Advent: The Forbidden Birth

The church I work at recently started using the same opening song every week. That song changes for each new sermon series, but the hope is that the song inspires the congregation to truly reflect on both the music and the messages. Not long ago we had an 8 week sermon series, and by week 4 members of the church were getting sick and tired of singing The Summons. As the music director I heard things like “Why are we still singing this song?” “Is this a misprint?” “Why are we doing this?” and not one comment on how connected it was to the series (The Parables of Jesus).

Because of the critical response I decided to write a short devotional, or commentary to go with the song for each sermon series. This little blurb gets it’s own page in the bulletin, and stays in until the sermon series ends. As I’m sure you can guess this Sunday will be the start of a brand new sermon series (because Advent) and I had to write a new blurb for the bulletin. Throughout Advent my church is going to be discussing Mary’s journey through the scriptures, and in case you were wondering I had a little trouble picking the hymn for this Sunday.

It seems like Mary cannot exist in Advent without us focusing on her “purity”. I ended up deciding on Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming as the opening hymn, because it focuses more on Mary’s role then most of the other hymns at my disposal. But as I was researching the song’s history I became frustrated by the continued focus on Mary’s sacred innocence, the virgin birth. And I found myself wondering: why do we never talk about the fact that Mary should have been stoned to death for being pregnant? Even when we do, it’s more about Joseph’s decision to marry her and “claim” the baby.

God, the supreme being, who laid out the rules for the Jewish people, and has a history of killing/destroying those who are disobedient (see Lot’s wife, the world around Jonah, King Saul, King David etc.) impregnated a young woman out of wedlock. By God’s own law she should be killed. God broke God’s own law.

In a modern world where many Christians celebrate the attacking of immigrants at the border, and the United Methodist Church seems ready to split over human sexuality it becomes more and more frustrating that we seem to have missed one of the biggest parts of our savior’s birth. His birth broke the laws that defined God’s people.

Jesus’s birth broke the law that defined the Jewish community and the woman at the heart of it is now considered a Saint.

As we reflect on this time of expectation and waiting it is important to not let the stories become repetitive, but to instead look deeper into them. What does it mean that Mary is fully pure and yet her pregnancy breaks the law of God. What does it mean that God chose to do something so outside of the norm it could have gotten her killed? Who are the Marys today: shunned and judged, for breaking our rules?

What does it say that Mary, who should have been stoned to death is a Saint, and yet we continue to draw lines over who is welcome in the Church and who is not?

Does Size Matter? -reflections on Haiti

I came home from Haiti last night

I was exhausted, but processing so intensely, I couldn’t sleep

I thought about my huge house

I thought about the number of families that could fit in every room.

And I was overwhelmed by what I had

What I take for granted every day.

So my dreams became a jumble of

Chaos

Pain

Grief

Acceptance

I woke up

Confused

Disoriented

Exhausted

But unable to continue to sleep.

Does size matter?

Do material possessions matter?

As I rest secure in my big house

Warm

Comfortable

Safe

Abundant

I remember those with no

Bed

Amenities

Security

Excess

They survive day after day, night after night

On the streets with nothing but family and an indomitable human spirit and a sense of survival

While we sleep in our big homes in isolation from one another wrapped in comforts unimaginable to most

I thank God, but I also beg forgiveness for my waste. I pray for those who matter just as I matter, but who are forgotten in the slums of Haiti and in my own home town.

 

Whose “Side” Are You On?

Are you a liberal or a conservative? What are you fighting for? Where do you fall on the lines that is the issues?

I’ve seen a lot of comments on twitter, on signs, and coming from people about the issue of human rights. The hard part is seeing the people who continue to bash the decision to speak on the topic in a special commission, or those who get angry with the worship committee for supporting a “side” with veiled messages.

I’m not quite sure having a “side” is the point.

Where do you think God is in all this? Does God have a political platform? Is God stagnant and stuck in the book that we decided to close, or does God extend out of the Bible as God did when Jesus died and the curtain was split?

I don’t think that God is as caught up in interpreting 2000 year old rules correctly as we are.

Imagine a trail in the woods. Poison Ivy all along the sides, and a spiderweb strung up in the way. Your friend has somehow gotten past the spiderweb and is now standing on the other side, calling you to follow them. How do you respond? “Sorry I can’t, this spiderweb is in the way. I’ll just stay here,” or do you just walk through the spiderweb, shake off the pieces and follow your friend?

This is essentially what we are doing when we discuss being on a “side”. Each issue that we take a side on is another spine in the web, a spine that we cling to with everything we have. As we take on more sides we find ourselves getting stuck in a thicker and thicker spiderweb that is keeping us away from God and the plan that God has for the rest of our hike.

If we split over these issues we are splitting our body and sending one half on either side, through the poison ivy. Some people may choose to leave the UMC. People leave churches all the time; but if we decide to split on “good terms” we claim that we do not respect each other or the God who is calling us forward together. We are the United Methodist Church; it’s about time we started acting unified.

I understand that these issues need to be discussed and we need to vote and set the UMC’s policies. I am not asking the denomination to change its structure (today). I am asking the denomination to loosen our stances (yes both sides) and try to follow the path that God is calling us to. I am calling for us to step through the issues and see what God truly desires, not what we desire of God.

I guess you could say I hope to be on God’s side.

Let go of the spiderweb… follow God.

A Call for Unity

As many of you saw from my last post I am at the UMC General Conference. Yesterday I wrote what could be called an emotional post on the possibilities of a divide. Today I am not in fear. Today I am hopeful. Yesterday the Bishops brought forward a “plan” to move our denomination forward in unity and it passed… by 23 votes. Below is the bishop’s proposal in it’s entirety.

There are people on both sides of the human sexuality discussion that hate this plan. Some people are calling this a “kicking of the can,” pushing the issue to the future as we did in 2012. Others are saying it is a liberal agenda for a schism. As someone who is here and cares for the United Methodist Church (unlike the Washington Post), I want to give you my attempt at a diplomatic understanding.

I think this is the best plan the United Methodist Church could take for all sides. This commission will be a group that is diverse, small (compared to the General Conference size), and actually dedicated to attempting to find a path that leads the Church to unity. The space is supposed to be a place of true Holy Conversation, which will be solely dedicated to the single conversation, instead of a group that has other things to discuss and is just thinking of their own views on the Church.

This is not a space intended to split the Church; it is a space to find the best path towards unity. It is not a “liberal” agenda, because the liberals had no say in the wording, it came directly from the Bishops after we asked them to give us their guidance. It is not a “kicking of the can” because instead of “pushing it under the rug” we are setting human sexuality to the side and dedicating ourselves to the discussion in a way we never have before, without other discussions. And as those speaking for the motion said yesterday: We asked the Bishops to lead us, and they did. They brought this concept to us and claimed it was, what they consider, the best way forward.

We have been having this discussion for decades. Clearly what we have been trying is not solving the issue of human sexuality. We have been offered from the Bishop’s language a new path that may help lead our Church into a place of true unity. The least we can do is give it a chance and truly commit to the discussion once. A schism may be coming this way, but it is much more likely if we do not try something new. I pray the commission can join in true Holy Conversation, I pray this movement can reunify the Church I love, and I pray you give it a chance as well.

Searching for God’s will,

Andrew

 

Photo Credit Zach Hubbard