An Invitation to Prayer and Action

.
Jesus our Friend, you wept at the grave of Lazarus,
you know all our sorrows.
Behold our tears, and bind up the wounds of our hearts.
Through the mystery of pain,
bring us into closer communion with you and with one another.
(prayer from the UMC Book of Worship)
.
My heart is broken open again as we learn more details of the lives taken in a mass shooting yesterday, at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. As a parent who sends her child to elementary school every day, the grief feels especially piercing. I grieve the loss of these precious lives–school children and teachers. I cannot bear to imagine what they experienced. I pray comfort for all who grieve.
.
I am also still mindful of the grief of families in Buffalo, New York, who lost loved ones in a mass shooting in a grocery store. There, the violence was so clearly linked to white supremacy and its sinful legacy of hate. I am in prayer with those grieving after a shooting in a church in Laguna Woods, which targeted Taiwanese immigrants. Fueled by a toxic combination of racism and weapons, these acts of violence require our attention, or lamentation, and our action.
.
I’m grateful today for the familiar words of this prayer from our Book of Worship. In it, we ask that “the mystery of pain” would “bring us into closer communion with [God] and with one another.”
.
As a church, we are called to grieve and to pray. We are invited to lament and to cry out. We are welcome to sit and weep.
.
Our prayer draws us together, and pulls us into action. It compels us to speak up for change: for reforms that will help end gun violence. For anti-racist work in our communities. To dismantle systems that oppress. To construct communities of mutuality and care.
.
I believe that our prayerful contemplation helps us be more fully human. We need to scream and lament; our grief can draw us together, and to God. Our prayers, however, are not enough–faithfully done, I believe they will also, always push us to action for the sake of others.
.
May you find space for your grief, and encouragement in taking action.
.
grace and peace,
Pastor Molly
.
One place for engagement is through our Board of Church and Society; read more about our work against gun violence here.

Why I’ve Been Reading the Book of Discipline for Inspiration (and why I’m still glad to #BeUMC)

.
No, really: in this season of incredible challenge, constant adaptation and deep institutional anxiety, I’ve been reading the United Methodist Book of Discipline, and it’s given me hope.
.
To be clear, I was not reading the paragraphs we added at that disastrous 2019 General Conference. Those additions enrage me. They sinfully deepen our exclusion of LGBTQ siblings and painfully contort “accountability” into a weapon against beloved children of God.
.
I find hope in the stuff that lays out a vision for why we bother with the church. I love how clearly it lays out our mission, expanding on our call to “make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.” We “send persons into the world to live lovingly and justly as servants of Christ by healing the sick, feeding the hungry, caring for the stranger, freeing the oppressed, being and becoming a compassionate, caring presence, and working to develop social structures that are consistent with the gospel” (¶122).
.
I’m tired from this long season of pandemic, worn out from the multitude of decisions to manage as we adjust and readjust our plans. I see so many places where we need structural change in our church institution, and even more in the world around us: racism, sexism, climate change, poverty.
.
Last summer, as so many of us were finally turning attention to the reality of institutionalized racism in the US, I heard Rev. James Lawson, civil rights leader and colleague, point us back to the wisdom of our Discipline: “The local church is a strategic base from which Christians move out to the structures of society” (¶202). Our church exists to build a better world for others.
.
I want to be a part of a church that gets how our diversity is a gift. We describe our commitment “to be in ministry with all people, as we, in faithfulness to the gospel, seek to grow in mutual love and trust” (¶125). We have so much work to do on this. The actual, present realities of exclusion, judgment, and mistrust have inflicted real harm on LGBTQ+ siblings and others. Still, I’m heartened that the tools for setting our purpose are right there. I see signs of movement toward our mission here, now: communities in our connection are practicing what we preach. We are affirming LGBTQ candidates in ministry, aiding refugees, engaging in anti-racist work, and feeding hungry people.
.
I just can’t quite give up the hopefulness of the words that hold us together. I was raised by the imperfect church that’s trying to live into this hope, from my childhood in central Nebraska to my ministry as a pastor in Los Angeles. This is the community where I’ve been formed by a gospel that won’t stop working on me. This is the church where I first came to know that I knew LGBTQ people, and see the beauty with which they bear the divine image. This community is shaping my environmental ethics and my work at being anti-racist. It’s in this church where I believe we can make space to continue in the work of Christ’s gospel, together.
.
grace and peace,
Pastor Molly