Mismatched Glasses
After this I looked, and there was a great crowd that no one could number. They were from every nation, tribe, people, and language. They were standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They wore white robes and held palm branches in their hands. They cried out with a loud voice:
“Victory belongs to our God
who sits on the throne,
and to the Lamb.” (Revelation 7:9-10, CEB Translation)
While I am laid up recovering from surgery on my Achilles’ tendon, my mom has been taking care of me, including bringing me iced tea to drink on the regular. But one time she set the glass next to me and sat down at the end of the bed. “My whole adult life,” she sighed, “I wanted to have one set of glasses to drink out of. But while you all were living with me, that was never going to be the case. Your dad had the kind of glasses he liked, and you had your favorites, and so did your brother, and so did I. So there was just this mix of all these different kind of glasses. It drove me crazy.”
She looked off, almost as if she could see that cabinet in her mind’s eye. “Now I live alone and all my glasses are the same. And you too. You live alone and all your glasses are the same. And every time I make you and I something to drink, I look down and can’t remember whose glass is whose. And now all I want is a mix of different glasses.”
Me too, Mom. Me too.
Her words have been washing over me as part of my denomination has announced official plans to leave, beginning May 1. The Global Methodist Church is tired of waiting through all these postponements of General Conference and they have announced they are breaking off. They cannot stand anymore to be affiliated with people who would welcome and fully include LGBTQIA+ persons. And they cannot stand anymore to be affiliated with people who “do not take the Bible seriously” (and please note the tagline to my blog for an indicator of how I feel about being characterized like that). They are done. They are moving out. And they are taking their favorite glasses with them.
It looks like their intention is to make their glasses as uniform as possible. To tighten down that reality, they are also rejecting the Wesleyan quadrilateral. If you are unfamiliar, this is our approach to understanding and seeking the will of God in Methodism at large. While we do see Scripture is primary, we recognize that we should also bring Scripture into conversation with reason, tradition, and experience to understand how the Holy Spirit is moving among us now. But the GMC is eliminating the other three. They will look only to Scripture for guidance.
I have so much I could say there. Maybe I will in another blog. For now, I am just going to leave it at that very problematic, and not terribly honest, place. (Like how do you read at all without reason?!?!?! Nope, I am digressing).
I am saddened by the departure of these men and women. I am saddened because anytime family divides it is tragic. But I am also sad in this case because we are losing one set of our glasses from our cabinet. And the thing I know and so many of us hold dear about Methodism is that we have a cabinet filled with mismatched glasses. And we are not complete if all those glasses aren’t present.
We are a mismatched glasses denomination. We are encouraged to bring all our different perspectives, our life experiences, our varieties of understanding God and Scripture, and bring those together. We will not always agree with one another, but in coming together we can learn from one another. But the most important thing we can do is to learn to love one another, even when we disagree. We might all have distinct glasses that we are drinking from, but at least we are gathered around the same table.
For those of you who are worried about our denomination in light of this announcement, I understand the worry. But the worry should not be that we will fall completely apart with this move. I am convinced, from the work I have done with Gospel Discipleship all across the connection and the subsequent conversations that has inspired, that most of us are committed to staying at that table. I estimate more than 80% of Methodists in the United States want to stay in our denomination. And it is not just me. Many other leaders are finding the same. We are committed to the messy feast, where people are drinking from red solo cups, garage sale coffee mugs, fine crystal goblets, and everything in between.
We can weep and worry, though, that one set of glasses will not be with us at the feast now. That is heartbreaking. The only solace I take in that is that I hope as they depart, more people who have been excluded from at least part of the feast will now be more fully welcome at the table. That is how God works so often. When we face loss, we find there is abundance awaiting us instead.
I suspect that within a few years, the Global Methodist Church, which is looking less and less global and more and more parochial, will be sitting on the end of their beds, looking wistfully at nothing, and wishing they had more glasses in their cabinet. I also suspect, though, that like our reunion after our division over slavery, we will find a way to all come back to the table again. After all, that is the vision cast in Revelation, that all the world, in all its diversity of living out a faith and life journey, will find themselves gathered in the same space, singing to God and to the Lamb. What a beautiful day that will be!
But as for me in the meantime, I am going to stay at the mismatched table. And I am going to love this crazy family of mine. And I will raise my glass in praise and cheer, clinking up against whatever someone else raises in praise and cheer, and celebrate that we are all one in Christ Jesus.
And as soon as I am well enough to get around again, I am headed to the store or a garage sale, where I will pick me up some more glasses, so all of you will know you are welcome in my home and in my heart too. Amen.
