No matter where you personally stand on this issue, two things are clear. One is that the United Methodist church is likely to no longer be United in the near future. While a split seems inevitable, what I find more troubling is today. By upholding the ban our General Conference announced to the world that Methodists don't value LGBT leadership or recognize the love shared in LGBT relationships as equal to our own.
Members of the LGBT community are under constant attack by groups and unfortunately many use the name of Christ to justify their opposition. One only needs to look sixty miles to our west to find the most vile and visible of these groups.
When headlines read "Methodists Uphold Ban on Gay clergy we are branded as "just another intolerant religious group." We appear to be hypocrites and in many ways that appearance isn't just an appearance. Jesus commands us to love our neighbors, yet we are turning our back on children of God.
It breaks my heart to know there are those who have never had a relationship with Christ & others driven from that relationship by those who are called to love them. There's something very wrong about this picture and its deeply disturbing.
June is Pride Month and yesterday members of our family participated in the Columbus Ohio Parade. The interesting thing about their participation is our nephew Marcus, an ordained Methodist Minister, led his family along with members of two congregations from North Broadway Methodist Church and their sister church Short North. They are among many Methodists who say 'we love you and accept you as you are' and took that mission to the streets.
This morning we visited Summit Church and the message resonated deeply in my heart. The sermon started with Philippians 2:2 which reads
"then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind."
We are split into a society of "OR."
Blue OR Red.
Rich OR Poor.
Yes OR No.
Paul is teaching us to replace OR with AND. Like-minded does not mean we need to agree, it means we need to accept. OR is a term of exclusion, Paul is teaching us inclusion through the word AND.
These are actions we should take today.
Practice Humility
Philippians 2:3-4 reads
"Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others."
Value others above yourself, not looking to your own interest but to the interest of others.
It doesn't say 'value others above yourself unless we disagree' or 'to the interests of others unless others are different'
Humility means caring about others more than yourself. Where they are, who they are, and how they are. Period. End of sentence. There are no exceptions in this scripture.
Create Community
To bring His message to the world Christ chose a despised tax collector, a politician, members of the opposition, and even a man who today would be considered a serial killer of His disciples. If Christ can bring that kind of diverse community together I'm confident Woods Chapel can do the same.
We have banners in our places of worship that say this:
Included
Accepted
Loved
AS YOU ARE.
It is our responsibility as Woods Chapel, and as Methodists, to reach out to everyone. Given the recent press, we need to especially reach out to those the LGBT community so they know that despite what they've been reading in the paper those banners are not words on a wall.
Those words are not a slogan, they should be the condition of our hearts.
