This is the written manuscript I preached from October 28th. While I preach from this document, I do not claim this is word-for-word.
Micah 6:8
6 With what shall I come before the Lord and bow down before the exalted God? Shall I come before him with
burnt offerings, with calves a year old?7 Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of olive oil? Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression,the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
8 He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly[a] with your God.
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God, through Micah, tells us
exactly what he wants from us. Do
Justice. Love Mercy. And walk humbly with Me. That’s it. The secret of life.
The will of God for you. In fact, Jesus even seems to restate it to the
Pharisees:
23 “Woe
to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and
cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy
and faithfulness. [1]
So lets quickly talk about these 3 things.
The first thing God wants from us is to do justice. Now justice tends to refer to punishment in our nation.
That’s not what God means when he says do justice. God was talking about
fairness, equality for all people. Just look what God says before this passage
about the state of the country:
11 Her leaders
judge for a bribe, her priests teach for a price, and her prophets tell
fortunes for money. [2]
Justice means righting the wrongs of those who
came before us, and recognizing the wrongs in our midst. It means stopping
oppression in all its forms.
We are to love mercy. If justice is making sure people are not wronged, Mercy
takes it a step farther. Mercy says we are to help those who haven’t earned it.
One bible translates it “Kindness.” It is helping those who don’t have the
ability to help themselves. And Jesus was all about loving mercy. Miracle after miracle were acts of mercy:
Healing the lame, the blind, the
lepers, the demon filled, raising the dead. Not because any of these people
deserved, or earned, or had a right to be healed. Simply as an act of mercy, of
kindness. He helped those who couldn’t help themselves.
The last requirement God gives us
is to walk humbly with him. The
first 2 were focused on other people, but this one is about God. And I love the way it describes what we do with
God: we walk humbly. When we walk with God, we catch a glimpse of his heart for
this world. “Humbly” is not put there as
an accident. It is as important as what we do. Humility means seeing ourselves
rightly. Not less than what we are, and not more than what we are. And when we
walk with God, we are forced to humility. We are forced to see our worth
through God’s eyes, and to see our smallness. We are not all powerful. But even
so, God can use us to transform the world.
John Wesley has these 3 rules to
live by, that really sound Micah: First, Do No Harm. 2nd Do Good. 3rd.
Stay in love with God.
Ok, now for one way we can
practice those three things as a church.
(hold on to them for a minute and we will come back to them.)
At our last Methodist General
Conference in 2016, a special commission call “A Way Forward” was created to
talk about possible plans for changing our stance on homosexuality. This
happened because for decades, we as a denomination have been divided on our
interpretation of Scripture and God’s will on this subject. It comes up at
every General Conference and takes over the meeting, keeping us from talking
about making new disciples and transformation. Over the years, We have written
in more accepting language, and then reacted with more limiting language.
In February 2019, a special called
General Conference will be voting to change the language currently in our Book
of Discipline and our stance as a denomination on homosexuality. Right now,
this is what we as a denomination say: Everyone, regardless of orientation or
practice, is welcome in our churches and can become a member. However, practicing self avowed homosexuals
cannot be ordained. UMC clergy cannot
officiate over same-gender weddings nor can those weddings take place in UMC
churches. Pastors who break these rules can be stripped of their ordination.
So there are 3 Plans that A Commission
on the Way Forward have brought forward. As I share those plans with you, I
will tell you what that means for us as a congregation.
One Church Plan.
This plan, preferred by the majority of the Council of Bishops would remove
restrictive language from the Book of Discipline that prohibits same-gender
weddings in UMC properties and ordination of “self-avowed practicing
homosexuals.” It would add language to protect churches and pastors who choose
not to allow same-gender marriages.
In
this plan, each church would decide their policy on hosting weddings. Each pastor would decide their policy performing weddings. Each Conference, would
decide their policy on ordination. A church would let the Conference know their
stance, so a pastor that best fits your position would be appointed. That all means that you as a church would have
to figure out if we would want to host weddings and if you would be okay with a
homosexual pastor.
Connectional
Conference Plan. This plan would replace the current jurisdictional
conferences with three connectional conferences based on affinity: Progressive,
Traditional, and Unity. All three would use a general Book of Discipline with
the ability to adapt other portions to their context for ministry. In this
plan, each church would have to pick which of the 3 new conferences we belonged
to. So again, we would have to know where we stand as a church.
Traditional Plan.
This plan, developed more fully toward the end of Commission on the Way Forward
process, broadens the definition of “self-avowing practicing homosexual”; puts
penalties in place for disobedience to the Discipline; and requires bishops,
pastors and annual conferences to certify adherence to the Discipline. This
would most likely mean an exodus of churches that welcome homosexuals. It was decided largely unconstitutional (the Methodist Constitution) by the judiciary council.
There is also the possibility that nothing will happen.
If any of these are chosen in
February, it means we will need to have conversation as a church about who we
are. Now, I haven’t been here long, so I don’t know where you are, individually
or as a congregation, or what conversations you have already had. So I am
coming in with some assumptions based on the 4 other UMCs I have served. The
first assumption is that we are not all in agreement. The second is that this is personal for some
of us. In every church I have been in, no matter how conservative, there are
family members who are homosexual. In some
of the more conservative ones I have served, there have been LGBTQ+ people who
attend those churches. So, we are not discussing some hypothetical group of
people we haven’t met. We are talking about people we know and love. People who
may well be in our congregation.
So with that said, I want us to
start talking about this following God’s expectations in Micah. To do justice/do
no harm. To show kindness/do good. And to humbly walk with God. In our
conversations with each other. And I pray that we use those expectations or
John Wesley’s Rules to also guide us in our position within the church.
This makes me nervous, but also really excited. Because
anytime we do something that is tough, it gives us an opportunity to grow.And
we can demonstrate to our world how to have respectful conversations even in
the midst of disagreement. And our world desperately needs that right now.
Poem by Mary Bowen:
How shall we worship our
God?
We have heard what the
Lord requires of us.
Leave empty talk and
pride behind.
We must walk the walk.
Prepare to step out in
faith, even into troubled waters.
Only God knows where we
might need to go.
Don't be afraid.
Jesus will guide our
steps along the way,
Teaching us to walk
humbly,
To love boldly,
To serve God with body,
soul, mind, and strength.
Let us pray for the
humility and courage
To follow where the
Spirit leads.
[1] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version.
2001 (Mt 23:23). Wheaton: Standard Bible Society.
[2] The New International Version. 2011 (Mic
3:9–11). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.
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