This week in my role as secretary for the neighborhood association I got to take lots of notes about earthquake preparedness. It’s a reality of life here in the Northwest that before too long we’ll experience a major earthquake, likely within the next 50 years or so. The earthquake will be survivable for most of us, especially with a little preparation.
It’s hard not to make a correlation to what’s happening in the United Methodist Church. We know that there is something coming that could be catastrophic, the called General Conference. At this event, the church is talking about how we manage the fact that we disagree about the rules of our polity around homosexuality. Currently, our book of rules holds that gay and lesbian people must be celibate to be clergy and that no clergy can officiate at weddings for same-gender couples. In the west, we have a Bishop who has been married to her wife for many years. I myself recently officiated at a wedding with two grooms last month. We are willfully breaking the rules, so how do we as a church continue to share life together when some of us know that God does not want us to exclude our brothers and sisters?
The church might crack and break. We might be rocked by decisions that mean more exclusion. Or we might find a way to allow for fundamentally different views to coexist within one denomination.
Our Bishop is asking us to prepare spiritually for the General Conference and the aftermath. Instead of stockpiling drinking water and learning the finer points of disaster hygiene we are reading We Make the Road By Walking by Brian McLaren. We’ll start in advent, exploring the scriptures, sharing our stories, and opening our spirits so that no matter what conversations cause us pain, no matter what happens, it’s never a bad idea to ensure that we are grounded together in the God of love.
-Eilidh
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