Hope in Connection
Beloved, I may be a bit unsufferable for a couple of weeks here. This is your first warning.
You see, I am just back from our Baltimore Washington Annual Conference gathering and tomorrow I depart for the Peninsula Delaware Annual Conference. I’m attending both this year, because as we learn how to share a bishop as an official “Episcopal Area,” we are also sharing a single worship team – a group of volunteer laity and clergy from both annual conferences that together to create worship that is rooted in the same themes but is also unique and steeped in local tradition.
And I am exhausted but I am on cloud 9. Because what could be better than creating Holy Spirit infused worship for a huge body of folks who love the Triune God?
As I said in a social media post aimed at helping my non-Methodist friends understand my vibe, Annual Conference is like a family reunion – one where we figure out what is important for the years to come, where we figure out how to use our resources to form disciples, where we find ways to love one another through our differences. We debate and we refine legislation and we practice something called holy conferencing.
As United Methodists we value the ways the Holy Spirit shows up and works among and between us and when we all gather in a room.
Imagine that room full of 1200 or so folks in a ballroom, all of whom carry a spark of the light of creation with them.
That space can vibrate with the Holy Spirit.
AND…if that exists here in our annual conference, now made up of six districts, imagine what happens across the bridge as we begin to cross pollinate our six districts with three more over there – all with their traditions and quirks, their history and their hopes.
I see the possibilities – I feel the dry bones coming alive.
And so today, I want to spend a little time testifying.
As I drove home late Thursday evening after we ordained a bunch of new deacons and elders, I checked in with my heart and soul. What was sparking the deep joy in spite of my tired feet and buzzing brain?
It was hope.
Hope that springs from connection.
Hope that springs from connection where I can celebrate the good work of another congregation – work that the congregation that I serve simply cannot do.
Hope that springs from connection where this leader’s gifts compliment this leader’s gifts and that leader’s gifts and together, they can make things happen that no one of them could accomplish alone.
Hope that springs from connection where I can see that my church, connected to that church and that church and that church can do SO MUCH MORE.
Hope that springs from connection where I can see that my district, connected to that district and that district can reach SO MUCH FURTHER.
Hope that springs from connection where the Holy Spirit is nudging me and is nudging you and is nudging you and is nudging you, and suddenly we all find ourselves thinking in the same direction – imaging a new thing together.
At the end of a busy week, when I revisited today’s scripture text, my heart leaped at this:
as they passed through both Phoenicia and Samaria, they reported the conversion of the gentiles and brought great joy to all the brothers and sisters
I can just imagine Paul and Barnabas walking away from a contentious discussion about the rules one has to follow to become part of the early group of Jesus followers. It was an argument about whether circumcision is what saves.
Let that sink in – they are walking away from a contentious debate about who belongs…and they walk away – with the intention of taking the debate back to the council of elders and apostles.
Along their journey, they go through communities where God, by the power of the Holy Spirit, is causing people to believe in the God of love in new and transforming, healing ways. Paul and Barnabas see and hear one great story of conversion after another.
And we can assume, because the named places that they passed through were not Jewish communities, that all of this conversion was happening without attention to laws like circumcision.
Imagine walking away from conversations about the only right way to meet your neighbors, the only right ways to read scripture,
the only right ways to teach a new member class,
the only right way to worship,
the only right way to pray.
The way it has always been.
The right way.
How many of us have been part of a conversation (either at the church or somewhere out in our community) about who is IN and who is OUT? About the way things are done and the way they’ve never been done? Can you feel the weariness of that kind of conversation in your body?
As Paul and Barnabas walk away from that kind of conversation, they see people hearing the good news of Jesus’ resurrection. They see people who are being changed by that good news. In ways that are strange and new and different from what has always been.
And they show up in Jerusalem.
I imagine them saying…
Brothers (but we can say siblings…because there is more than one way!), I know that YOU learned that the only way to worship is in a building with an altar and an organ. I know that YOU learned that the only way to be baptized is to be sprinkled from a font. I know that YOU learned that we use certain names and pronouns for God and not others….
…But I am hear to tell you that I am seeing people meet God in new ways. I am seeing God work in people’s lives even without an altar and an organ and a font. It’s pretty amazing.
This year at annual conference, I felt a little bit like Paul and Barnabas walking through a new town in every conversation I had.
Wow! You are doing such an amazing thing to glorify God!
Wow! You baptized how many youth this year?! And they came to faith because of their work in the streets rather than what was being said in a pulpit?!
Wow! Your little church is feeding HOW many senior citizens each week in spite of the fact that you don’t have a Sunday school anymore?
WOW!
So much hope. Hope that looks new and different and on the move.
Let me read you the end of today’s text from The Message – because it might hit our ears differently:
10-11 “So why are you now trying to out-god God, loading these new believers down with rules that crushed our ancestors and crushed us, too? Don’t we believe that we are saved because the Master Jesus amazingly and out of sheer generosity moved to save us just as he did those from beyond our nation? So what are we arguing about?”
12-13 There was dead silence. No one said a word. With the room quiet, Barnabas and Paul reported matter-of-factly on the miracles and wonders God had done among the other nations through their ministry. The silence deepened; you could hear a pin drop.
13-18 James broke the silence. “Friends, listen. Simeon has told us the story of how God at the very outset made sure that racial outsiders were included.
This is in perfect agreement with the words of the prophets:
After this, I’m coming back;
I’ll rebuild David’s ruined house;
I’ll put all the pieces together again;
I’ll make it look like new
So outsiders who seek will find,
so they’ll have a place to come to,
All the pagan peoples
included in what I’m doing.
“God said it and now he’s doing it. It’s no afterthought; he’s always known he would do this.
Beloved, I am coming to you today full of hope.
Hope that springs from connections where we see God doing a new thing and instead of questioning it, instead of trying to institutionalize it, we offer praise and thanksgiving.
Hope that springs from connections that, steeped in the movement of the Spirit, open us to new and amazing transformations that expand God’s love in the world.
Come, Holy Spirit. Breathe on us, ruach of God. Open our eyes and hearts.
Draw us into your work in connection with our siblings throughout our connection and beyond.
May it be so.
Amen.
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