And Can It Be?

 #363 “And Can it Be?”

Amazing love! How can it be that Thou, my God, should die for me! ~ Charles Wesley 1738

Today I feel weighed down by sorrow for my bride, my children, grandchildren, their aunts and uncles, cousins, and friends, as my father-in-law, Sam Hopper, will soon join the saints in Heaven. I gladly shoulder as much of their grief as possible as we celebrate and mourn a man I admire and love, too. Sam’s Christian faith played an important role in my spiritual development many years ago, for which “I’m forever grateful” - that was the theme song of the retreat he led and I attended. Under his direction, many men, including me, awakened to a broader understanding of God’s amazing love and life-changing Spirit. Since then, my spiritual journey went in a direction Sam could not have imagined, but he remained supportive of my calling and seemed to love the way his daughter and grandchildren traveled with me toward a Methodist way of worshiping and serving Christ.  

 While we grieve and reminisce, my Methodist way reminds me of a magnificent hymn by Charles Wesley, “And Can It Be?” Please join me in reading the words as if from a journal by a born-again disciple of Christ. Let the punctuation bring added emphasis as you feel the astonishment and the humble adoration of a repentant and justified Christian Believer. Sam joins my dad, Ed, and countless multitudes who’ve gathered in the glory of God singing, “Amazing love! How can it be?”

And can it be that I should gain an interest in the Savior's blood? Died He for me, who caused His pain? For me, who Him to death pursued? Amazing love! How can it be that Thou, my God, should die for me? 

Tis mystery all! The Immortal dies! Who can explore His strange design? In vain the firstborn seraph tries To sound the depths of love divine! 'Tis mercy all!Lett earth adore, Let angel minds inquire no more. 

He left His Father's throne above,so free, so infinite His grace; Emptied Himself of all but love, and bled for Adam's helpless race; 'tis mercy all, immense and free; for, O my God, it found out me.

Long my imprisoned spirit lay fast bound in sin and nature's night; thine eye diffused a quickening ray, I woke, the dungeon flamed with light; my chains fell off, my heart was free; I rose, went forth and followed Thee. 

No condemnation now I dread; Jesus, and all in Him is mine! Alive in Him, my living Head, and clothed in righteousness divine, bold I approach the eternal throne, and claim the crown, through Christ my own. 

I Believe

I believe in one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church. - The Nicene Creed

It is a tumultuous time in the life of our parent denomination as protagonists and antagonists vie for supremacy and the capitulation of opponents. “Tho’ with a scornful wonder, men see her sore oppressed, by schism rent asunder, by heresies distressed, yet saints their watch are keeping, their cry goes up, “How long?” And soon the night of weeping shall be the morn of song.” (The Church’s One Foundation. Samuel John Stone) The disagreement seems at first to be about highly volatile social and political matters, but it goes far deeper. Our denomination is rent asunder over core beliefs about God and God’s relationship with humanity. 

The Apostle’s Creed and the more extensive Nicene Creed have always served as my anchor in the tumult of social storms. The apostles did not produce the creed, but it became essential to subsequent generations because it contains a succinct summary of their teachings. Early Christians adamantly stuck to the apostle’s teachings. It served as the next best thing to sitting under the instruction of those who walked with Jesus. When the Gospel reached large swathes of peoples, protagonists and antagonists battled over human interpretations of God’s nature and God’s relationship with humanity. The Nicene Creed eventually emerged to establish logical responses to popular criticisms of Apostolic Christianity. We still use it in churches and as Christian Believers to this day. When I am asked, in my pastoral capacity, to advise teachers of children’s Christian education, I always give a copy of the Nicene Creed and suggest they help their charges to attain an age-appropriate understanding of it. 

I recently read an article by an opponent of the traditionalist movement within our denomination that criticized inclusion of the Nicene Creed by proposed rules of doctrine and discipline. The critic’s thoughtfully worded argument said many things, but was most vocal in what it did not say. The Opposition to the Creed showed an unwillingness to be bound by its tenets. By stating it should not be part of the rules and religious standards, the author is ripping the heart of Christianity from the denomination’s chest. If you gather in Jesus’s name but choose not to believe what the apostles and early Christians said about him, then what is Jesus to your religion? Is he a great moral philosopher, like Confucius or the Buddha? Is Jesus a human who founded and led a worldwide religion like Islam? Have we outgrown the bible and apostolic faith?

The perils of secularization and persecution will always be a part of religions and their institutions. That’s why schisms and rebellions are inevitable. While they often involve violence, which can be vicious non-physical attacks, too, the process always produces revival and doctrinal clarity. Violence is born out of heightened emotions and bitter frustrations with opponents. It often results in a greater devotion to the destruction of enemies than to the core matters at hand. Sadly, it defies the Nicene Creed's high calling to be “one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.” One Body of which Christ-Jesus is the head; set apart for the LORD, a sanctified people; a Church-Universal, unbound by human institutions; rooted in apostolic teaching and tradition. Come quickly “morn of song”!

Disaffiliation

      Disaffiliation occurs all the time in our shared lives. Whenever you align yourself with others, it is an affiliation with a common sense of need and/or purpose. Your felt needs drew you to a uniting function and the others who had similar needs. Organized leadership helped you and others to gather and act within the shared sense of purpose that bound you together as you met each other’s needs. Nurture filtered down through layers of society that resulted in smaller groups whose specific needs affinities bound you to each other. Friendships grew and seemed as if they could last a lifetime. Then, you graduated from highschool and your lives slipped apart. Less and less contact led to fewer shared needs and over time, you drifted apart. There were no hard feelings, the common bonds or affiliations just crumbled. 

     As you married, had children, and grew families, the blood affiliations born out of mysterious love with all its wonders created a unique little society that was fascinating and terrifying all at once. The importance of family emerged as paramount and the complex relationships were so important that you kept hammering away day by day building what you earnestly desired to be healthy productive relationships with people so deeply tied to your being that words cannot adequately express it. But people are imperfect and the devil delights in oppression and chaos, so he pokes and prods at your most vulnerable insecurities to break down harmony and rhythm. Even family affiliations crumble.

    Imperfect harmony in families, workplaces, and greater society causes you to search for meaning and purpose, and your needs drive you again toward connection with others who feel the same way, and hope from an organization and benevolent leadership so that you can enrich your life, end chaos, and escape oppression. You find yourself drawn to a higher power whose supreme perfection and love must hold answers and endless energy to overcome discord, discouragement, and depression. Charismatic people drew you because they seemed to have strengths you desire and the peace you crave. One day, they invite you to a place and to people whose needs are like yours and who seem to have found a source of enrichment, meaning, and purpose. There is order and generous leadership, hope and harmony. Over time, it too will crumble. 

    The Church Universal is such a people and purpose, but it comprises thousands of smaller gatherings of societies. Each form in the same ways we've already considered, and each suffers the Enemy’s assaults. Chaos and oppression will emerge unless, with God’s Grace, you and others surrender your pride, embrace each other with Christ’s love and seek first His Kingdom. Broken and redeemed people form Christian societies for mutual healing and restoration, but some people whose shattered dreams make them risk averse and, like wounded, cornered animals, are likely to snarl, snap at, and claw each other. You and they need generous, patient, kind, and thoughtful leadership to overcome fear and disappointment, deep aches and sharp pains. Crumbling hurts and over time it breaks again and again. . 

     Weakened structures place inordinate burdens upon their most vulnerable elements. Someone must bind the damaged joint and bolster the weakened member. The LORD moves toward the wounded and, in the Body of Christ, the Church, it is often through the hearts and minds of Spirit-filled Christians. They will usually speak truth in love and either find one whose suffering has so diminished their weakness as to make them ready for help, hope, and healing. Wounds must be debrided and cleansed, which is a painful process that some cannot stand, so they wince in anguish and limp away from the source of healing. Oppressed by the decay and chaotic in their wounded ways, such people interpret truth in love from the Spirit of Christ as another assault upon their harmony and peace or their barest foothold above the abyss of self-loathing and despair. The relationship between the little Christian society crumbles and they move on. 

     Larger societies form out of the smaller churches and they organize themselves and provide leadership for even greater good so that local expressions of Christ in communities are strengthened and empowered to do all the good they can, eliminating chaos and oppression, and speaking truth in love. For a season, these movements generate enormous energy and attract multitudes of hungry people, like you. As a larger society grows, so too the complexities of order, organization, and leadership. Love compels you to hear the voices of the oppressed and the victims of chaos. Deep feelings make your heart ache and truth seems elusive when love brings staggering grief. It seems logical to expand your view of humanity and embrace the oppressed; we call it missions in the Church. Like Christ, you relish deep connections with people at the point of their felt needs and drink in the nectar of Grace when healing and restoration occurs. But you are often only a few steps ahead of them on the journey of sanctification and it's easy to recall old sorrows and unhealthy responses. Also, some of those to whom you are called are very weak and often require more stamina than you possess, and spiritual and intellectual capacity beyond your ken. It’s easy to forget the divine economy issuing from beyond time and space. And you crumble. 

     Frustration, grief, and angst oppress you into chaos and fear. So, you disconnect. The once precious affiliations fade in significance and the strange, sad comfort of shallower relationships and carefully controlled environments makes you feel safe and gives the illusion of freedom. There is emptiness ‌but dumb diversions and memories of pain and frustration remedy it with putrid salves made from bitterness, envy, and lethargy. Ironically, you leave behind a trail of crumbled bits that mark the pain others felt when you disappeared from their lives. They wonder if they could have done more, or they smirk dismissively at your weakness because they, too, ache from brokenness and disillusionment, and they tied some of their hope to you. When you disagreed with them or failed to support their distorted views, you pushed some secret button known only to their psyche. It triggered an avalanche of emotions and old heartaches. All the while, Christ’s Spirit grieved, and the devil cackled with delight by oppressive, unregulated feelings and the chaos they bring. Crumble, crumble, crumble. 

     We strive toward truth in love and facts over feelings even while the whole human struggle between animal nature and God-nature ripples through societies, even Christian societies. A fault line whose epicenter is too dangerous for anyone to dwell in for long, like a canyon, divides us. So, we move away from the fault line and further from each other. We form societies on our respective sides and the process of community, society, and family continues to nurture and fracture as the giant crack spawns a thousand lesser ones. Each of them is a smaller void of separation that truth in love and facts more powerful than feelings can span. Only Christ can heal the great wound, but we can imitate Him with the lesser ones. We can pick up crumbling bits and replace them where possible, and discard them when necessary. The crumbling stops each loving gesture of humility, patience, and grace in the Spirit of Christ.

     Disaffiliation is inevitable and is often a healthy expression of healing and restoration. Disaffiliation won't fix everything that needs repair, but it will lessen the burden upon weakened members. It will shrink the cracks to manageable sizes to make new bonds and restore old ones. It offers a fresh start and permission to leave behind oppression and chaos that was beyond your strength and required more than your spiritual and intellectual capacity. So many people and societies pin hopes and dreams to illusions of harmony powered by watered down fuels of shallowness and exclusive relationships with only like-minded people will oppress whomever threatens them. Their own attainments will not satisfy them, because they never satisfy, so they relentlessly pursue the identified sources of their pain, believing the capitulation of their enemies will bring them peace. It is far better to give them your tunic as well as your coat; to walk another mile in servitude so they can be on their way and you can return to your sanctifying journey with Christ who gave the Enemy His life for a little while and then won the ultimate victory for the LORD’s Name’s sake and our salvation.   

    

    Disaffiliation works best when it frees you to move forward to holiness, because it is your highest priority. Our timeless, all-powerful LORD is more than able to handle the rest. 

Over the Hill?

Dozens of people go to Him [God] to be cured of some one particular sin which they are ashamed of (like cowardice) or which is obviously spoiling daily life (like bad temper). Well, He will cure it all right: but He will not stop there. That may be all you asked; but if once you call Him in, He will give you the full treatment.." - C.S. Lewis “Mere Christianity” 

Today is my 60th birthday and I’ve been grumbling about it to my close friends and family members for the last few months because I just can’t understand how I got here so fast. It’s gratifying to consider how far I’ve come over the years, even while I’m dizzied by the pace. I’ve striven to be present in every moment and absorb the richness of every detail. A plethora of vivid memories fill my mind and range from early childhood to sounds in the middle of last night, and I want to write about them all. Don’t worry, I won’t do so now. Rather, I’ll try to express some things that I hope you find helpful. 

I’ve been intentionally sharing John Wesley quotes over the last few weeks as a way of guiding our discernment and conversations regarding affiliation with the United Methodist Church. I feel it is imperative to drill down to our roots so that we can see whether our denomination is more like the founder’s vision or the things he sought to reform. It’s very important to me because I prayerfully and thoughtfully became a “Methodist” decades ago, and I remember it well. I will not elaborate on it here, but I have to say, at least, that I chose Wesley's way of living in God’s grace, not a convoluted, humanistic institution. My Christian way of life became orderly and purposeful as I learned to work out my salvation with fear and trembling and to seek sanctification with the aid of the Wesleyan way.

You can rightly surmise that I am grateful to C. S. Lewis, too. The quote above accurately describes the journey I’ve been on as the Lord tunes and refines my soul for His holy purposes. I remember emotionally charged prayers for relief from inner turmoil, outward circumstances, and justice. When my Lord answered, He offered a complete solution that requires a lifetime of treatment. Today, I have everything I ever wanted back in those days and none of it came in a moment. A slow, steady progression of spiritual maturity, personal growth, and a thousand savored moments accumulated like gently falling snow. The white blanket of Christ’s grace and provision covers old heartaches, shame, anger, and consequences of impatience. That I can reflect upon those things in this way is another gift of sanctifying grace, and I am grateful.

Yes, I’ve grumbled about turning 60 and most have laughed good-naturedly with me about it. After all, I’m like every other person over a certain threshold who doesn’t see himself in the same way he sees others his age. “I’m not old, but they sure look it,” he might say. I don't feel old and I hope I never do. But, you can’t turn 60 without thinking about retirement. “Retirement!” my mind screams. “Are you kidding!” The relentless realization that my time on earth is shorter than it's ever been and I’m only just coming into the assurance, competence, and holy harmony with the Spirit that I’ve always sought. The grumbling masks an inner feeling of urgency and hope balanced against a lifetime of knowledge and wisdom that informs my fears. While I look forward with joy to the eternal journey’s continuation on the other-side, I am eager to make the most of every moment, hour, day, month and year I have left in me.