Ecclesiastical Chemotherapy?

Not long ago Mark Cuban (the owner of the Dallas Mavericks) said that he feels President Trump is Political Chemotherapy. The point he was making is that regardless of how you feel about Trump, everyone in the American political system is having to examine what it is we want to be normative and what are values are and what it means to be a public servant today. This is for some, a painful process and for others a sense that this is the last chance to "fix" the sick system. It is an interesting metaphor regardless of how one feels about President Trump. 

The UMC faces among her more difficult future in the months ahead. The ruling of the Judicial Council on Bishop Oliveto, the Commission on the Way Forward, the called session of the General Conference, local churches voting to leave the denomination and the evolving of renewal/schismatic groups - just to name few of the challenges. While the future is not something that I would have desired for my denomination and I have no doubts that there will be a great discomfort and pain, but perhaps the UMC is not dying but going through chemotherapy?

Part of the intensity of chemotherapy is that it does not discriminate - even healthy cells are affected. All of this facing the UMC, of course there will be a number of good people who will leave the denomination, and perhaps the Universal Church. There will be indiscriminate pain and hurt across the UMC. So what do we do? 

I submit that we look to how we would minister to those going though chemotherapy. Sit. Pray. Be still. Cry. Find the moments of joy where we can. Remind one another we are not alone. Try not to get too bogged down in the days ahead, but be present right now. 

---

Note: It is not my intent to downplay the intensity of cancer, and I only offer this as a metaphor and like all metaphors it breaks when stretched passed its usefulness. I have witnessed the effects and in no way mean to imply that the struggles of the UMC are of the same level of pain and fear that come with medical chemotherapy.

Faith Seeking Understanding (Not Explaining)

There is a subtle irony in the nature of jokes. If you understand the joke, then you laugh. If you don't, and someone explains it to you, then the joke is much less funny. Jokes shine from understanding and loose their luster with explanation. 

The same can be said about the life of faith. 

The life of faith is one that seeks understanding a deep wisdom that is not only difficult to explain but sounds ridiculous. For instance, Jesus says the meek with inherit the earth and that the peacemakers are blessed; turn the other cheek, forgive our enemy seventy-seven times, the last will be first and the first will be last, and that Jesus is found among "the least of these." Frankly it all does not make any sense. 

In my short time as a preacher, I can tell you it is getting to the point of silly to try to explain the wisdom of God. The wisdom of God is like a joke: not only does it often sound silly but it also shines in understanding and looses something with explanation. 

This is why the mystics were less interested in prose and more interested in poetry. Why the ancients were less worried about doctrine and more interested in practicing the disciplines. The Church seems to be at her best when she is not explaining God (and getting bogged down in the silly conversations like the big bang vs. "creationism"), but seeking the peace that passes... well you know what I mean.

The Failings of the Church Justifies Her Existence Not Eradication

Over the weekend, while the Judicial Council of the UMC made a big decision, I could not help but think about Lillian Daniel's book When "Spiritual But Not Religious" Is Not Enough: Seeing God in Surprising Places Even the Church. While the whole book was fine, it was the first chapter that spoke to me. I share a short excerpt from that chapter with one modification. While Daniel is critiquing the "Spiritual but not religious" category, I offer one slight modification to her writing here. The addition is what is in (parentheses). 

"The church has done some embarrassing things in its day, and I personally do not want to be associated with a lot of it. But, news flash, human beings do a lot of embarrassing, inhumane, cruel and ignorant things, and I don't want to be associated with them either. And here, I think we come to the crux of the problem that the (progressive/conservative) spiritual but not religious people have with the church.

     If we could just kick out all the human beings, we might really be able to do this thing and meet their high standards. If we could just kick our all the sinners, we might have a shot at following Jesus. If we could just get rid of the Republicans (exclusionary language in the Discipline), the Democrats could bring about the second coming and the NPR would never need to run another pledge drive. If we could just kick out all the Democrats (Discipline disobedience), the fiscally responsible would turn water into wine, and the church would never need another pledge drive.

     But in the church, as everywhere, we are stuck with one another, and being stuck with one another, we don't get the space to come up with our own human-invented God. Because when you are stuck with one another, the last thing you would do is invent a God based on humanity. In church, in community, humanity is just way too close to look good."

Perhaps ironically it is the divisions in the Church that keep me connected to the Church. I know it is the Church, with all of her divisions, that help us from creating a God in our own image. Humans are too peaty to model a God after. The failings of the Church justifies her existence not eradication.