QUARANTINE BLOG # 338

March 3, 2021

Yesterday I shared a story about Venice’s acqua bassa, or low water.  The piece I read which was the background for the QB was from February 28, four days ago.  This morning I looked at a live webcam from Venice which is positioned at the Rialto Bridge and saw the water level is coming back to normal. 

I know about acqua alta, or high water.  When Bonnie and I were in Venice in October 2019, there were two days when the water was high and raised walking platforms were up all over the city.  About a week after we left, there were the very high tides I wrote about in QB 337.  But acqua bassa is new to me.  So I did some more research.

Low tides are a common, albeit little-known, part of the tidal patterns in Venice and occur mostly in January and February.  And although low tides are clearly much less dramatic or damaging than the high tides that flood the city, they bring their own issues, even though the dramatically lowest point lasts only for several hours.   Canal-side wooden jetties jut out into thin air.  Landing steps descend halfway to nowhere, never quite reaching the water.  Barnacled, weed-coated foundations of the palazzi along the Grand Canal are exposed.  Even the Grand Canal itself, 15 feet at its deepest, has its shallow edges exposed.  Ambulances or firefighters boats can not longer reach certain areas of the city.

Check out this article and the accompanying dozen or so spectacular photographs from an acqua bassa from 2015.  This was not a one-off story.  I read pieces from back to 2005, and it seems the dramatic low tides do not happen annually.  Before the current occurrence, you have to go back to 2016, 2015, 2008, and 2005 (there may have been others that my research did not uncover).  The lowest acqua bassa ever recorded in Venice was, almost 4 feet, and happened on February 14, 1934.

👉  It is one of the worst kept secrets in the ecclesiastical world.  The United Methodist Church, America’s largest mainline Protestant denomination, is about to split three ways because of a fundamental disagreement over issues of human sexuality, and the truth of God’s Word.  A “Protocol of Reconciliation & Grace Through Separation” was introduced last year, and it is anticipated that when the General Conference convenes in 2022 (there were no gathering of delegates last year nor will there be in 2021 because of the coronavirus) the protocol will be accepted and three denominations will be formed: the historic church, which follows the Bible and the Book of Discipline, declaring that the practice of homosexuality is not compatible with Christian principles (called “traditional” in the language of political correctness picturing something old, out of date, hide-bound); an accepting branch (called “progressive” in the language of political correctness picturing something up to date, modern, thoroughly with the times) which, among other things, supports homosexual marriages and practicing homosexuals being ordained clergy persons; and a third branch which accepts both ways.

I bring this up today because of an an article published by the Associated Press Monday entitled, “United Methodist conservatives detail plans for a breakaway.”  

Conservative leaders within the United Methodist Church unveiled plans Monday to form a new denomination, the Global Methodist Church (see “historic church” above).  From the time in 2019 that a special called-conference in St. Louis where delegates voted 438-384 to strengthen bans on LGBTQ-inclusive practices, liberals have been digging in to overcome the vote of the general church, declaring that they would not abide by the bans (the AP article, stresses the support from delegates from around the world, overcoming liberal votes in the U.S. – as if those votes were irrelevant – while ignoring the fact that the UMC is a world-wide church).

The Global Methodist Church on their website launched Monday stated: “The Protocol for Reconciliation and Grace through Separation anticipates new expressions of Methodism emerging from The United Methodist Church.  Alternatively, if it becomes apparent that the leading bishops, centrists, and progressives who covenanted to support the Protocol no longer do so, then the council will consider bringing the new church into existence without delay.”

One of the most ironic statements in the AP article is from Bishop Karen Oliveto of the UMC’s Mountain Sky conference, who in 2016 became the UMC’s first openly lesbian bishop.  Oliveto was brought before a church tribunal during which she testified under oath that she was in a committed, sexually active relationship with another woman.  Incredibly the tribunal, in the Mountain Sky conference, found her not guilty of the charges to which she admitted in her testimony.  Back to the irony.  Oliveto said in an email that “it is heartbreaking when the Body of Christ fragments itself.”  That fragmentation started about 40 years ago for the UMC when the issue of accepting the practice of homosexuality in contrast to the biblical teachings to the contrary was first entertained.  And at every quadrennial conference since, the issue has been brought back up, receiving more and more votes, and now the fragmentation, the schism, is inevitable.  

👉  Changed Lives

His letter to the Romans is Paul’s agony.  He is writing about a choice, not between good and bad, but between good and best.  It is the desire of his heart to go to Spain to preach the Gospel, but because of a division developing between Gentiles who have been converted to Christ and Jews who have been converted to Christ, he delays his departure for Spain to try to heal the developing rift between the two sides. 

Instead of going to Spain, he is going back to Jerusalem to try to bring healing.  Reconciliation is more important to Paul than his life, and it is that trip back to Jerusalem that will see Paul ultimately sent to Rome and executed by Caesar.  

The Jews don’t understand why Paul would spend his time among the Gentiles, and the Gentiles don’t understand why Paul would keep trying to win Jews who had the old covenant and didn’t live up to it.  The Gentiles said, “We are new covenant people.  The old covenant has been shut down.  They did not do their part.”  But there was never a part to live up to.  God’s covenant was unconditional.

And that brings us to Romans 4:20-22 – “Abraham never wavered in believing God’s promise.  In fact, his faith grew stronger, and in this he brought glory to God.  He was fully convinced that God is able to do whatever he promises.  And because of Abraham’s faith, God counted him as righteous” (NLT).

Paul begins this fourth chapter by stating that Abraham was justified by faith.  Justification means that as far as the Law is concerned, we are no longer guilty.  In the courtroom we are declared innocent, but that declaration cannot change our character.  The good news is, God not only declares us righteous, he makes us righteous.  This is not merely a change in the status of the sinner, it is a change in the life of a sinner.

Abraham was impotent and Sarah had been barren for decades, but he “never wavered in believing God’s promise.”  The only possible way for this aging couple to have a child was God, and Abraham was “fully convinced that God is able to do whatever he promises.”  That trust in the Word of God healed the schism, the split, the separation between God and Abraham.  That trust in the Word of God heals the separation between God and us.  And in that healing, we are changed.

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