June 20, 2004
John Auer, Pastor
Scripture text: 2
Timothy 1:3-7
"Colleagues/Collages: Diversity of Identity,
Complexity of Integrity"
National columnist Nicholas Kristof announced a contest for
readers’ poems about the war in Iraq and has received more than a
thousand. He commends this as his favorite, from James Yeck of Boulder,
CO, for a day we pray to stop the fighting, killing, dying among our
fathers, and would-be ones, everywhere –
A tiny piece of metal hangs upon a
frame,
That has "father" written
below the name.
The tiny piece of metal; hangs in glory
there,
Never left to tarnish by neglecting
care.
The tiny piece of metal brings fame to
the home,
Glory for its man who crossed the
ocean’s foam.
Politicians send praises into the
peaceful air;
Others smile now who once would only
stare.
People from all around come especially
to see
The tiny piece of metal, a symbol of
the free.
A country’s token to the bravest of
its land.
Proud of their famous town the village
people say,
"Do you know what this
means?" with pride most every day,
To the little boy whose father went to
war.
"Yes," softly he replies,
"I have no daddy any more."
Julie and I returned late last night from the 156th
session of the California-Nevada Annual Conference. I am just foolish
enough to try to say something about it this morning. I hope we will
hear as well from lay members Carol and Don Barr and Val Chappel, from
youth member Sarah McCormick, from John Emerson, and from Julie. She and
I were a little less fully attentive than usual because we stayed with
our daughter and grandchildren in Fresno and reconnected with friends
from our four years of ministry there. I hope we will spend some of
Church Council meeting after 10 am worship next Sunday reflecting on
Annual Conference, in light of both General Conference held in
Pittsburgh two months ago, and Jurisdictional Conference to be held in
San Jose July 13-17.
We were represented as well by these collages of pictures from the
life and work of our congregation. Carol and Don danced them around the
assembly in joyful drum-led processional and they stayed among other
collages on the wall with a huge graffiti board for adding tributes to
the theme "Rekindling the Gift of God Within You," – as
individual disciples of Jesus Christ, as congregations, as an annual
conference, and even as a general church. Bishop Beverly Shamana
commended these words of one of pastor and ordinand Manohar Joshi --
Holy Spirit, We invite you to dwell
among your Pentecost people, to
freshen our faith, and pour life into
this space. Give us grace in our
conferencing, mercy in our
deliberations, and peace in our diversity.
. . . Rekindle the gift of God within
you.
Similar words were used by the bishop in prayers fixing the
appointments of all the clergy for the next year. Pastor Joshi wrote a
hymn for the conference, "Rekindle the Gift of God," with this
chorus --
We felt right at home with our own seasonal theme "Shades of
Red" amid ubiquitous verbal and visual images of dancing flames.
Another of our favorite local images names the special
Pre-Jurisdictional Conference Conversation sponsored by our friends in
the Methodist Federation for Social Action: "A Tree Planted by
Living Water! The Western Jurisdiction in the 21st
Century." I hope we can be represented. We also passed out to
delegates a thousand flyers inviting them to book performances of the
Nevada Shakespeare Company’s docudrama "A Single Woman" and
to tell their friends in Reno, since all California roads lead here, to
visit us for summer worship, for Artown performances in July, and for
the Work-SING-Shop in August!
Much of today’s order of worship was made available for use this
morning in all our congregations. We hope to celebrate in common the
myriad diverse identities and ministries of colleagues throughout the
conference, and the mysterious complex integrity and mission of the
collage conference is as a whole! Our General Conference delegation
brought back this recommendation for our determined, enduring witness in
and to the larger church –
The California-Nevada Annual Conference deplores
the exclusionary actions of the 2004 General Conference which
impede our ministries, particularly by perpetuating barriers to
our efforts to include gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, and transgendered
people fully in the life of the Church. To be obedient to Jesus
Christ and our Wesleyan roots which allow for theological
diversity and diverse forms of ministry, we the California-Nevada
Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church will continue our
efforts to fully include all God’s children in the life and
ministry of out church so that the pronouncement of Open Hearts,
Open Minds, and Open Doors shall be a reality in our conference.
It passed strongly, if not unanimously. No matter what our own
"take" or "spin" on it, we all acknowledge the
compelling uniqueness of our time and place.
Bishop Shamana has been working with a conference-wide
"visioning team" to bring to us, "The People of the
California-Nevada Conference: Diverse Culture, Diverse Geography, One in
Christ’s Love," a shared vision entitled, "Passionate in
Jesus Christ, Compassion for All." Each congregation is invited to
work toward this vision through active consideration of four goals and
objectives:
 | Be Passionate For The Mind of Christ Within Us: Every
Faith Community a Spiritual Transformation Center; |
| Show Compassion For The Love of Christ With Every Person
In Our Parish And The World: Every congregation in
service through outreach ministries – face to face,
hand to hand, with the poor, the least, the outcast
and the hungry; |
| Extend Christ’s Invitation For A Joyous Life: Grow New
Faith Communities And Renew Present Faith Communities:
Congregation visible, interacting and known in its
Parish/Community; and, |
| Celebrate Our Diversity And Unity In Christ: Every
congregation names and celebrates our Identity and
bears fruits of respect, love, and mutual ministry. |
|
What fruit might it yield for a "visioning team" of this
congregation to dream a vision upon our common history and our
"Progressive Church Prayer?" Throughout summer worship we will
offer opportunity to see the vision and hear the voice of the Holy
Spirit gifting and calling each one of us to ministries.
Bishop Shamana and team led us each morning in an extended "Time
of Challenge and Inspiration." In small groups we asked such
questions as,
| How do we remember our personal and congregational
"Pentecost moments?" When the fire of
Christ’s Spirit first burned within us and our
hearts, like John Wesley’s, were "strangely
warmed?" |
| What happens in our lives to try to smother or to
extinguish that flame within and among us? |
| How might we seek, boldly, to keep ablaze and rekindle
the gift of God within us? |
|
We spoke of God’s rekindling work – a coal-blowing,
ember-glowing, spark-starting, flame-fanning, fire-breathing,
fire-dancing, -- even a fire-playing God! Bishop Shamana knows there is
also a "collage of decline" in our recent history,
--spiritual, missional, statistical, financial, -- to be faced and
confessed as we move on. But the Church, she insists, is not our idea,
-- it is God’s idea! God has not and will not give up on us! Even in
the past eight years, for instance, this conference has raised over half
a million dollars in "Hope for the Children of Africa,"
without whose children our world cannot become healthy or whole.
Our bishop is calling us to a new "Partnership in Ministry"
between California-Nevada and West Angola annual conferences! Bishop
Gaspar Joao Domingos and spouse Lucrecia Alexandre preached among us in
Portuguese with translation! And the Africa University Choir from
Zimbabwe joined with Tongan drummers in the call to a service
"Blessing All of God’s Children" in the spirit our
denominational Bishops’ Initiative for response to children and
poverty. Children of Nevada will lead us in bearing this witness to the
State Capitol next spring. In the summer of 2005 our conference
Volunteers in Mission will send a work team to Africa University, and
any of us is invited!
Bishop Shamana names her version of the vision "Love at the
Margins." She calls upon us to "learn what we’ve
learned" as a conference about living with our diversity and
creating new and "oddly-shaped" table where everyone fits
"in tight places!" To offer to be as a laboratory for the
learning of our general church through such experiments in truth as
enable us to act as upon new occasions teaching new duties in this
world. She calls upon us to see our wounds, the "tender spots"
of our diversity, as "sources of radical blessing," to others
as to us.
We, the Church, this rag-tag movement Jesus in the Spirit keeps on
leaving behind, -- in more ways than one! -- are a wondrous body of
diverse and complex parts! Of myriad ministries and of mysterious
mission! Making up a living, breathing, dancing, playing life in faith
as we go along! In today’s letter for our conference and our
congregations – creating, confessing, communing, -- calling,
consecrating, commissioning -- Paul writes to Timothy from jail. Jesus
expects our witness and service, if we are faithful in following him, to
land us in trouble and even in jail. In fact, that is why Jesus calls
the Holy Spirit, the Helper he is to send us, that we may re-member and
re-present him in our own times and places, both Comforter and
Counselor! Meaning, attorney! Advocate! Voice when we are voiceless!
Vision when we are visionless.
In fact, Paul is not only in jail as he writes. Paul is on death row.
Jesus expects, or accepts, even that. In some ways Paul speaks out to
Timothy with a sense of his own "last chance" to reach and
touch deeply at least one colleague in the changing collage of
ministries and mission. Such is the life, such is the work, of the
annual conference, -- from the recognition of retirees and the calling
of the clergy role at the opening of conference (One brother pastor,
Allen Lewis, has been answer conference roll calls since 1927! This was
his 77th annual conference.), -- to the ordinations of
deacons, elders, and local pastors toward the end of conference. And
such is the work of our congregations and even our families as well. We
may not be imprisoned, but we are forever mindful, not only on Fathers
Day, of living between what Paul calls "tearful good-byes" and
"joy-packed reunions" on this long journey of life into faith
and the works of faith.
What a rich faith is handed down, from our grandmothers and our
grandfathers in life and faith and works, to our mothers and our fathers
in life and faith and works, and now to us! As the hymn sings, It
only takes a spark to get a fire going, / and soon all those around can
warm up in its glowing. / That’s how it is with God’s love once
we’ve experienced it; / we spread God’s love to everyone; we want to
pass it on. And let those still on fire with Holy Spirit say,
Amen!
Rev. John J. Auer
