Not in Some Heaven Lightyears Away: Revelation 21:1-6

 Sixth Sunday of Easter

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,

“See, the home of God is among mortals.
He will dwell with them;
they will be his peoples,
and God himself will be with them and be their God;
he will wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain will be no more,
for the first things have passed away.”

And the one who was seated on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true.” Then he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life. (NRSVUE)

 

          You may have noticed that The United Methodist Church is having a time of it lately.  At the request of several members here, I am taking this time to unpack some of what’s been happening with the rise of the Global Methodist Church, the language of schism or separation, and how The United Methodist Church will continue to fulfill the mission of making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.  This is less a sermon on Revelation 21 than a message on the state of the Church threaded through with Revelation 21.  Fair warning.

          The main topic of disagreement among what has become the factions of the UMC is human sexuality.  I am not using this time to lay out the theology of why being gay and being Christian are not in opposition; there are plenty of books that do that incredibly well and I am willing to point you to them if you are interested.  This is about how we are responding to that difference.

          Human sexuality is not the only reason for the divide, but it is the one with the most force.  Ideas about the purpose of the Church, the nature of God, the objective of the crucifixion, and the role of women in faith spaces are also part of the conversation about who and what the Church is, but sexuality is a catalyst.  We are by no means the first denomination to hit this impasse; the Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and Lutherans have already done it.  The Church of the Brethren and the Mennonite Church are going through it with us.  Growing awareness and acceptance of LGBTQ people is pushing Christians to reevaluate whether what we say we believe is really what God calls us to hold dear.

          It is not a sudden thing, however.  This conversation began, at least in the UMC, when the 1972 General Conference gathered to discuss an addition to our brand-new Social Principles as recommended by a legislative committee.  The recommended language read, “We declare our acceptance of homosexuals as persons of sacred worth and we welcome them into the fellowship of the church.  Further, we insist that society ensure their human and civil rights.”[1]

          After a great deal of debate, amendments, amendments to the amendments, fights, fears, and worries about the possible splitting of the Church—yes, even back then when the UMC was four years old—the voting body eventually passed the language that “We insist that all persons are entitled to have their human and civil rights ensured, though we do not condone the practice of homosexuality and consider this practice incompatible with Christian teaching.”[2]

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “See, the home of God is among mortals. / He will dwell with them; / they will be his peoples, / and God himself will be with them and be their God; / he will wipe every tear from their eyes.”

John’s letter of revelation to the churches scattered through the Roman Empire that urged the hope of a kingdom ruled not by Caesar but by God is a fascinating frame for this conversation about who the UMC is becoming.  The Church, I will say every day until I die, is not God, but we can hope for it to be of God.  We get caught up in our own attempt to understand just how it is that God will dwell with us—and who that “us” is.  It is so very human to want to know who is in and who is out so we can make sure we’re doing what is needed to be in.  We get so focused on making sure we are in the new heaven and the new earth that we stop seeing the one that exists right now where God is already with us, where the Spirit dwells among us in the holy Presence that came at Pentecost and has not left since.  John was not telling the churches to get their passports ready; he was pointing out that all earthly empires end, eventually, and God will be there no matter what new fight arises.

          In our struggles in the UMC, we have been having variations of the same fight since that 1972 conference.  In 2012, two pieces of legislation were brought to the assembly to say that we have different ideas rather than that we blanket do not condone homosexuality.  One was from Adam Hamilton—yes, the one whose book the men’s club is reading.  The amendment “proposed a substitution…that sought to clarify that United Methodists disagree on whether homosexual practice is contrary to the will of God and urged unity over division and respect for co-existence.”[3]  It did not pass; we could not even agree to disagree.

          In 2016, the focus on the growing disconnect around sexuality was so intense that it was keeping the assembly from doing any of the other work before it.  The Council of Bishops declared that all matters of sexuality would be shelved until a special called conference in 2019.  At the 2019 conference, impassioned pleas from all sides wondered if the UMC really could stick together.  The legislation from that conference passed by narrow voting margins even more punitive language against homosexuality, leading to most of the American annual conferences that year either ignoring or very publicly denying the outcomes.  Later uncoverings of vote tampering in several African and American South conferences put the UMC in the international news in a bad way, painting a picture of the Church as every bit as manipulative as the American political system.

          It became clear that not all theologies would stay under the UMC name, so several ideas for how to split were put forward for the 2020 General Conference.  Then, COVID, so it was postponed to 2021.  COVID wasn’t done and virtual wasn’t possible for thousands of delegates, some living in places with spotty internet access, so it was pushed to 2022.  COVID is still not done but also there were issues about traveling visas for all the delegates from other countries coming here to the United States.  The Commission on the General Conference decided to push it off again; General Conference is now scheduled for the late summer of 2024.  The conservative factions decided they could not wait that long and announced that they were leaving the denomination to form the Global Methodist Church.  The GMC officially began on May 1, two weeks ago.

          And the one who was seated on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new.”

          Eugene Boring points out that “God does not make ‘all new things,’ but ‘all things new.’”[4]  No matter what name is on our letterhead or our membership pins, we still stand on the shoulders of thousands of years of Christian history and tradition.  As Methodists, we honor tradition as one of the main ways we are to interpret the will of God, right alongside our own experience, the words of Scripture, and our God-given reason.  The Church has changed and changed again, human institution that it is, and God works with that.  God keeps working with the reality that we are figuring it out, we who do not have all of the knowledge about everything, so God takes what we offer and makes it new, makes it work, makes it holy. 

          All of that is an extremely rough and quick overview of how we got here.  But where is “here”?

          It’s actually not that much different than it was on April 30, honestly, at least not yet.  The UMC is, of course, an organization—an organization established in North America, southeast Asia, Europe, and Africa with some 12 million members.[5]  That’s more than the entire population of Ohio.[6]  It’s going to take time for anything that sizable to make a shift.

          There are also some realities to consider about what that shift will be: the Global Methodist Church is not a split of The United Methodist Church.  The UMC has not split.  There is nothing official happening here in terms of membership reorganization; such things have to happen at the level of annual conferences or the general conference.  The GMC is simply another denomination that exists in the plethora of denominations, and any UMC congregation can vote to disaffiliate to join them in the same way that they would for a Presbyterian or Baptist or Lutheran or nondenominational change.  That is an important thing to hold:  there is no moment when UMC congregations will have to choose to stay.  The choice is to leave; a congregation has to formally ask to leave the denomination; no one is getting kicked out.

          Once a congregation votes to leave the UMC with a two-thirds majority at a formal church conference presided over by the district superintendent—not led by the pastor—then the question becomes one of property.  All local churches hold their buildings in trust for the denomination, an agreement that’s been in place since 1796.  At the 2019 special conference, legislation was passed for churches wishing to disaffiliate from the UMC specifically over matters of human sexuality.  When a church leaves, they can retain their property after they pay 50% of the assessed value of that property, a full year of mission shares beyond their disaffiliation date, any unfunded pension liability for that year of their pastor, any unpaid mission shares from the previous year, and any outstanding loans from the conference.  Any external debts must be transferred to the congregation itself and be in the name of that new church; any endowments given for the benefit of The United Methodist Church must be returned to the donor or the donors’ heirs; and the church will no longer be able to use the United Methodist name, logo, or IRS nonprofit status.  The congregation will be responsible for finding its own pastoral leadership and then paying for that leader out of their own funds.[7]

          Pastors can leave the UMC to join the GMC, again in the same vein as we can leave to join any other denomination, but as soon as we begin conversation with a new denomination we forfeit our ordination in the UMC and all of the insurance, housing, and pension benefits that come with it. 

          Also he said, “Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true.” Then he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life.”

          This is hard.  This is hard stuff, this wrenching apart from each other, because the Church was meant to be a unifying force.  When we are brokenhearted, we want very much to hear of a place where there is no pain, where God dwells with humankind and freely gives water from a life-giving spring.  There is nothing wrong with that; God wants our joy, our healing, our wholeness, and it is right and good that we should want the same.  God offers community in the open invitation of our restoration, but we as the Church need to allow ourselves the grace to admit that the new heaven isn’t here yet.  This is where we are, we United Methodist, in this space of navigating what it means to be faithful in the world, what it means to follow God when we have very different ideas of where God is leading.  It is why our communities of faith are so important—here we come to learn, to ask questions, to deepen our connection to the Spirit Who calls us to love, and love deeply.

          I don’t know how this will end up playing out.  I don’t know what our own Annual Conference will look like at the beginning of June, a conference that has several motions about what relationship we will hold with churches who decide to leave the Michigan conference of The United Methodist Church.  But I do know that God is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the now and the ever-always.  I believe in the presence and power of Christ to continue the work of grace in the world even if all we as the Church do is make it harder.

          If you have questions about this that you want to ask of me, you’re welcome to email me or call the office.  I can’t guarantee that I have answers, but I will try my best to connect you to whomever does if I do not.  I encourage you to talk with friends and to pray about where you stand on this because it does affect you, even if not directly.  Someone you know is directly impacted by these conversations about value and welcome and we who are called to the ministry of love need to be able to be with those who are hurting with at least some awareness of what’s happening.

          This is a long conversation, already longer than my entire life, and it will not be solved tomorrow.  But God is in the midst of it, dwelling among us, and in that we anchor ourselves.  Thanks be to God for it.

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