by David Hosey
I became a Reconciling United Methodist (RUM) a few months ago, following a pretty simple conversation with a friend that went something like this:
"Are you a Reconciling United Methodist?""Well, I go to a reconciling church."
"Have you filled out a RUM card?"
"Nope."
"Here's one."
"Ok."
Of course, there was a longer process before that of developing beliefs that led me to acquiesce to the idea so easily. Conversations, readings, contemplation, and most importantly relationships, formed over time, all played a part in bring me to a place in life where I can proudly say, "I'm a straight ally, and I'm a Reconciling United Methodist."
At root, though, the reason I'm a RUM is that the church in which I grew up stuck with me, even at my lowest, angriest, and most bitter times growing up. From this congregation I learned that the church at its best is a church that can accept and love me, no matter how broken I am.
When I went away to college, though, I realized that many of my new friends wouldn't be welcome in many United Methodist churches--not their whole selves, at least, not if they told people the truth about themselves and about their God-given identity.
It struck me that the United Methodist Church that I love, the church that loves me and supports me even in my brokenness wouldn't love and accept my LGBT-Q friends in their wholeness.
I'm incredibly grateful for the love and acceptance that I felt growing up in the church. And it is the quest for a church that embodies that full love, in all of its wholeness, for all of God's people, that makes me want to be a Reconciling United Methodist.
David Hosey is a life-long United Methodist and will be entering Wesley Theological Seminary in the Fall of 2010. From July 2007-July 2010, he worked as a Mission Intern with Global Ministries of the United Methodist Church, serving with the Sabeel Center in Jerusalem, Israel/Palestine and the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation in Washington, DC, U.S.A. He is an inquiring candidate for ordained ministry in the United Methodist Church and also blogs at http://hoseyblog.blog.com. He attends Dumbarton UMC in Washington, DC, which is where a friend first asked him whether he would become a Reconciling United Methodist. He said yes. Now you're stuck with him.
Reconciling Ministries Network mobilizes United Methodists of all sexual orientations and gender identities to transform our Church and world into the full expression of Christ’s inclusive love.
Reconciling Tools: Prayer for Enemies
It is a bit troubling to discover that Jesus did not share the common view that God agrees with our opinion of others. Instead, he invited us to pray about joining in God’s high expectations and hope for all humanity .
It remains a revolutionary idea. Our traditional social and political arrangements reflect tribal loyalties based on our instincts for self-preservation. They provide us with a safe “home base” to explore our world. Jesus called us to replace those tribal loyalties with a more universal loyalty that finds a “home base” in honoring and respecting (loving) all of God’s creation. (See Reconciliation and Love's Definition).
Jesus’ call for this new loyalty offers a far more likely foundation for human self-preservation than the tribal loyalties we usually rely on. Unfortunately, both biblical tradition and history are full of examples that illustrate a broad unwillingness to respond to Jesus’ call. A few examples: Both Hebrew scripture and significant portions of the New Testament model hostility and even hatred toward enemies. When the church burned heretics it was identifying enemies while using fear to assure at least outward loyalty to its tribal ways. In 1961 Fidel Castro declared that continued loyalty to the Cuban revolution required an enemy. Contemporary political campaigns are often based on describing its opponents as enemies and targeting them with falsehoods and partial truths. Likewise, we can hear church leaders propagate an “us versus them” world view as a tool for creating loyalty to their group and personal leadership. Many LGBT people have experienced the negative consequences of that strategy.
The danger in being someone’s enemy is in returning the favor by accepting their enmity and labeling them as our own enemy. In a real world sense that dynamic is probably inescapable but the danger is in responding in kind. When that happens we give the enemy the power to define who we are and set the rules of our relationships. (More in a later posting.)
The instruction to pray for our enemies has often been understood as a prayer that somehow God would intervene in their values, world view, and behavior so that they would come to accept our perspectives and be more like us. The arrogance of that notion is the assumption that we have “the right way;” that we understand God’s views; or that we have the sole understanding of how creation is supposed to work—the implication being that all other views are wrong.
Over the years I have come to understand that praying for our enemies is less about them than it is about me. Jesus’ Prime Directive is to love or honor and respect all that God has created. To pray for an enemy is to seek insight and understanding sufficient to honor that person’s creation. (Perhaps meditation is a better contemporary word than prayer.)
Any increased insight or understanding does not compel me to agree with such a person, only that I come to understand. Once understood, what do I do about it? Everyone will agree that it is a struggle. Likewise, we cannot focus only on understanding our enemy. We have biases, prejudices, and structures in our world view that have to be examined in relation to our own spiritual health and willingness to honor and respect others. Jesus’ teachings also include strategies to pursue those objectives.
Obviously, there is much more to live and talk out. This is not a solitary adventure. Your comments are welcome.
*The Gospel of Jesus. Robert W. Funk and the Jesus Seminar. Santa Rosa, CA, Polebridge Press, 1999.
Posted in Author: Peter DeGroote, Biblical Commentary, Diversity, Reconciling Process, Relationships, Spirituality | Permalink | Comments (0)
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