Inspired by Bishop Robinson’s Message of Hope

By Bill Gillis

I did not go to General Conference this year.  But I found myself monitoring obsessively various blogs and newswires throughout the ten days of conference.  I was in regular touch via email with folks who were there and others who, like me, were watching from afar.  And even though I digested as much data as I could, gleaned from various media, it wasn’t until last night that many of those observations sort of fell – serendipitously – into a proper interpretive frame. 

Last night I had the pleasure of hearing Gene Robinson, Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire, speak at the Equality Forum at the HRC building in Washington, DC.  He read a passage from his new book, In the Eye of the Storm: Swept to the Center by God, spoke of his travels and ministry, and entertained questions.  It was while listening to Bishop Robinson speak about the state of the Episcopal Church in the United States and the struggles of the worldwide Anglican Communion that my own views of the United Methodist Church – in light of the recent General Conference and the legislative and judicial advances and setbacks experienced by the Reconciling community – were brought into focus.  Bishop Robinson made an important distinction between optimism and hope, a distinction that I found apt in light of this year’s conference theme: A Future with Hope.  He pointed out that optimism, a state or attitude distinguished by a positive approach or disposition, can all too quickly give way to pessimism.  Whereas hope – the positivity of which is associated with the outcome, rather than the outlook – is something more sustaining.  With hope, the assumption is that we know how this is going to end.  We know what the eventual outcome will be.  Therefore we must hope in that future – the future we know full well is coming.  The distinction is subtle; the challenge very real.  We don’t know when it will come, and we don’t know whether or not we will be around to see it. 

Robinson invoked the image of a sculpture outside the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, TN, where there are African Americans standing one on top of the other in a continuous spiral moving up to heaven.  He remarked that he has always understood the people on the bottom of that sculpture to be just as remarkably happy to be there as the ones on the top – because without someone else’s shoulders to stand on, where would they be?  The struggle depicted in the sculpture is one resonant with a sustaining hope that encouraged each new generation to continue working for justice, advocating full inclusion, demanding equal rights and protections, and dreaming that each and every tomorrow might be the day it would all come to pass.  As full of hope as it is, however, it is also a cautionary tale. 

As Bishop Robinson pointed out last night, remember the Israelites.  The Israelites, having escaped Egypt at last, expected the Promised Land to await them just on the other side of the Red Sea.  And yet, what greeted them instead was not the Promised Land, but 40 years of wandering in the desert.  Similarly, Emancipation did not squelch theological justification of slavery; the Civil Rights Acts of the 1950s and ‘60s did not eradicate racism.  And neither will a change in the language of the Discipline expunge homophobia from the United Methodist Church.  It may wipe it off its face, but these are seeds that will take years – generations maybe – to cull from the institutional church. 

The practices witnessed at General Conference may have been impolitic, and the results less than heartening, but the message of Gene Robinson as he spoke last night was one that resonated with me: we cannot take our toys and go home.  That is precisely what the Oppressor wants.  Faced with the challenges of returning home, getting back to work, going back to church even, and continuing the movement toward peace and justice in the United Methodist Church, Bishop Robinson reminds us that when we remain at the table, the opportunity for relationship endures.  When we insist on conversation, our stories can be told.  When we are present with each other, everyone has the opportunity to listen and learn.  The voice of the fringe community is vital to the sort of prolonged, intentional, and deliberate dialogue that will bring change.

The work must continue; the hope endure.