Greater Northwest Area Bishop Elaine JW Stanovsky shares her thoughts, hopes and prayers as the Council of Bishops continue discerning the future of the church.
Today United Methodist bishops from around the world begin day 4 of closed sessions, searching for how best to the lead the Church as it struggles to know and obey God’s will for the human family.
You may think that the answer is simple: the wide path is open to all. But it’s the wide path where we experience conflict, because it’s open to LGBTQ people, and to Wesley Covenant Association people; Africans, Filipinos, Europeans, Americans with all our disparate understandings of scripture and attitudes toward human intimacy. No one’s precious opinions are safe on the wide path. We all get bruised and shoved when we try to walk together.
Life would be simpler if the church split into narrower paths where like-minded people could walk together in peace. But I’ve noticed that when you start choosing not to walk with people who challenge you, it gets pretty lonely.
How much tension is creative? When does it stretch us to the breaking point. Some of us can’t take the tension and literally have to flee.
I want to ask with John Wesley, “Though we cannot think alike may we not love alike?” and continue to walk the wide road where we to talk and learn, and hold the painful, but creative tension where growth and change can occur?
The tension sends us to our knees, because we don’t know how to love each other as we ought. Our love does not seem strong enough to “bear all things.”
We believe that, in the end, God will lead the human family toward a shared land of plenty and peace. Can we get there on a wide, shared path? (I hope so) Or do we need to try different paths for a time (I hope not), trusting that they join up again before too long?
I won’t kid you — this is hard work. Painful work. And I don’t know how it will end.
But I look forward to Sunday, when I’ll preach about loving God and neighbor (Luke 10: 26-28) and I’ll ask God and the people and myself, what does love look like?
Oh, how I wish that there were more bishops of the caliber of Bishop Stanovsky. Your views and wisdom is sorely needed in the UMC.
Let us as a church always choose the wider path. Let us never go back to discriminating we did that and it was disastrous and hurtful to others. Let us learn by history and accept all God’s Children.