I am so sorry for everyone's pain through this discernment. Above all, I want to honor and embrace each person's feelings and affirm that your viewpoint is sacred. I offer this to all who are suffering through this time in our church. You are loved and you are part of my family.
I love the Book of Job and the wisdom of its message. The story of a good person, persecuted for NO REASON. Why? The story shows faithfulness under the worst possible and unjustified suffering; to show God loves us even when we are angry with God. Not an easy message to digest.
Been thinking about Bethany and how Job is constantly screaming - I want my day in court with God, I demand justice!
In my analogy, Bethany is Job. And for so many - the vote is viewed as our day in court - taking those who oppress us to court.
In the end Job never has his day in court. Instead God has his day with Job and the Lord spoke "out of the storm" (Job 38:2-41):
For those suffering and feeling like you are done (regardless of which side you are on) the Book of Job inspired the following:
Who is this local church that obscures my plans
with words without knowledge?
Brace yourself like an adult;
I will question you, and you shall answer me.
Where were you when I laid the foundation for Protestant Reformation?
Tell me, if you understand.
Or where were you when I inspired the Methodist Movement?
Tell me, if you truly understand.
Who marked the disciplines of Methodism over so many years?
Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it?
On what is Methodism footings set upon,
or who laid its cornerstone—
while the morning stars sang together
and all the angels[a] shouted for joy?
Who brought children from behind factories doors
when industrialized greed was bursting,
when I empowered the women of Methodism
and wrapped them in my thick blanket of inclusiveness,
when I fixed limits of the South/North Methodist
and set their doors and bars in place,
when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther;
here is where your proud waves halt’?
Have you ever given orders to correct social injustice
or shown the oppression of our days its place
that it might take the earth by the edges
and shake the wicked out of it?
The single Methodist connectional network takes shape like rainbow after the rain;
its features stand out like those of a garment.
The wicked are denied their light,
and their upraised arm is broken.
And where does the darkness of Methodist outliers reside?
Have you journeyed through the ages of general conferences
or walked in the recesses of our connectional differences?
Have the gates of death been shown to you?
Have you seen the gates of the deepest darkness?
Have you comprehended the vast expanses of our united connectional network?
Tell me, if you know all this.
“What is the way to be inclusive to ALL?
Can you take them to their places?
Do you know the paths to their dwellings?
Surely you know, for you were already born!
You have lived so many years!
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