Tag Archives: John Wesley

It’s Time

17 Tuesday May 2016

Posted by in Justice, LGBTQ, Reflections

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It’s hard to know where to begin as I reflect on my two days spent in our church’s quadrennial meeting known as General Conference. I continue to believe in the incredible gifts our church has been given to offer the world. We are truly a church of social witness from the time John Wesley first took to the streets to announce the good news of Christ to the poor. We have a vast humanitarian reach throughout the world that brings hope and healing to many lives. We are a people who use our feet and hands to move into a hurting world with peace in the name of Christ. We have so much to offer, which makes our persistent wrestling with sexual matters all the more troubling.

Yet there is much pain in the midst of our ecclesial body. There are children of God who feel invisible when others refer to them as an “issue” because of their sexuality. There are children of God who are forced to be secretive about their sexual orientation knowing they may be judged ineligible to be in ministry. There are children of God who know they will not receive the ministry of the church when they commit themselves to one another in marriage. There are children of God who are being silenced and pushed aside by a church that will not recognize their giftedness and beauty as people of sacred worth. The pain is magnified because it is caused by the very church that has nurtured them in faith and trust in God.

It’s time that the church stop harming those who are beloved of God. It’s time to allow ministers and churches to honor and bless the marriages of two persons of the same sex. It’s time to recognize the gift and graces of ministry candidates who identify as LGBTQI and not disqualify them from serving the church solely on the basis of their sexual orientation. It’s time to recognize that the discriminatory language related to sexuality in the Book of Discipline reflects heterosexuality and homophobia and needs to be removed. It’s time to stop acting from fear, misunderstanding, and intolerance. It’s time to reclaim our heritage as a church grounded in Christ’s grace! It’s time to let love overwhelm hate. It’s time to breathe in the Spirit of the Christ who welcomed persons into the presence of God without conditions.

It’s time!

Words (c) 2016 Mark Lloyd Richardson

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A Lesson in Letting Go

20 Thursday Feb 2014

Posted by in Reflections

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Some days, even after thirty-some years of active parish ministry, I simply don’t feel that well suited to being a pastor.

A disappointment tips the scale, and I am gripped by a growing sense of discouragement.

A loss is felt – either because people move away, because of a death, or simply as a result of the shifting landscape of peoples’ spiritual lives or family dynamics – and I grieve all over again for the way these losses tear at the fabric of community.

Life is difficult. I get it. I am a pastor, and I am well accustomed with the challenges and struggles people experience – not only those within my pastoral charge (as we Methodists refer to our flocks), but those well beyond it, in the larger community and among the circles of relationship of those I know. Yet this doesn’t lessen the impact of disappointment or loss.

“The world is my parish,” John Wesley once said. Pastors aren’t appointed to churches to be mere chaplains. We are sent among God’s people to equip them to be ministers in the world. Pastors are like personal trainers, helping others get in spiritual shape so that they can live as followers of Christ for the sake of the world. Trouble is, too often people are content to purchase a bargain gym membership and then fail to show up and work out! The church atrophies. Leadership dries up. People walk away.

I still believe that God wants to bless the whole world, no exceptions! And so I get up each morning knowing that the work is not going to be easy. My hope and desire is that my efforts for the sake of God’s realm on earth will bear fruit, but I am also realizing that I don’t control the results of anything. Not really.

I am learning to turn my work over to the Spirit of God who moves about freely in the world without regard to human borders or divisions. I am learning to release the imperfect work of my hands, my heart, my mind and my spirit, to the one wise God who is able to use even me to create a more just and compassionate world.

(c) 2014 Mark Lloyd Richardson

When the Church discriminates, who holds it accountable?

26 Sunday Jan 2014

Posted by in Justice, LGBTQ, Reflections

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DSCN0590I’ve returned to The Book of Discipline of the United Methodist Church lately in an effort to better understand what it means to be in covenant with my ordained colleagues, and indeed with all baptized members of the Church. While I think I have a reasonably good understanding of the meaning of covenant, I am increasingly aware of the vastly different approaches within the Church on this matter.

As human beings we cannot help but see covenant through the lenses of our own experience of God, faith, grace, and community. In other words, the very meaning of covenant is formed within the ongoing lived experience of faith communities composed of imperfect human beings working together for the common good.

The Book of Discipline says, “Ordained persons exercise their ministry in covenant with all Christians, especially with those whom they lead and serve in ministry” (para 303.3). This covenant is spoken of as one of “mutual care and accountability.” So there is a sense that in whatever ways the Church seeks the Reign of God, we need to purposefully exercise mutual care and accountability.

The Book of Discipline also says, “The effectiveness of the Church in mission depends on these covenantal commitments to the ministry of all Christians and the ordained ministry of the Church. Through ordination and through other offices of pastoral leadership, the Church provides for the continuation of Christ’s ministry, which has been committed to the church as a whole” (para. 303.4).

So there are covenantal commitments that we make to, with, and for one another, and these commitments are naturally tested over time. I have always understood these covenantal commitments primarily in terms of relationship – relationship with God, with my ministry partners, and with the whole Church. Throughout my thirty years of pastoral ministry in a variety of contexts these covenantal commitments have meant renegotiating relationships that continue to grow and change. I am not the same person I was when I entered ministry. My experience of God and of Church has changed. My theology has changed. The world has changed, as has the Church’s role in the world. In other words, covenantal commitments are not static, and those of us who seek to minister alongside one another must exercise grace and humility in our relationships with one another if we are to have any hope of faithfully dealing with the current discord within the Church over how we welcome LGBTQ neighbors into the Church’s life and ministry.

While I view covenantal commitments mainly in terms of relationship, I am aware of how many United Methodists view it mainly in terms of accountability. These are my sisters and brothers in Christ who see accountability as a matter of all parties agreeing to follow rules of conduct and belief as spelled out in the Book of Discipline. I admit this is true as far as it goes. We do have rules for a reason. However, no covenant relationship thrives on the basis of simply following rules. Any covenant relationship that holds the possibility of being life giving and spiritually enriching needs to be a dynamic interplay of diverse voices coming together to give glory to the One who invites all people into abundant life.

Accountability flows in more than one direction. There is a mutual accountability built into the covenant we have with one another. But do we ever hear anything about the accountability of the United Methodist Church for how it has demeaned and dismissed LGBTQ persons from openly participating in the life and ministry of the Church? Is anyone being held accountable for failing to truly recognize the sacred worth of LGBTQ persons? Is there any accountability of General Conference delegates over several decades for the discriminatory language written into church law? When the General Conference gets it wrong, are we to ignore the royal law of scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself?” (James 2:8) Such love requires mercy over judgment.

According to paragraph 306 in the Book of Discipline, an order of ministry like the one to which I belong along with other ordained Elders, is “a covenant community within the church to mutually support, care for, and hold accountable its members for the sake of the life and mission of the church.” I don’t believe that being a part of this order means surrendering my conscience and my integrity to an imperfect book that is revised by the General Conference every four years. Like all other United Methodist Christians, I seek to understand the witness of God’s grace in Scripture by means of my own experience of God, my reason’s ability to understand the many contextual voices of Scripture and to embrace new knowledge, and the historic tradition of the Church (which, for the record, includes John Wesley’s own rule-breaking for the sake of Christ’s work on earth).

I cannot with integrity simply bow to human law – for that is what the Book of Discipline is – when it violates the human dignity of LGBTQ persons. In challenging or disobeying church law I do not believe I am violating my covenant with others in my order. Indeed, I believe I am protecting covenant from the harm that is done whenever a person made in God’s image feels the sting of the Church’s rejection. I believe I am being true to my calling of continuing Christ’s ministry and welcoming to the table of grace all who seek God!

Words (c) 2014 Mark Lloyd Richardson

Made Perfect in Weakness

14 Saturday Jul 2012

Posted by in Reflections, Sermon portions

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Photo by Jeremy Keith, Flickr Creative Commons, Feb. 20, 2006

On a mission trip to Mexico, a coworker named Louise was so impressed with my skills on the compound miter saw that she began to tell everyone she thought I was “perfect.” According to her, I made no mistakes. If that were true, I’m not sure why some of the pieces were returned to me to have small portions shaved off … but let’s not go there! In any event, it was a joke among some of the adults on the crew, with Louise commenting on my perfection, me giving mild protest, and then finally asking her if she would please put it in writing. I thought it might come in handy someday.

We, the people called Methodists, embrace the theology of John Wesley, which speaks of the Christian life as a movement of growth in holiness. Wesley said that from the moment of baptism, the Spirit of God works in a person’s life so that they are able to go on to perfection – that is, they are able, by God’s grace, to grow in love and faith all their days.

Perfection is not a destination likely to be reached in this lifetime, but rather a goal toward which to aim in one’s faith. It is the process of sanctification that Wesley believed occurs within all followers of Christ when they practice the means of grace.

In Second Corinthians 12:2-10, the apostle Paul speaks with a touch of irony about weakness, and specifically of an affliction with which he lived, “a thorn in the flesh.” But our weaknesses are not the end of the story. Our vulnerabilities, our suffering, our pain – God can use and transform even these. Indeed, Paul’s thorn in the flesh helped him rely all the more on God’s grace.

Internationally known astrophysicist Stephen Hawking has been confined to a wheelchair for years due to Lou Gehrig’s disease. He once said that before he became ill life seemed “a pointless existence.” He claims to have been happier after he was afflicted than before. “When one’s expectations are reduced to zero,” he said, “one really appreciates everything that one does have.”

There are few certainties in life. We make plans, and inevitably they change. We expect to remain healthy, only to have our bodies betray us. We hope to have good relationships, and then something happens to create separation or alienation.

All we know for sure, as people of faith, is that God’s strength helps us in our weakness. The God whom we know in Jesus Christ is a suffering God, a vulnerable God, a crucified God, and we can be thankful, ultimately a triumphant God.

Not once, but three times, Paul says he appealed to God to remove the “thorn in his flesh,” and it wasn’t removed. Paul, like us, wants more control over his own wellbeing. Paul, like us, wants some sign that God answers prayers. Paul, like us, doesn’t particularly like feeling vulnerable or weak.

During the Civil War, a hastily written prayer was found in the pocket of a fatally wounded soldier. “I received nothing that I asked for,” it read, “but all I had hoped. My prayers were answered.”

Our prayers are answered in God’s own way. The answer Paul received from God is found in these words of assurance: “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.”

It reminds me of something Alice Abrams said: “In life as in dance: Grace glides on blistered feet.”

So you and I needn’t worry about our imperfections. God specializes in making strong the weak. God specializes in making healthy the sick. God specializes in making rich the poor. Not in the ways we might expect, but true all the same.

We worship a God who in Christ embraces the world and becomes vulnerable to suffering and death … a God who invites us to open ourselves to both pain and wonder.

For it is in our vulnerability that we share in the glory of God whose power is made perfect in weakness.

Words (c) 2012 Mark Lloyd Richardson