“Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers and
sisters dwell in unity. It is like the precious oil on the head, running down
on the beard, on the beard of Aaron, running down on the collar of his
robes! It is like the dew of Hermon,
which falls on the mountains of Zion!
For there the Lord has commanded the blessing: life forevermore.” Psalm 133
I have always found this tiny psalm to be curious. The image of sacred oil poured on God’s
priest in such volume that is runs down his beard and onto the collar of his
holy vestments does not exactly sync with my idea of unity. Get the Kleenexes! Dew
on Mt. Hermon also is a puzzling analogy, this gentle water that covers an
entire mountain! What they both have in
common is a sense of pervasiveness. The
oil and the dew are in abundance and they both are symbols of the Spirit which
hovers consistently over the face of the earth and among all people.
Unity is like that. When people are living in harmony with
one another it covers everything that has been divisive, it gets into the
crevices of partisan debate and intellectual and ecclesiastical pride. The
result of unity is abundance and provision for all. Psalm 133 says it is a blessing and it leads
ultimately to everlasting life.
Unity is the oil and the water that is the fuel and
sustenance that best drives the church into mission and ministry. Only as we
are in unity can we get the job done with all of our varied gifts and graces
working together for the good of the whole.
Unity is often mistaken for uniformity of thought and heart but it is
much deeper than that. It is a passionate commitment to stay in communion with
one another despite even huge differences.
It is born of the love that “bears all things, believes all things, hopes
all things and endures all things.” (I
Corinthians 13:7)
Dwelling in unity is my prayer for the United Methodist
Church. For years we have been a church divided over many social issues but in
particular the practice, ordination and marriage of people who are lesbian and
gay has taken center stage at every General Conference. Since 1972 there have
been paragraphs in our UM Book of Discipline that forbid homosexual people from
being ordained and our churches and pastors cannot perform holy unions or same
gender marriages.
At the 2016 General Conference the bishops were charged with
the task of leading the way in finding a solution to this impasse once and for
all. What resulted was the creation of a
32-member “Commission for the Way Forward” (a group of highly diverse United
Methodists from all over the world) who studied and prayed and worked on a plan
for the bishops to consider for presentation at a specially called session of
General Conference. The work has been done with grace and faithfulness for
almost two years.
At the spring (April 29 – May 4, 2018) meeting of the
Council of Bishops we voted to recommend the following:
Having received and considered the extensive work of the
Commision on a Way Forward, the Council of Bishops will submit a report to the
special session of the GC in 2019 that includes:
All three plans for a way forward considered by the
Commission and the Council. (“The Traditionalist Plan,” “The One Church Plan” and
“The Connectional Conference Plan.”)
The Council’s recommendation is “The One Church Plan.”
An historical narrative of the Council’s discernment process
regarding all three plans.
According to the bishops the rationale for this response is to
invite the church to go deeper into the journey of the Council and Commission. The
Council makes all the information considered by the Commission and the COB
available to the delegates of the General Conference and acknowledges that
there is support for each of the three plans within the Council. The values of our global church are reflected
in all three plans. The majority of the
COB recommends the One Church Plan as the best way forward for the UMC.
We will have conversations about this proposal at our
sessions of annual conference this year.
In addition all of the documents will be available for further reading
and study after July 8th.
This will give our interpreters time to translate the documents into our
ten international languages. In the fall
we will be holding town hall meetings on each district to discuss these plans
further. Members of our delegations will
also be available for additional meetings and conversation in order to receive
feedback and answer questions.
We are still on a journey and as we travel together we will
pray, we will have respectful conversation, we will study and seek the Word of
God. We will continue to be in ministry and mission to a world that Christ
loved and died for. We will engage in justice ministries and works of
compassion and healing. We will preach
good news of salvation to all.
Through it all my prayer is for the unity of the church;
unity that is pervasive and life-giving.
Ultimately when we dwell together in unity we will be blessed and it will
best enable us to be a blessing to the world out of love for Christ.
-->
No comments:
Post a Comment