"Can't we all just get along?"
That's a question someone asked me today in reference to the conclusion of The United Methodist Special General Conference on Human Sexuality. Just mere minutes after the close of the Conference and the decision to adopt the "traditional" plan (in its modified version) as the binding decision of the General Conference.
I responded that I'm pretty sure everyone at that Conference thought they were being nice.
The traditionalists think they're being nice in rescuing the homosexuals from the fires of hell. (Westboro Baptists do, too, and they were there protesting outside the Conference.) Progressives think they're being nice in opening up the church to a new vision of following Jesus Christ who is leading them into a future that looks strangely like the larger culture in which the Church finds itself. And centrists are being nice in trying to make sure everyone can still fit under the same tent together.
But here's the thing: Jesus wasn't killed for being too nice.
He was killed because he made radical claims about God -- about an expansive love that extends even to one's enemies and binds relationships into the complex fabric of interconnected human lives as expressions of God's love for each human person. The principalities and powers of Jesus' day (to include the religious powers!) were all-too-threatened by that radical message.
No, Jesus wasn't too nice. He was too confrontational about things that really mattered.
And it's interesting to me that, in a culture pervasive with homosexuality, Jesus said not one damned word about it. He overturned the tables of those who exploited religion for economic gain. He ridiculed religious teachers who claimed to have a handle on Truth and possess it to the exclusion of everyone else. He condemned religious teachers who found themselves quite cozy with imperial power.
But not one damned word about homosexuality.
The General Conference has just used words that describe how a Church -- the Body of Christ -- will organize its life and its ministry around an issue that never even once crossed Jesus' lips.
Let that sink in for a minute.
Not one word about divorce. Not one word about sexual immorality. Nothing about economic exploitation or violence. Nothing about caring for the least and lost.
Just homosexuality.
And the decision was reached in the nicest way possible -- good ole American democratic voting. That one decision-making process in which we make winners and losers of sisters and brothers. One side "won" and another side "lost". Now the "losers" are expressing dissatisfaction and a determination to splinter off into a new denomination that is more affirming of LGBTQ+ identities.
So in all the hullabaloo over the rules, we lost sight of real human lives. Wonder what Jesus would say about that?
The Gospel itself is at stake when we Christians decide that "niceness" is a theological category. Newsflash -- it isn't. Because of all the folks at the General Conference, I can't imagine anyone -- not even one person -- who thought of themselves as "not nice".
This overwhelming desire to be "nice" is, at its heart, an abdication of the long, hard work of apostolic discernment. When I read Acts 15, I'm struck by how much dialogue there is between sisters and brothers who simply don't agree. Who find it difficult to get along. Until the Spirit intervenes and allows them to hear one another, and reach the mutual decision that what God is doing in their midst is a good thing -- even for those who would otherwise have disagreed with it.
No, The United Methodist Church as a whole lost today. Because everyone was trying to be nice, and no one was trying to be faithful.
The truth of the matter is, in trying to be nice, none of us really are. In trying to be nice, we stop listening to those who are the recipients of our nice-ness. We're closing off ourselves from others, whoever those others happen to be.
Christ didn't die for the nice folks. He died for the ungodly. You know, people like me. He died so that I would learn to find myself crucified for the sake of others. This has been a hard lesson for me lately. I've found myself having to die again and again for the people I was pretty sure I just had to be nice toward. And I'm relearning that lesson again today. It's only in that dying to ourselves that we learn to live the life we have in Christ.
On multiple occasions over the years, I've compared the kind of thing that happened today to the religious marching back up Golgotha and nailing Jesus to that damned tree again. I've compared it to the good, nice religious folks bloodying and breaking and killing the Body once more. And I think I'm right. What happened today was yet another instance of religion finding a way to kill faithfulness.
But here's the rest of that story: Even in death, God works something miraculous. Bruised and bloody and broken, that Body doesn't stay dead. Perhaps God has to kill The United Methodist Church in order for the Body of Christ to live again.
And maybe that's what happened today.
Niceness is killing The United Methodist Church.
And God is raising the Body of Christ to new life.
That's a question someone asked me today in reference to the conclusion of The United Methodist Special General Conference on Human Sexuality. Just mere minutes after the close of the Conference and the decision to adopt the "traditional" plan (in its modified version) as the binding decision of the General Conference.
I responded that I'm pretty sure everyone at that Conference thought they were being nice.
The traditionalists think they're being nice in rescuing the homosexuals from the fires of hell. (Westboro Baptists do, too, and they were there protesting outside the Conference.) Progressives think they're being nice in opening up the church to a new vision of following Jesus Christ who is leading them into a future that looks strangely like the larger culture in which the Church finds itself. And centrists are being nice in trying to make sure everyone can still fit under the same tent together.
But here's the thing: Jesus wasn't killed for being too nice.
He was killed because he made radical claims about God -- about an expansive love that extends even to one's enemies and binds relationships into the complex fabric of interconnected human lives as expressions of God's love for each human person. The principalities and powers of Jesus' day (to include the religious powers!) were all-too-threatened by that radical message.
No, Jesus wasn't too nice. He was too confrontational about things that really mattered.
And it's interesting to me that, in a culture pervasive with homosexuality, Jesus said not one damned word about it. He overturned the tables of those who exploited religion for economic gain. He ridiculed religious teachers who claimed to have a handle on Truth and possess it to the exclusion of everyone else. He condemned religious teachers who found themselves quite cozy with imperial power.
But not one damned word about homosexuality.
The General Conference has just used words that describe how a Church -- the Body of Christ -- will organize its life and its ministry around an issue that never even once crossed Jesus' lips.
Let that sink in for a minute.
Not one word about divorce. Not one word about sexual immorality. Nothing about economic exploitation or violence. Nothing about caring for the least and lost.
Just homosexuality.
And the decision was reached in the nicest way possible -- good ole American democratic voting. That one decision-making process in which we make winners and losers of sisters and brothers. One side "won" and another side "lost". Now the "losers" are expressing dissatisfaction and a determination to splinter off into a new denomination that is more affirming of LGBTQ+ identities.
So in all the hullabaloo over the rules, we lost sight of real human lives. Wonder what Jesus would say about that?
The Gospel itself is at stake when we Christians decide that "niceness" is a theological category. Newsflash -- it isn't. Because of all the folks at the General Conference, I can't imagine anyone -- not even one person -- who thought of themselves as "not nice".
This overwhelming desire to be "nice" is, at its heart, an abdication of the long, hard work of apostolic discernment. When I read Acts 15, I'm struck by how much dialogue there is between sisters and brothers who simply don't agree. Who find it difficult to get along. Until the Spirit intervenes and allows them to hear one another, and reach the mutual decision that what God is doing in their midst is a good thing -- even for those who would otherwise have disagreed with it.
No, The United Methodist Church as a whole lost today. Because everyone was trying to be nice, and no one was trying to be faithful.
The truth of the matter is, in trying to be nice, none of us really are. In trying to be nice, we stop listening to those who are the recipients of our nice-ness. We're closing off ourselves from others, whoever those others happen to be.
Christ didn't die for the nice folks. He died for the ungodly. You know, people like me. He died so that I would learn to find myself crucified for the sake of others. This has been a hard lesson for me lately. I've found myself having to die again and again for the people I was pretty sure I just had to be nice toward. And I'm relearning that lesson again today. It's only in that dying to ourselves that we learn to live the life we have in Christ.
On multiple occasions over the years, I've compared the kind of thing that happened today to the religious marching back up Golgotha and nailing Jesus to that damned tree again. I've compared it to the good, nice religious folks bloodying and breaking and killing the Body once more. And I think I'm right. What happened today was yet another instance of religion finding a way to kill faithfulness.
But here's the rest of that story: Even in death, God works something miraculous. Bruised and bloody and broken, that Body doesn't stay dead. Perhaps God has to kill The United Methodist Church in order for the Body of Christ to live again.
And maybe that's what happened today.
Niceness is killing The United Methodist Church.
And God is raising the Body of Christ to new life.