Wednesday, December 6, 2000

In April of this past year, I was approved for ordination as an Elder. However, given the devastating events of General Conference and the trend of the United Methodist Church toward theological narrowness and social rigidity, as the time of my ordination approached I was so consumed with trying to forgive the United Methodist Church that I could barely fathom taking vows to uphold and support it.

I felt like I would be colluding with a church that is no longer proclaiming release to the captives or recovery of sight to the blind or letting the oppressed go free. I felt like I would be conspiring with a people who are more concerned with making the church "pure" than with liberation and justice.

After much struggle and prayer and conversation, I finally made my decision and on June 10, I was ordained. One of the most poignant moments in the ordination service for me was when the newly ordained elders were given the opportunity to serve communion. My sponsors and I took our places as the Great Thanksgiving was being offered. We had agreed in advance that I would hold the chalice and one of my sponsors would hold the bread, which was wrapped in a clean, white, protective linen cloth. At the appropriate time, my mentor carefully removed the linen and we discovered a loaf of bread covered with mold!

Ah, what a beautiful moment the theological symbolism was not wasted on us. We laughed out loud.

"This is what happens," I said, "when we try to keep the Body of Christ tidy and pure. When we shelter it and enshroud it, and wrap it up tightly, the Church, just like this bread, will get moldy."

When I saw that mold, I literally felt like Jesus was rebelling against the sterilized packages into which we place him. Sometimes I think we just want to keep the Body of Christ wrapped in swaddling clothes forever. Maybe Jesus and his church are the captives who need to be released from our restricting, protective hold. --AD

PRAYER:
Alien
  strange
            distant
                 separated
you are the hope of community

rejected
    abandoned
             alone
                   in distress
you are the hope of love

come abandoned alien
             God of hope
be born in us
                                (Sue Brittion from The Way of Peace, compiled
                                 by Hannah Ward and JenniferWild)

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