At the Outset

NOTE: I am blogging more frequently during the 2024 General Conference, as I did in 2019. These are only my reflections, and in no way are they comprehensive. To keep up with happenings of the UMC General Conference, I invite you to stay connected HERE.

General Conference is hard. That is a reality we have faced throughout the decades … since almost the beginning of this new unified body known as the United Methodist Church. It has been hard because we have sought to be a global body where diversity is embraced even when that diversity means that we believe very different things … about human sexuality … about how to respond to injustice … about how we are organized to best suit a rapidly changing world.

In the midst of our struggles, there has been much pain … especially for our LGBTQ+ siblings and their allies. One of my colleagues describes how, through years of advocacy and attending multiple General Conference, it has felt like a physical kick in the gut each time the General Conference has moved from a statement of incompatibility to charges that can be brought against clergy and churches for officiating or allowing same-gender weddings. As the western culture has advanced in its understanding of human sexuality, the denomination has attempted to bring charges against LGBTQ+ persons who dared to believe they could be ordained as clergy or be consecrated as bishops.

At the same time, we have struggled with colonial attitudes towards our neighbors whose stances on these very same issues are much more conservative. In the struggle between those on both sides of the human sexuality debate in the US, both sides have often attempted to leverage African and Filipino voices and votes to help move the needle in the US, often with adverse consequences for our global communion.

Key to understanding our challenges is the fact that we are still organized as if we are a US-centric church, when our center is clearly shifting away from our county. In 1968, 92.5% of the voting delegates at the Uniting Conference held in Dallas were from the US, and until the 1980’s there would be no formal translation for non-English speaking conference delegates. Today the US has only a slim majority of votes in the General Conference with an explosion of growth specifically on the African continent.

United Methodists outside of the US belong to conferences situated in what are known as Central Conferences, which have the capability of modifying (within certain parameters) the mandates of the Book of Discipline to work within their cultural context. They can do this by vote of the Central Conference without influence by US (or other Central) conferences.

The same, however, is not true for churches or conferences in the US. We are governed by the Book of Discipline as it is written without the capability of modifying it for our own cultural context. So the whole General Conference decides how the US churches will function, so our non-US delegates do get to decide how we will function within the US while the same is not true of their own Central Conferences.

You see the problem here.

So perhaps the biggest item to be considered at this year’s General Conference is something called “regionalization.” Regionalization would create the US as a region and would then designate all Central Conferences as their own region. Each region would then have the opportunity to determine such things as standards for marriage and ordination based on cultural context. This would move us a step further beyond colonial attitudes and let those of us in the US be a more relevant church in our own context.

This legislation, however, is a huge step. Because this will be an amendment to the UMC Constitution, it requires both a 2/3rd vote by the General Conference AND a 2/3rd aggregate ratification by all of the annual conferences globally. Should this happen, this would signal a new day for the UMC.

So at the outset of the General Conference, we find ourselves again at the place of hope. Perhaps this will be the day that we will become the church that God would have us be. Perhaps we will be able to move beyond discussions around human sexuality then to face the mandate of Christ to transform the world into the realm of God we are created to be. Perhaps we will begin to address the myriad of other issues that plague human society.

My prayer on this eve of the convening of this General Conference is that God will be made known in the work of those elected to serve us.

Dr. Karoline Lewis is the Marbury E. Anderson Chair in Biblical Preaching at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota, and she provided a commentary on the story of the resurrection as found in Luke’s Gospel. In her commentary, she writes concerning the reluctance of the disciples to believe the testimony of the women:

There is so much truth and honesty in this reaction. After all, the good news frequently seems too good to be true. If the tomb is empty, if Jesus has been raised from the dead, then life as we’ve known and expected it is no longer. The world has been turned upside down (Acts 17:6). And if the world has been turned upside down, how do we even know how to live?

I have quoted this in my sermon today, but as always, there is more to the story. When someone offers a cross reference, as she did with Acts 17:6, it sent me on the rabbit trail to see what that was about. Turns out, it wasn’t a rabbit trail, at all. It is a story we rarely read, yet it adds depth and meaning to the message of the resurrection.

In the story found in Acts 17, there is an uproar in Thessalonica in the Roman province known as Macedonia. Paul and Silas journeyed there. Paul went on three separate sabbaths into the synagogue and “argued with them from the scriptures, explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Messiah to suffer and to rise from the dead and saying, “This is the Messiah, Jesus whom I am proclaiming to you.” (17.2-3)

We are then told that some of the members of the Jewish community, along with devout Greeks and “not a few of the leading women” became followers of Jesus. This angered the Jewish religious leadership there, and “with the help of some ruffians in the marketplaces they formed a mob and set the city in an uproar.” (17.5)

Their objective was to drag Paul and Silas to the assembly, but when they could not find them, they attacked the house of one of the followers, a man named Jason. We are told that “they dragged Jason and some brothers and sisters before the city authorities, shouting, “These people who have been turning the world upside down have come here also, and Jason has entertained them as guests. They are all acting contrary to the decrees of the emperor, saying that there is another king named Jesus.” (17.6-7)

What that means is that the message of the crucified and risen Christ is not just some good news that we celebrate and then go casually about our daily lives.

The resurrection is always subversive.

The resurrection tends to undermine our conventional ways of thinking … our structures and systems that are structured in ways to maintain power for the privileged few … our churches that, by misuses of doctrine and creeds, have oppressed, harmed, and killed countless children of God through its own history … and our governments that, while claiming to be “of the people” fail to act on behalf of women, children, immigrants, non-white, citizens. This judges our failure to speak up for oppressed people caught in tragic wars around the globe our failure to speak up for our planet.

These are the things represented in the gospel narrative as the sin and death that defines so much of human living.

The Resurrection is …

the answer we seek. It is a new way of living that builds community … a community that crosses boundaries and challenges our very segregated Sunday morning experiences. This is what Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., called the Beloved Community. It is where we gather regardless of the color of our skin, our economic differences, the language we speak, or who we love!

It is here that we learn again that God ultimately wins and even death cannot stop the inbreaking reign of God! despite the horror stories and our fears at an uncertain future, we have a God who reminds us that our future is found in the unfolding story of resurrection.

We are then reminded yet again, that when the world has us in the grip of sin and death, our risen Christ comes to turn this world upside down. When it does, we fall straight into the arms of God!

Christ is risen!

Christ is Risen, Indeed!

Many have considered the death of Jesus to be at the hands of Jewish religious leaders. While the religious leaders were complicit, it was not the religious leaders who executed Jesus. It was a henchman of Rome. And while some consider Pontius Pilate to have been duped by the Jewish religious authorities, there is little evidence that he cared much about the Jewish leaders. It was they who were duped by Rome.

Pontius Pilate was only about maintaining peace and order (think Pax Romana), and anyone who threatened that peace and order … especially if it was from someone whom had been proclaimed a king … that person would be subject to the worst possible punishment, up to and including execution.

It wasn’t just Jesus that concerned them … it was the followers who believed that there was some hope for liberation that only God could provide. It was a movement. More to the point it was a populist movement of those who followed this one who stood with the marginalized and the weak and offered them pathways of justice and hope. The movement had become a huge threat to Rome.

Populism

For those who have studied populism, what I have learned from my own study of the subject is that populism can be used for good … to give voice to the people. The founding of our country was a populist movement.

This was something that was happening as the crowds following Jesus continued to grow.

However, the fervor that sometimes accompanies populism can easily be exploited by a person or group wishing to elevate themselves to power … sometimes to create an autocracy.

So it might be helpful to know that populism is what led to other expressions of government like communism and fascism. The rise of Adolph Hitler was not accidental. It was a populist movement, and Hitler began to quickly expand power and even co-opted the Christian church for his own benefit.

Then he took it a step further and made it a religious populist movement. The swastika … which was a twisted shape of a cross … was expected to be placed in every church. The sound of thousands shouting “Heil!” was reminiscent of the call to “Hail the King of Kings!”

The thousand-year Reich was equated with the 1,000 year reign of Christ taken from the book of Revelation in the Christian bible, and Hitler was identified as the anointed one who would usher in that reign. And anyone who threatened the power of the Chosen One was declared an enemy of the state, and was summarily executed.

I wonder if this is beginning to sound familiar. To me, it sounds a little like Rome … worse, sounds a little like us.

This week, news hit that former President Donald Trump, along with singer/songwriter Lee Greenwood, were selling the God Bless the USA Bible for $59.99. It includes the handwritten chorus of “God Bless the USA” by Lee Greenwood, the US Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, and the Pledge of Allegiance, along with the King James Version of the Bible.

I hope this is as concerning to you as it is to me. This is the hallmark of Christian Nationalism, and it is not materially different from what history tried to teach us in mid-20th century Germany. This is not something that any mainline denomination will endorse; however, it is somewhat appealing to at least some of the US population.

To read a satire about the God Bless the USA Bible, I invite you to read this entry from a United Methodist Deacon named Charlie Baber.

While the sale states that proceeds from this bible do not benefit Mr. Trump’s campaign, there is a disclaimer that his likeness and image are under paid license via an LLC directly linked to Mr. Trump.

Holy Week Then

The irony is that this comes out during Holy Week. So let’s turn back to what was happening with Jesus leading up to his crucifixion. We are told in synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) that immediately following his triumphal entry into Jerusalem (which we commemorate on Palm Sunday), Jesus went into the temple and turned over the tables of those who were money changers, and drove them out of the temple declaring, “My house shall be called a house of prayer, but you are making it a den of thieves.” (quoting the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah).

The money changers, according to some scholars, were not cheating by offering an unequal amount as Roman and other coins were converted to Jewish currency that was to be used for temple offerings. It was more pernicious than that. Most of the money came into the temple (no matter the currency), and it was used to provide high interest loans to the poor who were about to lose their land.

In this way, the Temple establishment joined forces with the Roman aristocracy in the exploitation of the poor. Jesus acted out, and it was this act that set Jesus squarely on a course that would place him in the court of the Roman governor who would finally order his execution.

Holy Week Now

As I was sinking into this Holy Week, the news of the bible that will be used to promote Christian Nationalism brought a deep darkness over me. I began to feel anger … fear … sadness that there are people who consider themselves Christian yet who are promoting this apostasy.

I wonder if Jesus would be kicking over tables about now. I wonder if it would get him killed as it did before.

So as we come to Good Friday, we have come to the place of execution. I see Jesus carrying the weight of having come face-to-face with empire and daring to speak the truth. I hear the nails being hammered one by one … in the marginalization of our LGBT+ siblings … in the marginalization and harm experienced by Black Americans … in the attempts to claim the bible for political gain … in the harm coming to our neighbors who seek safety and asylum yet who die at our borders … in the silence of Christians who will not confront injustice and harm perpetrated by both church and state.

The Darkness is Settling

And as the body of our Christ is placed in the grave, I feel nothing but darkness in this moment. Yet beyond the stone that covers the tomb, there seems to be a glimmer of light There is a whisper of hope that rises from the shroud covering our Christ.

In the face of empire … in the face of Christian Nationalism, Jesus walks with us to the place of death and bids us now to wait for the dawn.

“Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

That’s the liturgical phrase we use today as we impose ashes on the heads of those who come commemorating this first day of Lent. Our church is joining other Methodists in our community (representing three separate Wesleyan denominations) for a combined evening service. While some clergy may modify this a bit, I tend to just stick to the script.

“Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

It is that easy … and yet it is so hard.

I have a hard time saying it to small children whose entire lives are in front of them. “I know you don’t understand it now, but you will die one day.” Who says that to a child? It just seems cruel … even more so when the child is suffering from terminal illness or childhood trauma. “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

I have a hard time saying it to people in the middle of their lives. It feels like I am trying to put the paddles on a healthy, beating heart. As a young parent, I was horrified at the thought that either of the parents of our children might die too soon. Yet we experienced that horrible reality that struck our family with the untimely death of our own son-in-law.

When a person in the middle of a vivacious life is struck by bad news or a hard diagnosis, I really hate looking at them and saying, “Yes, it is true. Life sometime ends way too soon for people. You are dust and to dust you shall return.”

My heart breaks when a person in advanced years … someone who knows that the vast majority of their lives are behind them … comes to receive the ashes, and I remind them that their time is closer than they would hope it to be.

“Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

Hopefully, you have continued reading to this point … because there is a truth that needs to be spoken here. This is where our human condition encounters the good news of our faith.

You see, it is in the dirt … in the dust or clay … that God creates.

The good news, you see, is that God is all about dirt. The song, Control, by Tenth Avenue North … a song we sometimes sing in our contemporary service … asks me to “take my hands off my life and the way I think it should go.”

When we let go of our lives and yield to the reality that we are finally made of dust and dust is where we return, then we find ourselves on a journey of descent. A journey the mystics tell us is the way of wisdom.

Genesis 2:7 reads, “So God fashioned an earth creature out of the clay of the earth, and blew into its nostrils the breath of life. And the earth creature became a living human being.” (adapted from The Inclusive Bible). We are people of dust, and when we forget from whence we came, that’s when life goes awry.

It is what it means to be human … to practice humility … to be born of the humus. You see, it is in the dirt … in the dust or clay … that God creates. When we have these ashes imposed on our head, my challenge to you is to invite God to take what is right there … just above your eyes and the very real you underneath those ashes … to again create … to create anew!

May this season be a journey of descent … to the core of who we are … and to the very real need we have for God to do a new thing in us!

“Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return!”

In this political season, we hear a great deal about agendas. There is the agenda of political candidates. There is the agenda of political parties. Within the church, there are agendas arising from those who wish to make the church more orthodox, and there are those who have their own agendas around issues of justice and mercy within the church.

This past weekend, I was driving through another city and I came across a church sign that said, “Advancing the Kingdom Agenda.” I tend to be a little judgmental, and glancing at other identifiers about this church, I scoffed and thought (almost out loud), “That’s all we need … another agenda.”

But then I got to thinking about agendas. Agendas are specific steps that lead to specific outcomes. They are often used as a list of things to be covered in meetings, but I am talking about the larger meaning of agenda … especially as it regards specific things the church “ought” to be doing.

Yes, I do believe that the agenda listed on the sign may well have been more aligned with the agenda of white Christian nationalism, which could not be further from my own agenda of justice and peace. But the sign was specific in that it talked about the “kingdom agenda.”

So I went deeper into a time of contemplation about what a kingdom agenda could be about.

It didn’t take me long to look back to the teachings of Jesus to discover what the ultimate Christ agenda is about. All of the synoptic gospels include a passage about religious leaders who are putting Jesus to the test … in essence, asking him about his agenda. And in each of these gospel accounts, Jesus gives the same answer: “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:29-31)

The kingdom agenda is love!

The kingdom agenda is love! It is not convenient love, and it isn’t love that just builds me up. It is that love that takes us to uncomfortable places … like when Jesus said, “Love your enemies.” This is where it gets hard to follow Jesus.

I ran across someone wearing a tee shirt that read:

LOVE THY NEIGHBOR
THY IMMIGRANT NEIGHBOR
THY BLACK NEIGHBOR
THY WHITE NEIGHBOR
THY BROWN NEIGHBOR
THY ATHEIST NEIGHBOR
THY MUSLIM NEIGHBOR
THY DEPRESSED NEIGHBOR
THY CONSERVATIVE NEIGHBOR
THY LGBTQIA NEIGHBOR
THY DISABLED NEIGHBOR
THY INDIGENOUS NEIGHBOR
THY JEWISH NEIGHBOR
THY PROGRESSIVE NEIGHBOR
THY INCARCERATED NEIGHBOR
THY HOMELESS NEIGHBOR
THY LATINX NEIGHBOR
THY ADDICTED NEIGHBOR
THY MILLENNIAL NEIGHBOR
THY _____________ NEIGHBOR

As I considered the language of agenda, it occurred to me that this was a real agenda. It is a call across the chasms of our time. As we sense ourselves moving farther and farther apart from one another, this agenda is the agenda that is intended to bring us back together … to the place where we can see and hear one another … to the place where we can demonstrate our own unique giftedness and personhood in a tapestry made richer by our diversity more than by our uniformity … to the place where we finally meet God in the face of the other.

So if this is the kingdom agenda to which our siblings worshiping in that church where I saw the sign are referring, then yes, let’s advance the kingdom agenda … the agenda of love.

Any other agenda just won’t do in the realm of God!

For several weeks, I have been contemplating the Lord’s Prayer. I have recited it almost daily, and I have explored the various ways it is worded by people who seek to bring out more of the broad, inclusive nature of this incredible prayer of the church.

For several weeks, I preached on the various parables of Matthew’s gospel where Jesus begins saying something like, “The kingdom of heaven is like …” or “The kingdom of God is like …” and then he tells about vineyard owners who level the playing field for all the workers, rulers who prepare wedding feasts and end up inviting people who would never have been accepted as guests, and ten young women who were supposed to bring the light into another wedding banquet.

During one of those sermons, I dug a little deeper into the Greek word for heaven, which is οὐρανός (ür-ænǒs). Contrary to how we often think, heaven is not another place separate and distinct from the world in which we live. The ancients use the word οὐρανός to talk about the firmament that is our sky. They thought of it as a great dome and that water came from above it. They thought of οὐρανός as the place that held all the stars … the known and the unknown universe.

So as opposed to being a separate place, heaven is that place that fully encompasses all that is … including the earth … including us. It is place where we are nestled and nourished … it is the place that is fully powered by a love more powerful than we can conceive. We are eternally at home here.

And the version of the Lord’s Prayer that has inspired me most is written by Parker Palmer, who is an activist, writer, educator and commentator on spiritual and religious life. He is a member of the Society of Friends (Quakers), and his insights are profound. It was posted on the Spirituality and Practice website, and it reads like this:

Heavenly Father, heavenly Mother,
Holy and blessed is your true name.
We pray for your reign of peace to come,
We pray that your good will be done,
Let heaven and earth become one.
Give us this day the bread we need,
Give it to those who have none.
Let forgiveness flow like a river between us,
From each one to each one.
Lead us to holy innocence
Beyond the evil of our days —
Come swiftly Mother, Father, come.
For yours is the power and the glory and the mercy:
Forever your name is All in One.

Let heaven and earth become one.

That’s the key here. It is this prayer of Jesus that eliminates our need for duality … for putting up walls between us … for drawing lines in the sand. This is what led the apostle Paul to say, “There is no longer Jew or Greek; there is no longer slave or free; there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28) There is no “them” and “us.”

There is finally only us and all of us belong together and we belong to God.

So as I pray this prayer each day, I sense how God is calling us to that greater unity … that heaven and earth may become one …. and that God’s name may be All in One!

I have done funerals for some incredible people in my life. I have officiated services for many friends. George Brightwell, however, was such a profound influence in my life as a friend … a founder Wellspring, the church I currently serve … and one who loved me as a friend and mentor. This is the sermon I preached at his service today, and it is offered here for the lessons George himself would teach us.

George, as he was known to do with so many of us, became my friend. Through my time here at Wellspring, he was someone with whom I would spend no less than 8 hours each week … either in conversation or meetings or leading worship together or doing worship planning. In my time here, I do not recall George ever taking a Sunday off until he finally just could do it no more. Every Sunday, George and Barbara would show up at 7:30 to make sure everything was unlocked, the walkway was swept, and everything was set for worship. They would not leave until after the late service was over, and even during the pandemic, they still were present for as long as it took to livestream the service and get everything put back in place. Then came the Saturday when George called and said, with this incredible sadness in his voice, that he was too weak to come to church on Sunday. He was apologetic and grief stricken as he saw his Sunday morning routine coming to a close.

I will tell you, however, that George is the only person I know who announced that he was going on hospice, processed into hospice, and then showed up to lead hymns and stay through both worship services the very next Sunday. He took the principles of hospice seriously … the belief that we are to be about living fully until we die. And that is what he did.

George’s stories would begin in different places. If you talked about family, he would tell you about his childhood and growing up in the First Methodist Church in Fort Worth. He would talk about his earliest recollection of clergy, and he could not stop talking about the great Gaston Foote, who served as the senior pastor of that church from 1952 to 1972. It is in the Methodist Youth Fellowship of that same church that George would meet his beloved, Barbara, and that set them on the trajectory that would culminate in 64 years of marriage.

If you asked George about his Christian journey, he would tell the story of a time that was truly transformative. George shared his testimony in this very chapel on March 4, 1993, and I promised him that I would share the main portion of it with you here. Listen to George’s words:

Graduate school.  Marriage.  The corporate world.  Uncertainty.  The Bomb.  Cool, calm, competent (outwardly); insecure, scared, angry (inwardly).  Doing all the right things (still active in the church, community, work life), but for the wrong reasons.  Using intellect, knowledge, humor, as a “nice guy” facade, while acting out ever more destructive behaviors because of the interior fear, insecurity, anger … as yet unnamed demons.  How does one lead such a double life?  By attempting to be in control.  By building a shell with little windows and peepholes and levers and wires for communicating with them, to manipulate them (and GOD) … to keep them out … to keep me in… to stay in control.  Turns out, that’s impossible.

One Saturday morning, during a week-end program at the church, a fellow whom he had only met the night before, a fellow whom he had not had a chance to manipulate into being convinced that he was really (on the outside) a “good guy,” a fellow from Mississippi, who looked like he could have played middle linebacker for the Packers, enfolded him in his arms and said, “George, God loves you and I love you.”  Love me?  God love me?  I, uh … I couldn’t possibly have earned enough brownie points yet!  But (a miracle!) the message came through, the shell cracked, the manipulative devices began to disintegrate, and I began to live life directly, not through an intellectual filter of my own devising.  I began to feel life, to deal in a real way with the trash inside me that I didn’t even want GOD to know about.  I began to love.  I began to live as a man of faith.  A flame extinguished more than twenty years before was rekindled.

That Saturday morning was twenty-five years ago this past weekend [which would have been the end of February 1968].  Tommy Giordano no longer lives in Jackson, Mississippi, and I was not able to find him this past week to tell him what GOD did for me through him and that the flame is still alive.  That grace never gives up.  That the spirit of GOD never keeps as strict a schedule as we do.  I thank Tommy and others like him, and I thank GOD for giving my life back to me.  It hasn’t been easy since that Saturday, but it has been wonderful.  The abundant life is full of love and joy, but it is not devoid of pain.  Yet the pain is not self-inflicted; it comes from the richness of life, full of human relationships and all the joys and sorrows involved in loving self, others, GOD, the world.  Loving self, the self which before I feared and hated.  Loving others, the wife and friends who before I feared and manipulated (in the name of love, for GOD’s sake!).  Loving GOD, who before could not possibly have loved someone like me … I wasn’t good enough!  Loving the world, that nasty old cruel world, which GOD loves so much, but I couldn’t.

To hear George tell it, it was the moment of rebirth. It was a true awakening, and it brought with it the truth that we learn from the mystics … great love and great suffering will always go together. It is about living and loving and suffering and dying, but the story doesn’t end there, and George knew it … great love and great suffering … life and death … will ALWAYS lead us to resurrection.

So George dared to love … not just to love, but to LOVE BIG! He dared to invest his life in the lives of others … into the care of all creation … no matter the cost. This is what led George and Barbara to be the incredible philanthropists they are.

With no biological children of their own, George and Barbara have invested their love in such powerful ways that they have hundreds of children … thousands of grandchildren … tens of thousands of great-grandchildren … so many descendants … because of this transformative power of love.

My own story of George began before we moved to Georgetown. As soon as word was out that I was coming to Wellspring, I got a call from George. Aside from Stef Schutz, who fully embraced technology and who friended me on Facebook the day of the announcement, George was the first Wellspringer who actually called me. He had served as a delegate to the annual conference for over 30 years, and he told me he would look for me at conference. And George’s humor was only enhanced when he could tell people that he finally found me for an introduction … in the men’s room.

And George had this custom every year at conference when the appointments were about to be announced. For those who are not United Methodist, you should know that clergy are appointed in our denomination by the bishop one year at a time. In June, I will be completing ten one-year appointments to Wellspring. So before the service of appointment making would begin, the members of the conference (both lay and clergy) would be handed the list of appointments. George would flip to the page listing Wellspring, and he would look for my name. He would slap his hand on it and would say, “Yes!” as emphatically as he could. He would then lean over to hug me (he almost always sat right by me), and he would offer some strongly affirming word. Then on the first Sunday after conference, George would take the microphone from me to announce that I had been reappointed for another year. He would invoke clapping as he then hugged me again.

It was the George hugs that defined him, and many of you are here today because that strong hug drew you in closer. George was also prone to whisper his truth in your ear when you got the hug. That hug and that truth was the one he received from Tommy Giordano so long ago: “God loves you, and I love you!” He would often shorten it to simply be: “Remember that you are loved!” But in every way, he was passing along Tommy Giordano’s hug … God’s hug … to everyone he could.

So love is finally what brings us here. Love is the basis of every single scriptural text represented here. It is the love of God for all creation in Isaiah that sends us out in joy only to be led back in peace. It is that love that sets the mountains and the hills bursting into song, and it is that love that makes the trees of the field clap their hands.

In John’s gospel, it is that love that prompts Jesus to prepare a place for his disciples … really for all of us … and it that love that sends Christ back into the world through people like Tommy and George to point us to a home that is both created here in this life and with God forever beyond this life.

It is that love about which the Apostle Paul speaks in Romans 5, as he admonishes us to let love be genuine, to hate what is evil, to hold fast to what is good and TO LOVE ONE ANOTHER WITH MUTUAL AFFECTION. Paul even makes it a bit of a contest to see if we can outdo one another in showing honor, and I think George was up for that challenge.

And the part that meant so much to George had to do with how we deal with those who persecute us … those who hate us … those who cause some of our greatest distress. George was one who dared to take stands that he was aware were not always popular. He stood with people in the margins, and he did not care if that meant that people would not like him or his views. He was faithful to the mandate of Christ to love ever single person, no matter what. As Paul challenges us to come alongside one another with empathy and compassion and to live in harmony with one another, he also challenges us to practice a unique kind of payback for our enemies.

I had to laugh when I realized that only George Brightwell would choose a passage that includes: “If your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink, for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads.”

George was all about social justice. There were many people whose actions and decisions that George opposed (whether individually or collectively … even when that injustice was enshrined as legislation). George and Barbara have spent their lives as advocates for the people in the margins. Their lives have been devoted to enhancing the lives of children. His life was devoted to advocacy for immigrants, for the poor, for those who were food and housing insecure, for people who were marginalized because of their sexuality.

George’s other key word besides love was how he ended most of his emails: “Courage.” Literally, “take heart.” While our world is driven by and defined by our fears, George knew that Franklin Roosevelt was right when he said that the only thing we had to fear was fear itself. He bemoaned how easy it is to take advantage of people if we could only keep them in the place of fear. His radical way of confronting that was simply to say or write the single word: “Courage.”

He often talked about the nature of our Methodist heritage as he would recount John Wesley’s journey as the journey from the head to the heart. He knew that when we finally got into the heart space, we would then find the courage to love big.

When we had a workshop of leaders working on recasting our vision, at Wellspring we determined that perhaps we needed to expand our motto. The motto of Wellspring was previously, “All Are Welcome, All Are Accepted.” For years, at George’s urging, we would verify that by saying, “And all means all.” But in this workshop, we began working on key words that might further our intent in the motto, and the word “love” was strongly encouraged from George’s table. I’m pretty sure it was George who made sure that we didn’t try to move forward without emphasizing love in the strongest possible way.

With that, we officially voted to modify our motto to read: “All Are Welcome, All Are Accepted, All Are Loved, and All Means All.”

You could not know George without knowing what love was, and if you ever had a question about what love was, all you had to do was just stand in his path with your arms open. There would inevitably be a hug and those words, “Remember that you are loved.”

But George had one last enemy to face. He had long since talked about cancer in his family. Every October, George wore pink every single Sunday in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month since he had lost both of his sisters to breast cancer. George now faced his own enemy … the cancer that eventually took his life.

But George did it his way. He followed the advice of his doctors and went through treatments in an effort to fight it, but then when that was unsuccessful, he opted out of very aggressive treatments that, in his mind, would not yield any better results. He went on hospice determined to do it his way, and his way was the way of love.

George was a mentor and teacher to me and so many of you gathered here. His last lesson for us all was clear. He taught us .. he taught me … how to die as a Christian.

It was in his last days that he opened his home and heart to many visitors who both shared their love and received George’s love. George and I planned out this service almost entirely before he died. I sat there as he told me that his favorite hymn had to have a central place in the service. That hymn is Love That Wilt Not Let Me Go, and as he told me that, he looked at the love of his life and said, “It is also BB that wilt not let let me go.” That tender moment will forever be etched in my memory.

But there was one last thing to do … one last enemy to face. It was death, and in that moment, George (the quintessential teacher) taught me that last lesson. It was how to love death and transform it from something dreadful to something beautiful. He took the enemy named death and made it a friend. He knew that it was only by loving all … even the enemy known as death … that he would make it be the door that led him into the eternal chorus of heaven.

He knew that it was love that finally would not let him go.

Amen.

As I have carried forward the theme of emptiness, I now come to the ultimate place of emptiness. Friday that is somehow called “Good Friday.” What is good about Good Friday?

There are many who continue to answer that Good Friday is good because Jesus died for our sins. They continue with this theme known as “penal substitutionary atonement” that comes to us from 16th century reformers who were taking Anselm’s “satisfaction theory” to another level. Basically, penal substitutionary atonement means that Jesus took on all the sins of the world as a sacrificial lamb, and then his death became the ultimate sacrifice that wipes away our sin. The Greek word for suffering is πάθημα (pathāma), from which we get the words like pathos and pathology. The notion is that Jesus suffered so we don’t have to.

Along with many other pastors and theologians, I am here saying boldly that penal substitutionary atonement is NOT the death of Jesus. When we look at the entirety of the message from the gospels, Jesus never claims to be the one who dies this kind of death. Jesus does forgive sins, but the forgiveness of sins is entirely relational. Jesus comes calling for repentance, which is “turning toward” God. Jesus comes inviting us into banquets and sacred spaces where those on the outside are reminded that they have a place because God has forgiven them. There is nothing any of us have done that can separate us from the great love of God, as Paul describes this in Romans 8.

Throughout the gospels, Jesus is depicted as Emmanuel … God who is with us. And this God who is with us is not one who will finally condemn us. The condemnation and the hell we experience when we are separated from God is the hell from which Jesus comes to save us by reconciling us back to God.

And it this “With-Us God” who is in the person of Jesus who goes to the cross. This is God who is not willing to leave us alone in our suffering; rather, the cross is the place where God suffers with us. The word “compassion” is given to us from the Latin, and the word literally means to “suffer with.”

I learned years ago about sympathetic vibration, which is what happens when you take a stringed instrument and then begin to play a note that matches the pitch to which that string has been stretched. The string itself begins to create sound, not because it was touched, but because it was connected to the originator of the sound with sound waves.

Sympathy is the outer expression of this connection, but it is shallow and does not go deep enough. Compassion is the fullest expression of what it means to connect with one another at the place of our suffering … it is something that is a connection of the soul. This is the gift God gives us. God connects with us in our darkest places and our deepest suffering.

Jesus is the Compassionate Christ

Jesus then comes as God with us … in our living … in our suffering … and in our dying. The message of Good Friday is that we don’t suffer or die alone. God is always with us and finally will not forsake us in our darkest hour … no matter who we are or what we have done.

Along with many others in our church, I am grieving the dying of a strong leader in our church who nears death in his hospice bed. George has been a true friend to me and so many, and the grief in our church is palpable these days. On this Good Friday, my prayer is that he and Barbara … along with his church family … along with the community he loves so much … along with all who suffer and die and grieve … will know that we are finally not alone.

The message of Good Friday and the gift of Christ today is the simple ending to a creed from the United Church of Canada: God is with us. We are not alone. Thanks be to God!

I didn’t intentionally give up anything for Lent this year. I am an Enneagram 7, so I typically do Lent differently. This year, I decided to commit myself to taking something up. I decided to do a deeper reflection on wisdom teachings as I seek to discover further the interrelatedness … the integration … of some of my favorite wisdom teachers. Among them are Ken Wilbur, Fr. Richard Rohr, Ilia Delio, and Brené Brown.

Just as I began to take up this task for Lent, Lent began to take things away from me. We have lost members of our faith community who were dear to me, and then there are those who are in hospice care … and one dear friend who is going into hospice care. The grief is palpable for me.

Then amidst this grief, we lost our precious cat, Baxter, who, at the age of 18, finally came to the end of his life’s journey. He slept with us on what we nicknamed Pride Rock because Baxter and his late brother, DC, had claimed it as the locus of their daily living … and sleeping. The emptiness his death created is still breathtaking.

Grief is not new to us, but there is an added layer here.

I am now left experiencing this odd convergence of wisdom and grief that have come into my Lenten journey in a mysterious middle. The ultimate impact of this on my life and ministry are yet to be seen, but here are the things I am learning and relearning:

1. Wisdom is a gift that only comes from loving well and suffering well, and the capacity to hold both of those in tension together is hard work. It is the work of the cross.
2. Patience is key. Henri Nouwen reminds us that the word “patience” comes from the Latin word “patior,” which means to suffer. It is to be alright with not knowing where this leads, but trusting in the journey nonetheless.
3. Wisdom isn’t about knowing more … it is about knowing less and trusting more. It is, as I have preached recently, the path of unknowing.
4. Grief is not a process that we go through with a checklist nor is it done on a timeline. It just is.
5. When I am willing to sit at the crossroads of wisdom and grief, I will discover the deep mystery of the cross.
6. When I am willing to sit at the crossroad of wisdom and grief, I will discover the wisdom pattern of life, death, and resurrection.

As an Enneagram 7, I am terrified of emptiness and will often do anything to fill the void. I don’t always do this well, but I am learning to sit still and simply be in the liminal space where I might just meet God in a deeper way than I ever thought possible.

My hope here is that Jesus is right. Those who are empty will be filled. I am waiting for the fullness of that Christ!

Last week, when I first walked out on the lanai of our daughter’s house in Hawai’i, I was startled by what was on the ridge across from me. I saw the flag, and as I began to get my bearings, I realized that the flag was that of Camp Smith, which sits atop the Aiea Ridge. The house that she has with her new husband, two children (with one due any day now), and their dog, is directly opposite that first ridge.

The weight of what I was seeing settled in on me. You see, the place she called home with our first son-in-law was on the Aiea Ridge on a street adjacent to Camp Smith. While there is much that the flag at Camp Smith symbolizes, for us, it is the symbol of our first real encounter with Oahu and military life here. It was the place where they fell in love with the island, and it was the place where they were growing their family.

Until … until the darkness set in that September day in 2016. That was the day the one they called Bull died. It was there that we were embraced … shrouded, really … by grief. It was the day our world radically changed. It was the day where the paths of great love and great suffering collided.

And now I see it from across the valley, and I am drawn to a truth that is greater than my own sense of fairness.

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

The psalm keeps rising to the surface. The valley between us, as beautiful and full of life as it is, is, for me, the valley of the shadow of death. When we were last on that ridge, there was a baby that was going to be born without a dad. When we were last on that ridge, the world seemed hopeless. All that lay in front of us was the valley of the shadow of death.

Fast forward five years, and I am sitting on the ridge opposite that first one. We have a new son-in-law, two grandchildren who talk about a dad in heaven and a dad here with them, and a new grandchild on the way.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

There is something about seeing life from the other side of the valley. Having walked through the valley, I can most assuredly testify to the power of presence … of a God who walks with us in our darkest hours and who offers us pathways of wisdom that can only be found at the convergence of great love and great suffering. The truth that is greater than my own sense of fairness … my own experience of darkness … is the truth of abiding presence.

So as I prepare to sit down to a thanksgiving meal with our Hawaiian family, I will remember and give thanks for the gift of presence and the many memories, both beautiful and tragic, we share. My prayer is that we might all experience that presence when we have walked (or are walking) through the many valleys that contain shadows of death. My prayer is that we might pause to take a look back across the valley through which we have trod and see where we have experienced the comforting presence of this one who walks with us.

It is then that we will sit down at a feast and experience a cup that is overflowing. We will be invited again to the place of great love knowing now what the Apostle Paul knew … that great suffering cannot separate us from the great love of God in Christ Jesus. In the midst of our thanksgiving, may we experience the power of presence.

So finally, I am led to another truth that is greater than my sense of fairness: Christ is on both sides of the valley yet fully present with us in the valley … always offering pathways of hope, joy, love, and peace no matter what we are facing. For this presence, I give thanks.