I grew up in a politically divided household where much of the time, my parents’ votes cancelled each other out at the polls. It never occurred to me that people with very different perspectives couldn’t find in common the love Jesus and generous service to the church.
Lisa Schubert Nowling
The Rev. Lisa Schubert Nowling serves as lead pastor of First United Methodist Church in Bloomington, Ind. (Courtesy photo)
Yet in The United Methodist Church, those of us with different political and theological leanings haven’t been able to live together for some time. May 1 marked the official launch of the Global Methodist Church, the new conservative denomination for those who wish to exclude people who are LGTBQIA+ from marriage and ordination in the church. While there are churches who have already disaffiliated from The UMC, both conservative and progressive, there will be likely be more conservative churches and pastors in the coming year as the new denomination takes shape.
Originally, I wanted to celebrate this separation with cake and punch. Let them go (and eat cake)! Finally, we might be free from our impasse and be about the work of Jesus again. But the more I’ve reflected, the more I believe we should don for sack cloth and ashes. This division isn’t a celebration of something new, but rather, our failure to launch a denomination that is loving, inclusive, Christ-centered, and justice-focused.
As we often confess, we have failed to be an obedient church. We’ve failed to launch local church pastors who are more concerned about the people they’ve excluded than the people in the pews they might offend. We’ve failed to launch superintendents, bishops, district committees, and boards of ministry who will consider the gifts and graces of candidates regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression. We’ve failed to empower laity to re-orient us, not only around LGBTQIA+ inclusion, but also around racial equity, gender parity, and economic and climate justice. As a clergy person, I’ve failed to love those who disagree with me. The people and congregations headed to the GMC are my Sunday School teachers, youth leaders, dear colleagues, and friends. While I’m heartbroken to lose them, I’m also still seething at those who supported the Traditional Plan in 2019. Now is the time for sack cloth and ashes.
I’m usually a person for whom hope springs eternal. When it comes to the separation of our church, I don’t have a lot of hope right now. It’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better. Those of us who remain UMC will still have many hills to climb in pursuit of justice, peace, and belonging for all of God’s children.
This winter in the height of the Omicron surge, a friend introduced my daughter and me to Diamond Dotz 3-D painting. You use a stylus dipped in wax to pick up very tiny plastic pieces that you place on a sticky canvas to create a picture. We worked together on a tie-dye piece that read “Love is Love” encircled around a heart. It was painstaking work that reminded me I’m going to need bifocals sooner rather than later. You had to fit every single little diamond in just the right spot.
“Don’t you think it looks beautiful?” my daughter asked when we were only about a fourth of the way there.
“We’ve still got a long way to go,” I said. Then I sighed, wishing I might have the eyes of a child to see the progress as we “toil along the climbing way, with painful steps and slow.”
The Rev. Lisa Schubert Nowling serves as lead pastor of First United Methodist Church in Bloomington, Ind. This post is republished with permission from her Facebook page.