I am fasting and praying today. Hunger and prayer can focus
the mind. It occurred to me as I was praying that hundreds, perhaps thousands
of people around the world who are connected to the United Methodist Church are
fasting and prayer for the same reason as I am today: because the Judicial
Council of the UMC will soon be making a ruling on the legitimacy of the
election of a lesbian bishop. I know that so very many of us are praying – but
as I prayed I realized that others are praying for the opposite outcome to the
one that I want. We are all fervent in our prayers. We all want the Holy Spirit
to work. What happens when the decision comes down?
Will the “losing” side believe that God did not hear their
prayers? Will they claim that the Judicial Council did not listen to the voice
of the Holy Spirit? How do we answer those questions?
As I prayed, it occurred to me that maybe we are all going
to lose. And maybe that is God’s
answer. Church, maybe this is a Babel tower time for us. The story in
Genesis 11 tells us that the people of the time were trying to build a tower to
reach the heavens. Contrary to what we often think about this, they weren’t
trying to get up to heaven – and the
gods – they were trying to provide a path for the divine to come down to them.
They wanted to make a name for themselves as the ones through whom the divine
entered the world. But God doesn’t work that way.
In fact, God has already entered the world and we keep
trying as hard as we can to forget how and when and why that happened. We have
been focusing on making the UMC the right kind of church that will provide a
path for the divine to come to us. But God is already here. And the initial
command was to spread throughout the earth, filling it with the fruits of our
labors and the knowledge of God and wisely overseeing the beautiful creation of
God. Instead of going out into the world, the people collected together.
Instead of sharing knowledge of God with the world, they wanted to share how
great they were. And here we are again.
Regardless of the outcome of the Judicial Council ruling,
maybe we are being scattered for a reason. The call to Abraham – the remedy for
all of the sin and evil in Genesis 3-11 – was to bring blessing to all the
families of the earth. Now we get to choose: will we be sons and daughters of
Babel or Abraham?
God has already entered the world in the person and work of
Jesus. The church was inaugurated at Pentecost. Nothing and no one can stand
against the true church of God, the body of Christ. Are we a part of that body?
Both sides? Yes! If there is anything to be gained from a study of the Hebrew
Bible (not to mention a study of the history of the Church) it is that God can
use highly imperfect people – selfish, greedy, quarreling, proud people – for God’s
purposes and to somehow further God’s blessing. I’ll admit I don’t always get
it. But somehow God has continued to work regardless of how humankind has
resisted.
I spent two years studying the Acts of the Apostles with a
group of pastors. Now I will be moving to a new church and a new town that I
have been warned is “very secular.” More secular than the Roman Empire? Not
hardly.
God has already entered the world. Evil, sin, and death
threw their full weight against God who came in Jesus. We just celebrated Holy
Week and Easter. We remembered on Good Friday that the fully human man who was
also fully divine died on a cross. We
think about the miracle of the resurrection, but do we recognize the miracle
that we are talking about when we say that God
died? But here’s the good part: Evil, sin, and death threw their full
weight against God who came in Jesus and they failed. Evil, sin, and death were
overcome. God raised Jesus from the dead and began at that moment to reclaim
the earth. To bring together the heavens and the earth. To make Jew and Gentile
one people again. And at Pentecost, God began again to create a people who
would be – not perfect – but sent out to be a blessing. Sent out to spread the
word that Jesus is Lord of the heavens and earth whether anyone acknowledges it
or not. That means Lord of the straight and the gay, Lord of the Democrats and
Republicans, Lord of the atheist and the Muslim, the Buddhist and the Christian,
Lord of the United States of America and North Korea. Oh, we’ve a long way to
go before that Lordship is acknowledged and God’s perfect rule is finally made
real everywhere. But the new creation, the Kingdom of God has been inaugurated
and if we are anything, church, we are supposed to be the bearers of those glad
tidings!
We also have to remember that the fruit of the Spirit is "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23
gentleness, and self-control." (Gal
5:22-23 CEB) Which means that even though we will continue to disagree
and we might scatter after the Judicial Council ruling comes out, we are called
to act in very particular ways. Which means that we all lose if we fail to
preach the Gospel with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness,
faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Which means that we all win if we find
a way to shower the world with God’s blessing. This will be difficult, because
we don’t always agree on what it means to bless the world. So that is what we
need to focus on.
I am praying and fasting today. But my focus has changed. I
am praying that God will show me, and the rest of those who identify with the
UMC, how to bring blessing to the world. I am praying that we will learn to see
that God is working through all of us on different sides of a difficult issue
and that the Holy Spirit will work regardless of the decision of the Judicial
Council. I am praying that I will be able to live as a disciple and preach as
an apostle in my new appointment.
I am praying that after this Babylonian tower moment, we
will have a Pentecost time, when, as we are fasting and praying together, the
Holy Spirit will fall afresh on us all and send us out into a hurting world to
be a fresh wind of grace and love.
