Tuesday Musings 2/26/2019

                Today in my Tuesday Musings, I would like to discuss my feelings about what is happening in the special called General Conference of the United Methodist Church. The General Conference is the only official body of the church that can speak to the order that we live by. The conference meets every four years to determine the rules of our Book of Discipline. In 2016, there was such a debate regarding human sexuality and what is accepted that the conference asked our episcopal leaders to form a Way Forward to help discern what we as a church would do regarding the inclusion of LGBT+ members and to reach out to all of God’s children. There was a committee formed from all over the world to present plans to then be voted on at the special called conference. The committee presented three plans to be considered. These included basically no change in the current thoughts, a one church plan, and a connectional plan. Later a fourth plan called the simple plan was added. The Council of Bishops felt the One Church planned seemed to be their choice, but it was still up to the general conference to vote on these four plans.

                Fast forward to the present day. In the process of legislative groups, the plan that was approved yesterday was the traditional plan with modifications. Rather than seen as a way forward, it was to maintain the status quo. At stake for many of the delegates is how we interpret scripture that would support maintaining the restrictions of disallowing ordaining clergy who live in a committed same sex relationship, allowing the clergy to perform marriage between same sex partners, and to punish clergy who violate the Book of Disciple (BOD).

                I supported the One Church plan which would allow local churches, annual conferences, and clergy to follow their own understanding of what God is doing in our world today. This would give room to those who oppose sanctifying same sex marriages whether at the church level or at the clergy level and for those who sought full inclusion. This would have addressed delegates from outside the USA to not have the feeling that they could not remain opposed to same sex relationships which in many countries carries a death sentence. Needless to say, that was not what happened. I don’t feel that this is a step forward but one step backwards and will lead to endless debates before the next General Conference in 2020.

                I know that there are many sides to this issue. There are many, who based on their understanding of scripture, feel that same sex relationships are an abomination and therefore cannot be sanctioned by the church. Equally there are many who look to their understanding of scripture and God’s grace who feel the opposite. The same concerns have risen over many of the issues in the past regarding slavery and women clergy to name a couple. I recognize the concerns of both sides and even if I support full inclusion of all people, I know many who do not. And you know that is okay. I am a follower of Jesus Christ.

                As such, I am reminded what Jesus had to say to the Luke 10:25-32 the parable of the Good Samaritan. The question that was put forth by a follower of the law (likely looking for an easy answer that would either test Jesus or support his view of the law) about inheriting eternal life. Jesus then asked him how he would interpret his understanding of the law and the scribe stated to Love God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and all your might, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself. The follow up question was then who was his neighbor.

                The crux of the story was who is included and excluded to be loved. I would suggest rereading the parable. Here is how I look at it. When the priest and the Levite saw the injured man who appeared dead they walked right by him without offering aid. They did this obeying rigidly the laws of their faith. Touching a corpse, would have made them unclean. What they did was certainly understandable for them at that time. So who did offer aid? It was a Samaritan who was an outsider and not part of the law as understood by the religious thoughts of the time. The scribe had to reluctantly state that the Samaritan was the neighbor who showed love. Jesus then told the young man to do likewise.

                I see the concern that holding to law religiously can become heresy. The opponents of Jesus, the pharisees, were such a group. Their understanding of law was to be upheld without regard to the heart of the law. I believe in scripture that loving God and loving neighbor is not one over the other. I believe Jesus invites us all to the table. For me. the one church approach gave the flexibility to live one’s conscious as well as inviting all into the church. So, I lament. Will I leave the church, or will I stay to continue to raise the need for inclusion? I choose to stay.

                A side note. In reading the gospels, Jesus did not say one way or another regarding same sex relationships. He did talk about marriage but often it was in response to questions about divorce. He was certainly opposed to divorce and especially remarriage. Somehow, I don’t see the church splitting on this issue.

                Another side note. I had read that the One Church plan would redefine marriage. I don’t see where that idea came from. There could be a lot of debate what scripture says about marriage particularly having multiple wives and concubines. Actually, it is the state that defines marriage. The concern would be what one would find acceptable about that definition.

                There will continue to be debate regarding human sexuality no matter the vote today. I would hope that the continued dialog between us would help us continue to discern God’s Will. To close, I want to share what Wesley stated about the Good Samaritan. I found this in my Wesley Study Bible page 1257 in the footnotes. “Let us renounce that bigotry and party-zeal which would contract our hearts into insensibility for all the human race, but a small number whose sentiments and practices are so much our own, that our love to them is but self-love reflected. With an honest openness of mind, let us always remember the kindred between man and man; and cultivate the happy instinct whereby, in the original constitution of our nature, God has strongly bound us to each other” (Notes 10:37).

Peace to all

Eldon

               

Tuesday Musings and Wednesday Wanderings Feb. 20 2019

                Another Wednesday wanderings for my Tuesday musings. Somehow, yesterday was a difficult day to become motivated. Some of that due to the fact that I thought I had misplaced my phone Monday and I did not sleep well. Some of that due to the once again storm coming into Nebraska. We are approaching the most snow for February in a long time. I am not sure that spring will arrive as predicted. I hope so.

                I want to finish talking about love and relationships. The last leg of the stool is that of compassion and caring. I know that is two C’s but bear with me. I have always found that the root of compassion goes back to Latin and means “suffering with.” It reminds me of the traditional vows that often used in marriage ceremonies, “to have and hold in sickness and health.” Compassion is that ability to be present with the other no matter what is going on. I have seen in my lifetime several couples that hang together in the most difficult of situations and never complain about what they must do for the other. They care for their loved one doing all they can to hold them in their times of need.

                Compassion also, in my opinion, means standing with others. There are people who are voiceless and powerless, who need others to stand with them to help find a voice and justice. Compassion incorporates that. That can occur within a relationship as well. I find that reading John 3:16, God sending Jesus to us is an example to learn from. It was not for judgment but for us who were in need of someone to stand with us. So we are to do the same for others, even those we do not know. Jesus was willing to suffer with us to show us a better way.

            Compassion is all about caring and sharing with others. It is best when it is mutual, wants the best for the other, and is able to let go of our wants to edify and encourage others. It means working through differences rather than judging others who have different ideas, languages, sexual orientation, gender, racial and ethnic differences. Caring and compassion is the willingness to not hide from conflict but to approach it with love. Eugene Peterson’s “The Message” has this paraphrase on 1 Corinthians 13.                                                                   “Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
Love doesn’t strut,
Doesn’t have a swelled head,
Doesn’t force itself on others,
Isn’t always “me first,”
Doesn’t fly off the handle,
Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn’t revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.”

            As we approach the season of Lent and as we pray about our churches, especially the United Methodist Church, we come back to the relationship God has with us and creation that the foundation is built on love. In a world that seems to be built on fear and hate, let us go back to our roots of the love God and Christ has for us. Je t’adore.

Eldon

Leading Ideas

I received this from Leading Ideas. Thought I would share it.This was on a draft of an post from 2009



July 22, 2009 Printable Version





Know Your Purpose
By Margaret J. Marcuson

When Rabbi Noah, Rabbi Mordecai’s son, assumed the succession after his father’s death, his disciples noticed that there were a number of ways in which he conducted himself differently than his father, and asked him about this. “I do just as my father did,” Rabbi Noah replied. “He did not imitate, and I do not imitate.” (Kurtz and Ketcham, The Spirituality of Imperfection, Bantam, 1993) Fundamentally, leadership is having a clear sense of who we are and where we are going, and relating to our followers out of ourselves. The best leaders are themselves in their role, rather than imitating other leaders or looking to their followers for their primary cues. They know who they are and what their purpose is.

Finding your purpose in ministry is not a to-do item you can complete and check off the list, but an ongoing process of discernment. Purpose involves more than one level of our life and work. It includes big questions such as: What am I on this planet for? Who am I, and what are my best gifts? And it also involves some shorter term questions: What is my purpose in my role in this ministry? Where am I headed right now, and what do I need to do to get there?

Now, what happens when we enter the pulpit or the board meeting, or even sit down at the family dinner table? Leadership requires managing the delicate balance between individuality (knowing our own clear purpose) and togetherness (managing our relationships with those we lead). This is true for all leaders, from the family house to the White House. And as we get clear, others will respond. An old saying goes, “If it’s foggy in the pulpit, it’s damned cloudy in the pews.”

When we look to others, whether they be other leaders or our own followers, as our primary guides, we are borrowing our purpose from them, rather than looking within or to God. We borrow our purpose from others when the denomination suggests a program or goal and we sign on for it because we are a loyalist. We borrow our purpose when we say to our followers, “Where do you want to go? I’ll lead you there.” Others will always be glad to tell us what our purpose is and who we ought to be, so that our purpose becomes serving other people’s agendas.

As we determine our purpose, we need to pursue it, but that does not mean we get everything we want. We don’t take our primary cue from others, but we do have to pay attention to feedback. If people know we are open to hearing what they have to say, and that we will adapt as necessary along the way, our message will get a better reception. The Reverend J. Edwin Bacon, Jr., rector of All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, California, describes the leadership process this way: “It starts with being clear about where you end and somebody else begins. You get clear about what you believe, and express that in a differentiated and inviting way.” As important as it is to know our purpose, leadership only occurs when we actually speak about our purpose to others who can then choose to follow.

The Reverend James Lamkin, pastor of Northside Drive Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, says that he often fools himself into thinking he has outgrown the Serenity Prayer, originally composed by Reinhold Niebuhr:

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.
Lamkin suggests, “The serenity prayer is about willfulness. To accept the things I cannot change means I can’t change history and I can’t change other people. Then, the courage to change the things I can change means me.” One of the gifts that his congregation has given him in twelve years is the realization that he cannot will the congregation into his goals, so his most important task is to focus on himself: his clarity, his own functioning as leader of the congregation.

Articulating our purpose to our followers must always go along with letting go of the outcome, and with an ongoing effort to build relationships. Finding our voice means that we say, steadily and over time, what our most important principles are and where we are going, inviting others to come along. Make a plan for what you want to say and when and how to say it. And remember these words from Luke’s gospel: “No one after lighting a lamp hides it under a jar, or puts it under a bed, but puts it on a lampstand, so that those who enter may see the light” (8:16).

Here are five questions to consider in thinking about your own leadership:

What energizes me?
Where do I need to clarify my own thinking?
Where do I need to define myself more clearly?
Where have I been pushing too hard? How could I step back?
How long am I willing to work on this project (whatever it is)?
Margaret J. Marcuson is an American Baptist minister who speaks and writes on leadership and works as a consultant and coach. This material is from her book Leaders Who Last: Sustaining Yourself and Your Ministry (Seabury Books, 2009) and used with permission of the publisher, Church Publishing Inc., New York.

Return to Leading Ideas




Copyright © 2009 by the Lewis Center for Church Leadership.
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Tuesday Musing February 12 2019

                Good afternoon for my Tuesday musings. Once again here in Nebraska, snow, wind, ice and bitter wind chills are the name of the game. Besides the outside weather, I also have been under the weather as well. I did want to continue blogging and not fall out the habit so soon. So I will continue my thoughts on loving relationships with the idea of commitment. This may be shorter than normal so bear with me.

                I didn’t say anything about the stool and the three legs. To have the best balance, you need all three legs. You can get by with two but it isn’t sturdy and certainly not balanced. With just one leg, it is almost impossible to keep the relationship afloat. But like with any metaphor, there are limitations and other factors that make relationships strong. These would include trust, faith, and treating each other with respect and honor. Some of this, I will talk about next week. Today the focus will be on commitment.

                What I mean about commitment, is the willingness to keep your promises and your vows. This does not mean that if one is in an abusive relationship-emotional, physical, sexual, or spiritual-that one should stay in that relationship. In all other situations, I am reminded by what Jesus stated in Matthew 5:33-37 about vows which he stated not to do vows. He says instead, “Let your yes be yes and your no be no.” I go further with the idea of vows. They are sacred promises that one should do everything possible to keep. This includes the vows one takes in marriage or commitment services, the vow I took as an elder in the UMC. I think about those who come to our country and take their citizenship vows probably with more intentionality than many of us who are naturalized. Vows and the promises one makes is not about just when it is convenient for me. It means standing by and up for those promises. This includes the promised one makes in baptism or in joining a congregation.

                Today, it is easier to leave or search for a new relationship than to stay and deal with the issues of a partnership, congregation, or even work. Commitment is the willingness to work through conflicts, differences, and feelings that arise out of personal and social disappointments. Again in the Gospels, Jesus talks more about how we relate to one another, even with the way we relate to money, than any other subject including sexual identity which he never addresses one way or another. (He did have a lot to say about divorce.)

                Commitment deals with accountability and dependability. If one easily breaks promises, that affects whether or not one can be trusted. Accountability relates to what one says and what one does. Can that person be depended on to do what they say they will do? Commitment is vital to all relationships and certainly a major foundation along with communication for the seat of love. Next week, I will talk about caring. This incorporates sharing and compassion for one another. Till then,

Eldon