As we celebrated the birthday of our country we find many reasons to be proud. Our outsized impact on the last century is no better remembered them the 75 anniversary of D day recently celebrated. We find ourselves entangled when we study the history of our country. Intertwined is the history of our denomination.
The first thing we need to understand that methodism is not a church. Methodism is a movement. The founders would not recognize the top down oriented United Methodist Church. This movement was a flame across the entire British empire. Burning bright at times it traveled at the speed of people. In our connected modern world we find it hard to imagine news traveling at such a liesurly pace.
The flame reached Euclid, Ohio by 1821 we had formed our class. Gathered as always by the Methodist movement the people the church of England left behind. The people no one thought of gathered themselves and started thinking for themselves.
Here we are where I often find myself watching a movement become an institution. We almost envy Sisyphus his clear task. What gave Nottingham it's greatest strength was the spirit brought from people outside of every institution. The people left behind.
Unlike the wealthy and powerful Sadducees, the Pharisees rejected the luxuries of Greco-Roman culture and refused to swear loyalty to Herod the great and the Romans. They sought to protect Israel's identity. They were waiting for a messiah just not one that welcomed the unclean and sinner. In being so proud of what they didn't do. They failed to do the one thing that would set them free. The institution crumbled and is remembered for being too rigid and by most as evil. They didn't have a good memory and lost their way. They didn't recognize those people left behind. They saw only fault in them.
We will always have the poor is not actually an order. It is a reminder I think now. When things are at their worst there are still people with you. Never too late and in so many ways easier to call on the power of our Lord. Oppression creates community and struggle new faith.
When things are going well sometimes no news is good news with the Lord. Often when things go well we forget the poor are there. They become a distant thing. First we must discuss what is a class.
What we know of as Nottingham began with a small number of people. They were most likely not involved in the formal church. This was a provence that an old movement had arrived begun back in days of empire. Looking back one hundred years we see the development of methodism.
The class meeting made sure that every Methodist was connected to every other methodists so no one was over looked, left out, or ignored. Rev Kevin Watson notes, "they relentlessly focused every Methodist on the current state of their relationship with God. And they connected people to others who were at different stages of Christian Life."
John Wesley believed we should do no harm and avoid evil of every kind. Do go to all the people and attend the ordinances of God like participating in worship, taking communion, reading the Bible and more.
People saw that their formal church of England wasn't working for everybody. They rightly reasoned that if they didn't do something no one would. They first came to this continent with a zeal to convert the native inhabitants. So much success rippled out that eventually it would trickle down Euclid Creek and our family founded by outsiders left behind by every institution.
As the new country grew so did the church finally building buildings and embracing institution. With institution comes compromise. We had a one church plan then too. The movement clearly saw the the unique evil of American slavery but compromised and let each conference go their own way.
If the United Methodist institution had any institutional memory it would have marketed the one church plan as the traditional plan. It is with lack of institutional memory that we had the traditional plan proposed to deal with same sex marriage fighting against the really traditional one church plan.
That house divided could not stand either. Our civil war was as much in our denomination as our country.
The real traditional plan of institutional methodists. The answer to growth compromise. What institutions do till they can't no more. We tried everything we could to not deal with reality till we had a civil war. It solved fewer problems than it created but it answered that one.
It is weakness that created great strength. The times the church was strongest the community was strongest. Jobs and money to be made where ever you looked. A strong institution sent help and money out of the community. The cups were full and the saucers as well.
There was an empire stage of our church history. We this benevolent institution. There are still people around who remember and long for this period. The funny thing is this was the least Methodist our church ever was in my mind. We were the grand institution full pews with no more room at the inn. And strangers new that.
People are people so many things were the same. People studied the Bible. There is always cake. Good times breed complacency. We lived off those good times for many years. A whole generation of people in nursing homes sent tithes to our church. Every year a few less. Times got harder. Fortune 500 companies left this neighborhood don't forget. The freeway ripped the heart out of the neighborhood. Those companies leaving marking the end of empire.
Well as Jesus noted we always have the poor. This other parallel with America.
"Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore, Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
I remember my grandfather's words:
Our experience of life may seem to us to be of a personal and private character. But they are more than that, they are a passkey into the lives of others... Life has not been easy for any of us. Yet we are here alive, in securtiy, and as the world goes, in great comfort. Our happy circumstances might prompt us to be content with pitying the rest of the world. But that temper that thought will never get us far. There is in our humanity some proper pride, some deep-rooted self-respect which prompts the comeback, "I don't want your pity. I prefer to do without it."
These words of my grandfather's from 1965 echo many things to me. Surely you can hear the whispers of institution. There is no great evil in them, but there is no where to go. Don't be surprised my friends when they start to crumble. They are easy to create. We just speak them in to existence, Space Force for example.
There is a cosmic cycle it is clear. Why do you suppose God made the universe so large? Even the Earth is itself a big enough universe for me, but out there being what you would expect there are resources and energies we have not truly come to understand.
We are creatures of experience. We build great things. From the tower at Babel to the machines leaving our solar system. We destroy great things. We have filled every inch of this planet with plastic.
I wonder in such a universe as ours why intelligent life doesn't blossom all around. Perhaps every time these really smart creature discover plastic and love it so much they poison their only home. I do not know that we have poisoned our planet to the point of no return but we sure seem to be trying.
What is evil in this world is short term. This my faith brings me. There isn't really any debate about the new covenant as I like to say, in some cases it is just being written. In the long run Jesus reminds us we will always have the poor. There will always be work. There will always be institutions that need destroyed and built.
What I would like to ask here now is that we need to have long term memories in our institutions. This is transparency at its very nature. We certainly are not to blame. There has never been a human institution with a memory. So I work where I am able and know why we seek the kingdom of God and the book of Life.
Methodism was created with the understanding that institutions would never be the answer, as John Wesley Prophesied, "I am not afraid that the people called methodists should ever cease to exist... But I am afraid lest they should only exist as a dead sect, having the form of religion without the power. And this undoubtedly will be the case unless they hold fast both the doctrine, spirit, and discipline with which they first set out.
In closing, I would argue this real worry would only be possible in an institution build by guess who. Humans. This may be the fatal flaw in our hearts. I have encountered no greater problems in my half century.
And here we are with Jesus as our institutions crumble because that is what they do. We have the poor, all those left behind. We can keep them up and we will be caught up. We will build great institutions to crumble and be replaced until that day our dear Lord takes us home.
I would like to offer a prayer that umcor asked us to share last week in solidarity with migrant children. Since I was commissioned in this church many years ago to work with them, and while they have little memory they have good people. Let us remember we are all God's children.
Let us pray,
God of All Children Everywhere,
Our hearts are bruised when we see children suffering alone.
Our hearts are torn when we are unable to help.
Our hearts are broken when we have some complicity in the matter.
For all the times we were too busy and shooed a curious child away,
forgive us, oh God.
For all the times we failed to get down on their level and look eye to eye with a child,
forgive us, oh God.
For all the times we did not share when we saw a hungry child somewhere in the world,
forgive us, oh God.
For all the times we thought about calling elected officials to demand change, but did not,
forgive us, oh God.
For all the times we thought that caring for the children of this world was someone else’s
responsibility, forgive us, oh God.
With Your grace, heal our hearts.
With Your grace, unite us in action.
With Your grace, repair our government.
With Your grace, help us to find a way to welcome all children everywhere,
That they may know that Jesus loves them,
Not just because “the Bible tells them so,”
But because they have known Your love in real and tangible ways,
And they know that nothing, absolutely nothing, can separate them from Your love.
Amen.
Nottingham 7/7/2019
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