This is a New Song, Just Like the Old Song

Only two months from today until Sing a New Song begins. Have you registered yet? Join us!

by David Hosey
Crossposted at the RMN blog.
Playing guitar is one of the joys of my life. Everytime I pick up a guitar, I am once again amazed and grateful that I can actually make music come out of the thing. It's a little miracle each time.
I also love to write songs. I usually write pretty simple songs, nothing too unusual or amazing, but I love the expression and the voice that writing, playing, and singing a new song offers. Writing or learning a new song provides a new opportunity to once again inhabit the one old, old song that we are all trying to learn how to sing.
The funny thing about the best new songs is that they have a lot in common with the best old songs. They are made of the same notes and chords, try to express the same deep longings and mourning and celebration that the best songs have always tried to express.
This summer, August 25-28, I'm going to be joining with many others to celebrate Christ's inclusive justice and love at Sing a New Song. I'm attending Sing a New Song because I think that it is indeed time for the church to sign a new song to match the fresh Spirit that is moving and blowing in our midst. But just like any new song, the new song that the church is learning to sing has a lot in common with our oldest songs. It is a song about how God loves us--all of us--very, very, very much, and how God is always moving in new and suprising ways to create a new community composed of new and suprising people--people who, like me, never expected that we were loved enough to be here. It is a song about how we are called to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with God. It is a song about Christ being willing not only to die but to live and to invite us all to new life.

Ultimately, the new song that we are learning to sing is not about changes to the Book of Discipline, though I care very deeply about that. It is not about stances we take on Israel/Palestine, or on immigration, or on labor, or on any other justice issue, although I care very deeply about those things. It is not about withdrawing investments from companies that systematically violate human rights, or about continuing to support vital missional work in the U.S. and around the world, or about empowering young adults in the life of the church.

These things might all be expressions of our song. Ultimately, though, the new song is about the church becoming the church, becoming the Body of Christ, achingly broken but beautifully whole in a world that tries to cover up brokenness and deny the possibility of wholeness. It is about discovering that God's Spirit is moving and working amongst lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals, amongPalestinian Christians and Muslims and Israeli Jews, among all sorts of people that, as it turns out, are not outsiders to be included but are the very vessels of God's dream for our world.

The new song is a lot like the old song. What a joy it will be to learn how to sing it, all over again.
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David Hosey is a life-long United Methodist and will be entering Wesley Theological Seminary in the Fall of 2010. From July 2007-July 2010, he worked as a Mission Intern with Global Ministries of the United Methodist Church, serving with the Sabeel Center in Jerusalem, Israel/Palestine and the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation in Washington, DC, U.S.A. He is an inquiring candidate for ordained ministry in the United Methodist Church and also blogs at http://hoseyblog.blog.com. He is pictured above with other members of an OnFire delegation to BorderLinks in October 2009.

Still Small Voices

by Rachel Harvey, deaconess
Crossposted at the RMN Blog.

There was a moment yesterday during the trial that I thought we’d lost. Rev. Amy DeLong had already been on the stand, modeling grace and integrity in the midst of indecent and violent questioning. The moment we all knew was coming arrived. The council for the church asked, “Does your relationship involve genital contact?” Due to a judicial council decision, the answer to this question determines if a person is a “self-avowed practicing homosexual.” All eyes were on Amy as she kept her head high and in the face of an oppressive institution said, “There is no way when you are trying to do me harm that I am going to share with you the intimate details of our lives.”

I can’t speak for anyone else, but I was shocked. Not shocked at Amy’s response, but shocked in the next half hour that the church was not permitted to bully Amy into a posture where she’d throw herself under the bus. Shocked that we could and would win. After Amy, the second witness Carrie was called to the stand.

My attitude had shifted when Carrie, of Carrie and Carolyn the lesbian couple whose holy union Amy officiated, took the stand. Carrie began her testimony by sharing why they contacted Amy. They had been turned down by two other pastors to officiate their ceremony. She shared details about the service and why they, a lesbian couple, sought out a pastor for their service. Then Rev. Scott Campbell, Amy’s council, asked a question I expected to hear come from the council for the church – Did Amy have a larger agenda than the blessing of the union? And then Carrie’s unexpected answer broke through the silence, “Yes.”

She blew it, I thought, but then Carrie’s still small voice broken through the fear I’d guarded since the beginning of the trial. “Yes,” she said, “it was about fairness and treating everybody the same.” In one sentence, Carrie broke through the wall of fear I had created to protect myself during this trial. In one sentence, she pulled me from scarcity to God’s abundant love. In one simple sentence, she reminded me that we all have a larger agenda – embodying the gospel of our brother Jesus.

Yesterday, Amy was found not guilty of being a “self avowed practicing homosexual” and guilty of performing a holy union. This morning, as the trial court begins discerning a punishment for the charge against Amy, I pray my 13 sisters and brothers listen deeply for the still small voices that have and continue to call for justice over, through and beyond fear.

Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination. ~Maya Angelou

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Rachel is a United Methodist Deaconess appointed to serve as the Associate Executive Director of RMN. Prior to joining RMN in August 2009, Rachel worked for 2 years as a mission specialist with The Advance at the General Board of Global Ministries. As a mission specialist she focused on youth and young adults and created the B1 campaign. From 2004-2006 Rachel was as a US-2 missionary serving as the director of CoffeeLoft.org, a Reconciling campus ministry at The University of South Dakota. Rachel has also worked with Response, a magazine of the United Methodist Women and The Church of St. Paul and St. Andrew, United Methodist (SPSA) in New York City.


For more information about Rev. Amy DeLong's trial, check out
"The Trial of the Rev. Amy DeLong Sends Clear Message to UMC" by MFSA, RMN, and Affirmation Coalition Coordinator Rev. Steve Clunn,
the RMN blog,
and the Love on Trial website.

What to say when you don’t have anything nice to say Or Homophobia is like a mullet, it’s so last season

by Courtney Harvey

I’ve been trying to write this piece for some time now. I’ve blamed work and travel and a lack of creative energy for my tardiness but the truth of the matter is I don’t have anything nice to say. Just for the record I find the adage - if you don’t have anything nice to say don’t say anything at all – to be very compelling. In fact I tried my best to channel my inner Obama and write a hopeful and persuasive article about being an ally. Perhaps it’s the hour of the evening or the fact that I am way past the original deadline but I’m disregarding that good advice and going with – sometimes the truth hurts. Consider yourself forewarned.

So why don’t I have anything nice to say? Well for starters I’m over the whole queer thing. I know that sounds callous so let me clarify. I’m not over queer folk or queer issues. To the contrary I love them like I love ice cream, the more scoops the merrier. What I am over is the debate about whether or not homosexuality is a sin, the debate over whether or not to legalize gay marriage, the debate over whether or not it’s okay for Spongebob to be more than just friends with Patrick. I’m over it. In fact, the majority of my generation is over it too. We felt the same way about the “debate” over global warming. We didn’t wait for President Bush or Fox news or the guy from the 700 Club to utter the words global warming for it to become a reality. We didn’t wait for that and we aren’t going to wait for this. Case closed, it’s okay to be gay.

I’m so over it that I couldn’t even bring myself to write a nice story about being an ally because it felt a little too much like justifying once again why I am. Why do I need to justify being an ally? Shouldn’t they have to justify why they are homophobic? Shouldn’t they have to justify why they choose to translate some parts of the Bible literally but they still eat shellfish and wear polyester-cotton blends? Shouldn’t they have to justify their slurs or hushed whispers or disapproving glances or beatings? Shouldn’t they have to justify why it’s okay to support a gay bashing culture that terrifies the parents of gay children, that shames the little boy who loves to dance, that pushes the gay teen to suicide and that impedes the transgender woman from fulfilling her call to ministry? Why do I have to convince them, isn’t more love always better than less? In fact when Christ came I’m pretty sure his central message wasn’t to love less and identify people to ostracize.

So, I’m done and many in my generation are done too. We’re done with the gay debate because it’s not our debate. We’re done with the debate because engaging it gives credence to the debate itself. We may talk about the problems of racism today but we certainly don’t debate if it’s okay to be racist. Why then should we debate if it’s okay to be homophobic? The Bible argument doesn’t fly with us so don’t waste your time on it…especially if you’re a shrimp eater. Sinner! And the argument that it’s unnatural also doesn’t work for us because we know that it happens all the time in other animals. At this point I think the remaining argument is that it makes some people feel icky. Well, mullets make me feel icky but I still support the rights of people with mullets to get married.

I’m sure at some point throughout this rant you thought to yourself that in all my angry youth I have missed the value of those gentle conversations and nudging that has brought many people to the ally side. I have not. I believe there is great value in this but I do not think that it is my particular calling. In any social movement you have those great saints who work on the movable middle, the people that may be influenced by reason or compassion to shed their prejudices and join the struggle. To these people I pay my deep respects, but there is another group of people to which I belong. They are the ones who demand a new social climate simply by refusing to tolerate the current one, refusing to accept that this is the way it should be.

I can’t tell you when the tide will turn on queer issues in the U.S. or the world but I know I have history on my side when I say it is coming. And between now and then I don’t plan to spend much time in debate. My energy will be spent strengthening our queer/ally base, supporting those coming out and working with young people as they envision a new world. And I’m going to do this with the confidence that this too shall pass. Because just as a storm always passes so too will those currently in power in the government and in the church, and when they do, we’ll be ready.

So, in the meantime, in the space between today and tomorrow, I want to leave you with these words from Henri Nouwen, may they help to carry you as many of you have carried me. All I want to say to you is “You are the Beloved,” and all I hope is that you can hear these words as spoken to you with all the tenderness and force that love can hold. My only desire is to make these words reverberate in every corner of your being—“You are the Beloved."