Daily Devotion for Lent 2023 - Day 35

Mercy triumphs over judgment.

                    James 2:13b

Today, I'm thankful that The United Methodist Church emphasizes grace over judgment.  

At some point fairly early in my career, I remember Oklahoma's resident bishop at the time, Bruce Blake, leading us in a series he wrote entitled, "What's Different about The United Methodist Church."

In particular, I remember his point that we lead with grace over judgment.  

I have experienced Christian judgment many times in my life.  Sometimes they have come from within the denomination and sometimes from without.  So it would be hypocritical to say that we never judge.  Rather, it is like the bar we raise to an impressive height.  We are working on clearing the bar but we recognize that we'll need some help.

If we don't continue to seek to employ grace, it is much too easy to fall into being judgmental.  I'm not sure why this is a fall-back position but it seems to be.  This may be due to the fact that secular life employs a lot of judgment.

As a district superintendent, this season of disaffiliation has been difficult to say the least.  My job is to hold pastors and churches accountable.  What does that look like in a season that allows churches the possibility of leaving?  Can clergy or lay leadership of a local church lift up options of other denominations as possible destinations or is this going against the vows we take?

Based on the inclusion of paragraph 2553 in 2019, this seems to be a gray area.

I've tried to lift the idea that true discernment should include self-critique.  But if it is only critique without lifting up the positive, it has become a sell-job.  This is where I try to hold the line.

Unfortunately, when I do try to hold this process to more of a discernment, I get accused of being too harmful to those simply seeking to leave.  If the church in question was going out at over 90%, I am more lenient.  But where there are a larger number of United Methodists, in a sense, I become their pastor if the appointed pastor is moving them to an exit.

This gets back to the accountability piece.  I do try to be gracious but at the same time, I also expect local leadership not to use manipulative tactics such as "United Methodists no longer believe in the resurrection" or "the conference is not being transparent with its finances."  These are both untrue statements.

The grace I try to employ at this point is that I've not filed charges against anyone.  You may not feel that this is a very high bar but there are times I would disagree.  I'm writing about this to try to show our very real struggle with the concept Bishop Blake has outlined.

As we enter Holy Week, where do your own points of grace and judgment intersect?

Maybe it will be helpful for us to remind ourselves how Jesus treated those around him this week!

My faith tells me that grace takes precedence

Photo by Tori Rector via Flickr.com.  Used under the Creative Commons license.