My Sunday Feeling

Last Sunday was Easter.  We went to the United Methodist Church in the neighborhood where I have attended for years.  I like Easter.  Maybe it's because, like my mother, I always look forward to the spring, as crazy as the weather can be around here.

As we sat together in the pew I couldn't help but wonder how many more Easters I would attend in that space or whether the United Methodist Church will even exist at all in the fullness of time.  Or 5 years from now even.

The UMC has gotten itself wrapped around the axle over the issue of gay marriage and gay clergy.  The same thing that the Episcopalians went through ten years or so ago is now at our door and for the same basic reason.  The African branch of the UMC formed an alliance with social conservatives of the church in the United States to adopt policies banning gay marriage and gay clergy.  Indeed, the Judicial Council has upheld these policies.  And they have teeth in them.  If you as a UMC minister marry some gay folks, you can get canned.  And people HAVE been canned.

And these firings have been upheld despite the fact that to my way of thinking church trials should have gone out with burning defendants at the stake or placing them upon the rack to induce them to recant.  Then again, maybe we will bring those penalties back.  

Let me get back to you on that.  

My friend and former pastor Vic Nixon over a lunch we shared together over 10 years ago predicted a schism over this issue.  I pooh-poohed this notion.  Frank Zappa once said WWIII would never start in Los Angeles because there's too much real estate involved.   I figured the same would apply in the case of splitting up the UMC.  Surely that daunting prospect of what to do with church property and/or pension plans would cause cooler heads to prevail.

Looks like "wrong as usual."

Some of my friends have cut back their tithes to the national and/or international church as a matter of protest.  Some have quit tithing altogether.  And some are considering joining another denomination.

I've been a Methodist all my life.  I was educated by a Methodist college.  The Methodists helped me pay for law school.  While I hardly hold myself as a model of right living, I have tried to "do all the good I can." Even if John Wesley didn't really say it.  It sounds like something he would have said.  And that's good enough for me.  Throughout my life, the UMC has stood for civil liberties, equality and justice.  What now?  The church is going to blow up over the belief that the entirety of knowledge concerning human sexuality is to be found in a cramped interpretation of the Old Testament?  Is that really where we are at now?

Nothing good will come of a schism.  The so-called winners in this debate are on the wrong side of history. They will inherit the wind.  The next generation will look on them as my generation looked at the racists before us.  

There is a banner above the entrance to my church that proclaims that "All are welcome.  All  means ALL."

Yeah.  At least for now.  

"Do all the good you can."

Even if nothing good will come of a schism.  And it looks like one is on the horizon.