The Grace of Wildflowers

by

City workers have mowed down the wildflowers in our neighborhood park along Prairie Creek.  The flowers were still standing the day before, albeit growing brown and withered from the Texas summer. On this morning, nothing remained but beds of straw.

Being a bona fide church lady, my first response to the sight of empty flowerbeds was Ecclesiastes 3:1: "To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven." As our Border Collie, Sheena the Wonder Dog, sniffed the strange remains where tangled plants had stood only hours before, I wondered whether the time has come for The United Methodist Church as it has been known to pass away as well.

The thought I just expressed strikes profound fear into the hearts of those who have committed their lives to the institution known as The United Methodist Church. I'm not speaking solely of the 30,000 or so ordained clergy, or the 100-plus bishops, who form the denomination's structure known as "the connection." In addition there are hundreds of church secretaries, staff, missionaries, deaconesses, lay ministers and workers who have invested their time and effort into operating and maintaining a global 11-million-member institution. For these people, The United Methodist Church sustains them. Together they create a faith-based social organization in which higher callings of service and sacrifice wrestle daily with the thirst for power and prestige.

In short, The United Methodist Church forms a mammoth international corporation.  Hospitals, clinics, schools, community centers, and all kinds of social enterprises around the world bear the distinctive cross and flame logo. There are places in the world where a United Methodist entity offers the only community services for miles around.

Because of United Methodists, children in mosquito-plagued parts of Africa no longer die from malaria. Because of United Methodists, women in India know better how to protect themselves from contracting HIV/AIDS. In the ongoing Ebola crisis in West Africa, United Methodist doctors and nurses have died from the lethal virus because they summoned up the courage to care for stricken patients.

In the United States, United Methodists have comforted and prayed and marched with people in Baltimore, in Ferguson, in New York, in Newtown, Conn., in Charleston, in order to stand up to racial injustice and the scourge of gun violence.  In Germany, United Methodists opened their sanctuaries to citizen groups who eventually tore down the Berlin Wall, symbol of dictatorship. In the Balkan countries, United Methodists brought physical aid and spiritual comfort to those ravaged by ethnic wars. In Russia and the Baltic nations, United Methodists have provided moral and ethical studies in the aftermath of communism. When a monster hurricane scoured the Philippines, and when a massive earthquake and tidal wave swept Indonesia and southern Asia, United Methodists were among the first responders.

The motivation behind these and countless other daily acts of mercy large and small stems from one person: Jesus, the Christ.

Jesus taught that God's love is incarnated anew each day by the way we act toward one another: "The kingdom of heaven is in your midst!" We United Methodists have that lesson bred into our DNA; our identity and impulse are to help those beyond our "connection" no matter what their conditions. Yet we are much less gracious and forgiving with one another, preferring instead to fight, like James and John, over who is greatest in Jesus' kingdom, claiming for ourselves – whatever our political and theological leanings – sole authority to say who belongs to our branch of God's family tree.  Why is that we can be so loving toward those in need and so relentlessly cruel to those within the United Methodist family? Why are we so very susceptible to a demonic lust for control? Not one of us is without sin in this regard; not one.

Has the season come when The United Methodist Church will fade like last spring's wildflowers?  We need not kid ourselves; someone else will take up all our good works if we fall. If we tear ourselves apart, the greatest loss will be our vision of God as that "grace upon grace" which never lets us go, no matter how we try to separate ourselves from God and one another.

The grace of wildflowers comes when the seeds they cast take root again. Perhaps the grace we proclaim offers the seed that will renew us – but only if we allow it to take root now. Amid the fallen wildflowers, I pray we let that grace work within us and between us, casting out our fear and greed, our anger and revenge. Through grace, we can let go of the harm we've caused ourselves and reach out to one another in the love we proclaim through our worldwide service. Otherwise, our church will become nothing but an empty bed of mown straw.