A Summer Reflection from Executive Director Bridget Cabrera
I recently had the pleasure of preaching on the feeding of the 5,000 in the book of John at the East Ohio AC gathering of Reconciling United Methodists and East Ohio MFSA. In that sermon, I focused on our need as a Church and a society to move beyond being bogged down by fear and scarcity. The hearts of the people gathered on that mountain were softened and opened even in the midst of all the fear and scarcity that they experienced in their time. The crowd already had everything they needed. They just needed to share what they had instead of hoard it. In the end, there was even more than enough leftover, twelve baskets full of fragments of bread. Fragments that Jesus made sure were not wasted.
Our world is fragmented, our United Methodist Church is fragmented. How do we make our world and church whole? We are waiting and looking to our leaders to help lead us. Waiting for the next General Conference to see what the plan will be. Hoping that something will emerge that will bring us hope and wholeness. I’m not sure the Church really works like that. We cannot strategically plan our way to wholeness. Using intellectual exercises and speaking in theoreticals won’t heal the pain in our church. The great Audre Lorde writes, “The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House.” Using the tools of colonialism, capitalism, white supremacy, and hetero-patriarchy will not help us. We must go out of our comfort zones and remove, “But that is not how we do things here,” or, “We have never done it like that before,” from our vocabulary. We must try new things and encourage more people to be in leadership roles. The tools that build wholeness are very different from the tools that build scarcity and fear. They are tools like radical welcome and hospitality, creating spaces that foster real relationship building, slowing down and enjoying the moment (you do not have to produce all of the time, rest is a radical concept), creating opportunities for fun and silliness, talking about things that matter, opening up and being vulnerable and learning to listen to understand without judgment.
We can’t sit around and wait for someone else, some other group, or someone in charge to tell us what to do. Our church started as a grassroots movement. Small groups gathering, imagining, and practicing church together. Perhaps the solution is not a top-down one. What would it look like to grow into the next chapter of United Methodism from the ground up? What kind of miraculousness can we create together? How can we do church in more just and equitable ways?
In Florida, the governor has banned AP African American Studies, and our very own Justice-Seeking Congregation Allendale UMC in St. Petersburg, offered up their church as a place for students to take AP African American Studies—an example of abundant thinking and a bit of holy trouble. Their pastor, Rev. Andy Oliver, is the co-chair of the MFSA board of directors.
The transgender community is under attack, and our faith is being used as a weapon against them. Great Plains MFSA, during its annual conference, co-sponsored a Drag Story Hour with the lovely Pollie Pockets and Babygirl at a local coffee shop. More than 100 were in attendance—an example of living into the kin-dom now and practicing beloved community together.
In the 2022 Florida Annual Conference, there were two openly gay candidates. Instead of voting on people one by one, the whole class wanted to stick together and not leave their siblings behind. They were either all going to be approved or none of them. Sixteen candidates for ordained ministry were rejected for provisional membership at the clergy session. Both LGBTQ+ candidates were elected to the leadership team of Florida MFSA. They had a fun project for their annual conference this year that one candidate cooked up. They knew their conference needed healing and needed to reconnect, so in the spirit of the one and only, Taylor Swift, Florida MFSA created a friendship bracelet project for annual conference. They had college students, youth groups, and congregations take part in making bracelets to share. Out of fear and scarcity, they saw abundance, and they opened their hearts to each other. When they had every reason to be bitter and angry, they chose love.
Florida United Methodist clergy voted to move forward its class of openly LGBTQ candidates for ordained ministry! Pictured below is the moment right after this historic first in the SEJ. Rev. Magrey deVega, board chair of BOOM, made an argument for inclusivity in his report. “Why can't we wait until the Discipline is changed in 2024? First, we don't know what will happen in 2024, and there is no guarantee of anything except for the decision that is in our hands right now. Second, it is just as possible that what will help to change the Discipline are the actions that we can take today. Here is what we know throughout human history and the church's history: change happens with dissent. There is no change without intermediate acts of dissent or what Richard Rohr calls ‘order, disorder, and new order."
I am reminded that people do not change deeply held beliefs through their brains alone. It is through the heart and through relationships that people change and grow. From women’s rights, racial justice, LGBTQIA+ rights, etc., at their core, it boils down to the struggle to belong. Who’s in, and who’s out? Scarcity and fear perpetuate this idea that the kin-dom of God is an exclusive club with not enough room for everyone. We know otherwise. Let us continue to do the work of justice. Let us continue to do the work of opening our hearts in the midst of fear and scarcity. Make a gift to MFSA today.
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