Now as a Threshold Moment

Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. Hebrews 11: 1 (New International Version)

Several years ago I was attempting, and failing, to make a sermon illustration using physics. 

I asked if anyone knew the Second Law of Thermodynamics.  I wasn’t really expecting an answer but voices in the congregation shouted “Bonhoeffer!”  We laughed and it is still funny. 

When Bonhoeffer is the answer to the vast majority of my questions when preaching, shouting out his name is the “just right” answer, right? 

We see the same kind of “just right” answer from the children to questions during Children’s Time:  “Jesus!”

In Utah, at Hilltop United Methodist, I was in a choir where when the director would ask a question about a vowel sound, we would all shout out “schwa”!  That sound is the most common English language vowel sound in our spoken language, and most of us don’t even know what it is!  It is the ‘uh’ in how we say Philip in English.  A gazillion examples of this sound exist:  Again, family, bottom, support, and syringe all have an “uh” sound and that sound is the schwa.  Schwa is “just right.” 

Those three answers are often the expected response to those particular questions and often, they are “just right.” 

Sometimes however, the proper response to a moment in our lives is unexpected, it might not always seem quite right as it is happening to us.  In fact, that response may actually seem dangerous. 

Let’s return to the question that got the answer “Bonhoeffer!”  Let me offer you one way to understand that law of Thermodynamics is left on their own systems move from order to disorder.  You might hear it phrased things move from order to chaos.  But when the moment is a threshold moment, when the ingredients and the moment combine just right, something miraculous happens – instead of chaos, the system moves to a new complexity that has a new order.  In other words, it moves from simplicity to an ordered complexity.  It may look like chaos for a while, but it doesn’t stay that way. 

I offer the decision from antiquity to not eat gathered grain, and instead, put it into the ground.  One scholar calls it a Goldilocks moment:  when the right ingredients encounter a moment when everything is just right.  It’s miraculous, and it is a threshold moment. 

On an Easter Sunday a few years ago, I used the idea of Peter pondering the empty tomb and the women’s encounter with the Risen Jesus.  It was a threshold moment. 

In physics, a threshold moment doesn’t require our assent, but in our theological, spiritual, and religious world, it does. 

We must assent to the possibility that something miraculous has happened:  the moment is just right for a new reality, a new creation:  it is both faith and trust. It is also scary because it is so dangerous. 

Alix Harrow writes:  “Thresholds are dangerous places, neither here nor there, and walking across one is like stepping off the edge of a cliff in the naive faith that you'll sprout wings halfway down. You can't hesitate, or doubt. You can't fear the in-between.”

We can’t fear the in-between.  We must be prepared to step off that edge in faith, in trust. I wonder if now isn’t for many of us a threshold moment, and needing faith and trust to step out into a new unknown.

Scary. Dangerous. Necessary.

Selah, Dennis

Doing is on the way to Becoming

“Real isn't how you are made,' said the Skin Horse.  'It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.'

'Does it hurt?' asked the Rabbit.

'Sometimes,' said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. 'When you are Real you don't mind being hurt.'

'Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,' he asked, 'or bit by bit?'

'It doesn't happen all at once,' said the Skin Horse. 'You become ….’”

The Velveteen Rabbit

I once was asked why I didn’t title my sermons.  

My not serious, tongue in cheek, quip was that I was a closet Episcopalian, and while I believed in Jesus, I didn’t believe in titles.  Episcopalians do not title their sermons, Methodists normally do.  But I assure you, I am not a closet Episcopalian.  Their Sunday duds are just not me.  I might become an Episcopalian, but I doubt it. 

The real answer is titles box me in. 

Here at Hilltop, we print the bulletin on Thursday, and I am often, very often, not ready to put a title on a sermon at that time.  A title forces me into a direction I am not always ready to be go. Yes, I can be stubborn at times with the Holy Spirit and the direction of a sermon. 

When I have a good title and know with great certainty where the Holy Spirit is carrying me, it’s easy.  Look at the bulletins for Sunday worship in September; titles will be present. But that title creation prompted me to think about a lot of stuff. 

The act of creating a title for this Sunday’s sermon produced a jumble in my head.  As we look at the book of James in September, that jumble is stirred by contemplating the answer to the question:  “What does it mean to live as a Christian?”  

The theme for the month, “Doing Church” is also messing with me. Several weeks ago when it was proposed, it generated no dissonance in my head at all.  Now, for some reason, it keeps clashing in my head.  (To be clear, this a good dissonance, like in Jazz or the Blues or Stravinsky). 

I was glad to read that the theme had an impact on Mary Jean Davison as she wrote her excellent Music and Arts article in our newsletter. Mary Jean suggests that by doing church, we start to experience transformation and get to a place of becoming where we are the church.  You don’t stay at doing. At some point, you become. 

Spanish has two verbs to be.  One has an element of permanence, and the other is understood to be temporary.  If you use the wrong verb to say someone is smart or beautiful, you are actually suggesting it is not part of their normal state.  I see this doing/being in the same way.  We have to do the church enough, that at some point it stops being doing, and it becomes a vital statement about who we actually are. 

I assure you that after having prepared right at 500 sermons I am not the same person I was 500 sermons ago.  Church is a different reality for me than fifteen years ago, sometimes even fifteen minutes ago. 

Being the church is, in the sense of the two Spanish verbs to be, permanent and temporary.  Gradually as we become real in terms of being little Christs, the meaning of Christian after all, he becomes permanently part of who we are, and we leave more and more of the temporary behind. 

I suspect it is never completed, that in this life we are never fully 100% finished.  To paraphrase Paul from 1^st Corinthians 13, I suspect it is a state of constant becoming, a state of seeing in the mirror and just getting it dimly, always seeking more light, more clarity, moving from doing to a state of becoming. In the words of the Skin Horse, you become real. 

Selah, Pastor Dennis

Pronouns Matter

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many are one body, so it is with Christ.  1 Corinthians 12:12 (ESV)

In my time in the Army, I often heard leaders say while pointing to the US Army strip on our uniforms “there is no me in Army” then point to our name tags, mine of course saying SHAW and offering “there is no I in Team.” Sometimes they would close that lesson with “Go Army, Go Team.” 

There is no me in Army, there is no I in team. 

The preamble to the Constitution doesn’t say “I the person” it starts, “We the people.” 

          The New York Yankees do not allow names on the backs of their jerseys, only numbers. 

               Some coaches tell basketball, football, and baseball players to play for the name on the front of their jersey rather than the name on the back.  The back has their last name, and on the front, is the team name. 

All of those ideas point to the same concept that Paul was pointing to in his ongoing philosophical dispute with the church in Corinth: when you sign on to be a follower of Christ, you leave the stuff behind you previously held on to. For Paul, the image of a healthy human body was helpful to understanding the idea of team: the team worked together and the eye was the eye, and it didn’t try to be the ear, mouth, or ankle. 

There is no me in Church, there is no I at Hilltop. Me and I are called pronouns, which mean they can be used as a substitute for nouns. There is no me in church surely sounds better than ‘there is no Dennis in church.’ 

Here is my point: Pronouns matter, they matter a lot. 

How many times do we hear national leaders over the last twenty years get into extended dialogue where the pronouns used are I, me or my. Those are all first person, singular pronouns. Somehow when Jesus says “I am the light of the world” that is positive, but when a leader pronounces “I am the light of the world” it is jarring. 

Personally, I always try to make sure the pronouns at Hilltop are to the maximum degree possible, if first person, plural. We.  Us. 

But that is so hard. Look at the very first sentence of this thought piece: quickly it gets to first person, singular. Sometimes the I statement is unavoidable. First person singular isn’t automatically sinful.  But other times, it would be more true, more helpful, and more kind to go to plural pronouns. 

Reading European sports writers talk about the recent World Cup was interesting. England are something. Not England is something. My word processor gives me an error on are following the singular noun, England, but England in the context meant is a team, a plural. 

Maybe we need to think of the Body of Christ in a European team concept: The body of Christ are …

English teachers will freak out but in reality the plural verb makes an excellent point – a team is intrinsically plural, not singular. You want the team to get to a place of unity, oneness, functioning as one. But even in perfect oneness, perfect unity, it is still a collection of me’s and I’s. 

I used The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown last year for sermon illustrations. Boys in the Boat is the story of the University of Washington Rowing Team and how, spoiler alert, they won the Olympic Gold Medal in 1936. In part, the book is about how one man, Joe Rantz, neglected and abandoned by his family, had to learn to sacrifice his personal individuality for the unity of the team. When Rantz makes that psychological, spiritual shift in his understanding of how it all fits together, the crew is one with each other.  The nine members of the Crew becomes one. 

For Paul, this thing called church is a one.  He sees it in terms of the complexity of the human body, many diverse parts and roles, but still functioning as a single thing. All of this diversity of function and role still serves to keep the body healthy and viable. Every member of the body, that is eyes, fingers, feet, stomach, ears, all function in support of the one that is the entire body: the entire body of Christ. 

This Jesus stuff isn’t easy. It isn’t going to happen without effort and hard work and a willingness to make that psychological, spiritual shift in understanding of how it all fits together. You’ve got to sacrifice much of our individuality to make it all fit together.

One of the barometers in how we assess how we are doing on this “body of Christ” stuff is the pronouns. When first person singular dominate, we are probably focused on the wrong things. When the dominant pronouns are plural, we are probably functioning consistent with what Paul is talking about in 1 Corinthians 12. 

There is no me in Church, there is no I at Hilltop. 

Selah, Pastor Dennis

Strange and Foreign

Isaiah 28:11 -- For by people of strange lips and with a foreign tongue the Lord will speak to this people.

Methodism grew out of two “Great Awakenings:” The first in England in the 1730s and the second in the United States in the early 1800s.  Both awakenings were marked by enthusiastic response to the word of God preached and offered to everyday people.  Unstated then but understood now the Methodist movement focused on ‘The creation of disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.’ Transformation marked the Methodist movement.   

For example, Gertrude Himmelfarb, writes “[T]he miracle of modern England” is “the fact that England was able to survive the economic revolution of the eighteenth century without succumbing to a political revolution [the best example is France].”  She places much of credit for this on John Wesley, the people called Methodists and the Methodist blend of Justification by Faith and Good Works. 

Wesley accomplished this through field preaching, the creation of active small groups, and high personal accountability – all of which were as “strange” or “foreign” to the people of his day as in our own. 

Wesley, and the people called Methodists, accomplished this national transformation by starting a movement.  Wesley and his people changed a nation -- for the better. 

America was also changed by Methodists – providing spiritual support in a growing foreign and strange land.  Francis Asbury was one of the first two American Bishops and the most movement focused.  He was tireless in his leadership of the church.  Like in England, during a time of religious awakening, a good man was prepared to lead a movement. 

My friend, the Reverend Doctor Bob Kaylor of Tri-Lakes UMC in Monument, CO, sees “humility, confession, repentance and surrender” as critical to our Christian experience, and I offer those four words framed the Methodist movement implicitly if not explicitly.  Those words of “humility, confession, repentance and surrender” often sound as “strange” and “foreign” to our ears bombarded with the constant worship of self.  Jesus words of unconditional grace sounded “strange” and “foreign” in his time as well. 

I think it is safe to say that the movement part of Methodism seems to have “gone out” and our flame needs to be re-kindled.  Our leadership sees our goal as:  We will re-ignite a Christian movement that begins with grace, offers abundant life, and reclaims the life-changing love of Jesus Christ for ALL people.  Key there is re-ignite acknowledging that the flame has gone out. 

How do we re-ignite this flame?  I posit it is by looking at our history.  Wesley and Asbury were driven by an interest in individual souls lovingly cared for and brought back to the bosom of God.  I am their theological and biblical child. 

I once heard a person say about being a Texan as “I wasn’t born here, but I got here as fast as I could.”  I confess, I wasn’t born a Methodist, but I got here as fast as I could.  I love the Methodist movement that focuses on Grace and Faith in Action.  That is exactly what Himmelfarb is driving at when she talks about Wesley’s combination of Justification by Faith and Good Works – Grace and Faith in Action. 

But let’s be clear – the ideas espoused by Wesley, Asbury and Jesus that include humility, confession, repentance, and surrender – sound strange and foreign to us.  Those are not words with worldly endorsement, in fact, the opposite is true.  Our call is to be foreign and strange in the land in which we sojourn.  There are times in this movement leadership people will look at us and say “you are not making any sense.”  If our marks are humility, confession, repentance, and surrender, they might sound foreign and strange, but that puts us in good company, as Jesus sounded foreign and strange in his own time. 

“You are not making any sense” is a badge of honor if we are witnessing in the spirit of Wesley, Asbury and Jesus, especially Jesus! 

Selah, Pastor Dennis

Ministry Moment of October 8, 2017

The idea I want to offer you today is service in the church.  As we think about this, I call to your attention what we just sang to you a few minutes ago from ‘Jacob’s Ladder’, if you love Jesus why not serve him?

My guess is that everybody here has some capacity to serve the church in some way. Just as those skill sets that I brought in from the military have allowed me to lead within the church, I believe there's things that you have, you can do, and you're called to do and that you can bring those skill sets to service on behalf of God.

I want to focus today on time and talent. We so often within the stewardship campaign talk about treasure.

To be clear, we need the treasure to turn to lights on. 

     We need the treasure to pay for various salaries of your staff. 

       I could go on, but It's really a three column test:  time, talent, and treasure. It's not pick one. It's pick something off all three.

Paul was dealing with the same issue in Romans when he would say to the church that he hadn't gotten to yet in Rome, (Romans 12: 1) "I appeal to you therefore brothers and sisters by the mercy of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship." He didn't say present your bodies to be burned up on some kind of sacrificial level, it was to be a living sacrifice on behalf of the church.

There are many things that we need help with here at the church. Many of them are relatively mundane and relatively easy to do. Some of them can be absolutely terrorizing.  For example, running the sound booth. It can be 99% boredom and 1% sheer terror when something goes wrong, but it needs qualified people to help us with that.

There are all kinds of things that you can do within this church.

I would hope that we would see that we have the capacity within us to answer God’s call. I'm going to talk in a few minutes about Gideon and how it is that he answers God's call, but 300 others answered his call as well, not only to lead, but to serve. 

To paraphrase Malachi 3:18, we make the distinction between those who serve God and one who does not serve him. I want you to respond because your heart is a glow; your heart is on fire. Your heart is on fire for God. That's the invitation for you today is to stop and pause and say, "Yes, my treasure is important, but I also want to contribute time and talent to this wonderful church."

I'm mindful of people here that think they don't have a lot of talent. They're like Moses, like Gideon that we're going to get to. My invitation for you is to know that God is calling you in some kind of way. What is that way? How is it that you can offer your time and talent to this church as well?

God bless you. Thank you very much.

Listening Like Jesus ...

Many, if not most, of us are familiar with the Syro-Phoenician woman.

 

Her story appears twice in the Gospels, Mark and Matthew, and because they are a little different, I want to focus on Mark …

Mark 7: 24-30 (NIV)

²⁴ Jesus left that place and went to the vicinity of Tyre.[a] He entered a house and did not want anyone to know it; yet he could not keep his presence secret. ²⁵ In fact, as soon as she heard about him, a woman whose little daughter was possessed by an impure spirit came and fell at his feet. ²⁶ The woman was a Greek, born in Syrian Phoenicia. She begged Jesus to drive the demon out of her daughter.

²⁷ “First let the children eat all they want,” he told her, “for it is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.”

²⁸ “Lord,” she replied, “even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”

²⁹ Then he told her, “For such a reply, you may go; the demon has left your daughter.”

³⁰ She went home and found her child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.

Yes, I find it problematic that Jesus was arguably guilty of a less than pastoral response to the situation of this woman.  But at the end of the day, he listened. 

One of the great problems in our current world is that it is our normative practice to listen in order to reply rather than to truly understand.  Bonhoeffer writes:  “The first service that one owes to others in the fellowship consists in listening to them. Just as love to God begins with listening to His Word, so the beginning of love for the brethren is learning to listen to them.”

Jesus listened the first time and gave a problematic, not particularly loving reply – he didn’t understand, it was momentarily outside his feasible solution space.  Did he think he did not owe this outcast a deeper debt of listening? 

But instead of castigating him as an unfeeling, moronic, anti-Syrian, anti-Phoenician, anti-Greek speaking misogynist, this unnamed heroine invited Jesus to expand his ministry horizon beyond.  In the words of Mark Miller, she invited him to “draw the circle wide, draw it wider still … ”

And Jesus did, Jesus did draw the circle wide, wider still … and instead of replying that she was a two time loser with non-Jew and non-man tattooed on her forehead, he actually listened to her and displayed God’s love, God’s Grace.  

Mark’s red letter words are a little different than Matthew’s.  Jesus says to the unnamed woman “For such a reply, you may go” it is her logos – which the NIV translates as reply – that got his attention. 

Logos is a word used over 300 times in the Greek bible.  Our most familiar rendering of it is from John 1 where we are told the word/logos was with God and the word/logos was God.  But here, the word/logos changes the very heart of God, through the human manifestation of God actually listening, in love, in Grace. 

"For such a word, you may go ..."

I have to wonder a little if the reason Jesus listened was at least in part due to the negative critique he had just given the disciples.  Jesus had just told the disciples that what pollutes one is not what is outside of us, but rather what is inside of us.

 

Mark 7: 20b:  ‘He [Jesus] went on: “What comes out of a person is what defiles them. ²¹ For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come— [fornication], theft, murder, ²² adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. ²³ All these evils come from inside and defile a person.”

Sounds like to me that this unnamed woman advised Jesus that his own words coming from deep inside Jesus were defiling him – here arguably arrogance. 

But instead of retreating into a world of privilege, Jesus, listened.  He didn’t attempt to come up with some clever, mind numbing, self serving, retaining the old position, reply.  Jesus listened, and then he complimented her for the word she spoke back to him and granted her wish. 

How often are we in the position of Jesus?  Invited to hear God’s word in a way that is new, exciting, and refreshing, and instead, we retreat into our own arrogance, our own hubris, and we endeavor to reply from our privilege? 

I love this interaction.  I love it. 

This non-person times two in Jesus world – woman, non-Jew – weighs the scales of the dialogue, and she gives back to Jesus what he had just given the disciples – a righteous critique. 

And Jesus after getting his answer righteously chewed up and given back to him, responds in Grace, reminding the woman that it was her word – her logos – her use of his words – her use of the logos that is Jesus – that won the day. 

If “Jesus wept” is the shortest passage most people can quote from the bible, I wonder if this might not be summarized as “Jesus listened.” 

I think the challenge for us in the Church is to be listeners like the second Jesus here in this Mark 7 passage.  We can retreat into tradition, history, and rules, just to name three things, ad nauseum (and yes there are an infinite number of retreats here) and engage in an enormous exercise in missing the point. 

The point of all of us being here today is to help deploy resources that make the basilea – kingdom, kin’dom, reign, pick the one that works for you -- of God just a little bigger, a little larger, a little more Jesus like, surely a little more Syro- Phoenician woman like.  I think many if not most of us can recite or at least paraphrase the United Methodist mission statement but we must stay focused on the why, how and where of our collective community task:  Our why echoes from John 3: 16 about why God gave us the gift of Jesus --  love – love for the world.  How we reflect that love is transformation (our what), and our where is the local church. 

In our listening, are we the first Jesus, ready to see things the way they had always been seen, or the second Jesus, new, creative, fresh, drawn from the very words of God.  The choice is our – how do we listen? 

Selah, Pastor Dennis

Threefold Fullness of Health

Remember

Last week I wrote:  “Next week I will address the threefold fullness of health:  grandparent, parent, and child.”

Before I do that, I want to re-refocus briefly on our why. 

This Sunday is Transfiguration Sunday.  It is in part a remembrance of Jesus taking on his purpose with a clear focus.  Transfiguration is a positive, beautiful transformation.  Our own church purpose is transformation.  Our vision to be co-creators of new church life is bold, and it is about transformation.  As I indicated last week:  “Transformation is an intense process and it requires us to stretch. But, a critical element of that transformation, that stretching, has already occurred here:  Hilltop is reaching, stretching, beyond itself.  That is transformation.  Let’s continue that change.  Change like that requires rare people.” 

Health at every level matters

We are not alone in this adventure.  The “conference” is with us.  The conference is no longer a disembodied entity in Denver, if it ever was.  Too often, churches view the conference as where the Bishop is located and the place where we send money.  It is too often viewed as a one way street with everything going to Denver, and nothing coming back.  That is not accurate.  

I am personally here because Bishop Elaine listened to Hilltop.  The same can be said of Pastor Emily:  the conference listened.  But in ways other than pastoral leadership, the conference is sharing in this adventure.  All but $20,000 of the annual costs of this adventure are being paid by the conference.  The ability to do this is made possible by the 250+ churches of the conference, located in Wyoming, Utah, and Colorado.  In effect, a sliver of that $65,000+ to be sent to us in 2017 by the Rocky Mountain Conference is from Arvada (Colorado) UMC, LaJunta (Colorado) UMC, Laramie (Wyoming) First UMC, and Park City (Utah) Community Church just to name four.  Cantaloupe farmers from Rocky Ford, Colorado are invested in Hilltop and our bold ministry vision. 

Last year about half of all the churches in the conference met their financial obligation to the conference.  We were not one of them.  Our proposed budget for 2017 gets us incrementally closer to that goal, but still falls short.  The conference is in the resourcing business.  That is what it does:  equips people, both laity and clergy, as well as local churches for their transformation missions.  It can only do this if the local churches support the conference in its own financial health. 

Great gifts, great responsibilities; greater gifts, greater responsibilities

Health of the parent – Hilltop – and our intentionally planned child matter.  In fact, only $21,200 of our 2017 planned spending is about the child, creating her in good health.  That is a little under 6% of expenses supported by current congregational giving. 

Threefold Fullness of Health

Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase of the Bible, The Message offers this glimpse at Luke 12:48b: "Great gifts mean great responsibilities; greater gifts, greater responsibilities!"  We need to respond in a responsible way to the gifts we have been given. 

To repeat a mantra we have been offering since January:  “We are under-incomed, not over-expensed.”  I offer we are not under-led.  Your lay leadership at Hilltop is bold, leading to a vision that is bold. 

Roberta quoted an unnamed black preacher in the February Newsletter:  “God is not a monument, but a movement.”  Methodism was called a movement in our early days.

We can recapture the movement spirit by focusing on our transformation purpose.  Health beyond Hilltop, at Hilltop and the new life springing from Hilltop must all be factors.  Not simply the health of Hilltop as parent. You are at the center of this threefold fullness of health.  

Selah, Pastor Dennis

What is Hilltop About?

Hilltop’s very purpose is to be in the transformation business

We have transformed ourselves in the last few years, and your church leaders believe that Hilltop has been called to provide a way for everyone to find Jesus. We believe that the world needs his presence, grace, and transformative power.

We have heard many stories recently of how Hilltop is transforming lives, specifically the single mother from Family Promise who spoke to us about Hilltop’s participation in changing her family’s life. A new member has shared with me how much Hilltop has been a place of grace and affirmation for her and her children.

We must look out beyond ourselves and be a bold reflection of Grace and love in the world so that the world can be transformed, our very purpose. That vision and our anticipated congregational giving are out of sync. We have a financial shortfall of at least $60,000. To fully fund our programs and meet our conference obligations, we need $100,000.

Hilltop is Under-Incomed, Not Over-Expensed

We need to strongly resist the reflex to pull-back, to think that Hilltop is over-expensed. It is not. We are under-incomed.

Would it surprise you if I told you our per-attendee giving level is the lowest of the predominately Anglo United Methodist Churches in Utah with a full time pastor?  I will come back to that in a different blog in a few weeks. 

Listen and Learn

Over the next four weeks, I encourage you to read, listen, and understand. We will be explaining our bold purpose and vision, which we see as fulfilling God’s call to bring about transformation in the World. As you hear presentations or read thoughts, you are encouraged, in Grace, to ask questions.

Our first thought is “We are under-incomed, not over-expensed.”

Next Wednesday, this blog will focus on how we can all participate in realizing Hilltop’s vision. We will lay out a plan to make up our budget deficit.

Our vision is bold. It will require stretching. Transformation is an intense process. Let’s all work together toward that vision. 

Selah, Pastor Dennis

Global, United, Inclusive: Pick Two – An Update

For the June/July Hilltop Newsletter, I spoke to the idea of how the United Methodist Church sees itself in terms of three key words and values: global, unified, and inclusive. I lamented that we were approaching a time when we might need to pick two. Rethinking that a little, I wonder if we are not actually at a place where we must pick one.

I wrote in June that “The 1996 General Conference in Denver had the motto, often attributed to John Wesley:  ‘In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things charity’ … [and] If … we are not to be in unity, I pray we will be charitable.” The World of Wesley often said charity where we now use love. I pray that we show love if we are not unified. My lens on the Jesus message is one of love:  God, my fellow human creature, and, at some appropriate and healthy time, myself. All three in a healthy Trinitarian dance.

 

We are becoming disunited over the issue of human sexuality.

 

Several hundred spiritually centered United Methodists, laity and clergy, from across the West, gathered in Arizona in July and examined the credentials of candidates for Bishop. They elected the most qualified person. Everyone I have spoken to who was there said that Reverend Doctor Karen Oliveto of the California-Nevada Conference was in a category all her own. They spoke to her vision, her presence, her charisma, her spirituality, and her leadership.

 

There was a time when the most qualified leader in the church also had the additional responsibility to have been created by God male. That is no longer true.

 

There was a time when the most qualified leader in the church also had the additional responsibility to have been created by God white. That is no longer true.

 

There was a time when the most qualified leader in the church also had the additional responsibility to have been created by God heterosexual. At least for now, in the West, that is no longer true.

 

Bishop Karen Oliveto is married to another woman. Effective September 1, Bishop Karen is our Bishop.

 

I shared pastoral thoughts at both services on Sunday, July 17^th.  My comments that morning were supportive. I deeply appreciate the reciprocal support shown back to me by many of you, and potentially, Bishop Karen. The comments have been overwhelmingly, but not exclusively, positive. I do not say that to guilt or shame those who are not positive on this. I note that those troubled by this action seem ready to stay at Hilltop, for which I am grateful and hopeful. This community called Hilltop, a place to belong, believe, and become, with its special unique gifts and graces is important to them.

 

Let me invite a dialogue here, not a monologue. Should any wish to speak to me on this, I am open to a conversation. I will respectfully listen and I will share your pain.

 

As I indicated on July 17^th, I plan to support Bishop Karen fully to the best of my ability. This is how I supported Bishop Elaine.

 

I am faithful that those who gathered in Arizona in July were prayerful and Spirit-led people. It is my fervent hope that Hilltop will be prayerful and Spirit-led as well.

 

I pray that in order to be inclusive, we lose neither our unity nor our global nature, but if I have to pick one, I am faithful to the idea that picking inclusive is the most Jesus-like response.

 

Let’s be in healthy Christian conversation.

 

Selah, Pastor Dennis