A United Methodist Insight Editorial
See the photo above? That's one of the last pictures of "Stumpy," a beloved cherry tree in a grove along the Tidal Basin in Washington, D.C.
Though obviously withered and declining along its trunk, Stumpy has blossomed annually with the sweet cherry blossoms for which a Washington spring is known.
Soon, however, Stumpy and another 157 of her cherry companions are slated to be cut down. Twice a day they're swamped by water from the basin, some at exposed roots, some higher up along their trunks. As evidence of sea level rise caused by global climate change that's scorching Earth, the flooding has made life precarious for Stumpy and her cherry companions to the point that they can no longer thrive.
What makes Stumpy's story sadder is that she's been blossoming without fail for years despite her harsh circumstances. In other words, Stumpy has been one of Washington's most resilient cherry trees, bursting forth each year with such beauty that thousands of people have taken photographs of themselves beneath Stumpy's persevering branches.
Stumpy's story provides an apt example for this season of The United Methodist Church.
In less than three weeks, hundreds of General Conference delegates and thousands of observers will converge on Charlotte, N.C., to consider the future of The United Methodist Church. Like the tides that engulf Stumpy's roots, the church's political factions have been lapping and slapping against the denomination's roots for decades.
Some of these groups continue to resist the tides of change that the UMC faces: declining membership, declining public influence, declining public interest in religion in the United States. Longtime critics have tried to wage the same old power-brokering tactics that have kept the church in turmoil almost since it was founded.
Yet, like Stumpy, the United Methodist Church has persisted in blooming despite the stagnant falsehoods spread about its current health and future mission. Those with eyes to see and ears to hear have fixed their hope upon the persistent blossoms of faith and love that bloom daily in United Methodist churches around the world.
If we look only at the UMC's woes – its internecine battles over human sexuality, its struggles for political control of doctrine, its overburdened, outmoded bureaucracy – we see naught but its withering trunk. If we look instead at the UMC's gifts to the world – people nourished in body and mind, souls uplifted with hope, and above all, God's grace proclaimed – we see branch upon branch of blossoms, each more beautiful than the one that came before.
Yes, Stumpy is soon to die, and so is The United Methodist Church as we have known it to date. Yet, just as faithful Stumpy will be succeeded by new, flourishing trees planted in new places, the church that emerges from this coming General Conference will be a new creature, imperfect at its start, vulnerable to the hazards of its constantly changing environment. The difference for the new UMC will be how well we draw upon our heritage of resilience.
The Methodist journey in the United States has been fraught with splits, such as the colonial-era division between English speakers and German speakers. That division resulted in two branches of the Wesleyan tradition that didn't embrace until the 1968 founding of the UMC.
Most often, to our shame and heartbreak, splits in American Methodism have been over race. We took a major step forward in 1968, when we abolished the racially segregated Central Jurisdiction. From that withered trunk a new more inclusive denomination blossomed. Since then, we have struggled mightily to live into the concept that mystic and scholar Howard Thurman named "the beloved community," where all people are welcomed, celebrated and loved.
Perhaps the agonies of disaffiliation haven't been so much the UMC's death rattles, but instead have been pangs of new birth. Surely the new blended congregations, "Lighthouse" churches and other congregations, testify to new life. John Wesley preached and taught the concept of new life in Christ, in which the old life falls away in the realization that we are limitlessly loved by God, and because we are so loved, are called upon to love all around us, within and beyond the church, without limits.
Stumpy's resilience has brought joy to thousands through the years. United Methodists' resilience accomplished the same. We're about to prune away the last of the rotting wood in the denomination, just as Stumpy and other damaged cherry trees will be cut down. And just as they will be succeeded by new trees, General Conference has the power to plant seeds of hope and vision for the United Methodist Church.
Seeds take time and care to grow into seedlings, and then into saplings, and then into trees. If we nurture the seeds from this General Conference with our heritage of resilience, The United Methodist Church will renew its vigor to comfort, defend, encourage and transform the world that God so loves.
May it be so.
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