#& he told me that Nikola Tesla was gay and I literally never questioned it | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

gracewithducks · 5 years

Text

We do not lose hope. (2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2)

Some really big stuff went down in the global United Methodist Church this week. You’ve probably heard at least bits and pieces; as a church, we’ve been preparing and praying for a while now, and more than that, our denomination has made national and international secular headlines – and the picture hasn’t been particularly flattering.

It’s a big complicated mess, and there is a lot which is uncertain. But the short version is this: where our divided denomination had hoped to find a way forward, even an admittedly timid and modest one, we instead have taken a big step backwards. Specifically, the hurtful and discriminatory language around human sexuality has been retained and even reinforced in our official statements and policies. The process was messy, the debate was ugly, and though there were some wondrously brave and prophetic voices, though there were so many working and hoping and praying for love and for grace and for change, instead what was revealed this week is that fear and bad theology are powerful motivators, and they lead people to make the kind of decisions that hurt the very people Jesus came to serve, and in the process, break God’s heart.

Many big questions remain. We’re still not sure what the future holds for United Methodism; there are a lot conversations and movements on a lot of fronts, and if I know anything about the Holy Spirit, it’s that God is unpredictable and God refuses to be boxed in.

And what I have said all along, what I say today, is that no matter what, this church will keep doing the work God has called us to – and I stand by that affirmation. We are still here. We are still called to speak truth, to be prophetic voices, to be loving servants, and to be transforming agents in our community and in the world.

I don’t know where exactly we go from here. I know that a lot of people of good faith, even a lot of people in this room, are wondering whether it’s time to go somewhere else – to leave United Methodism behind. At what point does staying in an unjust and exclusionary system make us complicit? At what point does it make sense to go where we can use our time and energy for other work, rather than fighting the same battle over and over again? When Jesus called his disciples, they left their boats and nets behind and set out towards something new, and sometimes, Jesus calls us to leave what we’ve known and set out towards something new, too.

It is worth remembering that the Methodist Church itself started by accident, when courageous people followed the Spirit towards something new. John Wesley never set out to make a new church; he yearned to revitalize that church as it was, the church that had raised him, a church that had forgotten who it was supposed to be. But when that church kept letting fear and politics get in the way, when that church refused to go where the people are, where the gospel was needed, John gave his reluctant blessing to the people called Methodists to go forth and imagine a new thing.

And maybe it’s time to imagine a new thing. Those conversations are happening across the denomination and around the world. But at the same time, I am fully aware that I stand in this pulpit today not just because God called me here but because of the faithful people of conscience and courage who didn’t leave, but who stayed and advocated and fought the fight so that the leadership and voices of women might be honored. And now that I have a voice, I don’t want to abandon all those whose voices aren’t being heard – just because it’s easier or more comfortable for me. I don’t want to give up on all those leaders God is still calling, all those who are still coming down the line.

The thing that General Conference will never be able to do is this: they will never be able to legislate gay and lesbian and queer people out of the United Methodist Church, because LGBTQ babies are being born every day. They’re being baptized every Sunday, nurtured in our nurseries, learning about God’s love in our Sunday school classes, being immersed in community at our summer camps, asking hard questions in our youth groups, being taught in our colleges, being trained in our seminaries – and God is calling them into ministry every day. And they will keep confronting us with the breadth of God’s grace. And they will keep looking us in the eyes and asking: you who taught me, who trained me, who told me God’s love is universal, who told me God might be calling me – when will you love God and love me enough to let me love and serve God with you?

I believe that God is doing a new thing. I just don’t know have all the answers; I don’t know what it looks like yet.

In the church year, it’s Transfiguration Sunday – the Sunday when we remember how Jesus went up the mountaintop with his disciples, and right before their eyes, he was transformed.[1] He stood alongside Moses and Elijah, the great leaders of the faith in days gone past, and yet in that moment, in Christ, God was doing a whole new thing. It’s a day when we remember that God’s revelation to us is ongoing, and God is so much greater than we can ever pin down. Up on the mountain, God revealed something new to Peter and James and John – and that moment changed them.

And they responded differently to that revelation. James and John cowered in fear. And Simon Peter had the brilliant idea to build a building. Peter wanted to build a shrine, a museum – dare we say, a church? – some walls to hide Jesus’ light away, the kind of place where the right kind of people might come and see what God has done.

Peter wanted to build some walls and settle in. But Jesus said no. Jesus said, we have to go back down the mountain – we have to go where the people are – because they story isn’t over yet, and I didn’t come just for you chosen few, and there is so much work we’ve yet to do.

Our hope isn’t in the buildings and the shrines. Our hope isn’t in the denomination, and our hope isn’t in the past, and our hope isn’t in the church. Our hope is in Jesus, in the Lord who comes down the mountain and into the trenches with us.

Long before Jesus was transfigured on the mountaintop, Moses went up on the mountaintop and met God there. And there is this curious bit of biblical history – that, when Moses came down from the mountain, after he’d been talking to God, imagining a new future and community for those people who’d just been set free – when Moses came down the mountain, God’s glory was reflected in him. He was, somehow, literally glowing, shining with God’s light.

And it terrified people. It scared the pants off them! It scared people so much that Moses started wearing a veil, hiding his face, until that divine glow had worn off.

But in his letter to the Corinthians, Paul says, the time for hiding is gone. It’s time to let God’s light shine through us – it’s time to be bold and courageous; it’s time for us to take the veil away, to stop making apologies for our faith, to stop hiding what God has said and done – it’s time to let it shine.

“Since, then,” Paul writes, “since we have such a hope, we act with great boldness… with unveiled faces… and since it is by God’s mercy that we are engaged in this ministry, we do not lose heart.”

I don’t know what exactly God is calling us to do next. But I do know this: God is the one who is calling us. And so with boldness, with courage, with hope, we will not hide, and we won’t give up.

I read something this week – something not related to church discipline, if you can believe it – but I read something this week that has stayed with me. My oldest daughter has recently gotten interested in waterfalls, with all the passion and fixation of a third grader. And because I’m a mom, when my kids develop a new passion, I learn all kinds of new things, too.

So this week, I learned all about Niagara Falls. This week I learned about Father Louis Hannepin, a priest from the Spanish Netherlands who, in the 1600s, was the first recorded Westerner to encounter the Niagara Falls. Father Louis was reportedly so completely overwhelmed by the sight that he fell to his knees in awe and in fear; he couldn’t even look at the waterfalls, because their size and their power left him trembling.

I’ve learned how Nikola Tesla ignored his critics and nay-sayers and found a way to harness some of the power of the waterfalls, and use that energy to bring light into homes for miles around.

And I’ve learned that the solid rock underneath the Falls is slowly being worn away. In the last 500 years, the Falls have migrated, little by little, a whole half a mile – and in just fifty thousand years, they say, the power of the Falls will have melted the cliffs away all together. And sure, 50,000 years is a long time from now – but it’s a reminder, a reminder that no matter how imposing and unmovable a thing might seem, nothing lasts forever. Even mountains move, in time. And that thought has given me a ray of hope this week.

But maybe we don’t want to wait 50,000 years for change to come. In those early years, one of the biggest questions for those who came to see the Niagara Falls was how to get to the other side. Even at the narrowest, the gorge was hundreds of feet across. Nobody could figure out how to build a bridge across that span. If one good strong cable could be strung across the gorge, it could be the foundation for a suspension bridge, but the waters were too choppy; if a boat tried to take the first cable across, it would be destroyed. Until they could find a way to get one strong, sturdy cable across the gorge, nothing else could be built, and nothing could be done.

In the mid-1800s, an engineer thought about using a rocket to shoot the cable across, or maybe a cannonball – and then somebody came up with a brilliant and original thought: why not use a kite?

“Maybe someone could fly a kite from one side of the river and make it land on the other side. The thin kite string would be stretched across the gorge. Then a thicker string could be tied to the end of the kite string… [Someone on the other side] could pull that string across the gorge. After that, thicker and thicker ropes would be tied and pulled across. Eventually, [they] would be able to pull a thick metal cable across the gorge… the first step in building a suspension bridge.”[2]

So a kite-flying contest was announced, with a prize for the first person to get a kite across. A teenager named Homan Walsh decided to enter. Homan lived in the US, but he knew the winds were better on the other side of the river. So he took a ferry to Canada, walked two miles downriver, and let his kite fly. All day, Homan stood in the cold winter wind, feeding out ball after ball of kite string, until his string was long enough to reach the other side. And then he waited. And waited. And waited, for the wind to die down, and for his kite to land.

Finally, around midnight, the winds let up, and the kite fell – but just when the kite landed, Homan’s string broke.

“Now Homan was stranded in Canada at midnight, alone. And he couldn’t get back home because there was too much ice on the river! The ferryboats weren’t running.”[3] Discouraged, emptyhanded, Homan waited more than week just to get a safe ride back to the US, where he could search for his lost kite.

But he didn’t give up. He found the kite, fixed the broken string, and he tried again. And this time, he made it.

And I love this story. I love this story, this story of a young person who takes a chance, and who faces hardship – and when he finds himself stranded in the dark and in the cold, far from home, with nothing to show but a broken string – he doesn’t give up.

I love this story, not just because it shows creativity and persistence, but because it reminds us that form one tenuous first contact, another stronger bond can take shape, and then another, until we’ve built a bridge able to carry us across what was once an imposing and impossible chasm between us. That’s how change comes; that’s how the divisions are bridged: not with rules, but with relationships, with conversations, with acts of compassion and olive branches – one thin string at a time.

Right now, a lot of us feel like Homan. It’s midnight, and we’re cold, exhausted, discouraged, holding on to a broken string.

And what I hope we won’t do is give up. I hope we’ll keep paying attention to which way the Spirit is blowing. And I hope we’ll keep sending our kites across, to God’s dream, God’s kingdom, on the other side. Right now we’re so far away from where we want to be. The string broke in our hands. But the story isn’t over yet. Because one day, by the grace of God, we will build that bridge, and together, we will cross to the other side.

Don’t give up. Don’t hide your light. Be bold. Have hope. Keep mending your strings and sending up those kites. The story isn’t over yet.

O God, our hearts hurt. The hopes we have – have fallen short, dashed against the rocks. Our hearts hurt, not just for ourselves, but for our family members, our friends, for everyone who heard the message this week that they are incompatible with your love, and unwelcome in your house. Our hearts hurt, for our colleagues and coworkers, who are so full of judgment and fear, they cannot even begin to open the door to your grace. Our hearts hurt.

O God, forgive us. Forgive us for all the ways we have fallen short of your glory. Forgive us for all the times we’ve tried to hide your light and veil your face. Forgive us, for all the ways that our fear has veiled your love. Forgive us, and set us free. Give us compassion; give us courage; give us boldness, as we continue to do the ministry you’ve called us to do. Help us, above all, to love our neighbors, and to love you. With hurting and hopeful hearts, we pray; amen.

------------------------

[1] Luke 9:28-43a.

[2] Megan Stine, “Where is Niagara Falls?” (Penguin Books, 2015) p31.

[3] Ibid. p35.

1 note · View note