Maybe It’s Time We Methodists Grew Up, by Pastor Ed Evans

            Perhaps you read the news from several days ago, where the delegates of the United Methodist Church at their annual meeting voted down an attempt by a lesser number of members to ordain practicing homosexuals as clergy.  The vote was close: 449-374.

            This is a reflection of America’s, and most of the world’s, polyglot society that wants to make up its own rules and ethos as it suits various groups of people, at the time.

            We have all been in the kitchen, arguing over a pot of stew that didn’t really suit any of us, with very different approaches to whom and to what we wanted God and a religious life to be.  Maybe a dash of that, a snifter of this, a spoonful, a half a cup, and we keep trying to change what God has already ordained.

            The result is a spoonful of dissoluble soup.  It favors no one, suitable for a neutral society of no males, no females, no blacks, whites, red, brown, shades of grey with no opinions and ultimately, no ethos, no rules.  And, the race slumps toward its time of extinction.

            Almighty God knows us so well, and loves us so much He has given us a technicolor picture of what lies ahead.  Just read the prophets.  Read Revelations.  He already knew this was coming.

            We know what God has said.  We know what the Christ has done.

            Isn’t it time we grew up and took hold of, took responsibility for, the tools and the platforms He has provided for us to lead into the time of peace, the time of Christ’s return?  Isn’t it time we grew up and left behind the childish desires that please each one of us differently, demanding all others like what we like, hate what we hate, love what we love?  Isn’t it time?

            Our patient, loving God has a plan.  He’s shown it to us, so why do we keep trying to rewrite it into a childish version of “Me First!”  What is at the bottom of this disastrous church behavioral controversy?  I want my way in the church.  You want your way in the church, every mother’s son and daughter wants their own way in the church.  Whatever happened to seeking God’s way.  He has had His say on homosexuality.  It doesn’t half-step, it strides out pure and clear.  Why do some of us keep trying to find ways to bring it into line with our personal desires?

            First, we need to recognize that God is unchangeable.  He doesn’t change.  What He has said doesn’t change.  So if we are set in our ways, and those ways don’t meet God’s ways, then go off and start your own church.  Follow another god.  There are plenty out there who would gladly take you in.  I personally would not advise that, because there is really only one God, one Yahweh, one El Shaddai, one who is all things to us, one who has provided His son as the sacrifice for our sins, one who created us and has made a way for us to spend eternity with Him.  One.

            So what is the controversy really all about?

            We do want to make room in God’s house for all of God’s children, right?  No matter what their background, their upbringing, how they look or how they sound, or even how they think.  And the church in this world is God’s church, so He has certain requirements, certain do’s and don’ts.

            When I was growing up my mother had her own set of rules, and it meant she jumped from husband to husband, and I was left to grow up in different families.  When I landed at my Grandmother’s house, about age six, she let me know she loved me very much, I would be staying with her and Grandpa, but that she had her own set of rules, and they would be followed.  Disobeying her rules wasn’t the first time I got my britches warmed, but it meant the most because I didn’t like disappointing her.  I coveted her love and her favor.

            Our God has His own set of rules, and being our God and our Creator, He has known just how to make them clear to us.  In this current set-to, about homosexuality, He has been abundantly clear.  Don’t do it.  He has been crystal clear, beginning with Genesis 19, Leviticus 18 and 20, Romans 1:18-32, 1^st Cor. 6:9-10, and in 1^st Timothy 1:8-10.  Other verses in scripture hark back to these warning signs and back up God’s word about such practices.

            So what shall we do with those who insist that our God should let them have their own way?  Do we shut the church door in their face?  Refuse to recognize them?  Shower them with hatred and abuse?  No.  Never.  That was never God’s way, but we continue to love them and show them, through how we live our own lives, what God’s love leads to.  But at the same time we don’t put them in positions of leadership where they can teach contrary to God’s will.  They are not ready to be teachers of adults and mentors of children.  First, they must sort out their own salvation with the Living God.

            We are called to show them the road to salvation, not encourage them to wander about in the swamps and bogs and never find their way home.  Accompanying them on their journey that goes in the wrong direction will not get them to Christ.  We must tell them, “the bridge is out in that direction.”  The only fulfilling bridge to God Almighty is Jesus Christ, and they must be told that truth even if they don’t wish to hear it.  That’s the gospel, and the whole world needs to hear it.

            Once the whole world knows that Jesus is the Christ, that God is the One God of the universe, then we can all grow up together, in peace and understanding.  Don’t you think it’s time we all grew up?