Naming the Lie

          As I write this I am perched in the gallery at the General Conference of the United Methodist Church, where I have come to serve as a Reserve Delegate.    It is the last day of the Conference.    The days have been etched with the acid of acrimony as delegates have fought over a host of concerns.   Human Sexuality,  Climate Change, Health Care,  all of them very real and of serious import, and almost all of them are argued from “Progressive”  or “Conservative” perspectives.     As the Church tries to express itself, every petition and argument, whether it is theological, social or financial, is sliced with the blade of ideology between left and right.   The tension is high.   So high, in fact, that schism is a very real possibility.

            In the midst of the power maneuvers and political manipulation – and there is plenty of it from all corners – there is a pervasive and defining lie that hangs in the air like smog.   It is a lie that is so prevalent and all encompassing that most people are not even aware of it.     It’s a lie too, that infects our secular culture as well.

            And the lie is this.

            The binary labels of left or right, liberal or conservative are in themselves a fundamental lie.    To draw a line through the Body of Christ, or through our secular culture and to force people into one column or the other is fundamentally an act of violence.    These are artificial designations, and I would submit that they are designed to separate and alienate.     Divide the people into two oppositional, adversarial groups and get them arguing and fighting and they will never unite to create real change.  Divide and conquer, right?   Moreover, if we train people to  adopt a narrow world-view and tell them they should only relate to people with whom they agree, we have then created an easily controlled population, haven’t we?    This brings to mind an experience I had as a Pastor when I brought a book for an adult study class.  The class rejected the book because they didn’t agree with public positions the author had taken.   Mind you, they had never read the book, but they refused to even expose themselves to an idea that might be different from their ideological perspective.

            Think about this in terms of real life experience.    No one is completely liberal or completely conservative.    We are all far more complex than that.   Indeed, it’s a bit insulting to think that we could be so narrowly labeled and filed away.   The truth is that each person is a marvelously complicated jumble of feelings, emotions and experiences.    Our very Createdness defies any attempt to dump us into one of two camps so we can curse, judge and throw stones at one another.    Indeed, we believe that God Created us each as unique individuals, knowing us even before we entered our Mother’s womb (Jeremiah 1:5).    More than that, our human nature is to be dynamic and changing.  No one stays the same.   The things we thought and believed when were twenty years old are rarely the things we think and believe at age sixty.  

            For those of us in Christian community, reality is based, not upon stands, positions, or artificial categories,  but on relationships.   We are called together not because of ideological agreement but because of our common commitment to God’s love in Christ Jesus.   For us, the relationships we build in faith are deeper than the wounds we cause one another.   They are broader than the disagreements that we will inevitably have, and they are stronger than the pull of secular culture which always tries to define us and pull us down to it’s level (Romans 12:2 “The Message,” Eugene Peterson).     In Christian community we belong to one another to such an extent that we are described in Romans 12 as all part of one body in Christ, and all unique, all with different functions and roles to play.    More than that, we follow a Savior who takes down the “dividing walls of hostility, (Ephesians 2:14)” creating a new community of peace and harmony.

            Yet here in Portland, the United Methodist Church is infected with the virus of secular culture, using the power of “this world (Ephesians 6:12)” and jamming people into categories rather than relationships.    Arguing, positioning and posturing, not according to the beautiful relational power of The Gospel, but along the lines of ideology and the lust for control.

            It’s my firm conviction that if our Church does not name and renounce this lie of ideological categorization, we are doomed to be completely swallowed up by the culture around us.    So the call comes for each of us to lay down our closely held ideological positions.    We are not liberal or conservative, left or right, we are One in Christ Jesus.    Do not be taken in by a pre-set list of positions and policies.  Instead, sit with people who have a different point of view.   Build relationships with people who see the world through a different lens.    Root your relationships, your life, your work with Christ at the Center, not your ideology.

            If we can actually do this, we might have a shot at being Church rather than an outpost of a secular political party.  If we can do this we might find a way of claiming God’s firey, Pentecostal love as a global people.   If we can do this, we might be able to heal the hurt we’ve caused and bring life where there is only strife.   If we can do this we might be able to begin the transformation of the world we yearn for so powerfully in our mission statement as a denomination.

            And in all of it let us remember that it is God, and not we who do the judging.  Our job in Jesus Christ, is to love extravagantly and leave the judging to God.

SR

The Parable of the Two Dogs

          

            One day, two puppies were basking in the sun in the back yard sleeping fitfully and enjoying the sweet smells of summer and the warm embracing air.   While they were dozing, their Master placed a beautiful stuffed animal on the ground between them.    Soon, the puppies awoke and noticed the stuffed animal.    Assuming it to be a toy meant for him, one of the dogs grabbed it in his mouth and began to prance around the yard with it hanging from his mouth.  

            The other dog saw this and wanted the stuffed animal for his own.   He raced up to the other puppy and grabbed the half of the stuffed animal that was hanging from the other dog’s mouth.   

            Suddenly it was tug of war.    Each dog dug in their heels, clamped their jaws down on their piece of the stuffed animal and pulled.   They yanked and jerked and shook and tugged.    It sounded like they were fighting, but the truth is that they were enjoying this game, and as they pulled and pulled, one could see wagging tales and hear the growling guffaws.  

            What they didn’t notice in their glee and gusto, though, was that the fabric of the stuffed animal was beginning to tear.    The joints where arms and legs were stitched together were giving way, and with each shuddering tug it tore a little more.  Soon the stuffing started to fall out on the ground, unnoticed by the players of the game.    As the dogs danced about vying to get the animal for themselves, they waltzed and two-stepped all over the stuffing, trampling and soiling it under their feet.    The commotion grew, the dogs kept, pulling, the fabric kept tearing, and stuffing kept falling to the ground. 

            Suddenly both dogs noticed at once that there wasn’t much left to  the thing that they had tried so hard to get.    They looked at each other, and as much as a dog can do this, they shrugged, released the soggy, grimy, formless, limp  fabric and let it fall to the ground.  Silently they both gazed at it for a moment.   Then they turned around, trotted away and returned to their place in the sun where they laid down and soon fell sound asleep.

           

                                                                        

Exactly Who Is In Charge Here

A General Conference Reflection by Schuyler Rhodes

  “Consider your own call brothers and sisters; not many of you were (are ) wise by human standards, not many were (are) powerful, not many were (are)  of noble birth. Bod chose (chooses) what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose (chooses) what is weak in the world to shame the strong;   “God chose  (chooses) what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing the things that are so that no one might boast in the presence of God. “    1^st Corinthians 1:26-29 NRSV (parenthesis are inserted by me).

            I am packing to go to Portland to the General Conference of the United Methodist Church and my heart is not what I’d call “strangely warmed.”    A friend asked me how I was feeling about it all, and I responded without thinking that I was experiencing a “malignant apathy”  about it all.   The words just slipped out and betrayed a growing anxiety I was feeling.   Actually, it’s not true.   I feel neither malignancy nor apathy, but I do feel the tension rising.  I do feel people readying for struggle.   I do feel the shuffle and static of people and their causes, both just and unjust, and it gives me pause.

            It gives me pause to think about our story, about us.   And as I cast my thoughts across the landscape of our Judeo-Christian journey it strikes me that God has an interesting particularity about who gets chosen to lead the people to justice and new life.

            I note that God did not choose Pharaoh to liberate the Hebrew people.  Wait.  He couldn’t choose Pharaoh because it was he who had enslaved them and he was reaping quite a profit from all that free labor.   No.   God chose this Moses character who was wanted for murder and was hiding out in the hinterlands.  What was God thinking?

            God chose a  country bumpkin shepherd with a harp to be King of Israel.   No royal lineage or pedigree here.    And when God chose to come among us, God didn’t come as Herod.   He came as the son of a carpenter, a relative nobody.

            It seems to me that when change is in the air, as it most always is, change doesn’t come from the top down, from Pharaoh or Herod.   It comes from the bottom up.   Change wells up from below and flows like a spring to the surface of our institutional reality,  and sooner or later those at the top acknowledge it…..because their feet are getting wet.

            I wonder, as we gather  in rainy Portland to consider weighty matters, if we will pause to listen to  those who  seem to have no status, those who are on the margins, those who don’t have the right pedigree or credential.   I wonder if we will pause to look around for the unlikely ones God has chosen to lead and to articulate new vision.   And I wonder if we will  realize that the vision and leadership for the future probably will not come from  the institutional church or those who vie for power within it.    No.  It will come from those who have been shoved away, those who are named as sinful and unfit.  It will come from a fugitive, wanted for high crimes and misdemeanors.   It will come from some rube playing a harp or ukulele.   It will come  from a carpenter.   It will come from a place where we are not looking.

Honoring Those Who Served AND Opposing War

So, it's Veteran's Day. The 11th hour of the 11th Day on the 11th month...originally the armistice in the 1st World War....the "War to end all wars."  Not much luck there.   Not much luck at all.   Indeed warfare has become a permanent fixture in American life.   Whether it's Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria or the Philippines or a host of other places, we are now always fighting someone somewhere.   There is no longer such a thing as peacetime.   We are now a war making people.     

Now, I need to point out that I have the highest respect for those who have served and who now serve.  Many members of my family and close friends have given their time and more in military service.    

But there is a link that has been artificially forged, going back to the War in Viet Nam that needs to be illuminated and cast aside.  Somehow it has been falsely established that if one does not support the US Policy of perpetual warfare, one somehow does not support the men and women in the military.

Let me clear.  I am vehemently opposed to the US policy of perpetual warfare that spreads violence and breeds hatred for America across the globe.   It not only kills millions of people, creating generations who know us only as the ones who visit death upon them.  it also sucks our resources out of the places where we, as a nation, need them most. It would be better if our resources were spent on education, health, and infrastructure while we maintained a defensive military force structure. But we have far and away the largest military on the planet. 'Not at all defensive.

That said, it is also true that I totally support the men and women in uniform.  Families of military service men and women should not be on food stamps or welfare.   Veterans who come home mentally, spiritually and morally wounded by war should be cared for an healed.   If you offer your life for the nation you should not have to end up homeless as so many have.    And I just want to add that it seems to me that one really excellent way of supporting our soldiers is to keep them from having to die in senseless wars that enrich companies like Halliburton.

So my hat is off to the many many people who have served and who serve today. And my anger is stoked by a nation that cannot seem to turn away from the evil of war.

Just sayin....

A Random Act of Resurrection

It's not quite Easter.

On Holy Saturday I am sitting at my desk at home praying, contemplating, imagining.   The pondering is almost overwhelming as I consider all the implications that tomorrow brings.   The defeat of death.   New life.  Newborn hope.  An opportunity to begin again.  As one who knows the story, it all awaits me, beckoning me to step forward out of tombs of my own making.

It occurs to me that we as United Methodists tend to live in tombs of our own making.    We dwell in the self-induced angst of the myth that says we are a dying Church.   We stumble in the graveyard of our ideological convictions, placing them above community, above relationships, above even the Gospel we claim to follow.    We wallow in the darkness of our own narrow preferences, unable to see a larger vision.   And friends, we remain in these tombs because in truth, we do not really believe...or more to the point...trust in this Resurrection thing.

We speak of it, of course.   We poke at it like medieval children provoking the bear tied to a pole in the public square.   God forbid it should get loose.   We accept it, more or less, as an arid and brittle article of doctrine.   We argue about it, write papers, preach sermons, and show up in our Churches on Easter morning  only to leave essentially unaffected by the power that surges just beyond our comprehension.

I know.  This sounds harsh.  But in the nearly thirty years I have served in this United Methodist community, I have observed this and feel compelled to name it.   We are not actually a Resurrection People.  If we were, both we and the world we inhabit would be much different.   The time has come, however, for this to change.   On this Easter let us receive the power of the Resurrection anew.
Let us claim the Resurrection, not as an article of religion, but as a way of life.

 I am reminded about the old Gospel tune with the lyrics that go like this.  "Everybody wants to go to heaven.  Nobody wants to die."    If we are honest, we do not wish to let go of our own egos and our hard won sense of self.  And yet the Gospel call is to "die to ourselves (Luke 9:23, Philippians 3:8, John 12:24, Romans 12:1-2)," and to live into new life in Christ.    It's time, today, for us to release all the "stuff" we are holding onto that keeps us from embracing the power of the Resurrection.   It's time, today, walk out of the "Church of what we want..."   and begin to build the Resurrection Community once again.

And sisters and brothers, the Good News is that this is actually happening!   The Resurrection of the Body of Christ is taking place even as my fingers dash across the keyboard of my computer.   I am here to witness today to the fact that a new day is emerging and revival is bursting forth.

I know that I will be in one of our Bridges District Churches tomorrow morning shouting, "Christ is Risen," and with his Body....the Church... too will rise.

Let me share just one story about such Resurrection power.

Elmhurst United Methodist Church in East Oakland could be said to be a dying Church.   It's in a tough neighborhood and it doesn't have very many members.   The building has seen better days and the means to repair the structure really are not there.   We could look at that, shake our heads and walk away.   Or we could step in and look a bit more closely.

The truth is that this is a mighty Church.   As a DS I strive to get into every one of my ninety-two Churches and visiting Elmhurst was part of this commitment.     I remember pulling into the parking lot and catching my breath as I surveyed the buildings.    But then I got out of the car and I met Jason Eckles.    We shook hands and exchanged the niceties one would expect.   And then I began to listen to his passion and his vision.

East Oakland is what we call a "food desert."    There are no grocery stores anywhere near this neighborhood.  There are few ways for residents to gain access to healthy food and it's not a situation that exists just in this neighborhood.  This is the case in many urban settings.   But Jason didn't just see things as they were in the moment.   He had a vision of how things could be different.   He has a vision of community reborn and people working together.

At the core of this vision is the creation of a community garden on the Church property.   This garden wouldn't just feed members of his Church.   This garden would be a place where the people of the community could come to work, to share and to receive the benefits of fresh food and fresh relationships.

At the risk of being a little too Wesleyan perhaps, I felt my heart strangely warmed as I listened to Jason share his vision with a light in his eyes.    Thirty minutes with this guy and I was hooked.   This Church wasn't dying!  God had called this Church to Resurrection Life right here in East Oakland.   So Jason and I spent the next couple of hours praying, sharing and dreaming.  

And together we came up with the idea of holding a "Random Act of Resurrection."    We put out the word to the whole Bridges District, inviting folks to come on the Saturday of Labor Day Weekend to "Labor together in the Vineyard"  to build enough raised beds for this garden to get off the ground.
Word went out through email, through the District Office, through Word of mouth and more.
We even asked them to bring their own tools and some supplies.

On that Saturday we had no idea really how many people would come.   But as we sipped our coffee we saw car after car after car pull into the driveway.

At the end of the day seventy people came, some from as far as 100 miles away, and build 23 raised beds for this new community garden.   It is a sight I will never forget.   African Americans, Latinos, Pacific Islanders, Chinese, Korean, Euro-Americans all coming together in laughter and community to be the Body of Christ, alive and full of power.

This kind of event is a Resurrection Act.   It is staring right into the face of what seems like death and leaning into life together.   It is real.  It is powerful.   And I am convicted that God is calling us to live out these Resurrection acts all over our District.   Be mindful, though.   This was a wonderful Church before we all arrived to build raised beds.   Pastor Carol Estes leads a wonderful community in this place.   Their worship is full of hope and wonder, and that choir?   Wow!    All we did was join the party as members of one Holy Spirit Community.

All this leads me to utter a call to all of us to commit random acts of Resurrection.   What's going on in your community?  In your Church?  In your life?   Where can you gaze into what seems like the face of death and dare to live out the Resurrection hope?    Remember on this Easter Sunday that the victory is already won for us in what has happened this day.   All we have to do is live into it with all our passion and joy.

Indeed on July 11th we will be doing this again at the Bayside Cambodian Fellowship in Alameda.   Plan to spend the day as we paint, repair and join our sisters and brothers in this New Church Start who have given their lives in hope!   Watch this blog and the Bridges District Facebook Page for details.

Friends,  In the hopes of spreading the Resurrection power we participated in at Elmhurst UMC, we have made this a centerpiece of our ministry in the Bridges District.   We are indeed a people of the Resurrection!  We are holding "Resurrection Conversations" throughout our area in an effort to shift our discourse from death to new life.  Instead of watching our communities decline like someone watches the air go out of a tire with a slow hiss, we want to insist on the Resurrection.    In our own spiritual practices, in our families and our relationships, and yes in our United Methodist Churches! So we are gathering to ask the questions that lead, not to death, but to life.  

Christ is Rien!
As of today, let cynicism die and let hope be born.   As of today let the negative energy that binds us fall away and give birth to an unreasonable optimism.   As of today,  let us embrace the outpouring of the Holy Spirit that is coming to each person and each church as we step together into revival, into the Resurrection Life.

Wishing you a blessed Easter, and looking forward to an ever growing number of Random Acts of Resurrection across the Bridges District!

DS Schuyler  

Atonement: I do not think it means what you think it means....

It's Good Friday.

This day picks us up and sets us squarely into the matrix of Christian understanding known as the "atonement."    Increasingly these days I hear people decrying atonement theology.   The claim is that atonement has to do with God killing (his) Son as a blood sacrifice to make up for our horrific and countless sins.    This is a mean, vengeful God.  This is not the God of love.    We want to put as much distance as possible between us and a God who would murder (his) own son, and that's exactly what we do.

I also hear a growing number of voices telling me and anyone who will listen that they don't like any mention of blood in their Christian story.  We like the nice Jesus who has the children on his lap and leads the gentle sheep into safe pastures.     So, away with all those songs about the blood of Christ.  Away with references to being "washed in the blood."    Moreover, let's not even have the Good Friday worship service.  Really?   I like the Resurrection pieces, but all that blood?  I don't think so.

Such images of gore and bloodshed offend sensibilities of contemporary people and set us on edge because it is about.....suffering.    Suffering is a non-starter.  It's not something we want to witness, ponder or consider.    Mind you, we willingly pay for it with our taxes and thus cause unspeakable suffering around the world, but please please don't put it in our religion.    And not only religion, but in any corner of our comfortless, numb lives.

This traditional or prevailing understanding of the atonement betrays a stunning misunderstanding of two things in our Christian tradition.  The first is the understanding of "The Trinity,"  and the second is our understanding of "sacrifice."

Let me begin with the much maligned and seldom understood notion of the Trinity.  The trinity is an ancient church understanding that names God is a unity of three "persons."   The Creator, the Word, and the Holy Spirit.   This understanding was born in the days of the early Church as people of faith began to grasp that Jesus was "Emmanuel," or God with us.   Simply put, it dawned on people to ask the question, "If Jesus is God among us, then who was minding the universal store when Jesus was here with us?"  Add to this the powerful scene in the Gospel of John where Jesus breathes the Spirit into the Disciples (John 20:23f) and poof, we have the recipe for the trinity.   One God, three entities or persons.

For more than two millennia we have had a hard time grasping this idea of One God in Three Persons.  But there it is.    God is One and self expressed in three entities.  And if we understand the unity of these three persons in One God then the whole notion of God killing (his) son kind of falls apart.     God didn't kill another person, God, in Christ, gave (him)self on the cross for us.  It was a willing act of self-giving love, not infanticide.

And this, friends, brings us to the notion of sacrifice.  

Sacrifice in our culture is seen as a bad thing.  Indeed, someone who sacrifices themselves for others is seen to have a psychological malady known as a "martyr complex or syndrome." This is so much the case that this complex has been codified in to the "Diagnostic and Stastical Manual (IV)" as a diagnosable illness.    In other words, someone who routinely sacrifices their needs to meet the needs of others has a personality disorder.

But the truth is that sacrifice is not a bad thing at all.   In fact, without others sacrificing for us, many of us would not even be alive today.   If parents didn't sacrifice for their children, if husbands, wives and partners did not sacrifice for one another, if soldiers did not sacrifice on the battlefield, if our heroes did not give their lives, the world would be a much different place.   From Jesus himself to Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr and beyond, sacrifices have brought, not evil, but good.  

Indeed, if a people are no longer willing to give of themselves for the greater good, then the whole culture is in danger of collapse.

Here we are, at the crux of the atonement.   Allow me to offer another view based on the forgoing.

The sacrifice made by Jesus was not murder, but in fact, was an act of self-giving love.    God didn't kill Jesus, God gave God's self for us. The typical wording here would be that this happened to save us from our sins.    But let's forget that language and go to the core of it all.

When we give ourselves for others, things change.  It's really that simple.

This is the atonement.
It is also at the core of contemporary nonviolent theory lived and written about by Tolstoy, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Daniel Berrigan.

When you pour out yourself for others, for something larger than yourself, things change.   You change.   The people for whom you give yourself change.   It is this transformational dynamic, rooted in self-giving love that sits at the center of Christian understanding, on this Good Friday it is something I challenge us all to ponder.

What happened on the cross is not some distant vaguely historic event that we are called to accept as a matter of doctrine.   It is, instead, a call to action.   God gave God's self for us and calls us to go and do likewise; to pour our lives out for the healing and hope of the world.     The cross and the pursuant resurrection of Jesus is a model for how we are to live.

Think of the new life that grew in so many places because of the willing sacrifice of Martin Luther King, Jr.   He poured himself out, and new life was the result.    Think of the millions of self-giving acts of love performed by parents, lovers, siblings and friends every day.   All these acts create a storm of grace, a current of new life, a table for us all to gather round in community and joy.

So there it is, having sat long in my heart, but unrehearsed here in the writing.

This Good Friday is not some religious dictate or savage act of violence.

It is, a loving God pouring God's self out for us and yearning for us to go and pour ourselves out in love for the world.

My utterances shared here come with prayers that we might all give ourselves for others so that healing, hope, and new life might spring up in our wake as we pass through this life.

SR

"Religious Communities are not the problem....they are actually part of the solution...."

It's the first day of the new year and I feel moved to respond to something that was posted in the Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/08/22/you-give-religions-more-than-82-5-billion-a-year/).   

I'm a big fan of free speech.   But I think accuracy in reporting is something that we need to expect from our media outlets.

To say that this piece is misleading is an understatement.   With a large picture of Joel Osteen as a representative of pastors and churches the point is made that the people of the US subsidize churches through tax exemptions and other percs.   The image one takes away is that churches and clergy are rolling in tax payers dough and we darn well ought to start taxing them right away so they don't bleed us dry anymore.    

Friends, I have been a pastor for more than three decades and have known clergy and religious leaders across the nation. Trust me in this. It's not an occupation that one takes on for the money.    I have lived in one of those "parsonages" most of my life and it's often not a picnic as a whole community thinks your home is theirs.   Yes, there are some glaring exceptions that we can all note. Any group of professionals will have their "bad seeds." 

The truth, though, is that thousands of clergy people give themselves sacrificially, not having enough money for retirement or to send their kids to school. Thousands of clergy work 70 and 80 hours a week serving their communities in works like pastoral counseling, visiting the sick, prison ministry setting up neighborhood food pantries and more. Indeed, many have literally given their lives to great causes like the Civil Rights struggle (which was led by the religious community).     

To assume that the few dishonest clergy among (and it's true there are a few of those) us get to tag the many selfless and loving pastors out there is absurd.    Look around.     The most effective relief organization on the planet is religious.     The United Methodist Committee on Relief.   Look around. As our dysfunctional government shirks our mutual responsibility to care for the poor and vulnerable among us, it's the churches and religious communities that are picking up the slack. From homeless shelters to food pantries to child care organizations and immigration services, faith communities in this country are stepping up to the plate. 

And they are being led by clergy. 

I find it interesting to note that the corporations in this country get trillions of dollars of tax relief while shipping  their jobs and profits overseas and no one is falling on them the way they fall on the religious community.     The corporations have a vast and immoral impact on the politics and justice of our nation, but let's not focus on that.     Let's look at those nasty religious groups who get tax breaks to serve the community. 

If you are not religious or involved in a faith community, that's fine.   But this notion that the church (and other religious communities) are rolling in cash because of government tax breaks is both untrue and slanderous.    In my own Christian community of the United Methodist Church, we are involved right now in raising hundreds of millions of dollars to put an end to the world wide scourge of malaria.      We are building hospitals and schools, clinics and day care centers.   We are reaching out into our communities with counseling and legal assistance.   And, yes, we worship our God as well. 

The religious communities in our nation function on precious few resources, doing amazing and wonderful things that many others (including our corporations) refuse to do.

So please, I ask everyone to inform themselves before making comments that are both untrue and destructive.   No organization or group of people are perfect, and that is certainly true of us in the faith community.    

But from where I sit, the religious communities in this nation are part of the soloution....not part of the problem. 

Sending challenging grace, sacrificial love and forgiveness... SR