For those who have been paying attention, past weeks have
been difficult in the United Methodist Church with regards to same-sex
marriage. One church trial of a pastor who officiated his son’s same-sex
wedding has just finished up, with a guilty verdict and penalty of a 30-day
suspension and the threat of losing his clergy credentials still looming. Forty United Methodist clergy co-officiated a
gay wedding together, presumably intending to overpower the trial process by
their very number. Last Thursday, the Council of Bishops asked for two bishops
to file a complaint against Bishop Melvin Talbert for performing a same-sex
union last month. It appears that the United Methodist Church is careening
towards the spectacle of putting an African-American bishop, who worked closely
with MLK during the civil rights era, on trial for standing up for what he
feels is today’s civil rights issue for the church. Other church trials are pending.
No matter where you stand with regards to same-sex marriage, the future holds
great pain for the church as we see our judicial process carried out in the
public forum. The larger society will know us by what they read about us in the
press, and it is not going to be the UMCOR response in the Philippines that will be getting
the attention.
How are we pastors to respond? Most of my colleagues are in
congregations similar to mine, which contains members from throughout the
political and spiritual spectrum in the big tent that is United Methodism. Even
to raise the question in a neutral manner can result in hurt and pain and
loss. In a different place, I once
taught a class on the Social Principles. I had 2 families leave the church
after the session on homosexuality; one family left because the UMC was too
liberal with regards to sexual orientation, and the other family left because
the UMC was too conservative. We never saw either family again.
We live in a day and age where it is difficult for us church
people to be able to talk about these things.
By default, the UMC is trading conversation for trials. Trials, by their
nature, preclude the possibility of sitting together and conversing. Instead,
pleas will be entered, motions will be made, positions will be argued, and a
verdict will be handed down. There will be winners and losers. News
organizations, within and without the church, will broadcast the news, and
people in living rooms around the world will pass their own verdicts on our
church, based on the snippets that are reported to them.
The trial process is not
conversation.
In the meantime, in our churches and in our pews, a
grandmother will find out that a beloved grandchild is gay. A church member, after months of intentional
relationship-building with a non-churched friend, will find new levels of
distrust of her church from the person she is trying to reach. A lifelong
Methodist who has stayed with his home church all of his life in spite of his
sexual orientation will have to decide once more if it is worth it, if there is
room for him in his childhood church.
In the meantime, in our churches and in our pews, an
evangelist who wants to focus on winning souls to Christ will pray for an end
to the distraction. A political
conservative who is weary from fighting the culture wars at the ballot box will
find no rest for his soul in his church. A Biblical literalist will have to
decide once more if it is worth it, if there is room for him in his childhood
church.
In the meantime, one pastor looks out at her congregation,
full of everyone named above, and wonders where to go from here. Is it
possible, by the grace of God, to create conversation around such difficult
topics? Or is the very nature of the conversation
too volatile to bring up? Is the risk too great? Will more people leave because either we’re
too liberal or we’re too conservative? I
began these thoughts with the words, “for those of you paying attention,” and I
have to confess that I have been hoping that no one is paying attention. The risks
seem so great, even to write an article such as this one.
But is our only hope as we muddle through this mess that no
one actually notices? Surely there is a better way.
Here’s what I believe. I believe that there is room for us
all in this church, both my congregation and the larger UMC. We may frustrate
each other from time to time. We may not always understand one another. Our passionate convictions may run counter to
those of the person sitting beside us. Sometimes, we may all get on each other’s
nerves.
But when we’re at our best, we’re all in it together. I’ve seen it happen. I’ve seen gay church
members working alongside adamantly straight (for lack of a better descriptor)
church members, laughing and talking. I’ve seen people pray together in pairs,
knowing that they voted in exactly the opposite ways the last time they were at
the polls. I’ve seen a church surround a beloved former pastor with love when
he lost not one, but two, gay sons to the scourge of AIDS. I know these things are true. I have seen them
with my own eyes.
Yes, there are big things we need to talk about. Change is
happening so rapidly, and the size and the increasingly global scope of the UMC
make it complicated for us to try to respond to- much less offer leadership in-
these changes. I have my own ideas about how we are called to live out Christ’s
love (if I were SupremeRulerForLifeOfAllThatISee), but all of my ideas start
with the same thing:
We need to be able to talk to one another, to pray for one
another, to learn to love one another. Until we can do those things better, our
future on this issue will continue to be complicated and divisive. Sadly, church trials are not likely to lead
us in a healing direction.
In the meantime, all I know how to do is to pay attention. I will pay attention to how I keep showing love to everyone that God sends my way. I’ll just keep paying attention and practicing love, and I'll hope others will join in too. And when the day comes that we come together and get it right, then I hope that the world will pay attention to all the good stuff that those crazy Christians are up to.
