Category Archives: justice

agree to disagree

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Sidelined by sickness, I am watching the General Conference of the United Methodist Church as it is live streamed (www.umc.org).

Just finished was heart breaking and real debate on the floor.

The issue?  A statement proposed that named the reality that we disagree over the issue of same-gender love.  No news.  But controversial and threatening?  I guess.

To that effect, an amendment was made.  It wasn’t radical in that it would do away with language which is soul wrench for many.  What it said was that we disagree, we people called United Methodists.

The link is below.

http://www.umc.org/atf/cf/%7Bdb6a45e4-c446-4248-82c8-e131b6424741%7D/05-03%20DCA%20NEWS%20&%20FEATURwww.umc.org

I came into the discussion late and claim the what-I-don’t-knows.

I can only describe what I saw on my little computer screen while a Minnesota spring storm was raging outside.

I saw people who love their church come to their feet to beg for open doors and hearts and minds.  I saw witnesses in rainbow stoles who circled the Body in prayer and witness.

I saw people tussling with each other about bragging rights to who is orthodox and who is successful and really who cares when a church built upon the heart warming of grace offered to all – even sinners like John Wesley and me –  is unwilling to name that we disagree?

Here is what I know.  The mission of the United Methodist Church is to make disciples for Jesus the Christ.

People in my church make disciples of ME by the ways they model ministry.  They are gay and they are lesbian and they are straight and they are celibate and they are a multicolored rainbow transforming the world because they belong to a church that welcomes all who seek to live the teachings of Jesus.

All.  The United Methodist Church is bigger than our fears.  This I believe.

hard work

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Palm Sunday is a lot of work.

I don’t mean planning for it or soaking in the wild good of children processing with palms waving.

I mean it is hard emotional work, because it is so very real.

We begin worship singing the wild hopes of the gathered – now and then.  Surely this Jesus will save us.  We join in the singing of “Hosannas” and feel ourselves swept into the shout of it.

And then the rest of the story commences.  The part about betrayals and silencing.  The part about the slinking away of the hopeful and the firing up of the machine of fear prompting the very ones who shouted hope to shout death.

It’s hard work.

Because it is so real.

Newspapers are packed full of this drama as it unfolds day after day after day.  We want our President, our mothers, our please-God-SOMEBODY to save us when all along the answer to our heart clamor can be found within and among us.

A figurehead who does all our work for us will never save us.

Jesus came to teach us a new way, a way grounded in the hard work of lived compassion and justice through our very selves and we seemed then and seem now to prefer that he would do the work for us.  The work seems too hard.

It is.  But we’re not alone in it.  The power and presence that took to the back of a donkey is in our midst yet.

Oh, may we be a people who take to our hearts and actions the living of “Hosanna”.

The world is sore in need of a break from “Crucify”.

questions

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The questions that walk with me:

How is it politicians can say they want government out of private lives while seeking legislation that invades bedrooms and bodies?  The (anti) marriage amendment and the continued encroachment around choice are an attack on the sovereignty of heart and body.

How is it politicians mouth words about caring about this nation while spending millions to gain office in order to decimate safety nets?

How is it the church is so often silent about justice issues?

How is it the Catholic Bishop and hierarchy create vendetta energy and monies around who is NOT allowed to live married when all families are being shattered by poverty?

What does it mean to be a disciple of Jesus?

When will we live compassion?  Why spend so much time and passion around demonizing others?  When will we spend the energies to claim who we are instead of lobbing out incendiary verbiage about others?

How do United Methodists live into wholeness when our polity proclaims barricades to grace?

How do we live the despair and possibilities of these days?

And, who will go with us?

 

 

ground

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Today I get to buy my son shoes.

The years go by.  For a time in my life buying shoes seemed an endless task.  With three children, it seemed like every time I turned around someone needed shoes.

Lately, though, with said children grown and launched, the adventure of shoe seeking is a mother-less affair.  This is good.  Self-sufficiency is a good thing.

But today I get to participate in a ritual whose grooves I know well.

Really, it is not about the shoes.  It’s about tending.  Even though children grow and leave and commence living, they are always tied to their parental units with heart cords.  For the life of me, I haven’t much figured out how not to scan them every time I see them:  are they eating well?  Are their teeth tended?  Are they shod in ways that will keep them dry and warm?  What about that bike helmet?  Are they happy?

The many calculations live in me.  I have to squelch most of the questions I might ask.  I encounter enough eye rolling in our time together.  Said rolling eyes tell me that I have a limited fussing budget to work with, so I have to check in judiciously.

The last time we were together my question had to do with shoes.  Bless him, my son agreed to allow me to replace the beloved (and many-holed) shoes he was wearing.

It felt like victory.

If all goes well, Jameson will walk and bike his way through the winter city in dry and comfortable shoes.

And his mother?  She will feel the warm good of caring for one of her babies.  Sleep comes easier when basics are assured.  As important, I’ll get time to be with one of my favorite people on this planet.

As I anticipate the joy of this seemingly mundane thing, my heart lurches a bit.

I can buy these shoes.  I can fuss and tend and see to it my son is warm and dry.  We’re even going to buy them new, without taking the time to cruise thrift stores, which is often our wont.

This we can do.

What of the so many who cannot?

 

 

tremble

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There is an old spiritual whose words and melody conspire to rip my guts out every time:  “Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.  Were you there when they nailed him to the tree?”

Every year when Good Friday comes around my soul must have that sing.

And it is feeling that need on this day.

On Sunday we will gather in a mostly racially segregated church to name, among other things, the way that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s message was sprung from the teachings of Jesus.  We will hear some of his words and sing songs that harken back to a time when the church took blinders off and took action based upon the teachings of Jesus.

Today I was engaged in an electronic conversation involving some of the clergy who have signed a document saying that we no longer feel bound by a church teaching that conspires to barricade grace from same-sex committed couples.  The conversation had to do with how do we as clergy and lay advocates for full inclusion open dialogue and how do we maintain a conversation space free of hate speak and how do we move this crucial conversation out to a world sore weary for want of grace and I want to sing “Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble” because we ARE there every day, positioned at the foot of the cross where our sisters and brothers in Christ are crucified crucified crucified by the unwillingness of God’s people to rise up and say that we will no longer collaborate with the forces of fear.

I am a tired and heart-sore singer needing a good wail and tremble is so real.

Wail I will, and then I will get up, pick up my voice and my heart and search for others who long to do the same and together we will overcome.  We will overcome.

Because the heart of God demands our response.

Heaven help us if we sit through tidy and safe commemorations of MLK without turning to now, to us, to what is, and asking ourselves how it is we can go along when so much is yet to be.

May the blinders be banished and our hope and fury be sung from belly and pulpit.

woman song

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“Today at Jeanne Audrey Power’s apartment we saw all her shelves of feminist theology books and on the female face(s) of the Divine–was it all a dream? What about the last 50 years of women’s voices? Does feminist theology matter anymore?”  Facebook post.

The above Facebook post sings out at a powerful time in the church calendar.

On the fourth Sunday of Advent, we turn our ears and hearts to the song of Mary:  the Magnificat.  It is a song taught her through the voices of her ancestors, since her kinswoman Hannah generations before sang much the same song when she found she was to bear an unexpected son, Samuel by name.

The song resonates with the voices of God’s prophets through the ages:  God uses the least in order to proclaim that the vision of the Holy images fullness of life for all.  The mighty are brought to the level of the least.  The poor are filled with the food of life and soul that integration into community can bring.  The world can and will turn from scramble for power over to cultivation of power with in order that all might know grace.

And, Mary marvels, God calls her blessed in her decision to magnify the Holy. A thirteen year old girl who says “yes” to bearing the Word Made Flesh is called blessed.

Her song is sung and it resounds in our midst yet.

And, the song of woman is strangled yet.  A recent article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune shares this sobering fact:  one in three women in this nation have experienced violence directed at the Word Made Flesh of their bodies.  Women are targets of violence meted out through fists, through advertising, and through the sorts of systemic violence that creates a culture in which women who lead and women who sing are subjected to derision and barbed-wire ceilings.

Was it all a dream, the Facebook poster asks?  Can it be even timidly conjectured that Feminism has wrought the sort of systemic change it sought to name and challenge?  Does anyone care?

Who is singing woman song any more?  And why is it there seems to be a “there, we did that” sense that the song is needed no more?

The ways we language through worship and public discourse is bound yet by images of the Holy as male muscle-flexer.  Introducing inclusive language through mindful choice of prayer and hymnody can make for exquisite challenge.  The resource aren’t much there.  And the push back is relentless.

The song is more powerful than our cultural penchant for ostrich-stance.

I care.  My daughters care.  My men-beloveds care.  The Holy cares.

The song of woman is the song of life and thousands of years ago a young woman took up the song and the world was changed.

Oh, that we would carry on the song of the Word.  We are called to magnify the vision of God.

We are blessed.

Marriage matters

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We are organizing to defeat the upcoming Marriage Amendment in Minnesota.

The “we” in this case are United Methodists.

Knowing that we are a part of a movement grounded in the teachings of Jesus that welcome all to the table of communal grace, we’re organizing.

Eight of us sat at table today to strategize.  It was a rollicking conversation, full of gratitude for our theological heritage.  As Wesleyans, we look to an ethical framework that considers scripture, reason, tradition and experience.  As Wesleyans, we are enjoined to consider the world our parish.  As Wesleyans, we celebrate a connection woven through grace and the sure belief that injustice is meant to be challenged by people of faith.

We’re planning gatherings across the state.  At those gatherings we’ll worship, share the theological groundings that impel our witness, and learn how to effectively converse with others in order that heart might be shared.  And, we’ll serve as a resource for kin in faith across the state who seek to speak for inclusion.

It is blessing to live in the state of Minnesota.  We have a heritage of speaking up around justice issues.

It is blessing to be United Methodists.  We have a heritage of speaking up around justice issues.

So, stay tuned.  And if you are passionate about insuring that those who are blessed by love for another of the same gender ought be accorded the opportunity to celebrate that love in church and state, join in!

 

What if?

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I met yesterday with clergy of many stripes.

We were Lutheran and Church of Christ and United Methodist and Presbyterian clergy from Richfield and Bloomington who responded to an invitation.  The invitation was this:  how might we come to know each other and our shared call to prophetic ministry?

What is prophetic ministry?  It is ministry grounded in scripture; ministry that challenges us to consider that a constant strand running through scripture is the insistence the Holy lays before us that we are to bind the wounds of all.  The prophets sounded call to those who had wandered from the less-than-easy.  They reminded God’s people that without acts of mercy and justice communion with the Holy is not.  In particular, people of God are to tend to the needs of the most vulnerable.  If they are not cared for, the ways of God are not being lived.  Jesus sounded the voice of the prophet throughout his ministry.  His was not a message of behave-nicely-boys-and-girls-and-you’ll-eat-bon-bons-in heaven.  His was a message of creating the kindom of God NOW, here, wherever it is you find yourself.

And we who were gathered?  We are needful of support and a sense that preaching prophetically won’t get us fired.

The men and women in the room yesterday are people of great heart who entered the vocational fray that is parish ministry because they were moved by hope.  We who gathered yesterday share a contextual reality.  In the sixties, our churches were busting out with young families and the buzz of being suburban dream land.

Now, fifty some year later, we are living in inner-ring suburban churches seeking new ways to be in relevant ministry.  Our parishioners, many of whom were part of the glory-days church boom are aging, our membership often change-resistant even as the world morphs outside the church walls, and our voices isolated and more prone to soothing than challenging.

What if, we asked ourselves.  What if we talked and learned and listened and discerned where the common woundings are in our communities?  What if we gathered with other people of faith from our ‘hood and strategized ways to respond?  What if we linked the hearts held in common by the Christ and joined hands to better our communities?

What if we aren’t alone, trying to appease pew folk who do what any of us who are frightened do:  clamp down hard on what is and fiercely defend it? What if we dared to trust God enough to step into relationship with each other and the communities God has called us to serve?

What if?

 

engaged

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“The opposite of love is not hate.  It is indifference.”  Ellie Wiesel

Wednesdays are dense and luscious for me.

I begin my day at eight AM with a table full of wonderful men.  We gather together for Bible study.  They have been doing this for decades, these men.  They let me join in.

I learn much at that table.  We talk about many things (studying scripture does that) together.  We are diverse as can be.  Gender, generations and political ideologies stretch us to hear and understand in a way grounded in the power of the Christ.  We see each other in a more fulsome way.  We aren’t sword wielders for a cause, we are people full of holy passion for life and learning and we trust each other enough to share our sense of things in a way that invites listening.  At that table I am a deeper and finer thing than merely Pastor.  I am sister in Christ.

On Wednesday nights I meet with a wonderful collection of humans who come together to explore Christian discipleship.  We are exploring Wesleyan theology and what it means to be an accountable disciple in the way of John Wesley.  Wesley knew how we need each other in order to grow into our fullness.  On Wednesday nights, we are able to explore words that jangle and stretch:  sin and salvation, grace and justice.  The room hums with the power of the collected souls.  We are kin in Christ and the joy of our mindful seeking permeates the places of tired and despair that walk in us each.

There is much the church is not.  Sometimes people seize on the “is not” with a seeming glee.  Armed with conviction about the glaring flaws, distance is cultivated and tended.

But there are others.  Others who practice the engagement of being willing to hear the heart of another and in that hearing know the soundings of the Holy.

Indifference is a choice.

I’m moved by those who choose engagement.  My life and the lives the engaged are blessed to lead are the better for it.

what is (?)

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There are dramas aplenty for the living.

Republican candidates are posturing, the President is mingling, protesters are gathering and the polite veneer we put on being community in these days is being fissured but good.

We are what we read and believe, aren’t we?

Charts are flying through cyber space indicating that the economic well-being of many is in worse shape than it has been since before the Great Depression.  Corporations are flourishing while actual earning power is languishing for those who are working.  The number of those who cannot find work is dismally high.

Facts is facts, right?

Except that facts get spun, depending upon ideology.  Whether liberal or conservative, we latch onto the “facts” that support our perspective.  And if those facts get our hearts racing and our sense of umbrage pumping, they are precious indeed (evidently).

I’m aware of the power and privilege of preaching every Sunday.  I’m aware that every time I approach the fear-and-trembling task involved in weaving Holy teachings into the plot of daily living, I’m coming from a perspective molded by which facts I cotton to.

Facts don’t lie, right?

But whose facts?

I was in conversation recently with someone working in a drastically changing profession (so say we all, right?).  The benchmarks for what makes for professional integrity in her field are shifting.  She is doing her work grounded in what she holds to be basic tenets of competency.  Others have tossed off those tenets as expendable.  It is wracking her.

As Wesleyans, we are called to assess our preaching, our living, our giving and our being through the lenses of Scripture, tradition, reason and experience.

Nothing I have encountered through any of those four lenses prop up the gouging of the poor. Nothing.

Nothing I have encountered through any of those four lenses prop up the notion that God and God’s people are to dismiss and seek to silence the crying out of the oppressed.  Nothing.

Which tenets are expendable in the practice of Christianity?

The question is wracking us, but good.

It ought.