Home For Christmas

Posted: December 24, 2022 | Author: wtmcalilly | Filed under: Bishop's Blog | Comments Off on Home For Christmas

Home.

Say the word and it conjures up all sorts of images. 

For as long as I can remember, home has been the place, where during the Christmas season, Lynn and I have longed to be. 

Home for most of my life is wherever our family gathers for Christmas celebrations. 

When our family was young and our children small, many years we headed out after the Christmas eve service to North Mississippi where our parents lived. Do you know how hard it is to find something to eat for hungry children at 9 pm on Christmas Eve? 

Nothing seemed right until we gathered at the table of my mother or Lynn’s mother. Some years it was hard to do both. 

I remember when we were in Georgia, our first Christmas as a married couple, my father flew to Gainesville, Ga., and picked us up at the Gainesville airport. We flew home in a Cessna 172.  It was a cold, windy December day. He flew us to New Albany, MS, where Lynn’s parents lived. The day was cloudy, overcast, and very cold. Lynn and I wondered how safe flying in those conditions could be. Somewhere over Alabama my father picked up the radio signal of a distressed pilot who had lost his ability to communicate with the air traffic controller in Nashville. Dad could hear the pilot and the controller.  He became the conduit that connected the two. When the pilot of the distressed plane landed, he profusely thanked my father for helping him find his way home. 

When we landed in New Albany, waiting for us on the ground were Lynn’s mother and father. When the plane finally came to a stop on the tarmac and we greeted our family, we knew we were home. 

Later that evening, we gathered in the sanctuary of our home church First United Methodist Church, New Albany. Reverend Lavelle Woodrick was the pastor. Knowing I was going to be in worship that night, Lavelle invited me to be the liturgist at the Christmas Eve service. That meant I would read the Gospel Lesson for Christmas, Luke 2. When I stood before the congregation that had nurtured me, loved me, invited me into a life of faithfulness, I knew I was home. 

First United Methodist Church has been that place, for over 50 years, I have known as home. As the son of a United Methodist pastor home has always been elusive since we lived in so many places. Since 1969, the one constant in my pilgrimage has been the sanctuary of First United Methodist Church, New Albany. 

Last Sunday we were able to go there.  

It was the first time we had been in a sanctuary in four months. It was good and right to be in the place I call home to worship as the choir offered their Christmas Cantata. I was given the privilege of thanking the congregation for their prayers. I acknowledged that First United Methodist Church had been my foundation. 

Being there was wonderful.  I saw adults who were in the youth group I led between 1981-1984 when I was the associate pastor. It was somewhat of a reunion.  These adults are now in their 50s. I haven’t seen some of them in a long time. Sunday, when we saw each other, it was as if years have not passed. We laughed and we remembered. I give thanks for those memories. 

Christmas this year will be different. Our children will not come to us and gather around the table in our home. We will go and be with them. We will worship Christmas Eve at Oxford University United Methodist Church at their early afternoon service designed to be children friendly.  3/5 of our grandchildren will be there. Later we will worship at First United Methodist Church, New Albany. We will be home.

In 18 months, my time as a bishop will end. We have been planning for over 15 years to come home. Home to New Albany. Home to the church where Lynn was baptized, where we exchanged wedding vows, where our son Chris was baptized, where I served my first appointment out of seminary.   We will come home to the house Lynn’s grandparents lived in, and it will become our home. 

We have planned, dreamed about this homecoming. Lynn’s sisters are there. My brother and sister 20 minutes away in Tupelo. Our son and his family 35 minutes away in Oxford. I’ve dreamed of being a part of First Church again. Maybe teaching Sunday School, leading a Bible Study. Supporting the pastor in whatever way might be helpful. 

There’s just one problem with my dream. The church is planning to vote on disaffiliation from the United Methodist Church. That vote is scheduled for January. My deep concern is that over one hundred years of faithfulness in the same direction will be severed.

I suspect across the Tennessee-Western Kentucky Conference, many share my concern. 

Here’s what I know: God continues to work.

The church is not ending, and God is doing a new thing by showing us that home comes in new ways. 

I’ve spent more time at home than I ever dreamed I would these last 4 months. I’ve had to adjust my expectations of myself. I’ve had to depend on others, especially Lynn, to help me function. Lynn dropped everything she was doing to give attention to my needs. I am filled with gratitude to her for her care and love. I am grateful for the home that is provided for us by the TWK Conference. I am grateful for Paula Grout and the Episcopacy Committee for making sure a ramp was installed and other accommodations were made in our home to make it possible for me to manage my recovery.

This season has also been humbling. I’ve learned to look only as far down the road as the next procedure. (I’ve been in the operating room four times since August 26). I am learning to walk again but not without the aid of a cane. I am learning that the body has its own timetable regarding healing. My physical therapist is one of the kindest people I’ve ever encountered, and my physicians really are the healing hands of God. 

As I anticipate retiring in 18 months, I am mindful how quickly this time will pass. These last four months have been preparing me for the journey home. We’ve been tossing the word resilience around since Covid-19 visited us. I think resilience and I have become companions. 

The wreck of August 25 sidelined me in multiple ways as well as those who were apart of the accident that day. I have prayed daily for their healing as well. I trust that you have as well. 

Perhaps the most hopeful, promising sign I have seen during this time is that we have an amazing team of leaders who have kept moving forward despite the absence of my presence. 

As for the future, I do wonder where my spiritual home will be in the last third of my life.  It’s a worthy question. 

There is a lot of rhetoric about the United Methodist Church, about Bishops, about disaffiliation.  I hope those wanting so badly to leave will do some soul searching.   I am remembering a line in the movie “Cold Mountain”. The central character Inman is walking home from the Civil War and says to his companion, “Don’t you think God tires from hearing the prayers of both sides.”  

I sense that same weariness in congregations that are pushing to vote on disaffiliation. What saddens me is the misinformation and rhetoric that places judgment on pastors and bishops when many have never had conversations with us about what we think, believe, and feel. 

I am confident that all any of us want is a place, a spiritual home, a Church where when we go there, everybody knows our name and everyone is glad we came. In short, a home. A spiritual home. 

Mary and Joseph went home and there was no place for them. 

My sense is that we all long for home.

I’m learning that life circumstances often leave us feeling as if we are without a home. We feel lonely. Isolated. Afraid. 

I’m especially mindful of those who in these days of below freezing temperatures have no place to lay their heads. I am grateful for those congregations who offer “Room in the Inn” for our residentially challenged friends in these frigid days.

In this season of uncertainty, of loneliness and isolation, fear and uncertainty, I remember the words of the psalmist, “Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, ‘he is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.’” Psalms 91:1-2

But the message of Christmas, the good news of the Gospel, is that there is a home for us. The Psalmist gestures to this but this longing that stirs in us finds its completion in the promises of Revelation. At the end of time, the home of God is with mortals. And this is the insanely good news of the Gospel! 

Jesus is Emmanuel, God with us!

My prayer for you this Christmas is that you will find your home in Emmanuel, God with us!

Peace,

Bill McAlilly

“For outlandish creatures like us, on our way to a heart, a brain, and courage, Bethlehem is not the end of our journey but only the beginning – not home but the place through which we must pass if ever we are to reach home at last.” Fredrick Buchner,

---

Gun Violence | A Letter to our Elected Officials

Posted: August 11, 2022 | Author: wtmcalilly | Filed under: Bishop's Blog | Comments Off on Gun Violence | A Letter to our Elected Officials

August 9, 2022

To: President Biden; Senators Blackburn, Hagerty, Paul, and McConnell; and Governors Lee and Beshear,

From: Tennessee-Western Kentucky Conference of the United Methodist Church

Dear President Biden and administration,

Recently, a senseless act of gun violence took the life of Rev. Dr. Autura Eason-Williams, a beloved United Methodist pastor, District Superintendent, mentor, friend, wife, and mother in Memphis, Tennessee. Her name is added to the list of over 24,000 Americans whose lives have been cut short by gunshot wounds this year alone. The grief we feel over her loss is nearly unbearable, as it is for all those who have lost a loved one to gun violence. But our grief must not paralyze us—it must move us to do all in our power to ensure these losses don’t continue at their current staggering rate.

Last month, pastors and lay leaders from every United Methodist church in our area gathered to worship, pray, celebrate, and articulate our vision and mission. These leaders represented over 162,000 United Methodists from 850 churches in Western and Middle Tennessee and Western Kentucky. During our time together, these leaders overwhelmingly passed a motion calling on our politicians to enact meaningful gun control legislation and calling our churches to do everything in their power to reduce the scourge of gun violence in our country. We had no idea that within a month, the tragic effects of gun violence would take the life of one of the persons in that very room.

While we applaud the bi-partisan federal gun violence legislation that was recently signed into law, we do not believe it goes far enough. As part of the several key proposals in our motion, which are drawn from our denomination’s Book of Resolutions, we specifically call on you to establish a minimum age of 21 years for a gun purchase or possession and to ban large-capacity ammunition magazines and weapons designed to fire multiple rounds each time the trigger is pulled.

In the gospel of Matthew, Jesus told his disciples that those who live by the sword shall die by the sword. We have too long been complacent with the overwhelming number of deaths by violence. Through the grace of God and the power of the Holy Spirit, we can begin to break this cycle of violence. United Methodist churches in the Tennessee-Western Kentucky Conference are committed to doing just that. We call on each of you to use your legislative powers to join us in this mission.

We failed to protect our sister, Autura. Let us not fail to protect anyone else.

May the peace of Christ be with you,

William T. McAlilly

Resident Bishop

Many clergy and laity signed on to this open letter. You can see this list and add your name here.

---

How Long, O Lord, How Long?

Posted: May 26, 2022 | Author: wtmcalilly | Filed under: Bishop's Blog | Comments Off on How Long, O Lord, How Long?

May 25, 2022

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Council of Bishops of The United Methodist Church President Bishop Thomas J. Bickerton today urged clergy and laity to go on offense to stop mass shootings like the one that killed 19 children and two teachers at an elementary school in Texas.

“My “statement” today is quite simple:  Let’s go on the offense.  If you are a pastor, weave our theology of a lived-out faith into sermons that challenge people to convert their fears, angers, racist tendencies, and complicit behaviors into a mobilized witness of the power of God to do far more than we could ever dream of or imagine,” Bishop Bickerton said.

He called on the laity too: “If you are a lay person, determine today how you will take the faith you nurture each week in a pew to the streets, the places where you work, and the homes where you live. If you are a church body, don’t settle for just active shooter training. Determine that you will actively work to transform lives from violence to peace, elect officials that will not settle for inaction, and inject communities with the grace and love of Christ that will alter the course of our current behaviors.”

Writing on behalf of the COB, Bishop Bickerton said he refuses to see this period of our lives as a permanent time of disarray. “Instead, I choose to see this an interim time, a time that will not remain as it is, a time that will not be the standard upon which we experience the life we have been blessed to live. As United Methodists we embrace a gospel and a mission that we state has the power to transform the world.”

The call today is for every United Methodist Christian to go on the offense, stating what we believe the power of God can do in our midst, opening ourselves to power of God at work within us, and doing whatever we can to alter the current course of behavior once and for all.

I join my voice with Bishop Bickerton as we together seek to see a new day in our country where pain and sorrow and death will no longer be visited on innocent children.

Bishop Bill McAlilly

---

Easter Faith

Posted: April 17, 2022 | Author: wtmcalilly | Filed under: Bishop's Blog | Comments Off on Easter Faith

“If Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain…  If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.  Then those also who have died in Christ have perished.  If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. 1 Corinthians 15:19-26 

I do not know if you are like me, but this word from Paul rings truer for me this Easter than perhaps any other time in my adult life. 

• The last two years of losses in our family, both my parents and Lynn’s mother…

If Christ has not been raised our faith has been in vain. 

• The disruption caused by the pandemic of Covid 19…

If Christ has not been raised our faith has been in vain.

The disruption of the inability to hold General Conference of The United Methodist Church

• If Christ has not been raised our faith has been in vain. 

The political rhetoric of this country which seeks to divide rather than unite the United States, and now a war in Ukraine. 

If Christ has not been raised our faith has been in vain.

On Easter, I’m drawn to John’s gospel for the telling of the resurrection story. 

In particular, I’m drawn this year to the beloved disciple who enters the tomb after Peter, sees Jesus’ linen wrappings lying about, and believes. He doesn’t need a sermon. He doesn’t need an explanation. He simply believes. 

I wish John had said more about what he believes or how deeply he believes or even some word about the journey he traveled to belief. 

Maybe it’s simply that he recognizes that God has vanquished death. 

We are left to wonder. 

However, I hesitate to speculate. My Old Testament seminary professor, Dr. Max Miller, admonished his students, “speculation about the Bible is cheap.  I don’t recommend it.” So I won’t speculate on the beloved disciple’s model of believing. 

What scripture says is this: “he sees and believes.”  

This is to say, he steps into the truth of his experience. He trusts his experience.  

Without speculation, wonderment, confusion or doubt, he walks into faith. That’s all. Nothing more. Nothing less. 

As pastor Debbie Thomas has written about this moment:
“I love the way the beloved disciple’s story honors the gap between faith and understanding, because it’s a gap I know so well.  I believe but I don’t (yet) understand. I believe in the resurrection, but I don’t understand death’s ongoing cruelty.  I believe that Jesus reigns, but I don’t understand the elusive nature of his kingdom. I believe that all things will be well, but I don’t understand why they’re not all well now.”

One of the first sermons I ever preached was rooted in this idea that faith and doubt go hand in hand. As a young adult, I was reading the works of  Fredrick Buechner. I remember well reading Buechner’s  now famous quote that “doubt is the ants in the pants of faith. If we don’t doubt, we are either dead or asleep.” This notion ran counter to all that I had been taught growing up about faith and doubt. Yet, his words rang true. 

I later learned that doubt was not the opposite of faith. The opposite of faith is unbelief. Learning this was also an important turning point in my faith journey. 

So Paul, and the beloved, strengthens me this Easter Day. 

Here’s the truth of it: I believe in the resurrection because I have experienced it and I have witnessed it. 

The truth is this: resurrection roots us. It places us in the community of all those who for over 2000 years have gathered this day to celebrate the resurrection. And when we open our eyes to see where God is raising us from the self defeating experiences of our lives, we see God is in the resurrection business. 

I love the way Poet R.S. Thomas describes the process in his poem, “The Answer”: 

There have been times

when, after long on my knees

in a cold chancel, 

a stone has rolled

from my mind, 

and I have looked in 

and seen the old questions lie

folded and in a place

by themselves,

like the piled graveclothes of love’s risen body.

Christ is risen!  Christ is risen indeed!

With all that has been lost across these last two years, I’ve need to see with resurrection eyes. 

I’m helped by remembering that all our endings are not final. 

Indeed, new life comes, just two days ago, my niece gave birth to a baby boy. We are reminded, life cannot be stopped. 

In every ending there is a beginning. 

In every single one of them, we are held in the arms of the risen Christ. 

We may stumble out of Easter doubting, fleeing, and maybe even falling. 

We are held, rooted in scripture, centered in Christ, serving in love. 

If Christ has not been raised our faith has been in vain.

He is risen! Christ is risen indeed!

Bishop William T. McAlilly

---