Call to Action: ‘A rope of sand’

This post is one in a periodic series of reflections raised for me by reading the Call to Action report released by a committee of United Methodist leaders.

Gaps always get me interested. When I read quotes that leave out parts, I always want to know what was left out. So, when I read the following paragraph in the Call to Action report, I ran to dig out my copy of John Wesley’s “Plain Account of the People Called Methodists.”

John Wesley was not afraid to identify the loss of spiritual vitality and true effectiveness in the Church. He knew that only plain speaking about and commitment to address the hard problems of his day would change the situation: “Where is [Christian fellowship] to be found? Look east or west, north or south; name what parish you please. . . . What Christian connexion is there between them? . . . What watching over each others’ souls? What bearing of one another’s burdens?” (“Plain Account of the People Called Methodists” in The Works of John Wesley, Bicentennial Edition, 9:259).

It is an odd quote if you just take it as it is. It is not the most stinging thing Wesley ever said about the state of the church in his day, and – to my ear at least – it does not really make the point the introductory sentence is trying to make.

In the report, the quote comes in a section about needing leaders who will take bold action and shake up systems.

In Wesley’s letter, it came in a section defending the rise of Methodist societies against the charge that they were schismatics. He is trying to rebut the charge that the Methodists are separating from the church. His argument is  that most of the Methodists had no connection at all with the church before they became Methodists. As such, the leaders of the church could not call people schismatics who had never had any connection with the church before the Methodists came preaching and organizing.

Here is the longer version of the quote with the left out parts restored.

If it be said, “But there are some true Christians in the parish, and you destroy the Christian fellowship between these and them;” I answer, That which never existed, cannot be destroyed. But the fellowship you speak of never existed. Therefore it cannot be destroyed. Which of those true Christians had any such fellowship with these? Who watched over them in love? Who marked their growth in grace? Who advised and exhorted them from time to time? Who prayed with them and for them, as they had need? This, and this alone, is Christian fellowship: But, alas! where is it to be found? Look east or west, nor or south; name what parish you please: Is this Christian fellowship there? Rather, are not the bulk of the parishioners a mere rope of sand? What Christian connexion is there between them? What intercourse in spiritual things? What watching over each other’s souls? What bearing of one another’s burdens? What a mere jest is it then, to talk so gravely of destroying what never was! The real truth is just the reverse of this: We introduce Christian fellowship where it was utterly destroyed. And the fruits have been peace, joy, love, and zeal for every good word and work.

Isn’t Wesley’s fuller quote a much more stinging description of the state of too many of our United Methodist congregations? Are not many of us little more than ropes of sand – not fit for helping anyone climb to the higher reaches of Christian life and love?

The steering committee’s unfortunate editing of Wesley’s quote makes it read as if he is chiding parishes for not being connected or watching over each other, but what he was doing was noting that the people in the parishes do not exhibit fellowship within the parish. This is a subtle but important difference, particularly given the overall thrust of the Call to Action report.

I find Wesley’s full quote a challenging word to the United Methodist Church today. I hope the steering committee and all the other leaders of our denomination who will be considering the report take the full quote to heart as they pray and discern.

If the Call to Action report could help us as a body reintroduce the kind of Christian fellowship Wesley describes above, what a great work of God that would be among us.

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