Christ United Methodist Church, my
congregation, has just gone through a very difficult week; perhaps one of the
hardest weeks in its history. Earlier
this week, our denomination met in a special “General Conference” to discuss
the denomination’s policies concerning human sexuality. The “General Conference” is the supreme
policy-making body of the United Methodist Church, and it alone can speak for
the entire denomination. The General
Conference is comprised of 850 delegates, who are elected by smaller, regional
conferences. Since the United
Methodist Church is a global church,
delegates from around the world are part of the General Conference.
At its special meeting, held in St.
Louis, the General Conference focused on three issues involving human
sexuality:
1.
Will the church allow clergy to perform same-sex
weddings?
2.
Will same-sex weddings be allowed on United
Methodist Church properties?
3.
Will the church allow for ordination of LGBTQ
persons?
At this special meeting, General Conference delegates decided
against allowing same-sex weddings and ordination of LGBTQ+ persons. These decisions are very painful and
devastating for the many LGBT+ clergy and laity in the United Methodist Church—as
well as many straight United Methodists who wish to see a welcoming and
affirming church.
These decisions were especially
painful for most of my community of faith, and I personally found the decisions
to be very devastating and incompatible with Christian scripture.
Christ United Methodist Church in Lincoln has a long history
of being an open and welcoming community of faith. This heritage goes back to the 1970s, when we
actively worked to welcome political refugees and helped them settle in our
community. Our Mission Statement
explicitly welcomes all persons, including LGBTQ persons. And, we believe that diversity is a strength
for our congregation.
So, when we
gather to worship this Sunday, March 3rd, we will gather in pain, shock,
disbelief, confusion, bewilderment, sadness, fear, and anger. My proclamation must speak to my community of
faith and where they are this weekend.
To ground my remarks and reflections, I have chosen 1 Corinthians
13. Among Christians, the nickname for
this passage is “the great love chapter.”
Traditionally, it is read during weddings. While it is certainly a very, very
appropriate scriptural passage for a wedding, that was not the Apostle Paul’s
intent when he wrote these 13 verses.
Instead, Paul was trying to address and heal severe divisions within the
Church of Corinth. So, this scripture is
certainly appropriate for our context this Sunday.
1
Corinthians 13 takes the literary form of an encomium on love. In the literary
world of Paul’s day, an encomium was
a literary praise for a certain moral virtue; in this case, love. In the encomium’s prologue (verses 1-3), Paul
seeks to establish love as forming the core of a faithful life. He does this by listing some of the major
qualities which the Corinthian Christians had come to highly regard in the life
of a Christian. Paul begins by listing “speaking
in tongues,” or glossolalia. Then he
lifts up prophetic ability and knowledge.
Finally, he lifts up faith and sacrifice for God. In each case, Paul proclaims that if these
actions are not performed out of love, then they are nothing; they are just
hollow accomplishments.
In the next
section, Paul describes what love is, as well as what love is not:
Love is not
·
Envious
·
Boastful
·
Arrogant or rude
·
Irritable
·
Resentful
·
Domineering, insisting on its own way
·
Love
is
·
Patient
·
Kind
·
Bears all things
·
Hopes all things
·
Endures all things
For Paul, love is “running forgiveness,” always lifting up
the other. As the Biblical Scholar R. Paul
Sampley writes, “…love is never held alone in one’s self; love always involves
another; love always links one’s self to another. …Love is a two-way street that provides a context
of mutuality, understanding, and relatedness between each person and others,
between God and believers, and between believers and believers.”[i] Thus, despite their internal differences with
one another, the Christians in the Corinth Church must learn to forgive and
love one another.
In his
third and final section, Paul asserts that unlike prophecies, knowledge, and
even languages—which inevitably end—love
never ends. Love sustains. Then, in
keeping with the encomium formula, which he uses, Paul concludes by comparing love
with two other virtues, faith and hope.
He writes, “Now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the
greatest of these is love.” (v. 13) For
Paul, love is preeminent because love is the principal characteristic of
God. For Paul, God’s love makes possible
our faith, understood as right relationship with God, and our hope, which we
have through our faith. Therefore, love
is foremost. Love is the most important
virtue.
In the
context of the dreadful policies established at our United Methodist General
Conference this week, 1 Corinthians 13 seems to be especially relevant for this
Sunday.
If you live in the Lincoln,
Nebraska area and do not have a place of worship, then I invite you to come and
join us at Christ United Methodist Church this Sunday, March 3rd. Our focus will be on the decisions and
policies approved at General Conference this week. We will reflect upon what this means for our
community of faith which was devastated and angered by these decisions. Our reflections will be informed by 1
Corinthian 13, which calls upon us to love everyone, even those United Methodists
with whom we vehemently disagree.
Christ UMC is located at 4530 “A”
Street. We have three worship services
on Sunday mornings at 8:30, 9:45, and 11:00.
The 8:30 and 11:00 services feature a traditional worship format and the
services are held in our Sanctuary. “The
Gathering” at 9:45 is held in our Family Life Center (gym), and it is more
informal and interactive.
Come, join us. Everyone is welcome and accepted because God
loves us all.
[i]J. Paul Sample, Commentary on 1 Corinthians in the New Interpreter’s Bible, vol 10,
(Nashville, Abingdon Press, 2002), CD-ROM Edition.
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