Lord God, you inspired your servants John and Charles Wesley with burning zeal for the sanctification of souls and endowed them with eloquence of speech and song: kindle such fervor in your Church, we entreat you, that those whose faith has cooled may be warmed, and those who have not known Christ may turn to him and be saved; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
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Every year on this day, my heart feels strangely warmed as my chosen denomination (The Episcopal Church) remembers and gives thanks for the life and witness of John and Charles Wesley, who loomed large in the denomination that formed me.John is considered to be the founder of the Methodists. Charles was a prolific poet who composed more than 6,500 hymns, many of which can be found in the Episcopal Church's hymnal. Their parents were Anglican rector, Samuel Wesley, and his wife, Susanna, who had strong Pietist leanings, but remained Anglican.
Neither John nor Charles had any intention of ever leaving the Anglican Church to start a new denomination. At Oxford University, the two were founding members of a small reform group. In 1728, they were ordained as priests of the Church of England, and they faithfully kept their holy orders throughout their lives.
When I left the United Methodist Church, in which I served as an ordained minister from 1988-1993, no one ever asked me to "renounce" my former denomination. In fact, just the opposite: Bishop Geoffrey Rowthorn, who was Suffragan Bishop in Connecticut when I made the move to the Episcopal Church, urged me to bring my Wesleyanism with me. "We still need what they were trying to do in the Episcopal Church," he told me.
Why did I make this move if I love these brothers so much? The United Methodist Church was founded when I was five years old, in 1968, the result of a merger between the Methodist-Episcopal Church and the Evangelical United Brethren. At the risk of over-simplifying, the Methodist-Episcopal Church was more liturgical and probably more progressive, generally, than the EUB. When I went to Drew Theological School I learned liturgy that was Eucharistic-centered and actually very close to the Episcopal Church. But there remained a lot of freedom for pastors to draw on their own creativity in congregations, at least into the 1980s. I not only felt drawn to the more Eucharistic-centered liturgy of The Episcopal Church as the place for me to grow into the full stature of Christ, but I came to believe that I'd be a more faithful "Wesleyan" in the tradition that had formed them. It was the right move for me, but I've always tried to heed Bishop Rowthorn's wise counsel and because of my seminary education and my commitment to ecumenism (not to mention most of my family of origin!) I still love the United Methodist Church.
The Wesleys were committed to prayer and to social justice. It's hard in these days to verify quotes attributed to famous people but John is reported to have said: "the church changes the world not by making converts, but by making disciples." That's what those groups at Oxford were all about and it's at the heart of what I learned in the Hawley United Methodist Church. However one comes to understand Wesley's doctrine of "sanctifying grace," it was important to him that people recognize that there is always room for growth. God is not finished with any of us yet.
As for Charles, it's hard for me to pick a favorite of his many wonderful hymns but one that makes the list for me and that I love to sing in Advent begins like this:
Come, thou long expected Jesus,born to set thy people free;from our fears and sins release us,let us find our rest in thee.Israel's strength and consolation,hope of all the earth thou art;dear desire of every nation,joy of every longing heart.
Blessed John and Charles Wesley, whom we remember today.
