We are in
the third week of United Methodism 101.
We’ve talked a little about the history of the United Methodist Church
and we’ve talked a little about the organizational structure of the United
Methodist Church. I hope you’ve found
that interesting, but some of you are probably wondering when we’re going to
get to the good stuff. When are we
going to talk about things that really affect our lives?
Well, we’re going to get into that
today. What we’re going to talk about
is how, as United Methodists, we decide what we believe. That’s an important thing to talk about,
because God created us with brains. God
did that for a reason. God expects us
to use those brains God gave us.
That’s part of our Wesleyan
heritage, too. That’s why Wesley
emphasized studying the Bible. He did
not want people to trust someone else to tell them what the Bible says. He did not even want them to trust him to
tell them. He wanted them to read the
Bible for themselves, and make their own decisions about faith.
That’s why we don’t have a United
Methodist catechism, like some denominations have. We don’t have a laundry list of things you have to agree that you
believe in order to become part of the United Methodist Church. If you look at the vows you take to become a
member of the United Methodist Church, they say that you repent of your sins,
you believe in God the Father, you believe in Jesus Christ, you believe in the
Holy Spirit, and you profess the Christian faith. You then promise to be loyal to the United Methodist Church and
to support it. That’s it.
Now, that obviously gives people a
lot of discretion. It does not mean,
however, that United Methodists don’t believe in anything or that anything goes
in the United Methodist Church. So how
does a United Methodist decide what he or she believes?
Well, in keeping with our name as
United Methodists, we have a method for it.
We start with the Bible. Here’s
what our United Methodist Book of Discipline, which sets out the religious
standards for the United Methodist Church, says about the Bible:
Scripture is the primary source and
criterion for Christian doctrine.
Through Scripture the living Christ meets us in the experience of
redeeming grace. We are convinced that
Jesus Christ is the living Word of God in our midst whom we trust in life and
death. The Biblical authors, illumined
by the Holy Spirit, bear witness that in Christ the world is reconciled to God. The Bible bears authentic testimony to God’s
self-disclosure in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ as well as
in God’s work of creation, in the pilgrimage of Israel, and in the Holy
Spirit’s ongoing activity in human history…Our standards affirm the Bible as
the source of all that is “necessary” and “sufficient” unto salvation and “is
to be received through the Holy Spirit as the true rule and guide for faith and
practice.”
Sounds simple, right? The Bible is where we find out about
God. Well, it is simple, and it’s not
simple. The thing is that two people
can read the same passage in the Bible and interpret it differently. That’s not just true about the Bible, of
course. It’s true in just about every
walk of life. You see that in politics,
you see it in law, you see it in everything.
We look at the same words, or the same set of facts, and we reach
different conclusions. In the case of
the Bible, I would not even be able to begin to count the number of books that
have been written to try to explain what it “really” means.
There’s another aspect, too, of
course. The Bible is a wonderful book,
and I don’t mean to come across as criticizing it, but the Bible does not cover
every possible aspect of life on earth.
There’s no way it could. Life on
earth is too complex for that. The
Bible gives us standards and guidelines, but we have to apply those standards
and guidelines to our lives.
Studying the Bible is still very
important, of course. The point is that
we cannot just say “read the Bible” as the answer to every question of faith
that might come up. That’s our starting
point, but it’s not our ending point.
So, how do we interpret the Bible
to get the answers we need? In United
Methodism, we use three things. One of
them is tradition.
Now, remember what we are and are
not talking about here. We’re talking
theology. We’re talking about what we
believe about God. We’re not talking
about how we conduct the worship service or what style of music we use or
anything like that. We’re talking about
what the church has traditionally believed about God and about how we are to
live our lives so that we can serve God.
Obviously, tradition is not the
be-all and end-all. Again, we first
look to scripture. Also, tradition is
not always right. For example, at one
time, religious tradition was that women could not be pastors. United Methodists don’t believe that
now.
So, in saying that we use tradition
to interpret the Bible, we are not saying that we should slavishly follow
tradition. On the other hand,
traditions generally develop for reasons.
Before we throw out those traditions, we need to look at how they got
started in the first place. In other
words, we need to respect tradition without being completely bound by it.
Another thing we use to interpret
the Bible is reason. It gets back to
that thing about God expecting us to use the brains we were given. “Reason” does not just include our own
personal knowledge, of course. As we
said earlier, many people have used their sense of reason to try to understand
the Bible. We should read their
opinions, too, and see if they make sense.
We should apply our own reason to the reasoning of others.
Finally, we interpret the Bible
through experience. Again, this does
not just mean our own personal experience, although it certainly includes
that. The thing is that none of us can
live long enough, or do enough things, to experience all the things that a
human being can experience. We probably
would not want to if we could. We
should use the experiences of others, as well as our own experience, to
interpret the Bible correctly.
Here’s what makes all this
tricky. The traditions some of you grew
up with are different from mine. Your
sense of reason will sometimes tell you different things than my sense of
reason does. Your experiences are
different from mine, and will lead you to a different way of looking at life
than my experiences will. In other
words, even if we all use reason, tradition, and experience to interpret the
Bible, our interpretations of the Bible will be different.
And you know what? That’s okay. Because remember what we said last week? United Methodists are a connectional people. We have conferences. We talk to each other. We listen to each other. Or at least, we’re supposed to.
United Methodists don’t say we all
have to agree on everything in order to worship God together. God did not create us to all be the
same. God created each one of us to be
different, with different ideas and different opinions. That way, we can learn from each other.
Look at it this way: How can we learn anything from someone who
agrees with us all the time? We
cannot. We learn by talking with people
who disagree with us and listening to what they have to say. Maybe we’ll change our minds. If not, we’ll at least have had to think
about why we believe the way we do. And
so will they. And we’ll all learn, and
we’ll all get closer to God.
So, if you disagree with something
I say in one of my sermons, or something I write in the newsletter, or
something I suggest the church should do, that’s okay. You don’t have to agree with everything I
say or write or do to be part of our church.
You don’t have to agree with everything anybody says or writes or does
to be part of our church.
Anyone is welcome to be part of the
United Methodist Church. If you want to
be a member, all you need to do is repent of your sins, believe in God the
Father, believe in Jesus Christ, believe in the Holy Spirit, profess the
Christian faith, and promise to be loyal to and support the United Methodist
Church. That’s it.
United Methodists don’t claim to
have all the answers. Faith is not
about knowing all the answers. Faith is
about believing in God, accepting Jesus Christ as our Savior, and allowing the
Holy Spirit to work in our lives. If we
do that, God will take care of the rest.
No comments:
Post a Comment