Free to Live

I was born and raised and I continue to be a United Methodist. I was one before I even really knew what it meant to be a Methodist and while I’ve had my fair share of exposure to other traditions (sometimes even within my own church) I’ve found that things like the Wesleyan/Methodist understanding of grace or the Holy Spirit or even the honesty of our understanding of how we interpret Scripture have attracted me towards the denomination of my youth. In short it is a tradition I love and understand.

When I look around at the present state of our church, at the state of our denomination and our impending judgement day, there remains though a voice inside wondering what is it all for? Consider this question, and in turn consider your reaction to it:

What if the most faithful option for the United Methodist Church is closure?

We’ve been wrestling with the question of inclusion for longer than I’ve been alive (almost twice my age actually), and in that time we’ve come no closer to an answer. In that time we’ve seen the same decline that every other denomination in the US has seen (regardless of the denomination’s stance of LGBTQ+ inclusion) and no matter what we decide this weekend (or as might be the case, don’t decide) we’re going to continue to see decline. Answering this question is a justice issue, I firmly believe that and I stand by my LGBTQ+ brothers and sisters seeking full-inclusion, but whether we opt for full-inclusion or a hard-line traditionalist stance we’ll still be hemorrhaging members, we’ll still be a faith tradition that seems to have lost its moral voice amidst the babel of the world, all while contributing our own to the din. Unless we actually nail down our vocation, until we actually grapple with our mission of making disciples for Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world, unless we genuinely grapple with and perhaps even embrace our own denominational mortality, we’re going to continue to face increasingly dwindling numbers and eventually the same closure we’re running from.

Every creature, every thing, all that is created will one day die. Denominations are no exception. Grappling with our own mortality is arguably one of the key features of the Christian faith, it might even be said that God’s freedom is one that frees us from the fear of death, frees us from the worship of death (John 14:1–6, Heb 2:14–15) as it is perhaps only when we lay down our fear of death that we are truly freed from its hold over us. That we become truly free to go where Christ leads without worrying about failing. When we live in a way that we base our decisions around our fear of death, when we become more concerned with preserving life at all costs then we have to consider that we might not actually be serving life, we might not actually be serving the vocation of the Word of God (Jesus Incarnate) to live out our vocation as human beings made for the worship and love of God; we might instead be worshipping death, playing right into its hands; offering up anything and perhaps even everything in the hopes that what we sacrifice to might save us.

“you said, ‘we have sealed a covenant with Death, and with Sheol we have made a pact. No sweeping scourge that passes by will reach us, for we have made falsehood our refuge and in lies we have taken shelter.’” (Is 28:15)

As is usually the case in my blogging at least, I find William Stringfellow’s words worthy of inclusion as he says what I try to convey far more succinctly:

“When churches are principalities they bear the marks essential and familiar to all other principalities of an institutional and ideological character. The moral principle which governs their internal life, like that which governs a corporation or university, is the survival of the institution. To this primary consideration, all else must be sacrificed or compromised.”

Are we too focused on the denomination’s survival that we have lost our focus on the church’s purpose and vocation?

Don’t mistake me, I don’t want to pass judgement and unilaterally declare that it is high time for the closure of the UMC, God after all has used the UMC to work amazing things in the world, UMCOR is perhaps the top missional entity in the world, our universities, hospitals, social programs, camps, etc have all been forces that God has worked incredible good through, but the work of the Church will continue whether there is a UMC or not. God’s Kingdom will still come even if our denomination is not there to see it.

Now, I admit my own bias, my own fear; after all much of my own livelihood at present is somewhat dependent on the survival of the institution, but unless we enter into this weekend’s events with closure as a genuine option worthy of consideration, then I fear we might be serving an idol, we might be worshipping the principality. We might be more focused on saving ourselves from death and less on God alone being our salvation.

Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust

In a few short weeks we’ll be celebrating Ash Wednesday. A small and relatively simple act of disruption might appear to us as something slightly different than anything we’ve done or considered previously. Following the liturgy and the during the imposition of ashes the reminder is given:

remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return

I offer that perhaps an important act in remembering the impermanence, even of the institution is to take a moment and place a smudge or a cross of ash somewhere on the walls of the church, to be liturgically reminded that even this, even the things we hold onto, even the principalities themselves are not absent this proclamation, you are dust and to dust you shall return. This may seem a silly looking moment in an otherwise somber service but it also witnesses to our remembrance that nothing, no creature, no person, no institution, no image, no ideology, no church, no thing can defeat death.

In the end it is God alone that does that (1 Cor 15:26).

Almighty God, you have created all things from the dust of creation. Grant that we might remember our mortality, that we might be penitent, might be confessional, so that we might remember that only by your grace are we given life eternal and freed from Death’s hold. Amen.

• Atler, Robert. The Hebrew Bible: A Translation with Commentary, vs 1–3. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2018.
• Stringfellow, William. Free in Obedience. New York: The Seabury Press, 1964.