Shoved by Grace

After over 15 years in parish ministry in the United Methodist Church, I ventured outside of the church walls in to the great wide open in 2013. I have spent the last six plus years in a combination of secular employment, volunteer clergy and appointed extension ministry, both here and abroad. I have learned so much about the folks outside of the church – the ones I call “NeverChurchers” - who would never even consider attending a church service outside of a wedding or funeral (and those are even becoming less frequent). I’ve talked for hours with a variety of people from all different backgrounds – those raised religiously (Christian, Jewish and Muslim) but no longer practice or even “believe”, as well as those who were raised without any religious background at all – and I’ve heard very similar refrains from many of them. And much of what I’ve learned is very different from what I assumed when I was working inside a church. As a member of a large suburban church staff for mos...

For most people, the past four days passed by unremarked. For those of us in the United Methodist Church, who were paying attention, it has been literally life-changing. From Jan 23-26, the UMC held a Special Session of their General Conference in St. Louis to decide on a new plan for how the church relates to the LGBTQ+ community. The results, while somewhat anticipated, have been devastating for many of us in the church, our friends and family. But, somewhere, in the darkest hour of the darkest day, a glimmer of hope continues to shine through. Just for a little background, since 1972, the UMC Book of Discipline (our rulebook) has maintained that homosexuality is "incompatible" with Christian teachings. Confusingly however, we also like to say, "Open hearts, open minds and open doors." So, in other words, love the sinner, hate the sin. Along the way, the church has also made it clear that "self-avowed practicing homosexuals" shall not be ordained an...

Prayer is a fraught topic. It's hard to talk about it in the church, and harder to talk about it outside of the church. Almost everyone has an experience with prayer - prayers answered, prayers not answered, prayer stage fright (or maybe that just happens to pastors!). Prayer is such a personal topic that I think sometimes we're afraid to talk about it in fear of offending someone or negating their experiences. But here I go. Prayer reveals our heart to God...and to ourselves. It is the act of opening ourselves us and sharing our intimate selves, that changes us. And it brings us closer to God, our neighbor and ourselves. When we pray whether it's unprepared or written, we are revealing what matters most to us. Our concerns, our wants and desires, our joys and triumphs, our failures and guilt. A prayer can often be surprising, even to ourselves. Even when we're not being entirely honest, well, that reveals something important about us too. Scripture says a lo...

Sometimes certain themes keep popping up in front of me so often that I can't keep thinking that it is random. Is that God trying to speak to me? Or is it just that I'm really pondering a subject so I notice it more. Like when you buy a new car and then keep seeing "your car" everywhere. So, for the last few days, the topic that keeps popping up in my sight line is Unity. This past Sunday, my pastor talked about unity in a sermon about corporate prayer. This morning I heard an extended rant about party unity on my TV news show. And now, reading my devotional for the day, I come across this, from Ignatius of Loyola, "The most wonderful thing is unity with Jesus and with the Father. In him we shall partake in God if we firmly resist and flee all the arrogant attacks of the prince of this world. Unity of prayer, unity of supplication, unity of mind, unity of expectancy in love and blameless joy: this is Jesus Christ and there is nothing greater than he. Flo...

I think we can all agree that the political world is getting uglier and uglier. Ideological lines have been drawn over health care, tax policy, immigration and the Mueller investigation. The latest battleground is over sexual misconduct and how we should react when those we elect, or propose to elect, are accused. Now the idea that our male politicians are hound dogs (no offence to the poor puppies) when it comes to women comes as no surprise. Infidelity and sexual scandals involving our leaders go way back. King David comes to mind. And don't forget that Thomas Jefferson had children with one of his slaves (wrong on so many levels). But the cultural climate is changing. Things that were acceptable even a couple decades ago are being called into question. I admit that I voted for Bill Clinton twice and still supported him even after the Monica Lewinsky scandal. I felt that his policy positions outweighed what I felt was consensual activity among adults. I now feel differently....

Today is All Saints' Day, the traditional day upon which Christians remember all the "saints" who have gone before us. And for us, all Christians are saints, maybe not capital S Saints but saints nonetheless. They have held on to this strange faith in a resurrected God for almost 2000 years. So today, of all days, makes me wonder why? In our age of science and reason and over-explanation, why have people hung on to this primitive belief, and more specifically, why do I? We have all heard that there has been a sharp rise in "nones" over the past decade - people who claim no religious faith. Some of these people, atheists,  claim no belief in any supernatural phenomenon, while others are in that nebulous category of "spiritual but not religious." According to Pew Research, these folks make up only about 23% of the American population (much higher in Europe for some reason). So estimating that maybe 10% are the "spiritual" folks instead ...

Let me say at the outset - I mourn for those lost and injured in the Las Vegas shooting on Sunday. I mourn for those targeted in the daily shootings that occur in this country. I cannot minimize or take away the suffering of the victims or their families. But my empathy for the victims of gun violence has led me to, once again, take a look at our society that permits and, yes, encourages these tragedies to happen over and over again. Let me be quite clear and say it quite loudly, in the spirit of the prophets of old - ya got trouble, folks, right here in River City, trouble with a capital I... (OK my parody of old musicals falls flat here)...and that stands for Idolatry. Whether it is the flag or the national anthem or 2nd Amendment or guns themselves, our nation seems to have chosen to revere these "things" over our devotion to God, the Bible, or simple moral decency. In their book, The Altars Where We Worship , Juan Floyd-Thomas, et al., write, "Though we claim to se...

One of my favorite things to do these days is to visit the new wineries that have sprung up like weeds in the Hill Country of Texas. Nothing like sitting out on a patio, enjoying the beautiful countryside, maybe listening to some local musicians, enjoying a new wine. Of course, some of these new wines are pretty dreadful, some our delicious. You never know what you're going to get when it is a "new" wine. Jesus talked about new wine. He warned us about putting new wine in old wineskins, which might burst. He was referring to how new understandings or new teachings cannot fit in our old paradigms. We must shift our paradigms to allow for new understanding. I see his wisdom and agree, but I am also I'm struggling with understanding how something that Jesus said 2000 years ago can still be so "new" to us today. Even in Jesus day, his teachings weren't really new. The prophets, stretching back over a thousand years had been telling the people o...

As I was watching Morning Joe today, a breaking report interrupted the ongoing analysis of the Trump administration and the Russians. Another tragic shooting, just one of many that happen every day in America. But this one made the headlines because members of Congress were intended targets and among the victims. On a baseball field in the middle of a neighborhood in suburban Alexandria, VA, a lone gunman unleashed on a group of Republican congressmen and their staffs as they practiced for a traditional friendly baseball game against the Democrats. One Congressman was among the wounded. The shooter was killed by Capitol police. So familiar. Every time a mass shooting makes the news, we all grieve. Again and again. There is a lot of hand-wringing and yet, no changes are ever regarding one of the leading causes of the problem - the unrestricted accessibility to guns and ammunition in the US. I realize that there are many underlying reasons for gun violence - mental illness, poverty,...

W ell, it's annual conference time again. Annual conference is the yearly (obviously) gathering of representatives, clergy and laity, from all United Methodist churches in regional conclaves called, confusingly, Annual Conferences. The annual conference is a time to celebrate ministry, ordain and commission new pastors, review budgets and do business, and set the direction of the conference for the future. During this time, my Twitter and Facebook feeds are abuzz with tweets and postings from many different conferences around the country. Most are of the self-congratulatory "rah, rah" type - "this worship is soooo inspiring", "wow, our Bishop really understands us", "we are doing such great work in the world." Rarer, however, are comments and reflections on how our church is failing in its mission to love the world, especially by letting down a large and growing percentage of our congregation who are LGBTQ and their allies. It breaks ...

Those of us of a certain age (OK, old-timers) can remember a car commercial from about 20 years ago with the tagline, "This is not your father's Oldsmobile." Apparently, it wasn't anyone's Oldsmobile, as the brand disappeared shortly afterwards. But that phrase kept going through my head for the past 24 hours as I sat and listened to the "rock star" preachers at the Festival of Homiletics in San Antonio. But in my mind, I kept hearing the tagline, "This ain't your Daddy's church." If I could find one theme that bound together the first four speakers that I heard (Rob Bell, Walter Brueggemann, Nadia Bolz-Weber and Amy Butler) it is this: The old paradigm that we have of church and Jesus and Christianity is no longer relevant in today's world. We need to sweep away what is in the past and speak into the future, even if it makes us, or our congregations, uncomfortable. "Do not remember the former things, or consider thing...

I remember my first "sermon". I was 12 years old in St. Joseph, MO and our youth group had decided to do a drama for Youth Sunday. The drama we wrote consisted of three mini-sermons on controversial topics followed by the complaints and comments of fictional congregation members. Then we were going to read the story of Jesus' first recorded public sermon from Luke 4:16-30. We, the young radicals, were going to make the older generation face their own hypocrisy in response to the Gospel. My mini-sermon was on the role of women in ministry. This was 1976 and I had heard that women could be ordained in the United Methodist Church, but I had never seen one in the flesh. The other two mini-sermons were on euthanasia and interfaith dialogue. While I assume that the congregation was kind to our idealistic youthfulness, I do know that I didn't preach again for another 25 years! Standing up in front of a congregation and announcing that you have a word from God can be a ...

  This week, my mind goes to the idea of "purpose." I suppose it is because, after more than six months in Texas, I still don't feel as though I've found a calling. Also, I just spent a great weekend with my family at my son's senior voice recital for college. Listening to him sing, with such obvious joy, I was reminded of the words from the movie Chariots of Fire . In the movie, Eric Liddell, who was training to be a missionary, told his sister, "Jennie, I know God made me for China someday, but he also made me fast. I feel his pleasure when I run." God created each of us for his pleasure, purely out of love. Like a loving parent, I know that God is pleased to see us each find our place in the world. As my children grew up, I often told them that "God has given you each gifts and talents and it is your job to figure out how to use them for the glory of God." It's all part of that "thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven...

I woke up this morning to the news that there had been yet another horrific act of violence, this time in St. Petersburg. And I'm still trying to get my head around the death of so many civilians in a US-led coalition bombing of Mosul last week. And the terrorist incident on Westminster Bridge. Everywhere I turn, I see another example of human beings inflicting terrible violence on their so-called enemies. Even our President has now been accused in court of "inciting violence" with his words. And today in my Scripture study, I read "Do not love the world, or anything in the world." (1 John 2: 15) That seems like an easy instruction for us, in the face of such actions. But how do I reconcile the words of 1 John with the statement, "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son." ? (John 3:16) How am I, as a Christian, supposed to respond to the violence and hate around me? Am I to just give up and declare, "Of course this world is rott...

It's been quite a while since I posted here. Life has gotten pretty busy. I enjoyed a great two week visit back to England, catching up with friends and continuing my quest of visiting every cathedral in England. (As a side note, I have to comment on how friendly English people were the farther north I got. Although, since I couldn't understand their accents, they may have been insulting me with a smile!) But the main reason that I have slacked off lately has been a move to a new house. It is our second move in six months, third in three years. While it is nice to finally be settled for a while (we hope), the act of moving has been a chore. Being empty nesters, my husband and I had thought that we would be downsizing. That, combined with an international move, led us to be ruthless in our purge of things over the last few years. We had to constantly ask ourselves, "Why am I hanging on to this? What purpose is this serving in my life?" Which brings me smack up agai...

Maybe it’s just that I’m over 50 and arthritis is setting in, but today, this verse stuck with me, “Lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees and make straight paths for your feet so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed.” (Hebrews 12: 12-13) Yep, many mornings I have drooping hands and weak knees. Speak to me, God. The metaphor of journey is one of the underlying currents of both the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament – Abraham and Sarah leaving their home and journeying thousands of miles to find the land that God had promised; the Israelites wandering for forty years in the wilderness on the way to their new home; Jesus setting his face toward Jerusalem and beginning the journey toward his death and resurrection; Paul traveling all over the known world to spread the Gospel. It’s all about the journey, folks. We were never meant to stay where we are.  But the writer of Hebrews borrows on the words of Isaiah and John th...