Reflections from a 'Man in the Mirror' Moment

by

Our Humanity....

I had a "man in the mirror" moment yesterday after making some sharp remarks on my page. The person I hurt is a longtime colleague and friend. I phoned him to make amends. We talked for 45 minutes. We ended our phone conversation in love for one another.

Like many of you I have pondered why there is so much turmoil and upheaval not only in the United States, but across the globe.

I read information this morning about 439 congregations leaving the United Methodist Church in Texas. The United Methodist Church has long mirrored our culture in the United States. Because we are everywhere we reflect viewpoints from areas where our congregations are.

Why has "all of this" happened? I believe that western culture has become increasingly "individiualistic." We speak of "my truth." Each of us does have "our truth," as surely as some of my colleagues speak of "my theology." Those viewpoints point to Individualism on one hand, but to a response of those who have been harmed by institutions on the other.

When we speak of "my theology," or "my truth," we often point to the fact that established culture or established leadership structures unwittingly harm others. Most of the time such structures are not malicious. Unfortunately, there are times when those structures do harm others.

The deconstruction we are witnessing in Western culture reflects centuries of actions taken which have harmed others. So, if it seems that we have "lost our bearings," well, we have.

The news displayed each day reflects individuals and groups who are "lost." By that, I mean, they have seemingly become disoriented with no coherent "center." For centuries when we have spoken about such a "center" we have spoken about God.

The chief work in God's redemption of the human race has been built around its redemption. Human beings can be like good angels or bad angels. Our good projects are legendary. Our despicable actions are infamous. History is littered with examples of these things.

One of the areas that the United Methodist Church has splintered over is "doctrine" as opposed to loving actions. There are those who paint doctrine as rigid and inflexible. They wish to instead, cause us to choose "the good" over harming others.

Twenty years ago in our annual conference we spoke about the future of United Methodism as "rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic." How sad. How deterministic. How full of hopelessness. Even now, as I write this, this "ship" is splintering, shattering on the iceberg of cultural changes.

As we watch it splinter on the rocks we do so with deep sadness in our hearts. When we had our "gunfight at the OK corral" moment in February of 2019 at the specially called session of General Conference we ended up staring daggers at one another. Many of us watched it happen in real tiime. I know that I did.

Our love for one another did not prevail. We had hardened into factions. The danger in that moment and in this moment is that if we believe that there is no such thing as doctrine, we will forget what we learned along the way. Doctrine reflects what we have learned or what was revealed to us in dialogue, such as at Church Councils, like Nicea or Chalcedon. Those councils, only two of the seven that Catholicism, Orthdoxy and Mainline Protestantism embraced declared that Jesus was fully God and fully human. For some, those faith declarations seemed tendentious. Not everyone agreed with those church councils. But, had those councils not come to their conclusions, our path forward as Jesus' followers would have been very shaky.

The problem, though, with declaring that others are "anathema," or consigned to destruction is that such decisions point to a huge lack of humility, a quality which grows from our own failings and failures and a discovery that we really aren't the "center of the universe." God is. We aren't. And God has called us to build community around God's deep love for us as individuals and groups.

I fell short yesterday. I am human. Yes, I sin. And, when I do I try very hard to bring healing to my interactions with those whom I harm. I believe that that is the function of "law" and "grace." Law shows us actions that are harmful to self and others. Grace reminds us that only love can save us. Special knowledge (esoteric knowledge), such as the Gnostics held, was rejected. They believed that the body was evil and only spirit was good.

The first seven Ecumenical or General Councils declared that the body was not "evil." We are "enfleshed" as human beings. Flesh is not "bad." God created us as "enfleshed" beings. God declared that all of God's creation was good. I believe it. When the seven councils declared that Jesus was fully God and fully human they did so because part of what they were getting at was that in the Incarnation, God became one of us in order to bring about the reconcilation of God and the human race, rebels that we are.

There are limits to intellect. When intellect fails love succeeds. Its often painful. But, love prevails. I am at a point in "my theology" where I often find myself saying to Ginny that "I don't know what to think." I don't. Its not so much that I am bogged down in the "paralysis of analysis," but rather that I just don't understand everything. I can't. I'm too limited. So, then I fall back on faith, because faith takes me out of myself and puts me where I need to be, following Jesus.

When we read scripture or history we discover that we are like our forbearers. One thing I do understand about myself and humanity in general is that we can "get off the path." I know. I've been off the path. But, thanks be to God and friends who bring us back to the path through love. Only love can accomplish this.

This is where the Gnostics felll short. In all of their vast imaginings about the nature of reality and God, they focused on "gnosis," or special esoteric knowledge. Ecclesial Christianity as expressed through the church decisions of the Councils focused on love, just as Paul did in First Corinthians 13 in a letter written to address schismatic behavior and yes, arrogance.

Perhaps in this time, as we watch the United Methodist Church splinter into factions and not just over sexuality, but over the nature of being a connectional and episcopal church in a culture which no longer trusts "those at the top," we need to remember that God came down to us in Jesus whom we call Christ.

And so we are saved by God's grace, freely given love, unearned, sometimes undeserved, certainly not earned. So I will echo our pastor, Phil Lake, when he says, "God loves you. And there is nothing you can do about it!"

This morning I am choosing to "faith" my way forward because I know that God is a living God and God "works for good in all things," even when those "things" are frightening and threatening.

Let God be God. Let us be faithful.

Your brother, Chris, saved by grace through faith.

Amen.

The Rev. Chris Madison is a retired clergy member of the Indiana Annual Conference. To reproduce this content elsewhere, please contact the author via his Facebook page.