Drawing Beyond the Lines

This past week, the Leadership Team and Cabinet collaborated with the Welcoming Task Force to send a Letter of Guidance regarding several of the resolutions passed by the Annual Conference Session. The resolutions addressed issues raised by the California State Supreme Court’s recent ruling to legalize same-gender marriages, as well as the ballot initiative scheduled for November that would in essence countermand that decision. We passed other resolutions—on immigration, homeless, support for the troop, etc., and as I thought about all this, a few things came to mind…

When the Methodist Church met for General Conference in the years leading up to and following the American Civil War, the Book of Discipline was—as always—the battleground for contrasting views on a number of issues. The issue of slavery was of course the dominant cultural issue: it was an ugly, literal battleground that wounded many and cost thousands of lives.

But the changes in the Book of Discipline were of a more quiet nature, even as they reflected a related shift in understanding about people and relationships: for the first time, we Methodists shifted the language of our wedding ceremony from the union of “man and wife,” to the new language of “husband and wife.” No longer was a woman viewed as property acquired by a man; now it was two persons entering into an equal partnership (sort of—this was still over 100 years ago!) The underlying issues of identity, status, equality and relationships were shifting, expanding, balancing, maturing.

This year, General Conference retained the existing language about same-gender relationships, but they made a shift that many would not have predicted even a few years ago: now Deacons are authorized to offer the sacrament of communion, something that has traditionally been limited to the order of Elder. This is a part of our internal journey of discernment about the various orders of ministry that is continuing to evolve.

When I look at the history of our church and of our culture, what becomes clear to me is that every generation feels a need to draw a line in time, to fix some things in one place. I grew up knowing quite clearly that as much as I wanted to be a pastor, women could not be ministers, but only missionaries: a line had been drawn, setting certain things at a point in the past that were intended to be unchanging.

But things changed, and in my own lifetime, not only did I become ordained, I became a bishop, something I could have never imagined when I was growing up. The line that was fixed, became fluid. No, that isn’t right, it is more like this: a line that was a barrier, drawn crossways, turned or pivoted and instead became a direction into the future.

I believe that our need to fix points in time and say, “That’s the way it is, and always shall be,” will continue to be turned by the only One who is “now and forever shall be.” The only certainty is God, who we know incompletely, even as God loves us more completely than we can ever truly know. It is in this loving that we experience our boundaries being stretched, that we find our lives transformed and born again, a new starting line displacing the old. Thank God for this transforming love, which saves us, and pulls us beyond our boundaries into the kingdom that is coming—every day.

Your sister and bishop in Christ, Mary Ann