Going Back to the Graveside

This is my article that appeared in The United Methodist Reporter on July 25, 2016 and in The Arab Tribune on July 27, 2016.

The United Methodist Church I love so dearly is navigating rough waters. Recently, our Western Jurisdiction (comprising the churches of 12 western states) stepped out in nonconformity against denominational rules on ordination, marriage, and sexuality. Naturally, some consider this a courageous act of progress, while others consider it a major violation of covenant.

When changing tides shift the sands, I gently come back to a vivid memory that never fails to refresh my perspective. Almost 20 years ago, I visited the grave of my third great grandfather, Isaac Taylor. The moments I spent there became etched in my soul in a way that shaped my entire life and ministry.

He is buried at Taylor Memorial United Methodist Church near Trussville, Alabama. He was a Methodist circuit rider in the early 1800's, one of a trio of brothers who were traveling preachers in early Alabama history. Grandpa Taylor is buried next to his brother, who started the church, preaching at a nearby water hole.

When I get a little hard on myself, I remember that he wasn't the most perfect of ministers either. Historical records (written by my wife's ancestor, ironically) show that he barely passed his ordination exams, he was so uneducated and uncouth.

Later in life, he had to step out of ministry for a while because of a scandal. His wife disappeared, and critics of the Church accused him of killing her. Only later was his name cleared by someone who saw her in Texas with another man.

Anyway, I hadn't been ordained pastor very long when I was asked to preach for the homecoming at Taylor Memorial. In between services, I headed out to his grave.

This was just after a church protest had taken place out west, an incident that made me ponder whether the Church would divide during my lifetime. I wondered, as a relatively young United Methodist pastor, what in the world I had signed up for. It was downright depressing.

Yet there I stood at his grave. I stood there, weeping as a wave of peace came over me. The Spirit spoke to me, as if to say "Steve, you were ordained in the United Methodist Church. Your father was ordained in a different denomination, for it was called the Methodist Church.

"Your grandfathers were ordained in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, yet another denomination. This ancestor, whose grave you stand in front of, was ordained in the Methodist Episcopal Church, still another denomination, distinct from the rest.

"Steve, I don't care what you call it. It doesn't matter how you organize it, because this is my Church. The fire of faith will keep burning."

It struck me, as I stood there praying and looking at the years etched in the stone, that during Grandpa Taylor's life and ministry, the church divided over issues of slavery. Yet the Spirit kept moving. In fact, it was a season when the Church in America was growing like wildfire.

And so I began the long process of letting go and trusting God for the future.

My ministry has been a journey of realizing that I have stepped into a larger picture of the movement of the Holy Spirit across many generations, with all its struggles as well as its joys. My life is lived in context.

I can't fix the big issues. I am called to serve the gospel faithfully and trust my God for the rest. The future belongs to God.

His grave stone reads:

In memory of

Rev. ISAAC TAYLOR

was born January 27th, 1802

died May 5th, 1871

He was a minister of the gospel 50 years and died in the hope & Consolation of the same. --- "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord."

My denomination is having some rough times. As the most evenly spread denomination in the United States, naturally there is different consciousness in different parts of the country.

But I have no fear. God is with us.

Steve West is a husband, father, minister, musician, and writer who pastors Arab First United Methodist Church. His blog, "Musings of a Musical Preacher," is found at stevewestsmusings.blogspot.com.

"What about Sandstone?"

This is a five-minute homily I prepared on Matthew 7:21-29 (the wise person who built his house upon a rock and the foolish one who built on sand). I prepared this complete text for chapel at Sewanee last week, and preached an extended version of it the following Sunday.

"May the words of my mouth, and the meditation of our hearts, be acceptable in your sight, oh Lord, our ROCK and our redeemer."

As a member of the "M&M&M" (that's the "Magnificent Methodist Minority"), I want you to know that today is the first time I have worn a clerical collar under my robe. Some say "when in Rome, do as the Romans do" but I say to you "when in Canterbury, follow suit"!

This "Methodist among us" tells you all that to begin with the words of Charles Wesley, who was never ordained an elder in the Methodist Church, he was one of YOUR most famous priests:

"See the Gospel Church secure,
And founded on a Rock!
All her promises are sure;
her bulwarks who can shock!
Count her every precious shrine:
Tell, to after-ages tell.
Fortified by power divine,
The church can never fail."

There are a number of vibrant metaphors for the church in scripture: the FAMILY we are adopted into, the BRIDE Christ is married to, the TREE we are grafted onto, the BODY we are members of, but today we might notice that Paul's CONSTRUCTION imagery for the church ... living stones in a spiritual house, with Christ as the cornerstone ... has a friend in Jesus' own words:

"Everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them is like the wise man who built his house on rock."

Honestly, I have not usually been captivated by these construction images. They don't FEEL very fluid. It might be because I am developing a suspicious aversion to institutional thinking in the "second half of life". Or maybe it's because the only kind of construction I'm actually good at is demolition (hand me a sledgehammer!). Or just ask me to construct an argument ... my wife says I'm really good at that.

Rather than being repelled, I have had this voice ringing in my ears every morning for weeks now saying, "let the symbols of scripture resonate within you". So I began to play with this image in ways I never learned in Sunday School.

What if sometimes, my house is built on rock and sometimes, it's built on sand? Or one half is here and the other half there? Or what if it's built on SANDSTONE?

It's so easy in a culture intoxicated with "us and them" mentality to hear Jesus' words as "us and them" words: you know, some people started out right, and others started out wrong, those are the "SAND people! Woe be unto them!" (Mimicked the sound of a house falling)

Maybe, when Jesus is talking about someone who hears the word and does it, he's talking about ME. And when he speaks of someone who hears the word and does NOT do it, he's STILL talking about me.

Are there places soft and hard, sand and rock, concrete and peat moss sharing space underneath us? Could it be that standing firm in Christ feels like being the Tower of Pisa? It leans south some centuries and north during others, never moving more than a half inch a year but somehow it still stands?

Or do we wonder why our foundations sometimes crumble no matter how well built we think we are?

I have been to the 9/11 memorial in New York. I have seen the massive waterfalls carved from the footprints of arguably the greatest foundations history ever built ... a beautifully stark reminder that in today's world, even a solid foundation is not enough to keep a building up.

So Jesus, what happens if life is just not as simple as either rock or sand?

You may have heard of the Winchester Cathedral. When huge cracks started to appear in the massive walls and arched ceilings in the early 1900's, it appeared complete collapse was immanent. The cathedral was built on peaty soil in a river valley. Efforts to underpin its waterlogged foundations kept failing, for every time they dug a trench to fill with concrete, water just filled the hole. And they were going to have to fill it to 13 feet below the water table. How?

That's when William Walker appeared. He was a deep-sea diver. He plunged under water every day for 6 years placing bags of concrete. Diligently, relentlessly he dove almost every day for 6 years. To this day, you will find a small statue of him at the far end of the Winchester cathedral.

And I wonder today if Christ will show up, with goggles on his face and a snorkel in hand, at the foot of your wall, gently asking your permission to do his work.

Would you give him your consent? Would you to let him dive in, and dive in deep?

"In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit."