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Mar 1 2017

This week I came across an intriguing phrase about Jesus in Mark 3:5: “He looked around at them with anger.” This wasn’t the scene where Jesus throws over tables in the temple. It was in the midst of a conversation about healing. It got me wondering what other surprising references to God’s anger I might find in the Bible.

Along with sources of anger for God that I anticipated like worshipping other gods and plotting evil, I also found that God gets angry about:

• Pride and thinking oneself is better than another person (Isaiah 13:11-13)
• Injustice – God tells the prophet, Amos (5:21-24), that God hates worship and worship services when God’s people don’t also act outside of worship with justice and righteousness.
• Stubbornness about religious rules. The Mark 3:5 verse I mentioned at the beginning says that Jesus got angry with Pharisees – religious leaders – when they would not even engage in a conversation about whether it was right to heal someone (a legal good work) on a Sabbath day (when the law said to do no work).
• Complaining about misfortune that comes when following God (Numbers 11:1). This reminded me of Jesus telling his followers to expect (Matthew 5:11) and even seek (Luke 9:23) misfortune as part of following him.
• Failing to trust God. In Numbers 32:11-13, God expresses anger that the people “have not unreservedly followed me.”

As I read these various verses I recognized bits of my own behavior in each of them, but the last one really grabbed my attention. Does God have any idea how difficult it is to “unreservedly” follow? If I followed without reservation, what might happen? After all, the Hebrew slaves in Egypt lost their grueling-but-at-least-predictable lives and homes, many of Jesus’ disciples lost their jobs, Jesus experienced turmoil with family and neighbors, and from Old Testament to New we see followers of God experiencing their religion as uncomfortable and challenging. How God could expect me not to have reservations about following?

Then I recalled the context of that verse. God’s anger came after the people had experienced God’s care and provision in the past and then still had reservations about following God in the future. I suspect God is challenging me to remember God’s faithfulness to me in the past and to trust that God will continue to be faithful to care and provide for me in the future, so that I will unreservedly follow wherever God leads.

Take a moment to reflect on God’s care and provision for you in the past and say a prayer asking God to give you the assurance that they will continue in the future as you commit to follow God’s lead without reservation.

In Christ,
Rich

Rich Rindfuss
Access Pastor
First United Methodist Church Richardson

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Mar 1 2017

This past week Heather and I spent some time away celebrating our 20th anniversary. The actual day isn’t until next month, so I’ll wait a few weeks to write about our marriage, the blessing it’s been, and the role faith has played in it. This week I want to share some news about Jedi and how they’re affecting religious politics in Australia.

Every 4 years Australia conducts a census, and one of the questions asks about the participant’s religion. In 2011 over 64,000 people marked “other” and wrote in “Jedi.” With just a few days to go before the 2016 census, the Atheist Foundation of Australia is urging people carefully to consider their response this year noting that writing in “Jedi” categorizes a participant as part of a “not defined” religion rather than having “no religion.” A Twitter campaign emphasizes that this makes Australia look more religious than it is and skews religious affiliation data used for “public policy, city planning, community support facilities, and more.”

There are several things we might take away from this story, and I’ll suggest two. First we might take away the realization that atheists and Christians agree that religion goes deeper than just giving ourselves a popular label. And second, we might take away a smile that there’s a place in our world for 64,000 people to have some mostly harmless, quirky fun – and that place is Australia.

Be sure to join Access this Sunday for our final 5:00 p.m. weekly service. We’ll worship God with music from the Access band, conclude our Birds, Bees, and Christians sermon series, celebrate Holy Communion, and share ice cream after the service. We’ll also look forward to special events between now and December when Access will move in to the new Worship and Arts Center and resume weekly worship services at 11:00 a.m.

In Christ,
Rich

Rich Rindfuss
Access pastor
First United Methodist Church Richardson

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Mar 1 2017

Homosexuality and the United Methodist Church have been in the news recently. A May meeting of representatives from across the globe and the recent election of an openly lesbian clergyperson to the position of bishop have highlighted deep divisions within our church. In this week’s blog post I’ll explain what’s happened and what it means. And then Sunday at Access we’ll look at how Christians reading the same Bible come to such different conclusions about homosexuality.

The United Methodist Book of Discipline contains our church law for how our churches may minister to and with homosexual persons. It specifies that all people may attend worship services, participate in programs, receive the sacraments of baptism and communion, and become members of a United Methodist Church. However, the Book of Discipline prohibits ordaining homosexual persons as clergy. Also, United Methodist clergy cannot officiate at same-sex weddings, and same-sex weddings cannot take place in United Methodist churches. Every 4 years any United Methodist may submit a proposal for changes to the Book of Discipline, and elected laypeople and clergy from around the world gather at General Conference to debate those changes.

General Conference last met in May 2016. It received many proposals that ranged from strengthening the current position on homosexuality to completely reversing it. The issue was so divisive that the Conference approved a proposal by the bishops of the church to cease debate on homosexuality and allow the bishops to appoint a special commission to “develop a complete examination and possible revision of every paragraph in our Book of Discipline regarding human sexuality.” If the commission finishes its work in time, the bishops will implement a Called General Conference prior to the one already scheduled for 2020. The bishops plan to convene the first meeting of the commission in October of this year.

A few weeks ago, on July 16th, United Methodist Churches in the Western United States elected Karen Oliveto, an openly lesbian clergywoman, to the position of bishop. While this seems clearly to violate the intent of the Book of Discipline, the United Methodist Judicial Council, a kind of Supreme Court of the Church, has been asked to conduct a judicial review to determine which particular church laws apply and how. The Judicial Council next meets in late October.

In the short-term I expect these events to have minimal impact on the day-to-day life and ministry of our church. However, your friends may increasingly turn to you to make sense of what’s happening. I encourage you to share what you know and to explain that our predecessors were called Methodists, because they worked very methodically. Right now the Untied Methodist Church is working steadily and methodically both to apply our current church laws justly and to develop our future laws in a way that will address our divisions over homosexuality while maintaining our unity. As you explain I encourage you to ask your friends to pray for the people of our church and for our ability faithfully to discern and follow God’s will.

At FUMCR we have always found ways to disagree on issues yet to treat each other with respect and to focus on what unites us. Whatever changes come in the future, I see FUMCR continuing as one congregation with diverse opinions working together to fulfill the mission God has given us: With open hearts and minds we Welcome people for Christ, Grow people in Christ, and Serve people with Christ. Thank you for being a part of continuing that wonderful tradition!

I hope you’ll worship with the Access community on Sunday as we turn to the scriptures to see what the Bible says about homosexuality. You’ll gain an understanding of two very different perspectives that Christians take on the topic, and you’ll learn how they end up at such different places while reading the same Bible.

In Christ,
Rich

Rich Rindfuss
Access Pastor
First United Methodist Church Richardson