And the gates of hell remain unshaken.
The Judicial Council of the United Methodist Church has
issued a ruling that has been much anticipated by absolutely no one outside of
the United Methodist hierarchy. (FYI: Basically,
they overturned a change made at General Conference this year. The change had
been to eliminate the idea of a “guaranteed appointment” for United Methodist
pastors. The motivation for the change was to increase accountability for
excellence in pastoral leadership.)
So this means that the one shred of reform that was left in
place after General Conference has been itself shredded. All the work to
de-tangle the hairball has been nullified, most of it at General Conference and
now the remainder, by the Judicial Council.
A hairball that is tangled tends to remained tangled. It’s
organizational entropy. Or something.
With that said, I am not in the least bit discouraged by
this decision, any more than I was when the reform efforts all but failed at
General Conference. The motivations are there, the principles are there, the
mission is there. The picture has been painted in stark reality. Anybody in
United Methodist leadership who cannot see the impending Weemsian wave “death tsunami” and appreciate its implications to the church hasn’t been paying
attention.
(And by the way, I call dibs on the term “Weemsian Wave.”)
The allusion above to the gates of hell is from a letter
John Wesley wrote to Alexander Mather in 1777. I wrote about it here. His point
then, and mine today, was/is that the focus of Methodism has been diffused. Our
denominational attention is focused on so many different things, many of them
internal, that our energy is sapped, our mission is compromised, and our
priorities are unclear at best.
In response to the ethos present in his day, John Wesley
asked for “one hundred preachers,” clergy or laity, who had an intense focus on
God, and they would do no less than “shake the gates of hell and set up the
kingdom of God on earth.”
Whether or not the ordained itinerant clergy of the United Methodist
Church are guaranteed an appointment is one of the navel-gazing questions that diffuses
our denominational focus and takes it away from God, where it needs to be. And
by the way, it is a change that I’m all in favor of trying, knowing that we
either have to change intentionally and proactively or we will be changed by
the circumstances around us. I’m in favor of all of those “Call to Action”
changes that were first resisted, then rejected, and now reversed by the status
quo.
Because in the meantime, people and communities and
congregations already are changing, in spite of the hairball. Or they might be
orbiting around the hairball, drawing on its gravity in order to sustain
forward momentum. This is why I’m not discouraged by the Judicial Council’s
decision this week. They are going to do what they are going to do, functioning
in a system exactly as it is designed. You cannot blame them; they are bound by
the system in which they exist.
However, congregations that innovate and change, ministries
that are flexible and responsive to community needs, communities of faith who
are creative and passionate, individual disciples who fear nothing but sin and
desire nothing but God - these will be surfing on the leading edge of the
Weemsian Wave, even as old systems and unchanging structures are drowning in
the flood.
The change starts locally, and percolates outward from
there. It must. Neither the General Conference nor the Judicial Council are change
agents. The local church is. The changes that need to take place must take
place at the local level and eventually the General Conference will catch up.
The gates of hell remain unshaken, and the kingdom yet
awaits realization.
3 comments:
If there is a lesson in all of this, you nailed it: start small, start local. GC has become as dysfunctional as any other massive bureaucracy (think the UN or the US Congress). It becomes an ultimately self-serving ("your system is set up to get exactly the results you are getting now") black hole. Good thoughts. I would copyright "Weemsian Wave" immediately, if I were you.
I have nothing but respect for you, Andy, but when it comes to the “death tsunami” there is a huge conversation we’re not having, and our continuing failure to do so is, for me at least, an illustration of our problem.
Consider:
Our health care system is in teetering on the brink – we have 50 million+ with no insurance currently, and no indication that number is going to go anywhere but up. Healthcare costs are spiraling, and the cost of providing benefits is the number one expense of many businesses, and second only to salary on the expense list of most United Methodist churches (especially if you look at the share of our apportionments that actually go to these categories).
Also consider: most estimates say that 60-70% of our health care dollars are spend on people in the last year of their lives.
So, as this “tsunami” comes – what do you suppose will happen? Personally, I don't see how anyone but the very wealthy maintain access to much care.
We live in a culture that denies death – treats it as an enemy – acts as though if we come up with the right technology is can somehow be avoided. Most families make very few plans for the death of their loved ones. Even churches have largely “farmed out” care of the dying to the healthcare system, and care of the dead and grieving to funeral professionals.
The irony is, that was our original calling! The church in the ancient world grew because they were the only ones willing to care for the sick and dying. In an era of plagues and famines it was the church and its people that risked their lives and livelihoods to provide food and comfort. The original hospitals were all religious, monks and nuns were the keepers of knowledge and caregivers of the middle ages.
But now we are so concerned about attracting the young, building new programs, showing how “vital” and “nimble” we can be as an institution (nimble institution – what an oxymoron!), that when we see a wave of death approaching our first and at times seemingly only thought is our own survival.
What would happen instead of focusing on how we would maintain our professional clergy and our institutional structure in the face of this wave, we instead focused on how we were going to be in ministry to those outside our walls who are in danger of being washed away by it? Didn’t someone once talk about being willing to lose our lives in order to find them?
Andy - Your claim to "Weemsian wave" is duly noted! - Lovett
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