Finding the Way Forward

Bishop Bruce Ough, Preaching to the Council of Bishops

They came to Jericho. As he and his disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho, Bartimaeus son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the roadside. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout out and say, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Many sternly ordered him to be quiet, but he cried out even more loudly, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” 

Jesus stood still and said, “Call him here.” And they called the blind man, saying to him, “Take heart; get up, he is calling you.” So throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. 

Then Jesus said to him, “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind man said to him, “My teacher, let me see again.” Jesus said to him, “Go; your faith has made you well.” Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way.

Mark 10:46-52

Bishop Bruce Ough, President of the United Methodist Council of Bishops, used that text for his sermon as he addressed the Bishops gathered in Chicago for a weeklong meeting to develop a response to the work of the Commission on a Way Forward for the United Methodist Church.

For decades the United Methodist Church has been willfully blind to the cries of our LGBTQ siblings and their allies. Bishop Ough did not say that to his colleagues, but he came close. You can read the whole sermon by clicking here.

“Dear colleagues,” he declared, “the church is watching. The world is watching us. The eyes of the entire denomination, and many of our ecumenical partners, are upon us as we gather this week. An anxious, schismatic, yet profoundly hopeful church is watching, waiting, wondering what will be our response to the final report from the Commission on a Way Forward.  What will we recommend?  What will we discern?  What will we decide?”

For better or worse, the world is not watching. I don’t even think most Methodists are watching, though perhaps they should be.

This is a momentous time for us as a denomination. And Bishop Ough challenged his colleagues:

“We will have to determine – individually and collectively – if we are seeking a win for the whole church, particularly those on the margins of the church and society and the generations yet to be reached and yet to be born – or if we are only seeking an immediate, short-term win for our constituency, caucus or conference. This is the only way we will have a chance to become a leadership group.”

Are we “seeking a win for the whole church, particularly those on the margins?”

Will we finally end our discrimination against our LGBTQ siblings, or will we double down on exclusion by increasing the penalties against LGBTQ pastors or pastors who officiate at same sex weddings?

Bishop Ough told a story about the first time he served communion as a student pastor. As soon as he gave the invitation, his son Stuart, who was five or six at the time, jumped up from his seat and raced toward the communion table. A woman in the front pew reached out at the last possible moment, grabbed Stuart, and sat him down beside her. Stuart was in tears.

On the way home from church, Stuart sat in the back seat of the car, crying. Bishop Ough and his wife “tried to explain to him why the congregation’s tradition of not having children participate in communion was to be respected for the time being” (emphasis mine.)

Not surprisingly, those explanations “were hollow and did not heal his broken spirit.”

In between sobs, Stuart repeatedly asked, “Why can’t I come and have some of Jesus’ bread and juice?”

And that story led the bishop to this conclusion:

“Friends, there are tens of thousands of persons within our churches, and many hundreds of thousands more beyond our churches, who are sobbing uncontrollably today because in one form or another, intentionally or simply mistakenly, we have kept them from the table of the fullness of God’s grace, love and healing presence.”

I don’t know whether or not his colleagues said, “Amen!” but they should have.

As I understand it, at this point the United Methodist Church has four choices.

We can get rid of the discriminatory language in the Book of Discipline and become a fully inclusive church.

We can embrace the idea that more severe  punishments will solve the problem. Under this plan there would be mandatory suspensions and expulsions for rule violations in terms of same sex weddings and LGBTQ clergy.

We can structure an amicable divorce. There would be a denomination for those who want to continue a practice of LGBTQ exclusion and another one for those who don’t.

Or we can allow for a local option in which Annual Conferences will decide whom to ordain and Pastors will decide whom they will marry.

The first three plans will all result in schism. The Wesleyan Covenant Association and its allies will not stay in a denomination that does not allow for discrimination. If we go with more severe punishments, some progressives may leave and others will continue to defy the rules, which will then lead to more WCA defections. And in the third option, the schism would be planned.

The problem with the local option is that it allows for both inclusion and discrimination.

Allowing for discrimination is not enough for the WCA  and it is too much for many progressives. The traditionalists want discriminatioin to be mandatory and the progressives want it to be prohibited.

What all four options have in common is that changes to our Discipline and structure will not change hearts and minds. Some folks will continue to exclude and others will continue to include. The debate is not really about what people will do or believe; it is about whether or not they will continue to call themselves United Methodists.

When the United States Congress passes a law against discrimination, everyone has to obey it. But church policy is a very different matter. If people don’t agree with a policy; they can leave. Churches and pastors don’t have to change their behavior; they can leave.

If it is not completely obvious in this post, regular readers of the blog know that I am passionately in favor of full inclusion for all of God’s people. In terms of Christian social ethics, this issue was settled years ago. But I also care deeply about local churches. Deciding whether or not a local church will support same sex weddings may be painful, but it will not be as painful as deciding whether or not to leave the denomination.

The traditionalists will change their minds on this issue, just as they changed on slavery and segregation and women’s issues. Times change. The moral arc of the universe bends toward justice. 

Change will come whether we separate or stay together. But I believe that change will come sooner if we stay together than if we separate.

Thank you for reading. Your thoughts and comments are always welcome. Please feel free to share on social media as you wish.