Random Thoughts and Ramblings

Tag: #UMC

Final Thoughts on #WCAMEMPHIS

First, an apology for my post taking so long. What can I say, life has happened (remember: I’m in seminary).

I have now had a few days to reflect on the Wesleyan Covenant Association’s conference in Memphis. You may remember in my previous post that I indicated that I did not hear anything outright calling for a split or other things that some people may have expected to be said or done. The second day of the conference was also very good, but there was also some words stated that could be perceived as calling for a separation.

I have to admit, this did somewhat concern me and put me off.

I understand that separation may happen and I also acknowledge that a split could ultimately be the best way forward for the Methodist movement in America. But I believe that this is something that should be considered in the future. I stand by my opinion that a separation should not be on the table as of this moment.

Perhaps I could have misunderstood or my perception was otherwise off but it felt as of some comments made by Dr. Andrew Thompson and Dr. Billy Abraham were calling for a separation of factions now rather than waiting for the work of the Commission on a Way Forward to be completed, and for the special called session of General Conference taking place in 2019 to vote on a proposal. Again, it’s possible that I read too much into their words but I could not help but feel that in their minds a separation soon was the way to go.

Aside from those concerns, I found their speeches to be thought-provoking and timely. I agree with Dr. Thompson that holiness is something that we have lost as Christians and as the church. Perhaps it’s more accurate to state that we spend more time debating about what holiness looks like rather than actually practicing it. Dr. Abraham’s message was mainly on Methodists getting back to being Methodist. Again, I feel this is something that we spend way too much time debating and not nearly enough practicing. It’s certainly right to figure out what these things look like but we should not spend all of our time talking.

It’s time to start doing.

Rev. Carolyn Moore spoke on the church regaining the vision that the apostles had for the church after Jesus ascended. As I have reflected on this, I have come to the same conclusion that I did on holiness and “being Methodist:” We talk a lot but do very little. I’ve been preaching for the last couple of weeks with a central theme of “waking up” to the reality of what being a Christian is instead of simply going through the motions. We need to wake up from our stupor and stop claiming to be the church. What we should do is to concentrate more on being the church.

Rev. Shane Stanford’s message during the closing service of holy communion was incredible. I actually used this story in my sermon on Sunday (I will post it here later) because it spoke so well to the meaning and significance of the sacrament.

As I have reflected, I have found that I continue to be concerned about having litmus tests for one’s faith. I feel that one of the things one really needs to decide is what truly are the essential beliefs of the Christian faith. Where is the line between legalism and ensuring that we have the right beliefs? This is something I continue to wrestle with.

#WCAMEMPHIS was not really what I expected. This is actually a good thing, as I was pleasantly surprised in several ways. The leadership of WCA claims that they are committed to the unity of the church at this time. I hope they truly are. As for me, I will continue to wait, pray, watch, and see how all of this plays out. Then and only then will I act.

May 3, 2017
My Thoughts on #WCAMEMPHIS (So Far)

It’s been no secret that I have been skeptical of the Wesleyan Covenant Association. Specifically, I have been skeptical of the true motives of the organization. My fear is that this group would exist in order to bring about the divorce of the United Methodist Church. In other words, that WCA would be the groundwork for a new denomination that splits off from the UMC. I have been in dialogue with some people involved with WCA and have expressed my concerns. They have all assured me that WCA is not in place to group together like-minded churches and individuals as a united front against anyone who disagrees with them. I remained – and still remain – skeptical.

But I’m starting to soften a little.

I decided to attend the WCA-sponsored “We Believe in the Church” Conference in Memphis, TN in order to gain some insight for myself rather than simply relying on the blogosphere to form my opinions for me. I know a good many people who I greatly respect that support or are directly involved in WCA so this has also been a good opportunity for me to reconnect with some of these friends of mine. Now, I will not rehash all of the negative things which have been said about WCA in the blog world and elsewhere. In all honesty, I was not sure what to expect. We are still on a dinner break, still have two more sessions to go, plus several sessions tomorrow before I head back to Kentucky. I’m still not sure what all I will hear in the remaining sessions but let me tell you about some things that I have not heard.

I have not heard “We need to split.” Not once have I heard anyone call for a separation of factions in the church. What I have heard over and over again are words like “unity,” and “together.” No one has called for a split and I really am doubtful that I will hear such talk here.

I have not heard hateful remarks about homosexuals. Many have painted the WCA as an organization which is anti-gay and hateful toward homosexuals. The attitudes I have encountered so far have been anything but hateful. A particularly telling moment occurred during a Q&A. A woman who self-identified as a lesbian asked if it was felt that God was absent from her life. The response, more or less, was: “I think that homosexuality is against God’s vision for marriage and relationships. But, I will not say that God is not at work in your life. I know God is present in your life.”

Rev. Chris Ritter related an episode from an experience he had in ministry after he preached on homosexuality. A man wanted to talk to him and then told Rev. Ritter that he is gay. The man asked if he would be welcome in the church. Rev. Ritter responded that he is welcome and is loved. He also said this: “I told him, ‘and if anyone here ever tried to hurt you because of your sexuality, they will have to hurt me first.’”

Such sounds anything but hateful to me.

I have not heard – or witnessed – anything racist. Nothing. Some have accused WCA of being covertly racist due to the racial makeup of its membership. Admittedly, the vast majority of people here are caucasian. However, there are also a significant number of other races present here. So far it seems that painting the WCA as an organization for “whites only” is patently false.

These are just my thoughts so far. The dinner break is almost up so I am returning to the conference floor. I will share more thoughts at a later time.

Picking Back Up at the Hotel

I wrote the first portion of this post while I was still at Christ UMC but I could not connect to wifi. Now that I’m back at my hotel and have wifi, I can share some other thoughts.

As I mentioned above, I have had my suspicions about the true intent of WCA. I acknowledge that there could still be behind the scenes issues but I also have to acknowledge that I could be wrong about that. One thing I did not mention above was that Bishop James Swanson of my home annual conference (Mississippi, in case you didn’t know) brought the thunder this afternoon. Bishop Swanson preached again in the evening session and brought the lightning, the thunder, the hail, and the flood. In a nutshell, Bishop Swanson challenged us to consider that all of the fighting that is going on within the UMC is nothing more than a distraction from the primary mission that God has given us. I believe this is a very real possibility and I can see such tricks of the great deceiver at work throughout social media and blogs.

From such posts, I hear a lot about specific issues but very little about Jesus. I think that’s a major problem.

Jeff Greenway also spoke and questioned whether the church is indeed at a moment like what Paul and Barnabus experienced. He made very clear that he was not calling for, nor is he a proponent of, separation but also acknowledged that a split is a real possibility and may ultimately be what is best for the Methodist movement as a whole. I feel that this is a fair observation and question that we must wrestle with, but I remain dedicated to doing what I can to keep the United Methodist Church United until such time as we have run out of options. Having said that, I hope that day never comes.

One additional event of note: The lady mentioned previously who self-identified as a lesbian also revealed that she is affiliated with Reconciling Ministries (if you’re not familiar with Reconciling Ministries, this is a caucus within the UMC that promotes full inclusion of LGBTQ persons in the life of the church including recognition of same-sex marriage and the ordination of homosexuals into the ministry). WCA leadership announced from the stage that she was making herself available tomorrow after the conclusion of the conference for conversation.

Tomorrow we have more speakers and questions to wrestle with. I have been given much to pray on and think about. If nothing else, I have taken this away from my experience today: The WCA may not be the “big bad wolf” that many, to an extent myself included, have made it out to be. Time will tell. May we remain faithful and focused on the mission at hand: To make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.

April 28, 2017
On Blame and History

Yesterday, a sister in Christ and clergy colleague shared a link to a blog post regarding the upcoming Judicial Council decision regarding the election of Bishop Karen Oliveto at the last Western Jurisdictional Conference. Bishop Oliveto’s election is being contested due to her being a married lesbian, which is against the Book of Discipline of the United Methodist Church. The post was written by the Rev. Jeremy Smith, an Elder serving First UMC in Portland, Oregon. Rev. Smith has been an outspoken proponent of changing of the BoD‘s current language against the practice of homosexuality by clergy so I was not surprised by his expression of support for Bishop Oliveto. What I was surprised about was his attack on United Methodists from the south.

To take him at his word, Rev. Smith feels that southern UMs are to blame for all of the ills within the denomination.

I am a native Mississippian and I certainly acknowledge that the south is not without blame in a lot of incidents of intolerance, especially matters of racism and other discriminatory practices. I have been outspoken about such myself. Laying the blame for any of the ills within the United Methodist Church squarely at the feet of the faithful from the south is disgusting.

This assessment could not be farther from the truth.

Rev. Smith’s attempt to paint the south in such a poor light comes across as an ad hominem attack on the entirety of the southern US. His insinuation that the South Central Jurisdiction is a “jurisdiction behaving badly” by challenging the election of Bishop Oliveto is ridiculous. Our Discipline allows for declaratory decisions to be sought by bodies within the UMC and this is what is occurring. No, the SCJ can not interfere in the ordination of clergy elsewhere but the fact that Bishop Oliveto is now a bishop – and thus part of the Council of Bishops – means that she is now accountable to the entire UMC, not just her annual conference or jurisdiction. The SCJ were well within their rights to challenge this election for that very reason.

Regardless of how one feels of the current language regarding homosexual practice in the Book of Discipline, the fact remains that at least for the moment practicing homosexuals are not allowed to be ordained as clergy (Bishop Oliveto has repeatedly had charges filed against her under church law – even by people within her own jurisdiction – but I will not speculate as to why these charges have not been dealt with as they have been in other annual conferences and jurisdictions). There are avenues for changing church law but the Western Jurisdiction – which due to their relatively small membership do not have as many delegates as other jurisdictions at General Conference do – have instead chosen to buck the system. The message they have sent to the rest of the connection is, “We’re going to do what we want no matter what anyone else says.”

With that in mind, perhaps the SCJ is not the “jurisdiction behaving badly.” And if such is not a schismatic action, I do not know what is.

Rev. Smith may also do well to be reminded that the election of Bishop Oliveto occurred on the 18th ballot. The position that Bishop Oliveto now occupies was the only open office within the episcopacy in the Western Jurisdiction… and it took 18 ballots to elect her. Let that sink in. This tells me that the majority of the Western Jurisdiction is not of one mind on the homosexual issue, contrary to what Rev. Smith seems to feel.

Rev. Smith also points out that the south is ultimately responsible for the current jurisdictional structure of the church, and that the segregated Central Jurisdiction where African-American congregations, clergy, and other leadership were concentrated. Unfortunately, history proves that this is true and I agree with Rev. Smith when he states that this is an ugly stain on our church. With that said, I have more bad news for Rev. Smith: The northern Methodists agreed to this and went along with church-sanctioned segregation for nearly 30 years, in spite of the clear anti-racism and anti-slavery teachings of John Wesley.

Why did the north agree to segregation – simply to grow the Methodist Church? My own experience previously living in a non-southern state is one of even deeper segregation than I witnessed in modern Mississippi. I agree that racism is a blemish on our church’s history, but the blame is not solely on the south especially when it was the northern branch of the church who agreed to the Central Jurisdiction compromise.

Both groups are equally guilty of allowing it to happen.

Here’s a history lesson: The groundwork for the desolation of the Central Jurisdiction was laid by many Methodists, including clergy from the Mississippi Annual Conference. The Born of Conviction Statement was written and signed by clergy in Mississippi to decry segregation within the church and in schools. They faced much opposition and many had to leave Mississippi after the statement was published. Rev. Smith would argue that the election of Bishop Oliveto may be a similar action, but I do not agree with such thinking.

All of this to say: The southern jurisdictions are not the ones to blame for all of the issues within the United Methodist Church and to suggest otherwise is ridiculous. To paint southern Methodists in as poor a light as he has is just as ridiculous.

Let me be clear: I have nothing against Rev. Smith. His posts have generally been thought-provoking and I find myself agreeing with him on several issues. My issue here is Rev. Smith’s opinion that the southern UMs are the ones being the “sticks in the mud” as we say back home within the United Methodist Church. I can not agree with such thinking and find such thinking to be offensive on so many levels, not to mention untrue.

Thoughts?

April 25, 2017
The Power of Words

“Words are singularly the most powerful force available to humanity. We can choose to use this force constructively with words of encouragement, or destructively using words of despair. Words have energy and power with the ability to help, to heal, to hinder, to hurt, to harm, to humiliate and to humble.” Yehuda Berg

We see them everywhere. You’re seeing them now: Words. Whether spoken, written, posted, shared, blogged, tweeted, or even thought, words are powerful things. Words can build up, words can tear down. Words can encourage, and words can discourage. There is a reason that an English author by the name of Edward Bulwer-Lytton quipped, “The pen is mightier than the sword.”

As a pastor, I am constantly searching for the right words to communicate a message that will give God a smile and help someone grow closer to the Lord. Sometimes I feel like God helps me to find the words easily, while sometimes I find myself searching for a long time. The words that I use as I preach and pray are vital and I want to make sure that I’m using the best ones possible. Words shape our perception of everything from food to God.

Our words carry great power, therefore we have a great responsibility to use them properly.

One of the biggest pet peeves that I have is the use of corporate jargon. Phrases such as “going forward,” and “best practices” sound like nails on a chalkboard to me. When I hear people say these kinds of things in everyday conversation, I can’t help but look at them as if they are crazy. Buzzwords in general really bother me. My experience has been when one uses such phrases they are only trying to make themselves sound educated and well-versed in whatever business they are engaged in.

Unfortunately, I have noticed the same in ministers.

More and more, I’m noticing pastors, lay ministers, and churches using more and more jargon. A lot of these words seem to be derived from the corporate world, but there are also a lot of “churchy” buzzwords making their way into the fray.

Here’s my question: Why?

Being a seminary student, I seem to be exposed to a lot more of these buzzwords compared to everyday folks. Walking around the quad and overhearing conversations containing words and phrases such as “intentionality,” “creative discipleship” and of ministries being “transformational” is a nearly everyday occurrence. It drives me crazy.

It needs to stop.

The reason I feel this way is not just my personal disdain for buzzwords but a concern I have that using such language simply does not meet people where they are. That in addition to the fact that I think using such words sounds pompous and otherwise just plain stupid. People who are seeking Christ are not going to care what our latest “discernment” (which, let’s be honest, is typically nothing more than an attempt at polite manipulation) on how to properly “do life” is. And they certainly are not going to give much thought to exactly what it means to “be intentional” about prayer, scripture reading, or eating fried chicken at the next potluck.

I don’t have to tell you that Jesus excelled at many things during his ministry, but one thing is really excelled at was truly meeting people where they were. He often used parables so everyday people without temple education could better grasp the point he was attempting to make and used language that people could easily understand. Perhaps I’m crazy and not hip to the latest ministry trends, but I feel that we should “go and do likewise.” It’s great that I and others like me are in seminary (or have been) and are getting (or got) great educations, but at the end of the day, people have to be able to understand what in the heck we’re trying to tell them. Using buzzwords is not going to advance the cause of Christ one bit.

I admit, I’m guilty of using some of these terms, but really it was an attempt to fit in. One piece of advice I received when I first began to preach was not to “use ten dollar words when a word that cost a dime will do.” As pastors, we must make sure that people feel like we can be approached and sounding too smart for the crowd is only going to alienate us from the people we are supposed to be ministering to.

Outspoken and very much non-traditional Lutheran pastor Rev. Nadia Boltz-Webber had this suggestion for using such buzzwords:

Let’s make sure that in seminary classrooms and at church conferences and in congregational life when we use a term or a phrase, that it points to an actual thing, or person or event and is not just a string of words that sound like something meaningful but in fact, lack real meaning. There is a reason that my computer does not recognize the word Missional.

When it comes to using churchy jargon and buzzwords, let’s keep it simple and weigh the cost of our words carefully.

March 22, 2017
In a State of Grief

Credit: Rev. Giles Lindley

Yesterday as I was driving into Stanton to run some errands, I heard my phone chime with a message. When I reached my destination, I checked my phone before I went inside. It was a message from a friend and clergy colleague in the North Georgia Annual Conference with a link to the website of Getwell Road UMC in Southaven, Mississippi. Her message was, “Have you heard about this?” When I clicked the link, it was voting results of a congregational vote (the page has since been removed). The result of the vote, overwhelmingly, was that the congregation would seek to disassociate from the United Methodist Church.

I was floored.

Then resident bishop of the Mississippi Annual Conference, James Swanson, Sr., issued a statement confirming not only Getwell Road was exploring a disassociation but that The Orchard in Tupelo, Mississippi was also discerning leaving.

Lead Pastor of The Orchard, Rev. Brian Collier, stated that, “he doesn’t want to get involved in the debate. ”

The argument is going to be a long, drawn out one. And we think it’s an enormous distraction and we don’t be distracted. We want to get on with the ministry Jesus has called us to.

I think Rev. Collier and I would have to agree to disagree.

While wanting to concentrate on ministry without a “distraction” is commendable, I am disheartened that he and Rev. Bill Beavers (Getwell Road’s lead pastor) and their congregations have not given the Commission on a Way Forward time to complete their work. I believe that we should see the process through, wait for General Conference to decide what course of action the denomination will take, and then make decisions on whether to stay or go. I have heard rumors that other churches are also considering taking similar actions and this causes me even more disappointment. While I do not agree with unity for the sake of unity, I also don’t believe that the Body of Christ should be unnecessarily further divided.

Now is not the time to be making our exit.

I intend to remain a pastor in the United Methodist Church at least until this process is finished and wait for General Conference to make their decision. Then, and only then, will I further discern how I live out the calling that God has placed on me. Right now, I intend to continue to pray for the United Methodist Church, our congregations, and all who are involved in the decisions as we discern how we understand scripture and seek to live and minister together. I am watching, listening, praying, and waiting. To do anything else at this point, in my opinion, is not prudent.

I hope you will join me in praying for Getwell Road, The Orchard, their pastors, parishioners, and everyone within the Mississippi Annual Conference who are involved in these discussions. And pray that we exercise restraint and not jump to premature conclusions.

Now is not the time to abandon ship.

February 7, 2017
Sermon: Half Truths – “God Said It, I Believe It, That Settles It”

This is the fourth in a five week series based on Adam Hamilton’s book Half Truths. I particularly enjoyed researching this saying. I hope you will enjoy this sermon. As always, please feel free to share any feedback you may have! – Jonathan

Half Truths: God Said It, I Believe It, That Settles It
A Sermon Preached at Shiloh United Methodist Church – Stanton, KY
Rev. Jonathan K. Tullos
September 4, 2016

1 Peter 2:13-14 (NLT)

13 For the Lord’s sake, submit to all human authority—whether the king as head of state, 14 or the officials he has appointed. For the king has sent them to punish those who do wrong and to honor those who do right.

One of the greatest things I have experienced in my career as a paramedic has been that I have been able to have some great partners. I’ve had a few that I would rather forget and many who I am grateful for and will never forget. One of those great partners was Brother Mike. Brother Mike is an ordained Southern Baptist pastor who serves a small church near my hometown. At the time he was only drawing a part time salary so he worked at the ambulance service on my shift to pay his bills. As we were both pastors we were regularly put together. We always seemed to have unique opportunities to minister to many people we would come into contact with and we also got to have many great conversations about our faith, about God himself and about the Bible. As he is Baptist and I’m Methodist, you can imagine that while we did agree on many things we had some interesting conversations about the views we held differently.

One such conversation happened when we were on our way back to town from a transfer We were talking about scripture and how to best understand it. I had just taken a workshop on the various ways we can look at the bible and one of the things the presenter covered heavily was how John Wesley used scripture itself, tradition, reason, and experience to determine if what he was hearing, reading, or believing was true. Brother Mike listened to me and said, “Well, that sounds nice but I’ve always been of the opinion that we should just take the Bible as it is, unvarnished, and as God’s word. He said it, I believe it, that settles it.” This was not the first time I had heard this expression. Being in Mississippi and growing up around a lot of Baptists, one heard this saying quite a bit. In light of what I had been learning through my own study of how to understand scripture, this was the first occasion where I can remember truly pondering the meaning of this saying.

During this series on Half Truths, we have been looking at sayings that sound biblical but really aren’t, at least not in the way we say them. I acknowledge that with you knowing how I have treated the other sayings you may be growing a little uncomfortable right now, perhaps because you think that perhaps I’m going to make a case for why we can’t trust the Bible. I assure you, that’s not what I’m out to do. But what I do want to challenge you to do today is to think about how you have understood scripture and perhaps to consider a new way to think about what we read and hear about. The point that I want to make is this: We are not meant to check our brains at the church door and just take things at face value. It’s ok to question and to wrestle with things we read in scripture. God gave us brains and I believe we should use them to our fullest ability, including when we read the Bible. To simply take the Bible at face value and chalk it up to “God said it, I believe it, that settles it” shows a very simplistic view of the Bible. We don’t truly get the message, we simply get a few grapes off the vine and call it good.

Perhaps you were raised in a similar fashion as me: If something was in the Bible, you better not dare question it. I can remember when I was growing up that I would ask someone what something in the Bible meant or why it was there and more often than not I was simply told that it’s a sin to questions something we read in the Bible because it’s God’s word. I certainly believe that the Bible is God’s inspired word. But I don’t believe this means that things we see within the pages of these books are not above being questioned, pondered and wrestled with. Think of exercise: If you want bigger muscles, you have to exercise them. When you lift weights you are pushing against a force putting resistence against your body. By pushing against this resistance you’re growing stronger and can exercise with more and more weight. The next thing you know, you’re in a great shape and can even keep going.

The same is true when we flex our spiritual muscles and push against the resistance of questions and doubt. When we wrestle with the things in the Bible that we may not understand or perhaps even make us uncomfortable, we are opening ourselves to truly hearing God’s voice and the message he wants us to receive from his word. As we continue to wrestle, to pray, ponder, and study we grow stronger in our faith and in our knowledge of God’s will and nature. It’s ok to question and wrestle. Doing such exercise is how we get in better shape.

The short passage I read out of 1 Peter 2 is one of those passages that is often wrestled with. If we take literally and completely at face value what we read in Peter’s letter we may believe that God wants us to bow down and kowtow to all of our earthly leaders no matter what, period, full stop. We can think that it’s our God-decreed responsibility to, without question, follow the commands of any earthly leader no matter who this person is or what they ask us to do. But what if the leader is a dictator like Kim Jong Un of North Korea, who starves his people to death while getting rich off of their backs. His latest shenanigans involve his education minister who fell asleep during a meeting of the Communist leadership of North Korea. Kim Jong Un was so incensed by this transgression that he executed two high level North Korean officials… with a large caliber anti-aircraft gun. If we take 1 Peter 2 literally, are we to believe that this is someone worthy of giving our undying obedience to?

The simple answer is, of course not! No tyrant should ever be given this kind of affection and God certainly wouldn’t ordain such actions. Such is the danger of taking such passages literally at face value without regard to its true meaning. Taking 1 Peter 2 literally has several dangers, including that we could in theory use it to force someone to bow down to tyranny or, perhaps even worse, to express a notion that God condones such dictators and their actions. Yes, that people like Kim Jong Un, Hitler, and all of the worst dictators throughout history were put in their positions by God and that he orchestrated their actions. This is, of course, untrue and can cast God in a poor and false light. To be clear: God does not do these things. Such is not God’s nature!

We are not people called to check our brains at the church house door and leave them there. Christians are called to use our intellect to figure these things out and, yes, this even applies to when we come to worship and when we study the Bible. We have all sorts of tools for doing this, from commentaries to study Bibles and so much more. When I prepare for a sermon I not only study over the scripture itself extensively but I also take time to pray over it to ask God’s revelation for it. I also consult multiple commentaries, dictionaries, handbooks, and often look at Greek or Hebrew interlinear Bibles, which show the English and original languages in order to flesh it all out. My sermons may seem long but believe it or not they only average about 20 minutes or so. In order to prepare for that 20 minute sermon, I spend many hours per week in study.

If we were even intended to look at scripture through the lens of “God said it, I believe it, that settles it,” then me spending all that time in prayer, preparation and writing in order to be standing up here preaching about God’s word would be a waste of time for both me and you. All we would have to do is read our Bibles and just let that be that. It’s really wrestling with scripture and trying to figure out the true message that draws us closer to God. Grappling and meditating on God’s word is the stuff that helps us to grow in our faith and in our understanding about God. It’s also in the course of this exercise that we become better equipped as disciples who will go from this place to make other disciples.

If we want to believe in terms of scripture that God said it then we totally remove the human equation from scripture. In other words, we remove the humanity of the authors who wrote down these words under divine inspiration. We have to remember that these were human beings who were inspired by God to write and to tell of things they were feeling in their very souls. To believe that this is God always speaking through them is to believe that God was dictating a message to robotic secretaries in this world and I just do not see how that could be true. Scripture itself does not indicate that this is the case. There are certainly a lot of places where the writer indicates that the words are from God but the vast majority of the time the authors make it clear that they are writing their own thoughts and ideas about what God’s will is for mankind. Even Paul never claimed that he and God were of one mind, Paul in several places very plainly states that the words written are his and his alone. To state that “God said it” means we totally remove humanity from scripture.

Yes, God inspired scripture. God is sometimes quoted in scripture. But did God dictate every word of the Bible? Not very likely. To simply say that “God said it” when it comes to any given piece of scripture just is not usually true and oversimplifies the message that scripture contains.

A similar thing happens when we say “That settles it.” We oversimplify the work that it takes to really get at the heart of what scripture is saying to us. It takes away the important work which has been done in translating from the original languages and trying to figure out what the author intended for the reader to understand. Let’s take a look at John 3:16, which I’m sure every single one of us can at least paraphrase. In the verse where perish is rendered, the Greek word is apollumi and it can indeed mean perish. But it can also mean to die, to be destroyed, to be lost, killed, or ruined. Each one of those possibilities can make the message of the verse slightly different depending on which translation one decides is most appropriate given the context and other factors.

Even Jesus at times did not agree with the traditional rendering of texts in the ancient Jewish tradition. How often in the gospels is it recorded him saying something like, “You have heard it said… But I tell you…?” Jesus was doing a type of push back against traditional interpretation called midrash, where rabbis would attempt to explain what a text was talking about. As the apostles studied and debated about the meaning of scripture, they also realized that the authors of these writings were, at the end of the day, humans. Even under the inspiration of God they were not immune from bringing their own experiences and circumstances into their writings. If we were in the room with them and simply said, “Well God said it, I believe it, that settles it” they may well look at us as if we’re crazy. They simply did not subscribe to that notion. The same goes for the majority of the early church fathers.

We can all sit around all day and debate how to best determine what a passage of scripture is saying and how we should apply it to our lives. Even when we disagree about these methods, I believe we can all agree on one thing. Jesus gave us the best lens through which we can weigh out what scripture is saying when he gave us the greatest commandment, to love God with all our soul, mind, body, and strength and to love our neighbors as ourselves. Does the way we interpret a passage line up to that? Does the way in which we feel we are called to apply the scripture to our way of living line up with loving God and loving our neighbor? If the answers are no then we still have some work to do. We need to get some more exercise. Let’s make a new commitment to stretch and strengthen our spiritual muscles. In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit – Amen.

September 6, 2016
Sermon – Half Truths: God Won’t Give You More than You Can Handle

Continuing the series based on Adam Hamilton’s Half Truths, today I talked about the popular platitude that suggests that God will shield us from more life drama than we can handle. Anyone who has ever had a nervous breakdown knows that this isn’t true. While I didn’t outright address it in the course of the sermon, mental health issues are often looked at as a lack of faith or a sign of sin in one’s life. I want to emphasize that this is not true! Our problems don’t come from God. I hope you will receive a blessing from this sermon and know the way that 1 Corinthians 10:13 is often understood is not quite accurate. A note: I spend some time talking about my battle with anxiety and depression so be warned.

Half Truths: God Won’t Give You More Than You Can Handle
A Sermon Preached at Shiloh United Methodist Church – Stanton, KY
Rev. Jonathan K. Tullos
August 28h, 2016

1 Corinthians 10:1-14 (NLT)
I don’t want you to forget, dear brothers and sisters, about our ancestors in the wilderness long ago. All of them were guided by a cloud that moved ahead of them, and all of them walked through the sea on dry ground. 2 In the cloud and in the sea, all of them were baptized as followers of Moses. 3 All of them ate the same spiritual food, 4 and all of them drank the same spiritual water. For they drank from the spiritual rock that traveled with them, and that rock was Christ. 5 Yet God was not pleased with most of them, and their bodies were scattered in the wilderness.

6 These things happened as a warning to us, so that we would not crave evil things as they did, 7 or worship idols as some of them did. As the Scriptures say, “The people celebrated with feasting and drinking, and they indulged in pagan revelry.” 8 And we must not engage in sexual immorality as some of them did, causing 23,000 of them to die in one day.

9 Nor should we put Christ to the test, as some of them did and then died from snakebites. 10 And don’t grumble as some of them did, and then were destroyed by the angel of death. 11 These things happened to them as examples for us. They were written down to warn us who live at the end of the age.

12 If you think you are standing strong, be careful not to fall. 13 The temptations in your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you can endure.

14 So, my dear friends, flee from the worship of idols.

“God won’t give you more than you can handle.” I have heard this statement many times and I’m sure we have all said this statement at some point in our lives. One of the times I can recall most vividly hearing this phrase was about ten years ago. I was living in Fort Wayne, Indiana where I was working for one of the radio stations in town. The station wasn’t doing great. Advertising was down and some tough decisions had to be made by the management of the company that owned the station. Unfortunately, the status of my employment was one of the hard decisions which was made. I went home and tried to process everything that had occurred. I had lost a job that I mostly loved, lost the opportunity to work with people who I considered my family away from home and I was also faced with the reality that I had bills to pay. Obviously I was uncertain and upset.

I finally reached out to the leader of the small group that I was part of through the church I was attending at the time. Mike was fairly wise and I trusted him to give me advice. I left a voicemail and eventually he called me back to hear the story. After he offered to pray for me and my situation, which he did. And as he was about to hang up he sprang the Half Truth on me: “Remember that God will never give you more than you can handle.” I tried to remember Mike’s words as things progressed. I soon found another job and eventually I ended up moving back to Mississippi where I was so stressed by a lot of things that I had a mental breakdown. I was overloaded and simply could not cope. When this occurred Mike’s words seemed like utter hogwash.

Obviously these words are said with good intent. But in that instance, I found out the hard way that this Half Truth simply did not stand up to the practical test. I had more on my plate than I could handle. My ability to cope with everything going on at the time, both tangibly and mentally, were just too much for me to handle and I hit my psychological and spiritual rock bottom. There was a part of me that blamed God because I felt like He was punishing me because, in my mind, he had broken a promise made in scripture. I had more than I could handle and it took me a while to recover from my issues, my anger, and my crisis of faith which happened on top of everything else. I was a mess, a hot mess at that.

We want to think that nothing bad will ever happen to us or that we will never have more stress on us than we could conceivably handle. To state it simply, the idea that God will shield us from more trouble, stress, or drama than we can handle just is not true. 1 Corinthians 10:13 is often cited as the basis for the idea that God will somehow not allow us to be stressed out beyond what we can cope with. A plain reading of the scripture, however, does not reveal such a saying. This passage is not even dealing with everyday stress – more on on that in a moment. I will daresay that 1 Corinthians 10:13 is one of the most misquoted and misunderstood verses in the entire Bible. It’s one of those verses that we might think says one thing but really says another. This is also an example of how cherry picking scripture without regard to context is simply a poor way to read God’s word.

I think it’s safe to say that every single one of us have experienced times in our lives when we felt that the world was caving in all around us. We have all experienced times when we could not handle one more thing on our plates or we might just snap. I have some good news for you if you have ever felt that way: You’re not alone. Life teaches us that things are going to come at us, sometimes one thing after another, and that we will indeed, at some point, have more on us than we can handle. Such is part of the human condition. As I have mentioned before our troubles do not come from God. Let me say that again: The bad stuff in life, whether we’re talking about a major tragedy or even the everyday stresses of life, do not come from God. God does not give us troubles. But what he does is be present in those moments, ready to comfort, provide mercy, and healing to our souls. He loves us that much and he wants us to cling to him.

So what is it that Paul is talking about and what is the truth behind this Half Truth? Borrowing heavily from Adam Hamilton’s book Half Truths in addition to my own study, I will explore that.

The short version of the story is this: Paul is talking about temptation to sin, not about sparing us from stress. Paul was on one of his missionary journeys when he established Christianity in the Roman city of Corinth around 51 AD. Today we call Las Vegas “Sin City” but I would argue that Corinth is the original sin city. If you were a citizen of Corinth during this time and you went to buy meat, you may likely be eating meat from an animal which was sacrificed at one of the numerous pagan temples around the city. While some cities have a gas station or a Starbucks on every corner, Corinth had pagan temples on every corner. Within the walls of the temples occurred pagan worship. What we would call sexual immorality was one of the ways in which the Corinthian pagans worshiped and this even occurred within the walls of the temples. The reputation of the Corinthians was so pervasive that if someone was considered to be fast and loose with their morals they were said to be “living like a Corinthian.”

The new Christians of Corinth were trying to overcome these old habits but, as the old saying goes, old habits die hard. The temptation to give in to these pagan ways were literally everywhere they went. The could not escape the pagan temples because there were so many. They could not escape the temptations of the pagan ways because this was also all around them. By using the struggle of the ancient Israelites as an example, Paul was reminding the Corinthian Christians that their giving in to these temptations had spiritual and moral consequences. And then he states in verse 13, “The temptations in your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you can endure.”

Paul was giving the Corinthians encouragement and a good reminder that sin has consequences. He gave them an example of their spiritual ancestors (remember that he was dealing with mostly Gentiles). He was also reminding them that when God sees that we are tempted to commit some kind of sinful act, he will give us a way out even if it’s reminding us of who we are and whose we are. Do we always make the choice to take the way out and therefore not sin? Of course not! But it’s there and God provides it.

Paul was not saying that God tempts us but only a little bit, he was saying that God provides us a way out of the situation when we are tempted. But here’s what we really need to know about this verse of scripture: Paul was also not saying that God will not allow us to have more stress, chaos, and tragedy than we can handle. Unfortunately, these things will happen. But here is what we can count on from God: He will be present in the stress, chaos, and tragedy. He will be ready to provide relief. He will be with us through the storm. One of the things Paul is emphasizing here is not our human will prevailing but instead of God’s faithfulness. God is faithful to us in the midst of life.

Dr. Ben Witherington, a prolific author, theologian, and professor of New Testament at Asbury uses this phrase a lot and, as I like it, I do too: “A text without a context is merely a pretext for whatever you want it to be.” This is the case in 1 Corinthians 10:13. When we pick and choose bible verses and try to make them fit an idea that we have about God or perhaps just an idea that we like because it sounds nice, we miss the greater message of God’s word. We really do a disservice to ourselves and to our discipleship when we take what we consider to be the best parts and leave the rest. The result is a Half Truth.

Unfortunately, God does not promise that he won’t allow us to have more from life than we can handle. God does, however, promise that he is with us. When someone is struggling, I want us to remember that God is with them and us. Perhaps next time we want to use this Half Truth we can say something like, “God has not give this trouble to you but he is with you and loves you. And so do I.” Let’s turn this Half Truth into a whole truth. In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit… Amen.

August 28, 2016
Sermon – Half Truths: “God Helps Those who Help Themselves”

Here is part two in the Half Truths series. Yesterday we looked at this popular saying, which many people are convinced is in the Bible. Spoiler alert: It isn’t! But, this does not mean that it doesn’t have an element of truth. As you will see, we are called to take some responsibility for our lives and not to just simply wait around for God to do something. Often God does things through us and through other people. Christians are people of action, not of sitting around and waiting for something to happen. I hope you gain some meaningful insight from this sermon. As always, feel free to leave any feedback you would like. A note: There is a portion where I quote from a scene from “The Help.” I chose to play the clip of the scene for the congregation. If you would like to watch it for yourself, you may click here. – Jonathan

Half Truths: “God Helps Those who Help Themselves”
A Sermon Preached at Shiloh United Methodist Church – Stanton, KY
Rev. Jonathan K. Tullos
August 21, 2016

2 Thessalonians 3:6-13 (NLT)
And now, dear brothers and sisters, we give you this command in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ: Stay away from all believers[c] who live idle lives and don’t follow the tradition they received[d] from us. 7 For you know that you ought to imitate us. We were not idle when we were with you. 8 We never accepted food from anyone without paying for it. We worked hard day and night so we would not be a burden to any of you. 9 We certainly had the right to ask you to feed us, but we wanted to give you an example to follow. 10 Even while we were with you, we gave you this command: “Those unwilling to work will not get to eat.”

11 Yet we hear that some of you are living idle lives, refusing to work and meddling in other people’s business. 12 We command such people and urge them in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ to settle down and work to earn their own living. 13 As for the rest of you, dear brothers and sisters, never get tired of doing good.

A while back I was watching one of the TV news shows and they were polling people about things that are in the Bible. They would read something that either was or was not in the Bible and the person had to answer true if it was in the Bible and false if it was not. Out of five people the interviewer read “God helps those who help themselves” to, four answered true, indicating they believed it was in the Bible. Let’s do a show of hands: If you believe this saying is in the Bible, raise your hand… Ok, now if it’s not in the Bible, raise your hand.

If you guessed that “God helps those who help themselves” is not in the Bible, you’re correct. To say that this saying is in the bible is completely false because it appears nowhere in the scriptures. It does sound kind of biblical though, doesn’t it? It’s not unusual that when we hear a saying like this and especially when it catches on and becomes popular, we like to think it has some authority behind it. This is exactly what happened with this saying. The Greek philosopher Aesop was the one who coined, “The gods help those who help themselves.” About 2300 years later, Benjamin Franklin appropriated it and changed it “God helps those who helps themselves” when he published Poor Richard’s Almanac. The expression became widely popular and eventually people began believing that it was found in scripture.

While the saying is not found anywhere in scripture, this is one of the sayings that we will look at which I believe does have some truth to it. Let’s explore some ways that this saying does have some truth to it:

Adam Hamilton gives several examples in his book Half Truths: Hamilton states when he says grace before a meal he thanks God for giving us a planet where such bounty can grow and survive, he thanks God for the farmers who grew the vegetables or raised the animals, the people who harvested and processed it, and even the truck drivers who delivered it to the store. If one of those components was not there, we would not be able to go to the store and buy our food. Because they did their part and we did ours by obtaining money with which to go buy food and actually took the time to go to the store and cooked it, we’re able to eat a delicious meal.

Another example would be with employment: It’s alright to pray that God gives you guidance as to a job you should apply for. However, it’s not going to likely be very productive if you just stop there. Without building a resume, filling out applications, going to interviews, you’re going to have a hard time finding a job. God will certainly give us guidance if we ask him to but he also expects us to not just sit around and let him do all the work. We have to take some ownership of our situations and we have to take some action. Otherwise, all the prayer in the world is not going to do us any good. Prayer is certainly talking to God but it is also listening. And when we pray, we also have to be prepared to move and to act. This is God helping us.

While I do not believe that God’s help comes with strings attached, I do believe that God does not call us to simply wait on him to do a miracle. As I mentioned a moment ago, Christians are not called to just simply sit and wait for God to do something, we are called to accept some responsibility for what happens to us.

When Paul started the church at Thessalonika, he taught the converts there that they should trust Jesus and trust that he would return someday, possibly even soon. Paul eventually left but apparently some of the converts took Paul’s telling them to “trust Jesus” a little too literally. Eventually word reached Paul that many of them had actually quit their jobs with the idea that God would just provide for all of their needs without their needing to work. This is why Paul wrote the scripture we had above, because he wanted to be clear that trusting Jesus did not mean quitting our jobs and waiting for manna and money to appear out of the sky. In other words, Paul was wanting them to exercise their common sense. Yes, God will provide and he will send help. However, this does not free us from the responsibility of doing our part for securing our provision.

Perhaps you heard the story of the man who was caught in a flood. The waters were getting deeper and deeper, inching closer and closer to his house. He had ignored the pleas from the media and others to evacuate before the waters because he was convinced that God would help him. The flood waters were up to his porch and some men on a boat came by and offered to take him out of there. “No, I’m not leaving. God will help me.” They pleaded with him and he continued to refuse so they left. Soon, the water had gotten much higher and driven him to the roof of his house. A helicopter searching for victims flew overhead. The crew saw him and lowered a rope, shouting on the loudspeaker, “Grab the rope and we will pull you in!” Again, the man refused. “God will help me.” The helicopter left and soon the man was overcome by the water and died. When he appeared before God the man was upset “God, why didn’t you help me?” God looked at him and said, “Son, I sent you a boat and a helicopter with a rope dangling from it. What more did you want?”

We must help ourselves, at least to some extent. God did not call us to be robots who just wait for a push and a shove toward something or to be told to do something. God expects us to be able to idenity our needs and to accept his guidance for how he intends to provide for them. The man in the flood example was expecting God to perform some type of miracle which would save him from his plight. Perhaps the reason he did not accept the help that was given was because he had a misconception about how God works. Perhaps he wanted a solution to where God would come down in a cloud and restore everything to the way it was, his home, his stuff still intact. Instead, God sent help in the form of a boat and a helicopter with a rope which would mean that he would lost his stuff but still have his life. Because he did not help himself with the help offered to him, he lost his life.

God’s help does not always come in the form of a big miraculous spectacle that is the lead story on CNN. Often, God’s help is found in subtle ways, often in ways that we never expected. God often uses other people in order to help us and we see this time and time again in scripture with God using people in the course of his work. The biggest example I can think of is medical providers. There are some very wonderful and well meaning believers who think that God’s healing only comes from him, that doctors and other medical professionals are not necessary because God will heal. I believe that God’s healing is done through doctors, nurses, and countless other types of medical providers. The knowledge of the human body and the know how to figure out which treatments will work or others that can be tried if one fails is nothing short of astonishing. I believe God works his healing through their hands. But in order to receive it, we have to do our part and go to that clinic or to the hospital in order to be healed. In this sense, we have to help ourselves.

So far we have spent our time this morning talking about how the idea that God helps those who help themselves has some truth to it. But not I want to shift gears and talk about how this saying is untrue. To give away this part of the sermon: It’s often used to justify abuse of the poor.

Our scripture from 2 Thessalonians 3 is often used to justify not helping the poor, particularly verse 10 where Paul writes, “Even while we were with you, we gave you this command: “Those unwilling to work will not get to eat.” Let’s say you’re down on your luck. You have tried all you can do. You’re starving. Your family is starving. You go to your best friend and ask for help. Instead of helping, your friend simply tells you, “No. God helps those who help themselves. And remember what Paul said about not working and not eating? That’s you.” Those of us who claim to be disciples of Jesus Christ know that this simply is not acceptable. Even in the Old Testament book of Leviticus, there was instruction for people to leave part of their fields unharvested so that the poor could glean from them for their survival. On and on in scripture we see instruction to help the poor, how the poor have a special place in God’s heart.

When we apply “God helps those who help themselves” in this manner, we are shrugging off the responsibility that we have been given to care for the poor in our midst. We are called to show compassion. I recall a scene from The Help in which Yule May is talking with the family she works for and is asking for a loan of $75 so that she can send both of her twin sons to college for the upcoming school year. The lady she works for, Hilly, is particularly mean. She listens to Yule May’s request and replies like this: “As a Christian, I’m doin’ you a favor. God doesn’t give charity to those who are well and able. You need to come up with this money on your own.” Hilly had an opportunity to show compassion and to help two young men start on a path to a better life but, instead, she invoked “God helps those who help themselves” as a way of using God as justification for not helping.

Later on in the movie, the main character Skeeter who has written a book based on the stories of the African American housekeepers working for Caucasian families in Jackson, Mississippi receives her royalty check. She chooses to split the money between all of the housekeepers in appreciation for their stories and for their help in writing her book. She did not have to do this but she chose to and the housekeepers were grateful to receive this blessing.

God does indeed help everyone. We do bear a certain responsibility for our own lives but God will show us a way. The rub is, we have to be willing to take it. And likewise, we are called to have compassion and be a blessing to those who need a little hand every now and then. Invoking “God helps those who help themselves” to justify our own stubbornness or unwillingness to help is simply false. In this world of contrasts, do you want to be the person who trusted God to help them find a job and thus applied for jobs or do you want to be like the man who had chances to get to safety and refused because he was so sure that God was going to help in another way? Likewise, do we want to be like Hilly who had an opportunity to be a blessing and chose not to or do we want to be like Skeeter who chose to be a blessing? God does help those who help themselves but he also helps those who can’t. Perhaps he will use you in this work. May it be so in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – amen.

August 22, 2016
Sermon: Half Truths – “Everything Happens for a Reason”

I have been intending to post this sermon for most of the week but life kept getting in the way. This is the first in a five week series of sermons inspired by Half Truths by Rev. Adam Hamilton. During this series at Shiloh, we are taking a look at a “Christian cliche” which sounds biblical but really is not. That is not to say that some of these don’t have at least some element of truth but sometimes these sayings are (1) not biblical and (2) can cause great harm. This one in particular hits home for me so I was glad to do it first. This coming Sunday we are looking at “God Helps Those who Help Themselves.” I will try to post it sooner! I hope you receive a blessing from this sermon. Please feel free to leave any feedback you would like to – Jonathan

Half Truths: Everything Happens for a Reason
A Sermon Preached at Shiloh United Methodist Church – Stanton, KY
Rev. Jonathan K. Tullos
August 14, 2016

GENESIS 50:20 (NLT) – You intended to harm me, but God intended it all for good. He brought me to this position so I could save the lives of many people.

ROMANS 8:28 (NLT) – And we know that God causes everything to work together[m] for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.

Most of you know about my daughter’s death soon after she was born. Among the many things I remember about that day was the outpouring of love and the many text messages and phone calls I got. Most I honestly don’t remember much about but I do remember a couple that stood out because of what they said. The gist of what these messages said was “so sorry to hear of what happened. It must have been God’s will. There must have been some reason why she died. It’s all part of God’s plan.

Let me stop right here for a moment and ask you to do me a favor: Please, never say anything like those statements to anyone who is in the midst of tragedy. Often these words are meant well and the person saying them is simply trying to provide some kind of reminder of God being present. But to me, these words provide no comfort and can do great harm to one’s soul. And not to mention, do we really want to paint God as a celestial bully who would willfully take someone’s child from them or give someone cancer? If we understand that God’s very nature and ways are only of love then we simply can not think that these things are true. Here’s the spoiler for today’s message: God is not in the business of willfully causing pain in order to prove a point or to make some kind of chain of events occur. Simply, bad things just happen. But this is not to say that God can’t or doesn’t redeem that bad thing for a good purpose.

When we use the logic that everything that happens is because God orchestrated it or that he has some purpose, we can then make an argument that everything is God’s will. If a marriage ends in divorce because one of the spouses committed adultery, did that happen because God intended for the marriage to end before it even began? When someone makes the decision to shoot elementary school students, does this mean those kids had to die by the actions of the shooter as part of a grant celestial plan that God came up with? We can even go down the line and say that God willed it for Mississippi State to lose to Ole Miss in football yet again and for UK to not make the Final Four last year.

When we say that everything happens for a reason or we make claims that something happening was simply God’s will, we are essentially passing the buck on any sort of personal responsibility that we have for our actions. Take the above events: If we simply chalk them up to just being God’s will or he having a divine purpose for making these things happen, that means we have no responsibility. That means that the spouse who cheated didn’t actually do anything wrong because they were just acting according to God’s will. This means that the shooter was merely an instrument of God used to continue his plan. This means that Mississippi State and UK have no responsibility for their not playing well enough to win the games I mentioned because God simply did not intend for them to win.

In our scriptures for today we have one from the old testament and one from the new testament which might seem like a night and day difference. These scriptures are sometimes used by people who defend that God has everything planned in advance and that we are all just players in his great drama. The reading out of Genesis 50 of toward the end of the story of Joseph. Perhaps you know the story. Joseph was beloved by his father. His brothers were jealous so they sold him into slavery to the Egyptians In spite of his being a slave he became a trusted advisor of the pharaoh and helped the Egyptians avoid the consequences of a famine which was revealed to Joseph in a dream. Joseph eventually ends up helping his brothers who sold him into slavery and they were reconciled. Hearing all of this, I can see where it would be easy to conclude that Joseph was trapped in a hole in the ground and sold to the Egyptians in order to prevent them and their neighbors from going hungry. There is a strong case to be made for this innocent man being sold into slavery being part of God’s plan. Which brings us to the new testament reading.

Paul wrote Romans when he was on his way to being put on trial in from of the emperor. Paul was no stranger to conflict, in fact his ministry is marked with it time and time again. So Paul is in the midst of one of these conflicts and pens this letter in which he states that God works all things out for the good of Himself and his people. This is another scripture in which people sometimes try to defend the notion that God has somehow planned everything. But note what Paul did not say: He did say that God has arranged everything according to his will. He did not say that God has caused him to be taken into chains and put on trial to face death. He did not say that God made him go to prison. Paul, instead, says that God works it all out in the end. This is an important difference to take note of because Paul is not placing the blame on God for his being under arrest, rather he is acknowledging that God will use it. To say it another way, God doesn’t cause innocent people to go to jail, he doesn’t cause people to die of cancer, and he does not cause people to be killed in senseless tragedies. But when these things do happen, he make the evil thing bring about good for the Kingdom of God.

Part of the reason so many of us have this notion of God is because of a theologian named John Calvin. Calvin was very much against the theology of the Catholic church and the argument could be made that almost everything they were for, he was against. His understanding of protestant theology was outlined in what is considered to be one of the classics of Christians theology called The Institutes of Christian Religion. Calvin was a proponent of a outlook called theological determinism. In a nutshell, Calvin believed that God is sovereign and has dominion over everything in the world, including everything that happens right down to the cells in our body replicating. Calvin’s argument was that if something occurred that was not God’s will then God could not be sovereign and have dominion. Calvin also believed in a principle called predestination, which meant that not only did God know everything that would happen in history but that he actually planned everything. Further, Calvin stated that this included God not knowing but actually choosing who would and would not be saved in in his presence forever. In other words, Calvin felt that God planned every single thing that would ever happen, including the fact that you’re here today at Shiloh and that God has even chosen who will and will not be forgiven of their sins. Calvin’s view is that God has picked and chosen who will go to Heaven and who will go to Hell.

John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, had similar beliefs to Calvin in several areas. He even made a statement which said, in essence that Methodism was within a breath of Calvinism. However, Wesley disagreed with Calvin in one major area: Predestination. Wesley believed that from the very beginning humankind was given free will, or the ability to make our own choices. Wesley believed that God knows how we will decide but that he does not actually cause us to make certain decisions. While Calvin believed that a person could not choose to trust God – rather that God would in a sense force them to believe through what he called irresistible grace – Methodist belief is that we decide for ourselves to trust Christ. Instead of irresistible grace, Wesley believed that God gives us prevenient grace, or grace which comes before which God uses to reach out to us humans and enable us to say yes to his justifying and sanctifying grace. Wesley believed that we have free will instead of having our will dictated to us.

The Bible lends support to this notion from the very beginning. In Genesis we read that God made the universe, the world, and everything in it and when he had placed Adam and Eve in the garden he gave them dominion over it. This does not sound like a micromanaging, puppet string pulling God to me. Instead it sounds like that God’s intention was to be present but not to interfere in the day to day stuff. God certainly did not intend for Adam and Eve to disobey him. Why would God compel people to disobey him? The logic simply does not stand up to the test. Simply put, God is not in the business of micromanagement and he certainly is not a puppet master. God also does not cause bad things to happen.

We want to believe that everything happens for a reason, that especially when bad things happen it’s all for a greater purpose. This simply just is not true. Bad things happen for a variety of reasons but sometimes they just happen. But they do not happen because God willed it or because he wanted to prove a point. God does not give people cancer. God does not cause children to die. God does not cause any sort of tragedy. But when tragedy does strike, let us remember that God is in the midst of it and he is ready to take that evil, ugly thing and make something beautiful come out of it. In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirt – amen.

August 19, 2016
Following in the Footsteps of the Wesleys

Salisbury Cathedral

Since last Monday, I have been in the land of England on a Wesleyan pilgrimage. While this might sound like a fancy name for a sightseeing tour while on vacation (or “holiday” as the Brits say), this has been a once in a lifetime opportunity to learn, to study, to grow, and to touch history. So far, this pilgrimage has proven to be just that: A pilgrimage. We have trod where John and Charles Wesley and so many others have trod, touched where they lived, worshiped, shopped, preached, and undoubtedly shed many tears. It is not enough to state that these places have been historical in nature. Indeed, we have been to sacred, holy places.

The trip began, in earnest, when we went up to Oxford (one always “goes up” to Oxford) to explore the place where the Methodist movement was begun. It’s important to remember that John and Charles Wesley were not setting out to start a new church, rather this was a renewal movement within the Church of England. One thing to note is that it was actually Charles who began what would be come the Holy Club at Christchurch College. Later on, they would be called Methodists as a way of poking fun at their methodical style of study and prayer. While in Oxford, we saw St. Mary’s Church where John preached sermons which caused him to be scorned by many within the Church of England power structure. Christ Church Cathedral is the place where John and Charles were both ordained Anglican Priests.

Commemoration of where the Oxford Martyrs were burned.

Seeing and touching these holy places was an amazing experience but here was the real sobering moment for me: We stood at a spot on Broad Street which commemorated the place where Anglican bishops Hugh Latimer, Nicholas Ridley, and Thomas Cranmer were burned at the stake for heresy. These men are who became known as the Oxford Martyrs. To see the place where these men were killed for their faith in Christ rather than their faith to a monarch was inspirational and sobering.

In addition to this significant faith history, we also experience another place where our faith was shaped: The Eagle and Child pub. This is where C.S. Lewis would often congregate while he was in Oxford. There was a door marked “Narnia” but I darned not to open it. For the record, the fish and chips are excellent.

Yesterday we spent the day in Epworth where the Wesley boys and

Me in the pulpit of Wesley Memorial Methodist Church in Epworth.

girls grew up. We toured the Old Rectory where the Wesleys lived while Samuel Wesley was rector of St. Andrew’s Church. At St. Andrews, we were able to see and touch the baptismal font where John, Charles, and their siblings were baptized. We were even able to see and hold the chalice which belonged to Samuel and from which his children received their first Eucharist. We saw some of the places where John Wesley practiced open air preaching, including the market cross and his father’s grave (he climbed on top of the grave to preach after he was denied an invitation to preach at St. Andrew’s).

Along the way, we have learned much from our leaders who have been lecturing on Methodist history as well as ways by which we can reclaim some of the Wesleyan fervor. Hopefully by doing this, what began as a renewal movement within the Anglican Church will itself be renewed today. I throw this in mainly because I did not want you to think we have only been sightseeing. This has very much been a learning experience, both by being able to learn from some of the best Wesleyan scholars available as well as being able to experience the places where so much of our Methodist heritage was formed.

Still on tap for us is worshiping at Salisbury Methodist Church tomorrow as well as an excursion to Bath, where there has been much Roman influence preserved. Monday we head to Bristol to see sites such as the New Room and Bristol Cathedral. Tuesday and Wednesday will be spent in London where there is also much Methodist history to be experienced and learned about.

This has been our trip so far. As you can see, we still have much more to go and I can not wait to see what God will do with these final days for us here. As I expressed to a friend of mine earlier today, this has been a learning experience that is helping to shape my future ministry in the United Methodist Church. Even if I were to go back home today, I would come away with much knowledge and the blessings of being able to be in these holy places. I have experienced joy, affirmation, new friendship, and the Holy Spirit speaking to me. May we continue to listen for His small voice as we continue this sojourn.

Jonathan

July 16, 2016