The end of a long day. A weird day. A disconcerting day. A
hopeful day nonetheless.
As to the last…
So, in spite of all that has gone on in St. Louis, I got an
email tonight from a family wanting to join our church and, though they come
from a “believer’s baptism” background—after talking with me about it a couple
of weeks ago—want to have their children baptized when they join our church. That
is an indication to me that no matter what happens here, back home, the work
goes on and the gospel will prevail.
That is the message I need to hear and also to proclaim. And
to remember always. The gospel is not fettered by our stuff.
As to the former...
Today we had Westboro Baptist people on two corners, to
flank us as we exited. Screaming, with signs, promising us Hell. Hilariously,
one woman was holding a sign that said, NO WOMEN PREACHERS! (Westboro lost
their sense of irony, and what constitutes preaching, decades ago.)
Three GREAT moments re WBC:
One: as we were leaving, a panel
truck that had been hired by…someone… with a “The United Methodist Church:
Called to Faith, Called to Prayer, Called to Serve” pulled-up in front of the
protestors on the one side, hiding them from us for a while. I was not quick
enough with my camera to get a shot of it. It was PERFECT!
Two: a car pulled even with the same
group as the truck drove away, and blared their horn to drown-out the amplified
invectives.
Three: I stopped in front of the
larger group and laughed out loud and said, “Y’all are so funny! Y'all are SO FUNNY!!"
I was remembering how in Harry Potter: The Prisoner of
Azkaban, Professor Lupin said that while the spell, “Ridiculus!” could repel a
boggart, what really “finished them off” was laughter. Likewise, in Stephen
Donaldson’s The First Chronicles of
Thomas Covenant, what destroyed Lord Foul, the “devil” figure in the trilogy,
was laughter. We spend too much time fighting and fretting these idiots.
Laughter does it, or will. They are in fact ridiculous.
Speaking of which… today we had other protesters who
demanded we love them, while daring us not to. They were carrying signs of
their own, so to speak, though of a different kind. And absolutely mystified why folks on
the WAY left drive people to the right, even as people on the WAY right drive
people to the left.
Today I had a pastor refuse to talk to me beyond “his”
recognition that we could not talk—that it was too late to have conversation, that
discussion was pointless. Really?
Today I saw us prioritize a proposal regarding pensions/property
and three disaffiliation plans ahead of a plan to keep our church from
splintering. THREE DISAFFILIATION PROPOSALS before a proposal to keep the Church
together.
“What happened to the Peace of Christ?” said one text I
received on the downside of it. Great question, I responded.
I have tried to ask myself the question I put earlier: What
am I afraid of? If we split?
I am afraid that the young men I baptized in January, the young
families I have already welcomed and the others I soon will—people for whom the
gospel is real for the first time in a long time or ever—that I will have to
tell them that our church cannot agree on how to love God and neighbor, and that
they will decide it was a mistake to believe that this gospel could make a
difference in the and their world.
But I trust that, as Bishop Carter said today, “that the One
who began a good work in them will complete it before the Day of Christ…”
+ + +
Tomorrow, at 8:20, we begin discussing and debating The
Traditional Plan, with a possibility for the strengthening of existing
exclusionary language, aggressive investigation and swift punitive enforcement.
Which is to say, now the REAL fun begins.
I have NOT lost my sense of irony. Or sarcasm.
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