Pain and Promise

 

Our uniforms were black and gold and we represented the Freeport United Methodist Church as we played in the local church summer, slow-pitch softball league. 

We were good.  Real good.  

Ours was a team of members….no outside “ringers” here, each player had the certificate and on Sundays checked the member box on the attendance pad. 

 

I was related to many of my teammates and was the only woman on the team and started at shortstop.  Of all the leagues and levels I have played, church softball was the most cut-throat competitive.  

We won the league championship multiple times and wore our jerseys to church as the trophy was placed in the front of the congregation….OK, it rested on the altar, yet, the minister was the starting pitcher so all was good.

 

That was not the only time I was proud to be a United Methodist. 

My lineage is Methodist going back generations. To this day my family still sits in the back left corner…in the good days claiming multiple pews.   

If you asked me why Methodist, I was born into it as was my mother and her mother. We joined and joined in --- teaching, serving on committees, showing up, doing ministries.

 

In seminary I had a moment when I pondered remaining United Methodist.  The United Church of Christ were much more hospitable and liberal.  

I stayed.  

Why? 

My roots.

My experience of living the faith and watching the faith be embodied by mini-Methodists and more seasoned Methodists.

The Wesleyan way of problem solving: look to scripture, use reason, trust what has been your experience and reflect on what is the Methodist tradition.

 

In recent times, I note in me a pause when persons ask me what church I am a pastor. When I answer, “United Methodist,” I sense their feeling for me, they purse their lips and cast down their eyes as they tilt their heads in compassionate understanding. 

 

I’ve wept many times at church, yet, this past week was the first time on a Pentecost Sunday, the birthday of the church. The United Methodist Church is rendering ourselves asunder.  We have done it to ourselves.  We have failed to lead, to do the hard work of listening and the harder work of loving.  We have not called into account mutual ugliness, sharp and cutting words, clutching and clinging to only our understanding and making no attempts to invite in another perspective and we have ripped apart due to our fear…. fear of a new society, a new understanding, a new “other.”

 

I know that anger and sadness are siblings, both emotions part of the other.

I know that in this time of endings, something new will be reborn.

I know I am called to continue to minister from my United Methodist foundation. 

I know I will continue to answer that call and live what my mother and grandmother have shown me --- ALL are welcome and ALL have a story to share; to build upon what thirty years of service and stories and shared ministry have emboldened me to speak with my loud voice and use my energy and creativity. 

I know, as that old song refrains, “they will know us by our love….”