THE MORE THINGS CHANGE, THE MORE THEY STAY THE SAME

In my continuing series on John Wesley’s Manifesto, we’re brought to the line that says “promote equal treatment for women.” Obviously, this one is near and dear to my heart!

“Difficulties” have been experienced simply because I’m female. I doubt I am alone when I make that statement. And as I say that, I am thinking only about family, my profession and the church.

I grew up in a loving family, but I felt females being viewed a particular way. I was certainly encouraged to do well in school, but working in an office, or having children, etc., was assumed to be my future. From the very beginning of my memory, and maybe just to be annoying, I stated myself a “feminist.” I borrowed books from the library that supported that viewpoint. I even remember a Bible written from a feminist viewpoint. And, I went to business school to be a legal secretary. Feminist or not, I did what I was supposed to do. BUT, I didn’t return “home” a year later, but got a job and found a way to continue my education, first becoming a paralegal, then an accountant, and then ordained clergy.

With all of that, I stepped out into the world, anticipating being accepted simply because I had graduated with an accounting degree and passed my CPA exams. The small firm I was hired by had one owner and one employee that was male, and a second owner and the majority of the staff that was female. Over time, I became an owner and the firm was owned by three women! Exciting, but we still encountered other accountants and clients, insisting that they had to talk to a male. Despite that, within the firm, my being female has actually been treated as a positive!

Even church has sometimes been this way, even when I was laity. Being the youngest and first female chair of church council, I expected having to defend myself, imagine my surprised to encounter women as the persons most upset by my position.

Why would John Wesley have a statement specifically about women? He was an Anglican priest in the 1700s when all priests were male. But his mother, Susanna, was a strong influence on his life. There are boundless stories that abound from her life:

• She led a Bible study in her home, even though her husband and the acting priest of the parish objected
• She made sure ALL her children, male and female, were educated, even in Greek and Latin
• She felt that if God called someone to preach, even a woman, that it was not up to the church (or many) to object

Methodism, in John Wesley’s time, was one of the first groups to allow female preachers! The more things change, the more they remain the same. One brief Google search resulted in these:

• Mary Bosanquet Fletcher was an early lay preacher in the 1800s and is credited with convincing John Wesley that women should be allowed to preach.
• In 1866, Helenor M. Davisson was ordained a deacon in the Methodist Protestant Church
• Anna Howard Shaw, after being refused ordination by the General Conference of the Methodist-Episcopal Church in 1880, joined the Methodist Protestant Church and was ordained by its New York Annual Conference.
• Ella Niswonger was the first woman granted full clergy rights by the United Brethren Church in 1889.
• In 1956, The Methodist Church granted women full clergy rights.
• Maude Jensen became the first female full clergy member ordained that same year by the Central Pennsylvania Conference.
• Twenty-six additional women were also received as full clergy members that year.
• And in 1980, the first woman, Marjorie Matthews, was elected and consecrated as a bishop within the United Methodist Church.

There are many more women who were not able to achieve. The more things change, the more they remain the same.

There is a history of women, strong women, that have come before me. Women in my family, women in my church, women in the accounting profession, and women in the church, both lay and clergy. And there are women that have come before you!

If we keep our eyes open and on them, and our ears closed to negative family stereotypes, things will continue to change.

I look forward to and pray for the day when being female doesn’t require a conversation about the equality of women to men, and their treatment or mistreatment. This prayer isn’t just for women, but for all others who suffer and strive for equal treatment!

HOW CAN WE LOVE WITHOUT TOLERANCE?

My blog series on John Wesley’s Manifesto continues with “promote tolerance.” Well, that’s a hard one isn’t it? Tolerance is defined as “the ability or willingness to tolerate something, in particular the existence of opinions or behavior that one does not necessarily agree with.”

It’s not a big surprise to anyone that knows me that I love to read. Why would I would jump from tolerance to reading? I mean I know that I can get to reading pretty easily, from pretty much anywhere! But…I read.

·         I read for entertainment

·         I read for knowledge

·         I read for different experiences

·         I read …

Growing up, I couldn’t read enough. I would sit at the kitchen table, eating my bowl of cereal and reading the back of the cereal box (every day…same box). I would check biographies out of the school library to learn more about someone mentioned in class. There was a long time when I read any and every book I could read about the Civil War; diaries written then, historical novels “set” in that time, history books, anything… When my mother would “force” me to go outside to get fresh air in the summer, I’d just take my book and go outside for a little light summer reading (think War and Peace or Gone With the Wind). Currently, I read stewardship books (for fun!).

But I also read books with opinions that I don’t agree with! Why would I subject myself to sometimes stomach-churning, anger-inducing opinions set out on a written page? Because…how can I say my opinion is a valid opinion, if I haven’t considered someone else’s?

We are in a time where differences of opinion and tolerance are suffering. Social media has, in a lot of ways, become the avenue of discourse that is not open-minded or tolerant, but negative and nasty.

·          How can we be tolerant of someone who holds an opinion that we think is morally             bankrupt or even criminal?

·         How can we be tolerant of someone whose religious beliefs differ from our own?

Tolerance, of course, includes religious tolerance. John Wesley believed in religious freedom, preaching in his Sermon 39 – Catholic Spirit, saying: "Not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another” (verses 10, 11).

He had personal experience with lack of tolerance. “On one particularly harrowing evening, Wesley was taken captive by several mobs, who escorted him to the homes of indifferent magistrates, where the mob cited disruptive Methodists who “sing Psalms all day, nay, and make folks rise at five in the morning.” The magistrates refused to intervene, leaving Wesley hostage, repeatedly pummeled, spouting blood from his mouth, amid cries of “Hang him!” He afterwards claimed he felt no pain. Later the same magistrates tried to press charges against him for disturbing the peace…’Suppose we were dissenters . . . ; suppose we were Turks or Jews; still are we not to have the benefit of the law of our country,” Wesley implored. “Proceed against us by law, if you can or dare, but not by lawless violence. . . . This is flat rebellion both against God and the king.’

The early Wesleyan revivals, although not political, were democratizing and liberty enhancing in their ultimate social impact, benefitting persons of all faiths and no faith. Christians of today, in contending for full religious liberty, even on the edges, serve not just themselves but the conscience rights of everyone.”[1]

We are different, but I believe, even in our differences, in spite of our differences, or because of our differences, we can be tolerant of others, even when we have a personal opinion that someone else’s belief system is so completely different from our own that it cannot be understood. We cannot formulate responses based on physical violence, or emotional violence or violent speech on a Christian belief, can we?

          Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate         cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Martin Luther King, Jr.

          Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?' Martin Luther King, Jr.

      So how can we love without tolerance?

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[1] https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2014/03/john-wesley-and-religious-freedom (accessed 7/23/20)

RUNNING ON A HAMSTER WHEEL

It is the third week of John Wesley’s Manifesto and we are looking at the line: “help everyone feel they can make a difference.”

How often are you at work, or at church, or at home, and you feel like a hamster on a wheel, running and running, and never going anywhere?

·        X  It’s just one large circle.

·         X The view never changes; a destination is never reached.

That’s bad enough, but have you seen the video of one hamster running on a wheel, when a second hamster hops on and starts running? The first hamster loses his footing and just hangs on the edge. His buddy doesn’t seem to care, and keeps running and running, while the wheel just keeps hitting that first hamster in the back?

And if you google hamster fails, then you’ll see several videos of a single hamster running so fast that it suddenly starts riding the wheel around and around, until it spins out of the wheel and lands somewhere off camera.

Watching hamster videos online is amusing, but it makes me think. Are we:

1.     - The hamster that just stays on the same wheel never going anywhere?

2.     - The hamster finding that the next person is going so fast that it can’t keep up?

3.     - The hamster that finds the world going so fast that all it can do is try to hang on until it flies off?

I gotta say I’ve felt like each of these hamsters at some point, and it’s not a happy feeling, is it?

·       That being said, what does a running hamster have to do with John Wesley’s manifesto?

·         Is that hamster making any sort of difference? (other than getting the person watching the video to giggle?)

When we are caught up in the “rat race” or “running on a hamster wheel”, we don’t feel like we’re making a difference. And when we’re not making a difference, do we feel God’s hand? I don’t think so. Now, my faith definitely says that God is always with me. That God has called me, as a deacon, to be generous, and serve in the areas of compassion, justice and service. But sometimes, I just don’t feel it. Tell me I’m not the only one out there, am I?

But then there are times when the world is spinning fast (like a hamster wheel), but I feel like what I am doing IS making a difference. That’s a whole different perspective. What if that hamster wheel was powering the lights in a room? What if that hamster wheel was grinding corn meal? That hamster is still running; but it is making a difference.

There can be days when I feel completely overwhelmed, but then there are other days where I am equally as busy but feel like a difference is being made.

            Sit quietly for a moment and think about that: can you remember an instance of each?

If we must feel like WE make a difference, we have to help everyone feel like they are making a difference as well.

The version of the manifesto I have says “help everyone to feel they can make a difference.” But another version I found online says it this way: “empower everyone to feel they can make a difference.”

The definition of empower is to “give (someone) the authority or power to do something” and “make (someone) stronger and more confident, especially in controlling their life and claiming their rights.” THAT means to:

·         X Help them claim their rights

·         X Help them control their life

·         X Make them stronger

·         X Make them more confident

This is justice personified! 

What kind of hamster are you and how can YOU make a difference in helping others making a difference? 

How are you empowering others?

JOHN WESLEY'S MANIFESTO - WHAT DOES FISHING HAVE TO DO WITH IT?

This is the second blog based on “John Wesley’s Manifesto”. I spent time previously talking about reducing the gap between the right and the poor. Today, let’s talk about three other parts:

·         *  Help everyone to have a job

·         *  Help the poorest, including introducing a living wage

·         *  Offer the best possible education

I know it seems like a lot for one blog, but all three strongly relate to each other. Often when we talk about “helping” others, it becomes a money thing. “How much do you need? I’ll write a check.” “Let me put some money in that homeless person’s hand.” “I’ll pick up an extra sandwich at the fast food restaurant and give it to the man standing on the corner.” “They have suffered so much because of the flood, let me send some items to help out.” Now, there is nothing wrong with ANY of these answers. I believe these answers all reflect a giving and generous heart, and providing for an immediate need is vital, A giving and generous heart is the basis to all good works.

However, these three issues from John Wesley go beyond how we often look at helping. There’s a saying that “if you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day; if you teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime.”

In doing some very simple googling of that saying, a website titled “quoteinvestigator” popped up that says that “the general principle of alleviating poverty by facilitating self-sufficiency has a long history. The 12th-century philosopher Maimonides wrote about eight degrees in the duty of charity. In 1826 an explication of the eighth degree was published in a journal called “The Religious Intelligencer”. Lastly, the eighth and the most meritorious of all, is to anticipate charity by preventing poverty, namely, to assist the reduced brother, either by a considerable gift or loan of money, or by teaching him a trade, or by putting him in the way of business, so that he may earn an honest livelihood and not be forced to the dreadful alternative of holding up his hand for charity. . .[1] (bold added)

            Is this what John Wesley was talking about when he said to help the poorest? Charity isn’t necessary if a person is helped to become all he or she can be. And a low paying or “under the table” job isn’t what true helping involves.

·             A living wage is vital.

·                            How can we, as Christians, sit by while families who have two parents, both working full-time jobs, still having to rely on food stamps, or food banks, or charity, in order to feed, clothe and provide medication for their family?

Often, the inability to provide a “living wage” can be the result of a lifetime of systemic problems, which can include, but certainly not be limited to: offering the best education to everyone. I have to say, while I can say I grew up in a rural area, I still grew up in a primarily white rural area. My parents stressed the importance of school, and twelve years of school in that little village provided an excellent basis for future learning, which I was able to carry with me when I left to go to business school, and then on to university for my bachelors and ultimately to seminary for my theological education. (Obviously, I like learning!).

Not everyone is as fortunate as I was, or as many of the readers of this blog were. I am aware of a couple of people in my own “circle” that need help filling out a simply job application, because learning and reading wasn’t deemed important enough in their lives.

            How can we sit back and let children, and adults, “grow up” not learning, and not enjoying learning, not being able to read and write sufficiently well enough that they can aspire to a living wage or a “good job”?

            How can we sit by and let the color of skin, or the economic “reality” of a family or a geographic area, define how much someone is “allowed” to learn and earn?

(To add a bit of Broadway trivia, I believe there’s a quote from the Big Fish musical that says the same thing, but adds a line: “you teach a man the Alabama stomp, you feed his soul!”) I always enjoy listening to Broadway tunes on my XM radio in my car, and I love this song (take the time to Google and listen to it!). But the more I thought about this line, the more I believe it has something to say to my thoughts that I’ve tried to express here. Sure, we can satisfy someone’s need in the short term by giving that person “something”. I want to make sure to stress that sometimes this is exactly what’s needed.

            If someone is hungry today, feed them!

But, in the long term, we can help prevent that hunger by giving everyone the ability and the opportunity to provide for themselves.

            If someone is hungry for knowledge, teach them!

But, in the ultimate sense, we can feed a person’s soul by providing the knowledge and experience, and love and grace and kindness.

            If someone is hungry for relationship, love them!

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[1] https://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/08/28/fish/ (accessed July 9, 2020)

WESLEY’S MANIFESTO PART 1: REDUCE THE GAP BETWEEN RICH AND POOR

My husband and I joined an EO tour, led by Bishop Mark Webb and Jodi Webb, together with several other members of the Upper New York Conference on a trip to England. Can it be, it was just in February? Not that long ago, generally, but when I think of what has happened since, it seems a lot longer.

We visited many wonderful places, historical and religious. However, much of our trip was focused on the Wesleys: John, Charles, Suzanna and Samuel. We visited Epworth and Oxford and London and Bristol.

I Bristol was a museum with an entire room that I called the “Wesley Stewardship Room” (well, in my own mind). While I certainly enjoyed the rest of the museum and all that it had to offer, I didn’t take more than a couple of pictures until I got to that room. My husband probably wondered what I was doing, spinning around and clicking away with my phone.

One of the pictures from that room was a display labeled “John Wesley’s Principles in the 18^th Century---A Political Manifesto for Today.” Notice the label contained “today” and “18^th century”. Certainly different times, but how different?

Let’s starting looking at that manifesto and how it relates to stewardship. A manifesto is defined as a “public declaration of policy and aims”, and this manifesto includes what was important to John Wesley and during his time, a good policy, but I think it also includes what must remain important to us in our time.

Mathew 25:29: “For whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance”.

The first item is to “reduce the gap between rich and poor.” What does that mean? I have heard the argument that it sounds like socialism or communism. I don’t think it does.

Let me ask (and give my own answer) on a couple of questions:

1.    Why do we give? – I give because I believe God has called me (and others) to share what we have received with others.

2.    Why should I give away what I have worked hard for? – I may have worked hard (after all, it was ingrained in me by my parents as I grew up), but I believe that everything that I have is a result of God. Genesis 1:1 says “God created”. If God created, and Scripture goes on to say that it was a void and God created everything, then nothing I have is really because of me, myself and I.

3.    Why do I give to the church? – I give to the church, not to keep the lights on or the heat on (although I love churches and I do have to say sitting in a warm church in the winter or a cooler church in the summer, and having enough light to read by is pretty important). I give to the church because the church has the ability, and the responsibility, to use those funds to do the ministry and accomplish the mission that it is called to do. In the United Methodist Church, we have a mission “to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.” Great words, but surprise, surprise, it is the real world and a lot of that mission and ministry takes money to accomplish.

If the church is fulfilling its ministry, then I believe that God is calling me to the church.

I give because I can and I am called to do that. If I have more than I need, why should I keep it? Giving away just some of what God has entrusted to me is one of the ways I am able to make sure that my neighbor can eat, and live, and be clothed, and be healthy. I don’t think that’s asking too much. Do you?