Only Believe

Today the lectionary Gospel was Mark 5: 21-43. There are two healing stories. It begins with Jesus getting out of the boat and moving through this huge crowd. A leader of the synagogue begs Jesus to go to his home where his twelve year old daughter is dying. Jesus moves through the crowd to go with him, when, remarkably, according to Mark, Jesus feels power go out of him. He asks who touched him. The disciples laugh: “Everybody touched you; why do you ask ‘who touched me?’”

The woman is overwhelmed and admits that she touched Jesus. She said: “I knew that if I could just touch your garment, I would be healed.” Twelve years she has been sick. Jesus heals her and says: “Your faith has made you whole.”

Then, Jesus moves on to the synagogue leader’s home where he finds the girl already dead and everyone in the throes of grief. Jesus says: “She is not dead; she is sleeping.” He speaks to her: “Talitha Cum”, “Get up.” She gets up and Jesus tells them to get her something to eat.

I saw faith demonstrated here. I had four points.

1. They heard about Jesus.
2. They looked for Jesus.
3. They invited Jesus into their lives.
4. They believed.

Martin Luther said: “God has made it so that all things depend on faith. Whoever has faith has everything; whoever does not have faith, has nothing.”

May we slip in among the crowds around Jesus with this man and woman of faith, and may we believe as they believed. May Jesus say to us: “Your faith has made you whole, complete, new…”

Blessings!
Dave Nichols

Do United Methodists Believe Anything?

Sometimes I get the question (Do United Methodists believe anything?) from people in the community. Or, the question might come from someone who is interested in becoming a member of our church. Of course, I answer, “yes.”

One pastor, whom I loved dearly, simply avoided the question entirely and said: “We think and let think.” And, of course, that’s a partial quote from John Wesley. He says: “As to all opinions that do not strike at the root of Christianity, we think and let think.” That’s different from simply saying: “We think and let think.”

The pastor who answers that way may avoid conflict, but the parishioner goes away dumbfounded. We do believe the basics of Christian faith. Our Book of Discipline says that we believe in charity in all things, liberty in non-essentials, and unity in the essentials. Now, we may differ on what the Christian essentials are, but we do agree that there are essentials. I believe that the basics of our faith are the same as all other churches.

It was a community Thanksgiving Service. All of the religious leaders were there. The Unitarians lit a candle and read something. The rest of us argued as to whether something could be read from one of the Gospels. After some discussions, it was allowed.

Now, the purpose of these events is to celebrate our diversity and yet to call upon all religious people to be conciliatory with each other and to reach out in service to the poor.

The preacher, of another denomination, preached on that famous Thanksgiving passage from Deuteronomy 8 where Moses tells the people not to forget God when they get settled in the Promised Land.

The preacher proceeded to, with humor, say that we really don’t know who wrote the words, Moses certainly did not. In fact, it was all sort of a put-together passage. After he was done preaching it, I wondered why bother at all.

Sure, I’m a Duke Grad. I understand Biblical historical criticism, etc. But, the Bible is still scripture for us and for us that’s primary.

We do believe something. We believe a lot. We believe the basic, traditional, teachings of the historical church.

Blessings!
Dave Nichols

United Methodist Membership and Amendments

Several years ago, I walked out of my house when I heard a crash. Across the street, a church member of mine, in his nineties, had pressed the gas instead of the brakes in his car, and went backwards into the neighbor’s house. EMS came and cut him out.

I made my way over to the hospital. By the time I got there he was in a room with his wife. They had agreed previously that if this situation arose they would not use artificial life support. So, his wife was there all alone to await his death. They had one daughter who lived far away. The man would be dead before she could get there.

I sat down to join the wife in the wait. It’s what I do when possible. After some conversation, she told me that she didn’t want me there. Almost angry in her approach, I wondered what I had done.

She said that she didn’t want me there because I believed in the resurrection of the body and she didn’t . And, after hearing me preach for a few years she knew that if she were joining the church now, I would not let her join.

Curious, I asked her what she believed. She told me about her family being liberals who were mistreated by fundamentalists. She said she came to church for the music and that was all.

I told her I respected her wishes and left. Of course, I prayed all the way home for both of them.

Now,I had not been overly aggressive with my faith. I certainly had not attacked them in any way. I tried to love them, but they were two of the most grumpy people I ever knew.

She was right that if she wanted to join the church when I was there, and she said she didn’t profess belief in the resurrection of Jesus, I would have trouble with it. I would probably invite her to be a part in any way she wanted without joining. Membership in the body of Christ means basically to believe in the life, death, resurrection of Jesus Christ. If not, they why are we here?

Now, I say all that to say that one of the amendments to the Constitution of the United Methodist Church, on which Annual Conferences are still voting, seeks to take away any authority form the pastor as to members joining. I have know people who have been admitted to church membership without professing anything. Is that what we want?

Now, I don’t know anyone who has been rejected for membership for being a woman or a sinner, for that matter. However, if the pastor has no say in who joins the church, in who is ready to join, then membership is meaningless.

I urge delegates to vote no on amendment number 1. Vote no on all the “world” amendments. Vote yes on the proposal for extending voting rights to Local Pastors.

And, pray that the United Methodist Church will continue to make disciples of Jesus Christ.

Blessings!
Dave Nichols

United Methodist Amendments Up for Debate

The United Methodist Church has always been a “progressive” church. That is, we, most of us, were always out front when it came to civil rights, social outreach, things like that.

Our faith as we received it was an active faith. We believe in faith and works. Surely, like Wesley, we believe that a person is “put to right” by God’s grace alone and that through faith we receive God’s grace. But, like James in the Bible, we believe that faith without works is dead. So the “social” Gospel always found a place among us. It meant that for a witness to faith to have integrity it had to include giving someone a warm blanket, or a bowl of soup. It might include changing a law or standing up for what is right.

So, when we talk about change we at least entertain the possibility that God might be doing something “new”. But, this year, the 32 amendments to the constitution challenge “progressives”.

We United Methodists certainly need to change things among us. We are dying on the vine, so to speak. And, whether you blame it on our liberalism, or our lack of evangelistic zeal (we are at ease in Zion), or whether you blame it on the fact that we have been mostly a rural church and all our rural areas are disappearing, most everybody agrees that we need some radical change.

We need things like new churches and new ideas. But some things still persist. We are a people who like to tinker with organization structure as if that will save us.

In my lifetime alone, we went from thinking of our leaders as Stewards, to thinking of our lay leaders as Official Board Members and Administrative Board Members, trying to keep with the times and use names from the business world. Or, we went from seeing ourselves as pastors to seeing ourselves as CEO’s.

The proposed amendments to our constitution are attempts, I believe, to better things. They are attempts on the whole to help us move into this new century. Most of the amendments move us into the times, so to speak. Supporters say that the so-called “world” amendments helps us acknowledge that we are a “world” church. Other amendments, they say, make us more open, more inclusive.

In my opinion, with the exception of the amendment giving Local Pastors voting rights, and the one putting Bermuda in the Northeast, these amendments do little more than dilute the church’s mutually agreed-upon Book of Discipline.

They open the door for less accountability, less common agreement, and more freedom to do as conferences please. If we say that we can divide into regions, that will be the end of the UMC as we know.

So, change we need; we all agree on that. But, except for the two I mentioned, these amendments should be rejected. I have voted no and encourage you to do the same. Let’s honor the covenant of our church by holding the connection together.

Blessings!
Dave Nichols

32 Amendments to the Constitution of the United Methodist Church

Much has been said and much will be said about the 32 amendments to the United Methodist Constitution that are being voted on by Annual Conferences. Some have already voted; others will vote soon. I have encouraged everyone I know to vote no on everything except number 19 which gives voting rights to Local Pastors. It’s not that I’m necessarily opposed to everything there. I don’t really care whether we add gender to those who can’t be excluded from membership. Although I don’t remember anybody ever being turned down from membership in the United Methodist Church because they were female. I don’t really care if Bermuda Conference is put in the Northeast or Southeast. It doesn’t matter to me whether we call conferences outside the US “Central” conferences or not. I can certainly understand the reasons for changing the name.

My reasons for voting no on almost everything proposed are simple:

1. First, there are 32 amendments. How can anyone possibly know enough to vote on 32 of of anything, especially changes to something as important as a Constitution. The Constitution of anything defines something and changes to it should be made only after a lot of discussion and deliberation.

2. I have studied them thoroughly, and I don’t think anyone can tell me, for sure, what the actual outcome would be should we pass the “world” amendments. Does it mean that we would then have regional conferences that could be defined as they see fit? Would it mean that we would be only loosely connected and not have the same Book of Discipline? No one can answer those questions. Supporters say that we are a world church and these amendments further give expression to that reality. However, the possibility exists that regional conferences, whatever they are called, would simply further divide us. Some do want to divide us to get what they want in terms of policy and practice.

3. Why give us 32 amendments at one time? Is the intent to confuse? to divide and conquer? Is the hope that we will vote yes on enough of them to open the door to further division? I’m sorry but I don’t yet trust some of these leaders of the United Methodist church. I have seem many of them take sides and make broad statements that sound idealistic but really mean for the church further division.

Just watch the vote, it is so obvious that the vote in the south and mid-west will be almost opposite the vote outcome in the west and northeast. Are we that different really? On one level I don’t think so. We all want what is best for our church and God’s will. We are different in that we differ, many of us, on what God’s will is for us.

I do pray everyday that we will be given wisdom and led by the Holy Spirit and however this comes out that we will be able to still be partners, in every region, in ministry to the world for Jesus Christ.

Blessings!
Dave Nichols

S.C. and the Amendments to the Constitution of the United Methodist Church

I’m just getting back from the S.C. Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church. We dealt with the 32 Amendments to the Constitution of the United Methodist Church on Monday with relatively little friction. And, things turned out pretty much as I wanted.

Many of the amendments went down in a big way except the one giving voting rights to Local pastors and the one putting Bemuda to the Northeastern Jurisdiction.

Of course, the votes are counted individually and added up that way. It doesn’t matter how many conferences vote for or against the amendments. The votes are all added up to decide the issues. A two-thirds majority is required to make the changes.

Some conferences have already voted; others will be voting soon. I encourage you to vote “no” on the world amendments for the reasons that I have stated earlier. For one thing, no one is able to say what the implications of these amendments will be. The intention is to create more of a world church. But, we are already a world church.

They would, in fact, open the door for regional conferences and a looser connection. There would be less accountability and more freedom for each region. I believe that the net effect would be to create more division and less connection.

Again, if you like what is happening in the Episcopal Church, then vote “yes” on the world amendments. However, if you want to keep the world connected in our church, then vote “no”.

I also have trouble with amendments that weaken the United Methodist pastor’s role in receiving members. We are already an inclusive church. Anyone who comes to our church and professes Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior is received into membership. However, sometimes the pastor needs the discretion to decide.

So, when you consider your vote, please consider the implications of letting our connection go.

Blessings!
Dave Nichols