Prophetic Sermon and Ponderous Process
By Jim Nibbelink
The day began on a real high as we heard from Bishop Hee-Soo Jung, leader of the Northern Illinois Conference. Bishop Jung told us the story of Jesus’ conversation with the condemned man on the cross next to his. The man asked to be remembered when Jesus came into his kingdom. Jesus immediately told the man that he would be with Jesus in paradise. Jesus did not ask if the man had “been good.” He didn’t even ask what the man believed. If a condemned criminal is accepted by Jesus, who else will be accepted? We were reminded that love has no boundaries. All parts of the body are important and are interrelated. In order to be fully alive, fully human, we must give space for others to be fully alive and fully human as well. We don’t judge others to be less faithful or less worthy. Bishop Jung really challenged us when he told us to reflect on the fact that the garbage cans of the affluent are overflowing while people in poverty are starving and children are dying from malnutrition. When we think too well of our own faith and faithfulness, we can build an idol out of our own sense of purity. A major error is to build our faith on correct beliefs rather than on being a servant on the way of Christ. Holiness has a place and hospitality has a place. We must hold these values in tension to live a balanced and fully Christian life. Bishop Jung struck a chord that bears repeating in all of our congregations.
Most of the day and evening was spent wrangling over proposed amendments to the Constitution of the church. The Council of Bishops and the Connectional Table, our ministry coordinating body, have proposed a name change from Central Conferences to Regional Conferences where these words appear in our Constitution. This is to offer flexibility to a study group that has been commissioned to engage the global nature of the UMC over the next four years and come to the 2012 General Conference with recommendations for action as we try to live into a new age for the church. None of the proposed amendments have any action attached in them that would affect us during the 2008 – 2012 period. Nonetheless, some parts of the church appear to be very threatened by the name change and spent all day trying to defeat or derail the proposals. This was obfuscation by parliamentary procedure and somewhat less noble tactics at its worst. There were multiple amendments offered to the proposals, many motions to refer the amendments to other groups to study (which has already been done in the past four years – that’s how the proposals were developed), lots of questions allegedly about the process or meaning of the wording and much more. Finally, our own Devin Mauney named the process for what it was, an attempt to cause enough confusion to cause delegates to vote against the proposals. Devin was very forthright in pointing our that those who claimed to be confused were in fact some of the most experienced members of our church and that their tactics were really the cause of any confusion. After this intervention, the process did improve somewhat and all Constitutional amendments related to the global nature of the UMC were approved. In order to take effect, these amendments must be reviewed and adopted by 2/3rds of the members of our Annual Conferences around the world, so we will see these items during our Annual Conference in June.
Another significant action was the approval of voting rights for General and Jurisdictional Conference elections by Provisional (Probationary) Conference members and by Local Pastors. In order to qualify for these voting privileges, the named people must have completed Course of Study or Masters of Divinity degrees and have been appointed in a pastoral role for at least two years immediately preceding the election in which they will vote. This is a big step forward in a justice issue affecting some of our leaders.
We lived another high moment when the General Conference received a visit and short address from Bill Gates, Sr., father of “Microsoft Bill.” Gates Sr. chairs the board of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, a major philanthropic enterprise. The Foundation is partnering with the United Nations and the UMC through a donation of $5,000,000 to be applied to our church’s global health initiative. Currently, this ministry is engaged in the “Nothing But Nets” campaign to provide insecticide-treated mosquito nets to children in Africa. These nets will help children to avoid malaria, which is killing thousands of children every year. Again, this is a justice issue, since malaria has been eradicated in some parts of the world and is epidemic in other places. Gates Sr. told us that when we decide that cultural differences and national boundaries can not get in the way of stopping malaria, that it will be stopped. We were reminded that all people are of infinite worth independent of any reference to us. That means that their humanity and value are not dependent on being security assets, consumers of our exports or allies in the war on terror. They are God’s beloved and are simply people in need. Two wonderfully prophetic messages in one day transcended the frustration brought on by the ponderous legislative process and left me with a renewed belief in A Future With Hope.
Friday is the last day of General Conference. There is still much work to do. My last letter will be written from Tucson after we return home.