An Apostate Comes Home

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Monday, May 10, 2019

Again a message came to me from the Lord:  “Son of man, take a piece of wood and carve on it these words: ‘This represents Judah and its allied tribes.’ Then take another piece and carve these words on it:  ‘This represents Ephraim and the northern tribes of Israel.’  Now hold them together in your hand as if they were one piece of wood.  When your people ask you what your actions mean, say to them, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: I will take Ephraim and the northern tribes and join them to Judah.  I will make them one piece of wood in my hand.’  “Then hold out the pieces of wood you have inscribed, so the people can see them.  And give them this message from the Sovereign Lord:  I will gather the people of Israel from among the nations.  I will bring them home to their own land from the places where they have been scattered.  I will unify them into one nation on the mountains of Israel.  One king will rule them all; no longer will they be divided into two nations or into two kingdoms.  They will never again pollute themselves with their idols and vile images and rebellion, for I will save them from their sinful apostasy.  I will cleanse them.  Then they will truly be my people, and I will be their God.  Ezekiel 37:15-23

I learned a long time ago that interpreting Scripture is to resist reading-into a passage what you want to see.  But there are immutable principles contained in Old Testament promises (to Israel, for instance) that apply across all experience.

God did not want a divided Israel any more than He would want a divided church.  However, God would not approve of a polluted, but united church either.  In God’s message to Ezekiel, the wooden pieces represented the divided kingdoms, put back together to be one united Israel.  The caveat for God’s covenant people is that re-uniting isn’t the whole deal; sin, pollution and apostasy cannot remain.  If Israel would continue to enjoy the blessing of God’s promised covenant they must put away their rebellious ways.  Apostasy (being fallen) must go!

In keeping with ascribing the nature of Israel’s relationship with God to the contemporary church, I see a parallel in the struggle of my own Methodist tribe.  There has been a decades-long struggle for unity in a dilemma over the acceptance of LGBTQ+ persons as normative and co-equally acceptable with heterosexuality.  This conundrum cannot be resolved absent from the apostate coming home.  The question then is, which side is apostate?

That IS the bottom line.  Either the LGBTQ+ are willful sinners and must repent of their behavior, or the Traditionalists are being Pharisaical, again-nailing Christ to the cross, and persecuting true believers; in which case, those are the ones who must come to the altar and repent.  Without humble repentance this impasse will continue like the two wood pieces of Israel, arms folded, unwilling to face each other, and refusing to come together; we remain the divided apostate church.

In this state I am so reminded of two children, fighting, angry, churlish, truculent, and so very far from their parents’ heart-hope to see maturity develop.  These children are fighting each other and cannot see how their real enemy is within, each thinking the other is the problem, when their own attitude is the real issue.

To quote Forrest Gump’s mama, stupid is as stupid does.

It would seem to me we are defining ourselves by our behavior, and Father God isn’t at all pleased with His offspring.  Perhaps it would be a good thing to divide the wood pieces and go to our neutral corners, face the wall and return to the table when we can be civil.

For You Today

I would invite you to join me in not worrying too much about the tremendous stress we see in today’s culture over the sexuality war and how it is dividing the church into fragments.  End time portions of Scripture predict the apostate church, and we are inexorably moving towards that day.  Keep your head clear to see the fields white for harvest and keep your heart open to love everyone!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day.

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[1] Title Image: Christian Rohlfs [Public domain] via  Wikimedia Commons  
             Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are from The New Living Translation©

Cleaning Up the Mess

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Wednesday, February 27, 2019

One day Jesus said to his disciples, “There will always be temptations to sin, but what sorrow awaits the person who does the tempting!  It would be better to be thrown into the sea with a millstone hung around your neck than to cause one of these little ones to fall into sin.  So watch yourselves!  “If another believer sins, rebuke that person; then if there is repentance, forgive.  Even if that person wrongs you seven times a day and each time turns again and asks forgiveness, you must forgive.”  Luke 17:1-4(NLT)

General Conference 2019 is in the books, and now comes the clean-up.  It’s not just sweeping-up debris left in St. Louis’ Dome Conference Center, but the debris of tempers that flared, hearts that broke, spirits that are crushed, and lives that must be lived.  No matter which side you may have been rooting-for, or if you were just observing, shaking your head at it all, votes were cast, one side declared in the majority, and the division in the United Methodist Church will continue.

As does the struggle between darkness and light…everywhere!

Jesus reminded us that temptation to sin is endless…and those who promote such with their words, attitudes, and actions will suffer judgment at the hand of God.  For those who “won” in St. Louis, this is no time to gloat.  Gloating is rubbing salt in the wounds of a rebuked person, and, frankly, losing a contentious battle with 13 million worldwide participants, before a world population watching Christians duke it out in the Dome…well, that’s enough salt for one day.  In fact, it’s enough salt for a lifetime.  It is now time to lay down the banners and placards; the process is over, and readiness to forgive is all that should be on the table.  Jesus said we must be ready to forgive endlessly; 70 x 7 is a really big number!

Just one thing about the winning side – there is no winner when Christians brawl.  It makes little difference who the aggressor was, who carried the day’s vote, or whether the decision made was right, wrong, or inconsequential; the most consequential piece of fallout is that denominational squabbles are not played-out in a vacuum; the world has seen people who purport to be disciples of the Prince of Peace acting like World War II was just a minor disagreement.

I have heard sociologists and psychologists hold that it takes roughly 10 positive words to overcome one negative word.  If that is true, and I strongly suspect it is, the four days of this General Conference will put off any kind of sweeping revival for the cause of Christ by at least two centuries and another dark age.  In the end, I’m certain there is rejoicing in the pit of Hell.

And, with those words still ringing, annoying to the bone, I will quit talking about General Conference, and the Methodist bruhaha.  It’s time to get on to something important.

For You Today

Let’s let Scripture speak a word of healing for today:

Be still in the presence of the Lord,
    and wait patiently for him to act.
Don’t worry about evil people who prosper
    or fret about their wicked schemes.

Stop being angry!
    Turn from your rage!
Do not lose your temper—
    it only leads to harm.
For the wicked will be destroyed,
    but those who trust in the Lord will possess the land.  Psalm 37:7-9(NLT)

This is how to clean up after the storm…even if you helped make it!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day.

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[i] Title Image:   via The United Methodist Church website

More Harm Than Good

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Tuesday, February 26, 2019

But in the following instructions, I cannot praise you.  For it sounds as if more harm than good is done when you meet together.  First, I hear that there are divisions among you when you meet as a church, and to some extent I believe it.  But, of course, there must be divisions among you so that you who have God’s approval will be recognized!  When you meet together, you are not really interested in the Lord’s Supper.  For some of you hurry to eat your own meal without sharing with others.  As a result, some go hungry while others get drunk.  What?  Don’t you have your own homes for eating and drinking?  Or do you really want to disgrace God’s church and shame the poor?  What am I supposed to say?  Do you want me to praise you?  Well, I certainly will not praise you for this!  1 Corinthians 11:17-22 ^(NLT)

Disclaimer

For those of you who are not United Methodist, please forgive me for airing the laundry; this is a watershed time for the children of Wesley, and these morning devotionals are filled with prayer for my tribe.  We will likely return to a more general approach after the final vote on Tuesday.

This title (More Harm Than Good) is an unlikely one for a denomination that has its root in the sweeping Methodist revival across America in the 18-19^th century, which leader, John Wesley, is quoted as saying we must:

Do all the good you can, 
By all the means you can, 
In all the ways you can,

In all the places you can, 

At all the times you can, 

To all the people you can,

As long as ever you can.

But as my tribe meets in St. Louis to decide if we can live together any more, I’m wondering how much damage the fracas will total when all is said and done.

For the past 50 years (ever since the 1968 merger of Methodist and Evangelical United Brethren to form the United Methodist Church) this denomination has been always at the forefront in social justice issues.  The current embroilment is human sexuality, mainly whether the long-standing doctrinal posture that …homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching will stand, or if we must change to allow full-inclusiveness for LGBTQ persons, particularly in ordination, i.e., clergy orders.

Admittedly, I have no simple solution, nor do I think there is anything approaching a simple solution to the dilemma that confronts the United Methodist Church.  But there are two concerns that mitigate against a Hallmark Movie ending to this debate under any circumstances:

Unity

Anytime you have two or more groups which hold a significantly-different opinion (i.e. doctrine) about an issue, you have an impasse; that is to say, a brick wall.  Take, for instance, a marriage where the husband is in favor of monogamy, and the wife favors an open marriage, where she is free to date (and sleep with) other men.  Unless one changes his/her mind, there will always be contention and unhappiness, or that which ends the so-called unity, namely divorce.  There are no other possibilities. 

Conscience

In this case, the progressive side of the (so-called) “United” Methodist Church is asking the traditionalist side to affirm that their doctrine of homosexuality, trans-sexuality, bi-sexuality, cis-gender, and anything-goes-uality, regarding gender and orientation is just as valid as heterosexuality.

Regardless of millennia of ecclesiastic thought, debate and accepted Scriptural understanding, stated, written, and practiced, progressives want traditionalists to now change their minds and accept/practice/live with what is heretofore deemed sexual perversion. 

I have no simple answers, but this much is not in question – how can any group ask the other group to violate moral conscience, and still call oneself a Christian?

For You Today

Please join me in praying for my tribe’s delegates, for clarity of the Mind of Christ, as they vote later today…lest we do more harm than good to the Body of Christ.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day.

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[i] Title Image:   via The United Methodist Church website