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dreamprayact

~ Reflections of a preacher, poet, and contemplative activist

dreamprayact

Tag Archives: United Methodist Book of Discipline

The Way Forward

20 Friday May 2016

Posted by mark lloyd richardson in Justice, LGBTQ, Reflections

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Council of Bishops, human sexuality, LGBTQ inclusion, open and affirming faith communities, ordination, same-sex marriage, social justice, United Methodist Book of Discipline, United Methodist General Conference

Oregon Convention Center (two towers) where General Conference 2016 was held

The Way Forward proposed by the Council of Bishops at General Conference potentially provides a way to deepen the dialogue within the United Methodist Church on matters of human sexuality. It also gives us some breathing room to see how diversity can actually contribute to unity, rather than trying to force unity (perhaps I should say uniformity) through institutional pleading and legislative action.

As an LGBTQ ally and advocate for an inclusive church I am grateful for the leadership of the bishops in inviting respectful conversation that reflects the wideness of God’s mercy. However, I am also saddened and angry that justice is once again being delayed for many of my sisters and brothers in Christ by the harmful language that will remain in the Book of Discipline for at least two or three more years, and very possibly longer. In the meantime, many more gifted leaders will give up on serving in a church that does not accept them as the beloved children of God they are. In the meantime, many more young people will look elsewhere for open and affirming faith communities where they do not have to wonder if friends or family members will be accepted. In the meantime, many more loving and committed couples will be turned away from the ministries of a church that does not honor their love or value their witness. In the meantime, many more clergy will be forced to risk their livelihood and their future within a church they dearly love because the calling God has nurtured within their lives will not allow them to do otherwise.

So while I applaud the thoughtful leadership of our bishops and will pray and work to support a rethinking of the church’s stance on human sexuality through the special commission to be established, I am mindful of the deep pain and mistrust that many will continue to experience as a result of this outcome. Even though every paragraph in our Book of Discipline regarding human sexuality will be examined by the commission and a special session of General Conference could be called in 2018 or 2019 to act upon the commission’s recommendations, we cannot predict how these processes will play out and whether they will create more just and grace-filled church structures and laws. What we do know is that we need to pray earnestly and work expectantly for the future God has in mind for the people called United Methodist, a future shaped by the justice and mercy at the core of the Gospel.

Words (c) 2016 Mark Lloyd Richardson

It’s Time

17 Tuesday May 2016

Posted by mark lloyd richardson in Justice, LGBTQ, Reflections

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

discrimination, God's grace, heterosexuality, homophobia, human sexuality, John Wesley, LGBTQ inclusion, persons of sacred worth, same-sex marriage, sexual orientation, social witness, United Methodist Book of Discipline, United Methodist Church, United Methodist General Conference 2016

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

Love. Period

21 Tuesday Jul 2015

Posted by mark lloyd richardson in Justice, LGBTQ, Sermon portions

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Christ's body, Confession, gender identity, heterosexism, homophobia, human dignity, interfaith worship, Jesus Christ, LGBTQ community, peace, Pride, sacred worth, sexual orientation, United Methodist Book of Discipline, walls of separation

Interfaith Pride Celebration Santa Barbara, CA

Interfaith Pride Celebration, July 12, 2015, Santa Barbara, California

Members of our church recently participated in the first Interfaith Pride Celebration in Santa Barbara. I was pleased to be part of this outdoor worship service in support of the LGBTQ community. There were about 20 sponsoring faith communities, including ours, and an estimated 250 to 300 people in attendance.

The reason we were there is simple really – if Jesus were here it’s where he would be. We are Christ’s body on earth and so it follows that we will go where Jesus would go, and we will spend time with people with whom Jesus would spend time, and we will be the bearers of grace and peace to those with whom Jesus would do so.

It was a beautiful afternoon, with great gospel music and inspiring speakers. I was among the faith leaders who read a Confession written by the Rev. Frank Schaefer acknowledging the wrongs that faith communities have done to LGBTQ persons. We have not always been welcoming and affirming of our LGBTQ brothers and sisters. We have failed as churches and people of faith to acknowledge the human dignity and worth of LGBTQ persons. We, the Church, have treated them as second-class believers and have harmed them with words of exclusion and hatred, defining them as “sinners,” “perverts,” and “abominations.”

We have not given them their own voice to express their love of God. We have subjected them to abusive “religious counseling” and harmful “conversion therapy” in a misguided effort to fix them. The heterosexism and homophobia of our faith communities has caused real suffering in the lives of our sisters and brothers in the LGBTQ community. John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement, told us to “Do no harm.” But we have been doing harm for decades now.

Following the service, a woman came up to me with a couple of her friends, and with tears forming in her eyes she said, “It was very moving for me to hear the words of confession. It is the first time I have heard anyone say they were sorry for the hurt we have felt. Thank you so much.”

My heart is with my LGBTQ brothers and sisters, who have been harmed by the Church’s message of exclusion and condemnation in the past. I have been involved over the years in advocating for marriage equality. I have been involved in trying to change the language in the Book of Discipline of the United Methodist Church so that it no longer singles out one group of people based on sexual orientation to deny them the ability to be ordained as ministers or to receive the blessing of the church for their committed relationships. I will continue to do these things because I owe my primary allegiance to Jesus Christ and his reconciling grace and not to the United Methodist Church.

I want to be unequivocal and stand on the side of love, because as I see it, “love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love” (1 John 4:7-8). “Those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them” (1 John 4:16b). As long as I am the Pastor-in-charge in the church I serve, we will be working toward full inclusion of all people in the church’s ministry, regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity, or any other ways we have of dividing people into classes.

Christ is our peace, my friends. Christ has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us. We become people after God’s own heart as we continue this work of tearing down the walls that have harmed others, and indeed have harmed us all.

Words (c)2015 Mark Lloyd Richardson
Photo credit: Dallis Day Richardson

Inhabiting a Common and Precious Space

31 Friday Oct 2014

Posted by mark lloyd richardson in Justice, LGBTQ, Reflections

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

beloved community, Bishop Reuben Job, do no harm, grace, healing, LGBTQ inclusion, marriage equality, repentance, social justice, United Methodist Book of Discipline

"Reach" Photo credit: Dallis Day Richardson

“Reach” Photo credit: Dallis Day Richardson

Methodists have a way of envisioning and living out our faith that is expressed in three simple rules:

  1. Do no harm
  2. Do good
  3. Stay in love with God

Bishop Reuben P. Job describes the first rule in such a way that we can see its potential to change the world one relationship at a time. We live in a time of intense culture wars, political battles, religious squabbling, and international tensions. We see the huge scale of harm being done in the world through both careless and deliberate acts, too often by people of faith and religious institutions. So it helps to hear Bishop Job describe the first simple rule as an “act of disarming, laying aside our weapons and our desire to do harm.” Healing the world requires change from within the human heart as well as outward behavioral change.

For years now the United Methodist Church has been doing considerable harm to our LGBTQ neighbors, family members, and friends. We have had language in our guiding document The Book of Discipline that marginalizes a whole community among us. A day will come when the language will be removed and the church will repent of all of the harm it has knowingly or unknowingly done to peoples’ lives. Especially painful is the legacy of young people who have felt rejected by the very church that exists to nurture love for God and one another.

Bishop Job writes that the act of disarming and seeking to do no harm is revealing in other ways: “We discover that we stand on common ground, inhabit a common and precious space, share a common faith, feast at a common table, and have an equal measure of God’s unlimited love. When I am determined to do no harm to you, I lose my fear of you; and I am able to see you and hear you more clearly. Disarmed of the possibility to do harm, we find that good and solid place to stand where together we can seek the way forward in faithfulness to God” (Reuben P. Job, Three Simple Rules: A Wesleyan Way of Living, Nashville: Abingdon Press, © 2007, pages 23-24).

We, the people of the United Methodist Church, need to remove language from our Discipline that continues to harm individual lives as well as the heart of our spiritual community. We need to listen deeply and intently to the stories of our LGBTQ neighbors, family members, and friends, about how the gospel is being misrepresented in our broken institutional life. We need to look deeply and intently into our own hearts for the places we are armed with weapons of fear, mistrust, and judgment, and seek God’s help in laying those weapons down. We need most of all to repent of the harm the church has already done to persons of sacred worth and commit ourselves anew to manifesting the beloved community where God’s justice and righteousness reign!

We inhabit a common and precious space. Let us begin to act like it.

God, in your grace that exceeds our imaginations and confronts our complacency, hear our prayer.

Words © 2014 Mark Lloyd Richardson
Photo © 2014 Dallis Day Richardson

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