Thursday, May 12,
2016
Then the angel who had been talking with me returned and
woke me, as though I had been asleep. “What do you see now?” he asked. I answered, “I see a solid gold lampstand
with a bowl of oil on top of it. Around
the bowl are seven lamps, each having seven spouts with wicks. And I see two olive trees, one on each side of
the bowl.” Then
I asked the angel, “What are these, my lord? What do they mean?” “Don’t you know?” the angel asked. “No, my lord,” I replied. Then he said to me, “This is what the Lord says
to Zerubbabel: It is not by force nor by
strength, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. Nothing, not even a mighty
mountain, will stand in Zerubbabel’s way; it will become a level plain before
him! And when Zerubbabel sets the final
stone of the Temple in place, the people will shout: ‘May God bless it! May God bless it!’” Zechariah
4:1-7(NLT)
Zerubbabel was to build the
temple. Opposition and infighting over
such an endeavor were to be expected.
But God gave Zechariah a vision of a golden bowl, seven lamps and two olive
trees as a message of hope. The bowl,
representing God’s temple, was flanked on either side by olive trees.
For me, this morning, those olive
trees represent the possibilities of my Methodist brothers and sisters extending
branches of peace and holy worship before God, instead of the kind of vitriol
and arrogance we’ve seen in recent years.
General Conference is in day #3
(of 10) today. For my non-Methodist
friends, General Conference is the legislative body of the world-wide United
Methodist Church. It is something like the
U.S. Congress, as the nearly 800 delegates elected around the world gather to
consider how we Wesleyan Christians will connect with each other and the world,
for the sake of Christ’s kingdom. The
proposed agenda is 175 pages long!
As other church entities have
experienced, so the United Methodist Church will (again) struggle with extremely
controversial issues…mostly concerning human sexuality and what the church’s
response to this ripple in God’s universe of a teapot might be.
The term “holy conferencing” is
sometimes an oxymoron for Methodist gatherings.
It has been so recently, with sit-ins and disruptive, antagonistic
behavior.
My prayer, certainly, is that
this quadrennial meeting’s tone might be somewhat better than we have seen on
the presidential campaign’s stump trail, but the pre-conference rumblings have
about guaranteed that the sharpening of swords and rhetoric are going to
produce more media sound bites than holy agreement.
Lord, have mercy!
Perhaps the people of Wesleyan
heritage have not learned the lesson Zechariah delivered so long ago, that is
not by the power of swords, shouting and invective accusations that we
accomplish God’s will; it is not by the might of lobby, focus groups and agenda
PAC’s that we create the kingdom – it is by HIS SPIRIT that the church obeys
and serves her Lord.
Whether you are a Methodist or go
by another label, I invite you to pray for us as we attempt to find God’s way
in the morass of cultural shift and prideful attitudes; it seems like we’re in
for a long ten days.
For You Today
Help spread the word: There are
olive branches in those olive trees!
Pray that Methodists – and Christians everywhere – will break one off
and hand it across that Golden Bowl to the other side.
Maybe we will find a fresh fire of Pentecost to light our way.
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