Develop a Discipleship System
Inclusive Discipleship: A Sermon by Bishop Tracy S. Malone
By Discipleship Ministries Staff
The following is the transcribed sermon given by Bishop Tracy Smith Malone shared with permission. Bishop Malone is the current president of the Council of Bishops and serves the Indiana Episcopal Area. This sermon was preached at the postponed 2020 General Conference in 2024. We hope it inspires your intentional discipleship and community engagement as together we SeeAllThePeople.
Praise be to God! Hallelujah!
Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, the captives are set free, the wounded are made whole, and there is rest for the soul. For where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.
I greet you in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. The One in whom and through whom we are all set free. Set free to love and to live and to have and to enjoy life, and to have it abundantly.
Oh, my soul looks back in wonder how I got over.
Let us pray. Most loving and gracious God, you are the giver of every good and perfect gift. For the gift of your Holy Spirit, O God, that is moving among us this day, for the gift of the reminder that we need to look back every once in a while, to remember how we got over. And I just pray, O God, that the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts together will be acceptable in thy sight. For You are our strength, You are our rock, and You are our redeemer. Let the redeemed of the Lord say Hallelujah! Let the redeemed of the Lord say, praise the Lord! Let the redeemed of the Lord say Amen.
We find in Psalm 46 a compelling confession of faith in the midst of a time of uncertainty. We witness in David a courageous defiance. We witness a faith that completely trusts in the provisions of God, a faith that defies fear and doubt, a faith that refuses to succumb to the powers and the principalities that seek to shake the very foundations of his faith or cause him to question God's presence in his circumstances.
But I want you to notice something. In this psalm, David chooses not to focus his attention on the crisis or dwell on his troubles, but instead he focuses his attention on the goodness and the providence of God. He testifies to how God has intervened in his circumstances. He testifies to how God is guiding them and protecting them and sustaining them in their times of trouble.
So, I want to ask you this morning, when was the last time you testified about God's grace at work in your life?
When was the last time you gave witness to how God carried you through a situation or circumstance? When you knew that it was only by the grace of God that you survived and still had peace of mind? When was the last time you said, thank you Lord, for your goodness. Thank you Lord, for your grace. Thank you Lord, for your mercy. The songwriter says, “I don't feel no ways tired because I come too far from where I started from -- oh, nobody told me that the road was going to be easy, but I don't believe he brought me this far to leave me.”
Beloved we know that circumstances, disappointments, tragedies, and traumas that we witness and experience in our lives can weigh us down. They can wear us out and can sometimes test our very faith. And we can easily find ourselves becoming weary and cynical and disillusioned. And if we are not mindful, these disappointments and challenges, and even the trauma, can cause us to sometimes doubt our faith. They can sometimes cause us to question the promises and provisions of God. And if we are not mindful, if we are not prayerful, if we are not confessional, if we are not testimonial, we can lose sight of God's purpose and God's plans for our lives and become oblivious to how the Holy Spirit is moving and is at work in our lives . . . and, yes, all around us, in unexpected places and through unexpected people and even through unexpected circumstances, whether we realize it or not, we are all directly and indirectly affected by the racial, political and cultural violence that is pervasive all around us. In our communities, in our nation, and throughout the world, we are still living with, and still working through, the grief and the loss associated with the separation within the church. We are still recovering and rebuilding our lives, our local churches, and our denomination from the aftermath of the COVID 19 pandemic. And if we are honest, while there have been many historic decisions made here at the General Conference that paves the way forward as a fully inclusive church with a generous unity in a new form of connectionalism, there is still some anxiety.
How will we fully live into the decisions and the commitments that we have made here?
In Psalm 46, David makes a bold proclamation that speaks into this time of liminality. He says, God is our reference, refuge, and our strength - a very present help in the time of trouble.
God is. (period) God is our shelter in the midst of the storm. God is our help right here and right now and always.
God is with us, and God is with this United Methodist Church, leading us and guiding us and sustaining us and preparing us for a future with hope.
Notice after the proclamation, David issues a declaration. He says, therefore, we will not fear, though the earth should change and though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea, and though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its tumult. If God is our refuge and strength and health, and God is, there is no reason to fear.
Beloved of God, as a people called United Methodist, I too declare that we shall not fear. We shall not feel defeated. Though the very foundations of our memberships and our structures and our finances are being shaken, though the challenges we face as a denomination seem insurmountable, and though the forces of wickedness continue to assail us, we have to choose, like David, not to succumb to fear and doubt. For God is with us.
Say that with me - God is with us! And because God is with us, there is no weapon that forms against us that shall prosper.
Following the proclamation and the declaration, there is a word from God.
Be still and know that I am God. I am exalted among the nations. I am exalted in the earth. I am exalted in The United Methodist Church.
Be still and know and acknowledge the sovereignty of God. That God is over all things and in all things and nothing. No thing is outside of God's realm and control and impossibilities. God can redeem even the worst of situations.
Now hear this. Being still is God calling us to surrender - to give up thinking that we have all of the answers, to give up thinking that we have the control, to give up the need to have control over matters and situations and circumstances that only God can redeem, that only God can reconcile and only God can transform?
We have to wait on God. Being still is surrendering to God in prayer, trusting in the Lord with all of our heart and with all that concerns us and not leaning on our own understanding and letting God direct our paths.
The word of God says, if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and I will forgive their sins and I will heal their land.
Being still is not God's call to rest, but it is God's call for us to get out of God's way. Being still is God expecting us to stop the fighting and stop the quarreling and stop even the wandering. God is calling us to put down the weapons and put down the harm and put down the hostility and put down the boxes we create, the fences we build, the barriers we erect and the lines we draw.
God says, I am exalted in the nations. I am exalted in the earth.
God wants us to have eyes to see God's redemptive love and grace and power and justice that is at work in the world. That is at work in our beloved United Methodist Church and in our lives. God is inviting us to join God in this holy and courageous work of healing and forgiving and transformation.
Hear this good news: God is always, always working for God's good and for our good and for God's divine purposes in the world.
Even when the evidence seems otherwise, even when we cannot see the outcome or even know what the end is going to be, even when we cannot comprehend the mysteries of life or even understand the whys of life.
God is exalted by the nations. God is exalted in the earth. God is exalted in The United Methodist Church. God is exalted in our lives. God is our refuge and our strength and our hope today, tomorrow in all ways.
The hymn writer says, “Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father; there is no shadow of turning with Thee; Thou changest not, Thy compassions they fail not; as Thou hast been, Thou forever wilt be. Great is Thy faithfulness! Morning by morning new mercies I see; all I have needed Thy hand hath provided: great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me!”
By the time General Conference ends today, over 1,000 petitions would have been deliberated, debated, and decided. We will have enacted processes and procedures and protocols. We will have worshiped, approved reports, celebrated mission, elected leadership, and the list goes on. We will have conducted the church's business. We will have engaged in holy conferencing.
So what now? Where do we go from here?
We go forward in faith, with a courageous defiance, with a faith that trusts in the provisions of God, with a faith that will not succumb to fear, to doubt, to scarcity or paralysis. We serve a God who is exalted. And we will serve a God of abundance and a God of hope.
We go forward surrendering to the power of the Holy Spirit and trusting God to lead us and to show us God's vision for the next expression of The United Methodist Church.
And we go forward with the courage to continue to do the hard work and the heart work of dismantling racism and sexism and classism and homophobia and xenophobia and white supremacy and privilege.
We go forward keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus and on our mission of making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.
Daring to dream new dreams and daring to see new visions.
We go proclaiming the love and the good news of Jesus, loving our neighbors as we love ourselves as we go beyond our comfort zones. We go to the margins, to the borders, to the prisons, to the places where people are hurting and feeling abandoned and lonely and marginalized, and offer them Jesus.
We go to be disciples and to make disciples of all nations, seeing all the people, seeing everybody as God sees, as somebody, as a beloved child of God.
And we go baptizing them in the name of Jesus and teaching them everything that Christ has taught us.
And as we go, it matters how we show up in our communities, how we show up in people's lives, how we show up in the world. We don't show up in judgment, but we show up in love, to listen and to serve. We don't show up being stingy with God's grace, but we show up proclaiming the wideness of God's love, of God's compassion and of God's mercy. That's how we show up. How we go matters. How we show up - it matters. How we love matters.
William Sloan Coffin, in his sermon Being Called, says this (and I slightly adapted),
“There is no way that Christianity can be spiritually redemptive without being socially responsible. God is always trying to make humanity more human, but without us, God won't. And without God, we can't. And every time we cry out, Lord, how long will evil prevail? And how long will violence run rampant? And how long will corruption exist? And how long will exclusion corrode? We can be sure that God is putting God's finger in question back at us, saying, church, how long? There could be no such thing as secret discipleship. For either the secrecy destroys the discipleship, or the discipleship destroys the secrecy.”
You see, what defines the church's witness is not our membership vows, though they are important and sacred. What defines the church is not our doctrinal standards, but they ground us - that's who we are. What defines the church is not our creeds our structure or polity, but that is a part of who we are and how we structure ourselves as a body of Christ. All of that matters, but that's not what defines the church.
What defines the church is the integrity of our discipleship, the integrity of our love and the relevancy of our mission.
Beloved God is able to do far more abundantly than what any of us can ever think or even imagine.
But here's what I want you to do. I want you to imagine with me for our beloved United Methodist Church, that hope will be reborn, that people will be reconciled to one another, that we will be committed to build God's beloved community.
Let us imagine a church that reclaims the priority of discipleship, and I'm talking about a radical kind of discipleship that is grounded in the love and the teachings and the example of Jesus Christ.
I want you to imagine with me every local church loving well. A church that recognizes God's divine image in everyone, with each one is regarded as God's beloved, no matter their race, their ethnicity, their age, their orientation, their status or even location.
Let us imagine a church where no one, nobody is marginalized.
You know there is plenty good room in the Kingdom? And don't you also know that there are no box seats in the Kingdom? There are no box seats in beloved community.
Let us imagine a church that transcends geography and cultures and languages and borders and barriers and differences.
I'm talking about a beautiful mosaic that reflects the Kingdom of God.
Let us imagine a church that is beautifully diverse, intrinsically connected to love each other, intrinsically connected. As we go forth to serve our neighbors near and far, let us together reimagine.
Church I leave you with these words of Natalie Sleuth's Hymn of Promise, “In the bulb, there is a flower / In the seed, in apple tree / In cocoons, a hidden promise / Butterflies will soon be free. In the cold and snow of winter / There's a spring that waits to be / Unrevealed until it's season / Something God alone can see. (Oh) There's a song in every silence / Seeking word and melody / There’s a dawn in every darkness / Bringing hope to you and me / From the past will come the future / What it holds, a mystery / Unrevealed until its season / Something God alone can see.
Hear this now, “In our end is our beginning / In our time, infinity / In our doubt, there is believing / In our life, eternity / In our death, a resurrection / At last, a victory / Unrevealed until its season / Something God alone can see.”
Beloved, we do not know what the future holds, but we do know the One who holds the future . . . and we can embrace together the uncertainty - knowing that it's unrevealed until a season, something God alone can see.
So may the God of hope fill us with all joy and peace as we trust in God so that we may overflow with hope, by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
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