And so this is where we are…
As I was blogging about how wonderful I thought Ken’s sermon
was this morning, a couple of folk behind me were talking. I gradually realized
they were offering headshakes and critique of the same sermon. One of them was the
pastor of a 6000 member church in LA, who says that he heard the sermon as a
political pitch for the One Church Plan.
I said, I heard it as an exegesis of Paul.
He said, “Well, that just shows how we disagree and there is
no point in our discussing it. Not profitable.”
I said, “What could make it profitable? How might we talk
about it that it is a discussion, not an argument.”
“It is too late for that,” he said.
I kept trying to engage him. He said that if things in the
church stay the same, he can remain. If the Modified Traditional Plan passes,
same. But if the One Church Plan passes, he will have to leave. That he would
never have joined the UMC if he had thought, ever, we would move away from our
traditional stance.
For him, it all comes down to Acts 15, where the Jerusalem Council
told the Gentile churches “to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from
strangled animals, and sexual immorality.”
He said that, for him, he had to read “sexual immorality” as
same-sex relationships. I wondered if we impose that particular reading on that
word, but I said I am just wondering.
“He shook his head. No way we are going to change each other’s
minds,” he said.
“I’m not trying to change your mind,” I said. “I am just
trying to understand, and to see if we can talk.”
He said, “It’s no longer profitable. Now, if we leave, I
will still be in ministry and support ministry with Reconciling Congregations, and
we will baptize babies of gay couples. I have no problem with that. But it is
time for us to separate.”
“It feels like a bad divorce to me,” I said.
We shook hands. “Good luck on your blogging,” he said. “Peace
of Christ,” I said.
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