irish novelist Sally Rooney has been hailed as the voice of her generation — millennials, that is.

Wondering what all the fuss was about, I recently read her three novels: starting with the second, Normal People; then the first, Conversations Among Friends; and finally the most recent, Beautiful World Where Are You.

The books focus on the relationships of several sets of friends. In Normal People, for example, Marianne and Connell spend a lot of time having sex, or talking about having sex, or feeling anxious about having sex – either with each other or with someone else. They drift apart and back together several times.

Description of their sexual encounters is sometimes almost perfunctory, sometimes almost clinical in detail, as if automatons were pushing buttons on other automatons. Given all the sex being described, you might think that something interesting was going on, but the stories quickly become tiresome.

Maybe that’s part of the point. Despite some talk about class consciousness, desire for social acceptance and even search for religious meaning, the characters seem mostly unaware of the social milieu in which they flounder.

They want to be “normal people,” whatever those are. They yearn for what they’ve heard is a “beautiful world,” though they have no idea where it might be or how they can find it.

Rooney’s books have been dismissed as “slacker fiction” about people stuck in “horny malaise.” Those descriptions are a little harsh. But only a little.

Somewhere along the way, I picked up the notion that proper stories are about people who are changed by events and interactions with other people. Maybe in her next book, Rooney might allow one or two of her characters to wake up to their situation, take an honest look at themselves and take some faltering steps toward change.

Jesus Calls Us

Jesus Calls Us – message delivered May 22, 2022, at Paola United Methodist Church, from Acts 16: 9-15.

In our Bibles, the book of Acts is formally titled “The Acts of the Apostles.” Many commentators think it might better be titled “The Acts of the Holy Spirit” because the Spirit is the real power driving the story.

We see that clearly in today’s episode focused on the calling of Lydia.

This episode raises several important questions for each of us about our own calling, how we experience that calling, and how we respond to it.

Let’s place this episode in the broader story of Acts.

The Apostle Paul is ready to set off on his second missionary journey. He’s recruited three new helpers: the study and experienced Silas; the young and inexperienced Timothy; and a fellow named Luke.

Luke doesn’t contribute much to the story itself, but when he later records it in the book of Acts, he signals his presence by mentioning the things that “we” did, or happened to “us.”

These four know where they want to go. But God keeps telling them no.

They want to go north into Asia, but Luke says the Holy Spirit forbids it. How the Spirit forbids it, he doesn’t say. So they decide they’ll go to Bithynia; that’s closer anyway. But the Spirit won’t allow that either. Again, we’re not told how the Spirit makes this known.

What we are told is that one night Paul has a vision. It may come in a dream, but Paul is perfectly capable of having visions outside dreams. Paul is a mystic. He is aware of spiritual forces that most of us are only vaguely familiar with. In his vision, he sees a man from Macedonia who pleads with him. “Come over to Macedonia and help us.”

The four are immediately convinced that God is calling them to proclaim the good news in Macedonia. So that’s where they go. Traveling by sea, they head for northern Greece, and they land in the Roman colony of Philippi.

It is Paul’s practice to go first to the synagogue to tell local Jews about the content of his preaching. He knows he’ll likely get thrown out of the synagogue, but he always starts there before he turns to Gentiles, to whom he feels especially called.

It takes at least 10 men to form a proper synagogue, but apparently there aren’t that many Jewish men in Philippi, so Paul looks for someplace else believers might gather for prayer on the Sabbath. Gathered by the river outside of town, he finds a group of women – and the one who responds most strongly to his message isn’t even Jewish.

Luke describes her as a God-fearer. That means she’s a Gentile, a non-Jew, who is moved by the Jewish message about God but is not ready to convert.

In fact, Paul always finds some of his best converts among God-fearers. Leaders of the synagogues resent this. They think he’s targeting God-fearers and essentially stealing sheep from their pasture.

This particular sheep would be a good one to rustle. Her name is Lydia, and she is a wealthy and independent woman. Luke says she’s a dealer in purple cloth. In those days, purple cloth was difficult to dye, and therefore both rare and expensive, essentially reserved for royalty and the upper class.

Whether she’s a widow or an especially good businesswoman, or both, Lydia has done well for herself. She has her own home in Philippi and a household that may include slaves or free domestic staff as well as children.

According to Luke, the Lord opens Lydia’s heart to respond positively to Paul’s message about Jesus. She makes a confession of faith right then and there, and Paul responds by baptizing her and all her household in the river.

She invites Paul and his friends to stay at her home, and it becomes the center of Christian worship in Philippi.

Lydia is the first Christian convert in Europe, and her home is the first Christian church in Europe. Today, she is widely considered a saint, and many Eastern Orthodox churches celebrate her feast day on May 20.

The church that Paul founds in her home at Philippi will be one of his favorite churches. The letter that he writes to the Philippians some years later is one of his warmest and most charming letters.

Lydia also is notable for being the first of several women whom the New Testament lifts up as heroes of the faith. Paul is often derided as a misogynist, a woman hater, but he encourages and celebrates the leadership of women in the church, including Rhoda, Tabitha, Eunice, Lois, Priscilla, Euodia, and Syntyche.

Lydia, though she now lives in Philippi in Greece, hails from the city of Thyatira in Asia Minor – what we today call Turkey. Forty or fifty years later, Thyatira is one of the seven churches that John of Patmos writes to in the book of Revelation. It’s a strong enough church that it survives for 1,800 years. We might wonder if Lydia wasn’t at least partly responsible for founding it.

Well, you might chalk this episode up to a string of happy coincidences. But instead don’t you see the slender but strong thread that the Holy Spirit weaves through lives and events to bind them together?

Paul is warned away from Asia and Bithynia and led to Macedonia. There, in the pagan city of Philippi, he is led to a gathering by a river, and he meets a spirited and influential woman who will help spread the good news of Jesus to everyone she encounters.

Coincidence? No, no – not at all.

Allow me to jump in time and space. In 1738, in the city of London, the Wesley brothers, John and Charles, are in spiritual despair. They have just returned from a disastrous missionary journey to Georgia in the American colonies, and they are discouraged and distraught. They both preach salvation, but they cannot feel assurance of it personally. And they so much want such assurance!

In early May, Charles falls seriously ill. Everyone is convinced he is going to die. Instead, on May 21, he senses what he calls “a strange palpitation of heart,” and he suddenly feels at peace with God. He shouts, “I believe! I believe!”

Three days later, on May 24, John ends a long and tiring day by reluctantly attending a meeting of a religious society on Aldersgate Street.

The class leader is reading from Luther’s writings on Paul’s Letter to the Romans. John describes what happens next: “About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change that God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed.

“I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation; and an assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.”

This episode is frequently called a “conversion experience,” as if somehow he was not a Christian before it. It is not a conversion. It is an awakening and a deepening of a faith that was already there but had been pounded flat by events in his life and needed to be revived and fanned into flame.

And so it was. For the next 50 years, John and Charles lead a revival that blazes across England, into Ireland and Scotland and to America as well.

Their awakenings by the Holy Spirit do not come out of the blue. John and Charles had prayed and studied and prepared for such a thing – alone, together and with others.

Just as Paul and Silas and Timothy and Luke prayed and studied and prepared to receive guidance from the Holy Spirit, and received it;

just as Lydia was led to gather by the river that day, and rejoiced in the message she heard;

just as John and Charles Wesley rejoiced in the blessed assurance they received in May of 1738;

so today we also pray and study and prepare to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit calling us – calling us to new adventures in faith, new encounters with others, new direction from above.

To the Romans, Paul says that the Holy Spirit bears witness to our spirit that we are beloved children of God (Romans 8:14-17).

To the Corinthians, Paul says: “We walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7). We never walk blindly, though, for we are assured that God walks with us every step of the way – behind us, beside us and before us, every step of the way.

The great contemplative Henri Nouwen once said that 10 years earlier, “I didn’t have the faintest idea that I would end up where I am now.” I was so busy running my own life, “that I became oblivious to the gentle movements of the Spirit of God within me, pointing me in directions quite different from my own.”

And were the directions you set for yourself so superior to those in which you were led by God? Haven’t you felt the tug of the Holy Spirit at key moments, nudging you toward paths you never considered before?

It is sometimes thought that Jesus calls only those who pursue vocations within the church. That is simply not so. Jesus calls each of us and all of us. Through the Holy Spirit, through Scripture, through the experiences of our lives and the encouragement of loved ones, Jesus calls each of us to follow him in ways that are both common to all and unique to each of us.

You may never have had what you thought was a vision from God. You may never have encountered a man from Macedonia or anywhere else saying, “Come over here.” But surely you have heard Jesus calling you.

You may be afraid because you’ve heard about the violent fantasies of killers who claim they obey the voice of God. You can be assured that any voice they hear is not the voice of God, for God never calls anyone to harm anyone.

You also may be afraid because you imagine, “Oh, I just know God will send me to Africa.” More likely, God will send you to an even scarier place – right next door.

You can’t just sit and wait for it to happen while you watch TV or scan social media. The Wesley brothers called this “quietism,” and they condemned it as spiritual laziness. Like the Wesleys and Paul and others, you have to want to hear the call, and you have to pray and study and prepare so that when it comes hear it and when you hear it you’ll know how to respond.

Will you do it? Are you ready to hear it? Are you prepared for an Aldersgate experience? Are you primed, like Lydia, for the next chapter of your life?

Jesus calls us, the old hymn says.

Day by day his voice calls us, saying, “Christian, follow me.”

Can’t you hear the call?

Amen!

A Little Talk with Mom

Several nights ago I had a conversation with my mother, who died four and a half years ago.

It was part of a dream, of course – but unlike any other dream I recall having.

Whatever else was happening in the dream, suddenly she was there. I moved toward her, and we embraced.

“How can this be?” I asked.

“What, you don’t believe I’m here?” she replied.

Her appearance and her voice were the same as they were about the time she died at age 93. She was so very slight that it was almost as if she were not there. But however frail she was, she definitely was solid. No ghost here!

“I’ve missed you so much!” I said.

“I’ve missed you so much, too,” she said.

We caught up on a few things; I don’t remember exactly what. I do remember telling her that she had a new great-grandson named Heath. She was pleased to hear that.

Then we got down to business – the reason she wanted to talk with me. We had a few things to clear up, words that had gone unsaid that needed to be said, finally.

These things I remember but won’t report on. They’re too personal. Just little irritants that had come between us. Misunderstandings, really. We straightened them out. Then she smiled and brushed the side of my face with her hand, and she was gone.

I woke with a start and lay there awhile wondering what had just happened. I rarely remember dreams, but this one I remember clearly.

I suppose you could explain it as wish fulfillment, some long-delayed yearning for closure after she died so unexpectedly. Or Easter projection: This is the season of unexpected appearances, after all.

Call it what you like. All I know is that several nights ago, I had a conversation with my mother, and it was good.