Editorial: Invited to live in the tension

Our title is not original; it comes from a phrase in a sermon at General Conference 2008 by Bishop Hee-Soo Jung who serves the church’s Chicago Episcopal Area.

If you want a vivid view of the scope of being a global church as United Methodists, you need to visit a General Conference session. You need to bask in the exhilaration around you, and you also need to feel the tension of a very large body of believers who want to change the world and who have willfully chosen to “live in the tension” and invite others to do the same.

The highest tension for GC2008 centered, as expected, around the legislation to uphold the church’s traditional stance on homosexuality.

The comments made in the sermon titled “Jesus, Remember Me” by Bishop Hee-Soo Jung the morning after the legislation, were noteworthy: “We find ourselves in a debate between those who would like the church to be more flexible in nonessential matters — more open, and those who would like the church to be clearer about its boundaries — more pure.

“One could argue that those who espouse greater openness are holding fast to biblical principles of hospitality. Those who desire clarity in matters of boundaries, however, are adhering to biblical principles of holiness. Both holiness and hospitality are excellent values. Both are biblical values, and both are right.

“Of course, they can also both be wrong. The problem is this: When we concern ourselves only with holiness, we become rigid and inward looking. We make an idol of our purity. When we concern ourselves only with hospitality, however, we lose our sense of who we are.

“Our identity is blurred and we lose the language of our own faith. Our attitudes and beliefs become ambiguous and, at worst, we no longer know why we are Christians or what holds us together.

“Either holiness or hospitality can become a problem if we pay attention only to one dimension and exclude the other. Instead, we are invited to live in the tension that is created by holding both values — holiness and hospitality — together at the same time.”

Many religious bodies have chosen to disregard the tension between these two deeply held views, to close the doors tightly to any discourse.

To its credit, the United Methodist Church has chosen to live in the tension. It’s not the easy choice, but it’s the right choice, and it’s the choice that Jesus would make as evidenced by his ministry.

JW