There was only ever one rule I ever learned in church. Do all the good you can. By all the means you can. In all the ways you can. In all the places you can. At all the times you can. To all the people you can. As long as you can.
I first worked for the global board in Bosnia in 1995. The Methodist Church was a global creation. We didn't really have an agenda. We did what we got money for. In many ways we were implementing United States foreign policy initiatives. You would think that would be something consistent. You would be wrong. I've seen funding priorities change faster than the wind. Real successful initiatives and useless ones would both be abandoned.
International development is a good gig, but the truth is a program that helps 10,000 people and one that helps 10 people looks pretty much the same on paper. They will cost about the same. Things are hard to change because of inertia.
Things just happen. We call the Magary Hungarians, because they were fierce warriors and reminded people of the Huns. Inertia, we call the country Hungary due to inertia. Large operations we described now as too big to fail. They have inertia really. Big companies and big non profit. In each people go home with their pay.
Good things can be problems too. Our families and friends; our loved ones we want to help. We get wide elbows. When I was working for the global board I learned about upscaling. Taking a small good idea and making it a large good idea. It is what we can't do. What no one has done. Why our institutions lose their connection with our humanity.
I came to Bosnia as the eleventh employee. We were a family and we did remarkable work. We got more money. We hired 100 more people and we were a mess.
We got the first million dollar grant for the global board. We were given outsized responsibility. What attracted increased funding is exactly what we could not reproduce in our upscaling. I was young at the time. I was surprised it was such an intractable problem. I thought once you identified the problem you were on the road to fixing things.
I've always been optimistic. In fifth grade in Euclid schools they told me about mistakes of the past and how they would be fixed by bussing kids to our school the next year. It made sense. But it took me a long time to learn that is not how things work.
We know women make less then men. You ask me that is a problem. Nobody has the first idea to address the issue. People are better at identifying than fixing. So people talk of a crisis in the Methodist Church.
People talk about the growth of the church. People talk as if upscaling is easy. I'm not really surprised it took me so long to learn this lesson. We had a little good thing and it seemed growth is the point of little good things. Babies become parents. Seeds become trees. We want to share.
We take it as a point of pride that the Methodist Church has grown into a global body. We see quantity before quality. Quantity is easy to see and be proud. In Bosnia we gave people cement mix without sand and gravel just because one of the new 100 hires didn't know you needed sand and gravel to make cement. A friend of mine asked a question and he was fired. No one cared about that error. There were no consequences beyond our beneficiaries somehow managing to get sand and gravel on their own. We gave them a big bunch of help. We would have given them sand and gravel if it wasn't for that one human error. I mean a plane didn't crash so no one except those of us who did it will ever know. It was also the kind of mistakes that the earlier smaller organization would not have made. Or at the least we would have fixed easily working on a smaller scale. We had ordered and delivered on a whole new scale. There was no fixing this error or recognition even.
I start to wonder if methodism has not also reached this point where classical economics calls diminishing returns.
I don't really wish to debate the issues of this crisis of methodism. The decision was wrong. If you don't agree I would be happy to show you your error.
What I really want to point out is that the current situation is a symptom of the old problem of upscaling. How do you take a small good idea and make it a large good idea? We don't have the answer but we can quantify diminishing returns.
Again I interchange terms. If you are not familiar with diminishing returns it is easy enough to image. So say you have a nice factory with four machines and you manufacture widgets. It would seem reasonable to think that if you had eight machines you would make twice as much money. For a short time this may hold true, but things get more complicated and involve more people and things get messy and we see as we add more capacity we might actually start to decrease profits. This is diminishing returns. In many instances adding capacity to our institutions can actually reduce their impact
Inertia is also easy enough to describe. I worked ten years with another larger organization Catholic charities. They do some good work. They get large grants. When they have problems every once in awhile funders have second thoughts about giving them money, but the question becomes who will they give the money to. Funders see that Catholic charities is flawed, but it is up and running. The funders almost need Catholic charities more. Inertia. Things in motion tend to stay in motion. Things at rest, like new innovative projects, tend to stay at rest.
So I wonder here why we don't think about these things in our connectional church. Why does everyone assume it would be better if there are more methodists. This is contrary to everything we know.
We seem to agree to blame the church outside America. I find it a bit strange that methodists would say they don't want to be lectured by Americans. In my experience the Methodist Church had used it's connection to America to inspire people around the world to be Methodist. If there is a country our global board has more of a presence in then America I am unaware of it. In the Balkans I've seen the connection with America inspire Methodist Churches to form. In our own district we have a project in Liberia because we have a Liberian pastor working here. Things come down to people. I'm not aware of any out reach by the methodists from other countries into ours.
To say methodism doesn't have a special relationship with America is strange. We need a market place for ideas. Why would backward ideas not be fought.
My grandfather's words come to me,
"How often too we write false thinking into custom, what a tyrant habit can become. When people do the same thing long enough it becomes tradition, and we pass it on from father to son as an accepted rule of life. Behind us are generations in which men held certain notions and followed certain behavior patterns, and walked so long in the same crooked paths that they inspired us to walk in those crooked paths, too, until now we have not only our own sin to conquer, but the sins of our ancestors as well. Call it heredity, call it race memory, call it original sin, call it anything you like it is there. Some one has said that every man is an omnibus in which all his ancestors are riding. This is why so many of our notions are false out dated and wrong."
The first time I read those words I loved the idea of an omnibus in which all my ancestors are riding. Reminds me of our church and the completed circle here behind me. But it wasn't meant to be so nice. Our ancestors are why we are here and they are amazing, but they are also why we are wrong. Why bussing didn't solve anything in Euclid. Why women will make less money next week still.
He also wrote:
"What we have in Christianity is not a new philosophy about human suffering, nor an explanation for its mystery, but rather a way of facing it to make it productive and to turn it's tyranny into a ministry. Jesus was not spared pain---neither did he avoid it, instead He spoke through His pain to tell us that God suffered too--that he enters into our lives when it is darkest. He is telling us not merely to endure pain, but to use it, to make it an instrument of redemption."
What did you expect Dad? I guess I didn't think they would turn a ministry into a tyranny. I spoke to my daughter about this new crisis in methodism. She said, "what did you expect Dad!" I've always been optimistic I guess. But her words rung true to me. Given inertia. Given dimishing returns. Giving everyone's belief in growth. Crisis is what I expect.
Growth at all costs seems to be the goal. It seems strange for your church to share a goal with cancer.
The rainbow we find in Genesis 9
8 Then God spoke to Noah and to his sons with him, saying, 9 “Now behold, I am establishing My covenant with you and with your descendants after you 10 and with every living creature that is with you—the birds, the livestock, and the wild animals of the earth along with you, of everything that comes out of the ark—every living creature of the earth. 11 I will establish My covenant with you: Never again shall all flesh be cut off by the water of a flood, nor shall there ever again be a flood to destroy and ruin the earth.” 12 And God said, “This is the token of the [solemn] covenant which I am making between Me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations; 13 I set My rainbow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of a covenant between Me and the earth. 14 It shall come about, when I bring clouds over the earth, that the rainbow shall be seen in the clouds, 15 and I will [compassionately] remember My covenant, which is between Me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and never again will the water become a flood to destroy all flesh. 16 When the rainbow is in the clouds and I look at it, I will [solemnly] remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” 17 And God said to Noah, “This [rainbow] is the sign of the covenant (solemn pledge, binding agreement) which I have established between Me and all flesh upon the Earth."
And we find the rainbow in this crisis of the Methodist Church. Love is love. Never have I ever cared what a pastor of Nottingham did in their bedroom. Never occurred to wonder let alone call a world gathering. Well, a parts of the world gathering.
What did I expect? I used to think things got better. I learned everything could be worse. There is no easy way to learn that. You know what I cared about? People who cared about me. There is no secret to us. We are social. It does take all kinds. Life is a package deal.
Why do you suppose God made this covenant with Noah? We each have to find our own reasons.
We find in Genesis 6
5 The Lord saw that the wickedness (depravity) of man was great on the earth, and that every imagination or intent of the thoughts of his heart were only evil continually. 6 The Lord [c]regretted that He had made mankind on the earth, and He was [deeply] grieved in His heart. 7 So the Lord said, “I will destroy (annihilate) mankind whom I have created from the surface of the earth—not only man, but the animals and the crawling things and the birds of the air—because it [deeply] grieves Me [to see mankind’s sin] and I regret that I have made them.” 8 But Noah found favor and grace in the eyes of the Lord.
God almost gave up on us. This rainbow symbolism is what I want to finish talking about here with you. I might have to debate the points of the crisis. For me this sanctuary is for all with no qualifications. There are no tests here beyond what God gives you. May not be the best way to run an organization but that is not for today. It's why we aren't an organization. We been a church for two hundred years. I'm not a big fan of organized religion, why I love my church.
It is the connections the rainbow brings. Bringing different groups together. Why we are a connectional church. You need everybody in a revolution. It is what makes them work. When the coal miners stop digging regimes change. The new covenant was never voted on. There were no committees or expense reports.
In Hebrews we find it quoted
I will imprint My laws upon their minds [even upon their innermost thoughts and understanding],
And engrave them upon their hearts [effecting their regeneration].
And I will be their God,
And they shall be My people.
11
“And it will not be [necessary] for each one to teach his fellow citizen,
Or each one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’
For all will know [Me by experience and have knowledge of] Me,
From the least to the greatest of them.
12
“For I will be merciful and gracious toward their wickedness,
And I will remember their sins no more.”
When I tried to explain methodism to a friend in Bosnia it was difficult. He kept asking what the rules were and what happened if you broke them. I told him as far as I could tell there really weren't many rules. And anyways if you did break them people would forgive you and pray for you. We went in circles like that.
I was asked by an American once if I was prostalytyzing, I said I didn't think I was. I certainly didn't want to make methodists. I was a witness and I tried to behave and be helpful. I could have started a Methodist church while I was there I guess. Didn't seem like the thing to do.
The point to me is we don't need global growth in the Methodist Church for any real reason. If a majority of methodists in the country with the most methodists think one way then a lecture it should be.
We need to worry about people who worry about us. We find ourselves along spectrums. In many ways too many people are spoiled and too many are neglected We need to do what we can for those with less. We need to build community not denomination.
Let us pray:
WondrousGod
By Rev. Ann B. Day
Originally published in Shaping Sanctuary
Wondrous God, lover of lion and lizard, cedar and cactus, raindrop and river, we praise You for the splendor of the world! We thank You, that woven throughout the tapestry of earth are the varied threads of human diversity. Created in Your image, we are of many colors and cultures, ages and classes, gender and sexual identities. Different and alike, we are Your beloved people. Free us, we pray, from fears of difference that divide and wound us. Move us to dismantle our attitudes and systems of prejudice. Renew our commitment to make this a household of faith for all people - gay, bisexual, lesbian, transgender, and straight - that all who worship and minister here may know the grace and challenge of faith. In our life together, grant us minds and hearts eager to learn, reluctant to judge, and responsive to the leading of Your loving Spirit. We ask in Christ's name, Amen.
Nottingham 4.7.2019
