How About Those Lutherans?

In Cleveland no matter how the Indians were playing, a conversation could always be opened by asking, "So, how about those Indians?"





How about those Lutherans (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America)? On Thursday, August 20, 2009, they voted overwhelmingly for full communion with the United Methodist Church! This will provide more opportunities for working together in communities. I'm particularly hopeful about some of our rural communities where we could share clergy (UMC has had ELCA clergy but not the other way around). It was a great and celebratory event!

But you may not have heard about it on the news because on Friday, August 21, 2009, they voted that gay clergy could be placed on the roster for pastoral leadership in churches. The vote passed with the support of 68 percent of about 1,000 delegates at the ELCA's national assembly here in Minneapolis. It makes the group, with about 4.7 million members in the U.S., one of the largest U.S. Christian denominations yet to take a more gay-friendly stance.



While I was in attendance at the ELCA Assembly for their hearings and vote (and ultimately celebration) on being in full communion with the United Methodist Church, I heard some of their debate and marveled at their impassioned but not nasty discourse around homosexuality (at least what I heard). Their manner of being together didn't suggest to me that they will quickly or easily split or leave. They are also far more identified individually as Lutherans than we usually are as United Methodists. I wonder what that will mean for their way forward together as one.

I think that it's significant that the ELCA made this decision because they're the church of the "fly-over states." Lutherans are so mid-America, and not just geographically. What does this say about the American, Christian viewpoint on homosexuality, if anything?

Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson writes, following the vote, that "we meet one another finally--not in our agreements or our disagreements--but at the foot of the cross, where God is faithful, where Christ is present with us, and where, by the power of the Holy Spirit, we are one in Christ." He affirmed the way in which the Assembly made the decision rather than the decision, but asked that those who "lament" and those who "rejoice" at it will continue to be in conversation and relationship with each other "for together we have been called to proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ and engage in God's mission for the life of the world."

As United Methodist, we state that we will not ordain or appoint self-avowed, practicing homosexuals in our Church. We have people who have left because of this stance and also those who agree with the stance.




I had recently resolved to try to write a new blog entry for peoples' reflections and conversations on a more regular basis and it was time to write one. I wasn't going to write about the Lutherans, but then I read that good leadership doesn't allow an elephant to sit in the room! How could I ask a provoking question for people to reflect on when this decision has just happened?



I'm wondering how this decision should or could shape our own discussions on homosexuality. What can we learn from both their decision and how they made their decision? How does this decision impact us and our churches?



WDYT?

(Please remember the rules of engagement for civil discourse and I urge you to post your thoughts for others as opposed to writing me privately.)

WWJWS?

What would John Wesley say about our present debate about health care (WWJWS)? Our own, Steve Manskar, reminds us on his Facebook page what John Wesley said and did about health care in his own time. If you're on Facebook, you can find his quotes from "A Plain Account of the People Called Methodists" on this subject matter at http://www.facebook.com/n/?note.php&note_id=115822479323&mid=ee6c1bG1ee3e4a1G28f49fcGa.

Suffice it to say, John Wesley spent a good share of his time, personal finances, and Christian commitment in providing health care for the poor in England.

I've heard economists and those knowledgeable about health care remark that there hasn't been enough dialogue about what the changes should be made in health care. The Mayo and Cleveland Clinics have been raised as exemplary places to provide a more wholistic approach to health care; less individual providers with less than 20 minutes to work in their silo of medicine on our complicated and interconnected bodies. Could health care be more wholistic for all of us?

The town hall meetings that we are hearing about in the news with legislators and the President of the United States going out into the country don't exactly sound like a dialogue to me. Why the anger? What are we afraid of?

Why the misinformation? My own mother admits to getting many emails a day (her harddrive crashed so not so many right now!) about "pulling the plug on grandma," etc. Whose fueling that? Could it be the health insurance companies themselves? Could it be those who stand to make a lot of money off of us if we don't make changes?

How's your health insurance working for you now? Even those on Medicare (a government-run health provider). I'm sure it's not perfect, but something must be done in order to reduce costs but also to provide better care.

Do we have to link employment with health insurance? The history of that is that benefits were given instead of salary increases. That appears to be the case again today, at least for clergy! And of course the disaster is that when one is no longer employed, one is also off health insurance. Several members of my own family don't have health insurance right now because they don't have jobs. This isn't about someone else. This is about us and if it's not affecting us directly now, it affects us indirectly. Presently it's causing some local churches to really struggle in providing benefits for clergy. The issue isn't that clergy shouldn't have benefits, but that benefits shouldn't be so exorbitant.

Now you probably think that I'm "playing politics," but let me direct you to the Social Principles in our Book of Discipline which state in part: "Providing the care needed to maintain health, prevent disease, and restore health after injury or illness is a responsibility each person owes others and government owes all, a responsibility government ignores at its peril..health care is best funded through the government's ability to tax each person equitably and directly fund the provider entities...We believe it is a governmental responsiblity to provide all citizens with health care." (Par. 162.V, 2008 Book of Discipline).

So why aren't we more adamant about health care for all as United Methodists? What can we do? WWJWS?

Please feel free to express your opinions but I expect that you will respond differently from "the world," and I hope we can have a conversation based on our faith and not just our politics!

WDYT?

Sally Dyck

Is It a Teachable Moment?

Four characters living out the drama of racism in America in the headlines.



Professor Henry Louis Gates, a prominent Harvard professor, returns home from a long trip and can't get the door of his house open. Enlisting the aid of his cab driver, he tries to push the door open. He identified himself as the owner and yet seems to have lost his temper. Would you if someone was still questioning you in your own house?



A neighbor, Lucia Whalen, responds to the request of an elderly neighbor who saw the men tryiing to get into the house by calling the police. Is she being a good neighbor to the elderly woman or her community when someone sees something unusual?



A well-respected police officer, Sargent James Crowley, responds to a 911 call. He is a trainer for helping prevent racial profiling. What overrode his own training in the heat of the moment?



The President of the United States hears about the incident and comments in such a way that ratchets the conversation. Later he reflects a little on what it's like to be a black man in America and calls it a "teachable moment."



Later today they are all, except the woman who called 911, expected to have a beer together in Washington. I think it's good modeling that they will sit down together and I hope we'll have enough of a window on the conversation to allow it to truly be a "teachable moment" in how to talk about racism.



In a predominantly Euro-American state with our diversity in many different ethnic and racial groups, it's easy for us as Minnesotans to ignore the realities of racism. And yet every day there are incidents in our own state with our neighbors who are Native Americans, Hmong, Hispanic, African, African American and the rest of our emerging diversity of peoples. Our neighbors are literally next door to us in all of our neighborhoods as individuals and as churches. Many of our churches are located in neighborhoods filled with people who don't look like those of us worshiping in the buildings.



How are we making this headline news item a "teachable moment?" What do we have to learn from this incident? And what do we have to teach from it as Christians and in the context of gathering as people of faith for worship, Bible study and prayer? What are we saying? How are we praying?



Is it a teachable moment?



WDYT?

Where's Your Shack?

I'm baaaaaaaack! I just needed a little hiatus there for a bit and now I'm back wanting to hear from you on all sorts of things.



I recently read (on my iPod) the popular fiction entitled, The Shack, by William Paul Young. The reason I read it was because I saw all these people in the airport and on airplanes reading it and I thought I might have an interesting conversation about it if I had actually read it. I didn't expect to like it...



But I did! I was also reading the book of Job at the same time and so I like to say that the story line is really "Job meets the Triune God"! A man suffers a terrible tragedy and then finds himself going to the place where the tragedy occurred: a shack. In many respects the season of Lent is about going to our shack, wherever that is that is hardest for us to believe in the living God.



At the shack, he has an encounter with God that doesn't meet his expectations about just who God is and how God relates to humanity. Finally God says to him, "This weekend is not about reinforcing your religious stereotypes!" There couldn't be better advice about what will help us relate to God differently than to let go of our "religious stereotypes" at time. Isn't that the story of Easter morning? There's nothing in John 20 with Mary Magdalene encountering the living Christ that was reinforcing her religious stereotypes!

However, I know that the way in which God is revealed to the man at the shack is disturbing to some. I found it rather refreshing! I have always believed that our images of God are what draw us closer or farther away. How can we know God's love if the image of God that we have is less than loving to us?



I also find myself adopting a few phrases from the book. I like the way God is forever saying, "I'm especially fond of you" or whoever God is talking about at the time. Remniscent of "you are my beloved child," this phrase reminds us that God is especially fond of us...and everyone else for that matter! (Honestly, it becomes a catchy phrase!)



The images of life after death or heaven--whatever that was with rainbow like auras--didn't do so much for me but I think we're all challenged to think about what life beyond this life is...for the purpose of living this life. The man in the story had to confront his relationships with others who had already died so that he could truly live. It's a story of transformation.



Not bad theology overall but like "Jesus movies" that pop up every now and again, when we read or see our images of God or Jesus or the Holy Spirit a little differently, it makes us think...and rethink just who God is in our lives. Not a bad thing...



So, have you read the book? WDYT?

We, the People

We have elected a new president of the United States of America. With the election of Barack Obama, many place high hopes for change across our land and world.



What are your hopes?



What role does the Church play in providing a prophetic witness to the new Obama administration and to us as nation?



Some did not vote for Barack Obama. What are your hopes (this is an appreciative inquiry)?



As a nation, whether we voted for Obama or not, we are called to be one people. After all it says, "we, the people," not "he, the president." What do you hope "we, the people" will be and do as a nation in these next weeks, months, and years, rooted in our faith and lived out in our nation?



It's a critical time in our nation's history. WDYT?

Has Tuesday Finally Come?

All day that silly saying of Wimpy's from the Popeye cartoons of my childhood keeps coming to mind, "I'll gladly pay you on Tuesday for a hamburger today."

I don't know, but I wonder if it was funny 40-50 years ago because nobody would give anybody a hamburger today if you weren't going to pay them until next Tuesday. Now it seems that we have built our society on the expectation that we can have all the hamburgers we want and don't have to pay for them until the next and then the next and then the next Tuesday.

So has our Tuesday finally come as a nation or at least on Wall Street?

First it was Bear Stearns, then Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, then Lehman Brothers, and then Merrill Lynch (described as Wall Street meeting Main Street, USA). Where will it all lead?

I don't have a business or financial background so I can't fully analyze and extrapolate all that is going on, but it seems like there are some questions to consider and lessons to be learned.

A few of my questions today as Wall Street reels:

Is this as simple as greed?

Where was the leadership in these companies? What were their principles of operation that led them to this place?

What does this suggest to us as a church? Will anyone speak of it in worship this Sunday? Or any Sunday? (Maybe that's why I'm hoping some of you can lend your expertise in analysis, especially how that analysis might impact our faith.)

Clif Christopher is coming to the Minnesota Annual Conference on September 23 at St. Andrew's Church in Eden Prairie and I'll be interested in how he addresses stewardship in light of these economic times; things have changed economically since he was here last fall. How is it impacting your fall stewardship campaign if at all?

Furthermore, what is the unique voice of the Christian faith in these financial times?

WDYT?

The Middle Ages in the Church Today

I've spent some time with family this summer and as a result, I've been immersed in young adult culture and then older adult culture (as in 75+). At first I was thinking these two cultures are on a collision course but I've decided it's more like they are going in opposite directions, never to meet unless something really brings them together.



I found young adults to be more disconnected to the church than I even I had imagined. What we care about as the institutional church is so far off their radar of concern. But it's not that they don't have expectations of the church. In fact, they're deeply disappointed that we talk but we don't walk what they expect the church to be: a community that cares about people other than ourselves. That's kind of the bottom line: we care too much about ourselves and not others, especially those who are different from ourselves, the environment, and the global issues of our day.



My immersion with older was a little disconcerting, too. Change is about the last thing they want--in the church or politics. For instance, my cousin's daughter who is 14 came to a family gathering. No one quite expected her to make the 2 hours trip in the car but she came. Shouldn't we be delighted that she did? Shouldn't we be all over her in terms of making her feel welcome? Instead the girl hennas her hair and later all I heard was that she hennas her hair. Who cares? In my immersion with young adults in San Francisco, I never saw so many tattoos in my entire life in such a short time. I had to get over myself on that one! Yet these older adults can't figure out why younger people won't go to church! But the look on their faces would make any young adult think twice, not to mention my cousin's 14-year-old!



When I got home the other day from the most recent foray into family immersions, I began to wonder, what is the role of people my age? Baby boomers. I'm thinking specifically in terms of the church.



Do we ask the right questions of both groups?

How are we part of the problem? Or the solution?

Do we advocate for one group or the other?

Do we try to bring these totally alien groups together?

Do we align with one or the other?



I was talking to one of my young adult relatives and she said, "You have to just go with the young people...but then I suppose that's hard for the old people." Yes, my dear, that's the dilemma.



So, I'm wondering. How do you experience these two diverse age groups? As one of them or someone like me in the middle.



Frankly, I've never felt so middle aged as I have at the end of this summer after my immersions with the two age groups! And the church is definitely in the grips of middle age--trying to negotiate between these two very diverse age groups.


WDYT?