Back to Basics

Back to basics…

Quite unlike the “holy pandemonium” we celebrate at Hawthorne Lane often and again, what we saw and experienced in St. Louis was unholy pandemonium, and the most of it yesterday. We emerged from that “cage fight,” as Rob Renfroe, one of the (to my mind: unprincipled) principals dubbed it more or less rightly, bloodied and battered and absolutely shamed by the ways we treated each other.

It was like that bad but necessary first counseling session for divorcing couples—where the only thing on display is pent-up anger and self-serving self-righteousness, the “look how much I have suffered on account of him/her!”

In actual counseling, of course, even if divorce is inevitable, one hopes that the anger and blame can eventually give way to both appreciation and sadness: appreciation of the other’s qualities that indicate why you got married in the first place; sadness as to why it is a tragedy, for so many reasons, that it seems it has to end this way. And maybe it does. But even then, there ought to be a place for gracious parting, for prayerful blessing as you go, for mutual contrition and repentance, and for an expression of the kind of overarching or undergirding love that may not keep you together but keeps you from remaining bitterly apart.

I saw none of those better angels yesterday. Or this week. At all. And if I would like to think that now—now–we could begin the real conversation, the healing, gracious, bless-you-as-we-go conversation, I fear it will not happen. Remember how my colleague in LA so unsettlingly said, “There is no point in our talking; we can’t change each other’s minds; it is too late; it wouldn’t be fruitful.”

That was about the most cynical, the most emotionally and theological arrested thing I heard all week.  

Still, as the dust begins to settle, we are hearing more and more voices that, as both the bluster and the whine begin to fade, reveal that as of this moment not much has functionally changed. If that in and of itself depressed you a little, join the que. But…

Fans of the Traditional Plan (which passed) know that the actual legislation is in terrible trouble—that what got passed on the floor of GC will almost certainly be ruled unconstitutional (again!) by the Judicial Council, and if/when it is, the UMC will be left with the very same Book of Discipline we already have.

So…

Those in the throes of great lamentation should take note that, Yes, there is a sense in which the Traditionalist voices flexed a bit of muscle. But the percentages, while indicative, were not entirely overwhelming (6.5% points, 54 total votes of 822 cast). And again, it has all been referred (again!) to Judicial Council. As we wait, nothing has functionally changed.

So...those who are gloating that, as one pastor in Atlanta said it, “we now have a Discipline with ‘teeth in it,’” (which, again, we don’t; read above), should take note that, Yes, there is a sense in which the Traditionalist voices flexed a bit of muscle…. but again, nothing has functionally changed.

(Reading the comment of that Atlanta pastor, I could not help but think of Galatians 5:15, “If you bite and devour one another, be careful that you do not consume one another.” Like a snake eating its own tail, we may in fact be destroying ourselves slowly and painfully).

Yesterday as we prepared to conclude, the presiding bishop, instead of calling for “an omnibus motion” to set aside all that was left before us, called for an “ominous motion.” Yep. Got that.   

I think that the fight will continue in Minneapolis in 2020, which is either good news or bad news or both. It is pretty clear that the factions do not like each other very much.

But I find myself thinking about Genesis 1. And Hawthorne Lane UMC.

I am confident that God's blessing rests on HLUMC! I know of more families ready to join our great and growing congregation. The business and busyness and pique that has characterized St. Louis this week is not our agenda for ministry and mission. Yes, we care about LGBTQI+ folk, in the same way we care for other folk: welcoming, working, growing and worshiping with…whoever. Will we sponsor a float in the Gay Pride parade? Maybe not. But we will not protest or boycott it either, and we will listen to and love those who, for whatever their reason, do either. We will try to love everyone and believe that conservative or liberal, gay, straight or unsure, evangelical or struggling with faith, there is a place for you among loving friends at HLUMC.

As to the UMC? I don’t know. I do believe that God’s Spirit can bring order out of the chaos—but as I ponder Genesis 1, I remember that in the light after the darkness God ordained many separations: water from land, earth from sky, animals from humans… only after these (surely) painful separations, this from that, these from those, did their come life and fruitfulness and joy!