When I was a girl in Florida, I once fell into a bed of weeds that we called sand spurs. These weeds produced wicked seeds like small burrs with many spikes. I was covered in them. As my parents plucked the spurs off me, one broke off beneath the skin on my arm. A week later it festered, producing a red, swollen sore.
My parents were used to handling such emergencies without expensive professional help, since as children of the Great Depression they'd always lived as frugally as possible. As my mother began to open up the putrid sore, however, I screamed with pain and tried to pull away from her. That's when my father stepped in. "Squeeze my arm when it hurts," Daddy said.
Well, it hurt. A lot. The fact that I remember the incident so well is testament to how much it hurt. As Mother kept draining what seemed like gallons of pus out of my infected arm, I squeezed my father's forearm until I left bruised imprints all over his tanned skin. Yet he kept encouraging me to grip him ever tighter. The more I hurt, the more of my pain he took into himself.
That memory came to me this week as I reflected on two incidents of how we are dealing with one another in the run-up to the 2016 General Conference.
The more I hurt, the more of my pain he took into himself.
On the one hand, I've asked several Facebook friends, who are young clergy involved in inclusion efforts, to reconsider sharing a mash-up video that I think ridicules one of the longtime prominent leaders of the evangelical movement that opposes LGBTQ inclusion. On the other hand, I've been deeply perturbed by another young clergyman's blog decrying the LGBT protest at the 2012 General Conference as a "malformed, schismatic" Eucharist.
To my mind, both these expressions disrespect the sacrament of baptism, the first gift of love we receive in the Christian faith. In that bond, I'm feeling the pain of these differing expressions. I've included links to both these posts, albeit reluctantly, for fair review.
In regard to the mash-up video, my younger colleagues defended it as legitimate satire for the way it looped their adversary's words "for entertainment purposes." Like many, I revel in TV's political and cultural satire shows, but to me this mash-up video crosses a line, and that line is our bond of baptism. Those for whom satire is their stock in trade may not share such a bond with their subjects, but within the church baptism is what holds us together. Even though I disagree vigorously with the theology and tactics used by the mash-up's subject, I would no more expose that person to public ridicule than I would allow any LGBTQ person or straight ally to be similarly ridiculed for their beliefs. Like many United Methodists, I find that the video subject and cohorts employ rhetoric and tactics that we deem deceitful and harmful. Yet what matters more to me is whether we who profess God's all-inclusive love violate our profession by pursuing revenge disguised as "entertainment." Such ridicule does not love our enemies into reconciliation, as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. preached.
Conversely, another pastor's analysis of protest at the 2012 General Conference strikes me personally. I observed and participated in the Eucharist that he condemns, and I found it to be neither malformed nor schismatic, but a sharing of deep pain among marginalized United Methodists seeking the acceptance of their own faith community. I have been a lay student of liturgy long enough to know that what ultimately matters isn't how well we speak the words or act out the gestures of Communion, but whether we in our hearts truly repent, seek grace and intend to live new lives. Indeed, John Wesley termed Holy Communion one of the means of grace, indicating that even if our hearts aren't entirely right, God can still forgive and sanctify us through the sacrament. To assert otherwise is to place the church's authority above the Holy Spirit's power to blow where it will, how it will, for the Triune God's purposes.
What I find most distressing is the dehumanization that occurs in both examples. In both instances, "the other" becomes an object whose abuse can be justified. The mash-up video's subject may be hero or villain depending upon one's point of view, but neither obviates the fact that he remains someone whom God loves. Those who conducted the LGBT protest with Eucharist at the 2012 General Conference likewise are heroes or villains in the same way, but once again are people whom God loves. Through baptism we are bound to each other, no matter what our views. We have vowed to pray for one another and to support one another, and to recognize and honor the truth that we each bear the image of God and the seal of Christ. If we cannot behave toward one another as we have promised to do in our baptismal vows, if we refuse to take upon ourselves one another's pain in imitation of Christ, then we do not deserve to be called His Church. No other commitment ranks higher.
We may each believe that we have glimpsed God's will, but in truth all of us see darkly, and we need one another's light in order to find the path God has laid out before us. The effort to replace fear of one another – which engenders objectification and ridicule – with faith in God's power for reconciliation forms my most fervent prayer for the 2016 General Conference. I pray that God will embolden the best spiritual guides among General Conference delegates, lifting up prophets who will remind us of what we have promised one another and God in our baptism. I pray that these guides will bring opposing forces together to seek humbly God's will for The United Methodist Church. To do so will require that we bring to one another the gift of love.
Gift of Love
A veteran religion journalist and a certified spiritual director, Cynthia B. Astle serves as coordinator of United Methodist Insight.