A conversation with author Tom Berlin

Bishop Lanette Plambeck: Hello friends, I am joined today by Bishop Tom Berlin. Bishop Berlin is from the Florida Episcopal Area in the Southeast Jurisdiction of our beloved United Methodist Church. Tom, it is so good to have you with us. Is it okay if we talk to one another like we actually know one another?

Bishop Tom Berlin: I think we can. think that would be just great. Thank you. Yeah. Thanks, Lanette.

Bishop Lanette Plambeck : So it is good to be with you in this space and just an early word of gratitude for writing this book. I recognize that it was published in 2023, maybe written 2022/2021, somewhere in there. And I know you had some things going on in your life during that season, which took you from where you were in the local church to where you are now. But could you take a few minutes to introduce yourself to the Dakotas-Minnesota Episcopal Area?

Bishop Tom Berlin: It’s such a pleasure to be here. I'm just so pleased that The Third Day would be a resource for all of you. Look at this, I'm gonna hold the book up just like a real author would. Because I think writing it was actually a deep resource for me. And I think we're in a time where we're looking for the resurrection in many forms.

I'm a husband. My wife's name is Karen. We have four daughters who are all adults now and on their own and that is an experience of being in a family system like that. It has been a great joy. We got to see a couple of our daughters this weekend and here in Florida and really enjoyed it.

I served for about 35 years as a pastor in the Virginia Conference. And for the last 25 years, I was at Floris United Methodist Church, which is in a suburb of Washington, D.C., right by Dulles Airport so it was just an unusual place in the country. It was a really exciting church to serve. We relocated the church during that time. The church grew considerably over those 25 years, and it was just a real joy to be a part of that.

But a lot of my writing grows out of being rooted very deeply in the parish, in the church. As a pastor, later a lead pastor, and also working with colleagues, with clergy colleagues. I was really fortunate. I not only got the insights that came from being a pastor and interacting with just such great laypeople all the time, but I also had these clergy around me who were associates on one of our other sites who just brought different ways of thinking and different ways of experiencing life. And I think that's had a real impact on the writing that I do and the questions I try to answer within that.

Then I became a bishop in the Florida Conference in 2022. You and I were elected the same at the same time, same set of elections. And I was moved from Virginia down to Florida. I've been here for two years, and it's been just a delightful experience. I mean, for the most part with the United Methodists, it's been delightful. With those that left, it was fine. We just had some work to do. And I'm really joyful about being in a space now where we're so forward-thinking now. And we're actually getting to issues and important matters that all of us want to do, like make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.

Bishop Lanette Plambeck: Absolutely. So you were writing in 2022, published in 2023, and I think about what has changed in the life of our church, our nation, and our world. And I'm wondering what you would say to us about the importance of knowing ourselves as Third Day people.

Bishop Tom Berlin: You know, it's interesting, during the pandemic, I worked on another study called Courage because I realized, well, the thing people are going to need right now is courage because that was just such a disrupted time. And then a couple of years went by, and I thought the most undervalued aspect of our theology is the resurrection. And we can talk more about that. But most of us are going to complete our lifespan in a time of disruption. So if you're somebody out there is thinking, ‘hey, next year the world's going to get its act together’…Susan Beaumont identified, years ago, that we were now in a period of history that would be liminal—Liminal meaning it would be changed. We've been through other periods of history. Humans, you are not the first human to be disrupted

The fall of the Roman Empire was disrupted. And I'm not saying that we're in the fall of the American space, but I am saying it's a really liminal time where things that we used to be able to depend on, we can't. So, in a time like that, theologically, what should we be thinking about? Well, I think that the resurrection is what we should be thinking about because the resurrection is what actually completely changed the life of the first disciples. It's very clear that they understood a lot of Jesus' teaching, but not really all—that they were committed to following Christ, but like you and me, they were not committed everywhere. And You know, it's tempting to turn them into people that are sort of buffoonish in nature. When actually what they need, what they haven't had in the majority of the Gospels, is the experience of the resurrection. And once they have it, suddenly these people that were running away during the crucifixion are standing in the in the public square talking about ‘hey, this Christ who you crucified, we are his witnesses that his resurrection happened’ and it totally changes their ministry. They open themselves up to Gentiles which is the most remarkable thing in the book of Acts. They are continually interacting with the Holy Spirit in the in the book of Acts and their experience of daily living with God completely changed once they were convinced that Jesus was actually not dead but alive and with them. So, our own theology of communion around the real presence of Christ becomes significant for them. And I mean, we gain our theology from their experience. Let me clearly state that. So anyway, I can go on and on, Lanette, but you get the idea.

They were in a disrupted time. In AD 70, Rome comes and destroys the temple in Jerusalem. That's the time that the early church is putting together the gospels and the letters and the epistles that we now call the New Testament. Without the resurrection, none of it happens. With the resurrection, everything's possible. And I think that's something that is really helpful for me to remember.

Bishop Lanette Plambeck: I think that's a good segue. Tom, when we talk about resurrection hope, the Lordship of Jesus, all of those things that are our identity, we can talk about it for the collective, right? So, for our community, for the people called United Methodists, if I were to be sitting at table with you and would say to you, Tom, tell me about an experience of the resurrected Christ that you've had. What has convinced you that this pivotal story, the pivotal story of our faith, what was your convincing moment or moments?

Bishop Tom Berlin:  Do you want a personal example or a personal example that's more communal in nature? Do you want a ministry-oriented example or a personal example?

Bishop Lanette Plambeck: I want whatever you want to say.

Bishop Tom Berlin: So this is to say, when you start really thinking about the resurrection, here's what I predict: if people actually read all six chapters, what they're going to find is that experiencing the resurrection—Mary experienced it one way, Peter another, Thomas another—and you're going to identify several.

So let me just give you one. In 1997, I go to Sierra Leone, Africa, on a Volunteers in Mission team [UMVIM]. And at the very end of the trip, were helping rebuild what later became a school of theology in Freetown that had been destroyed by rebels during the rebel war. And we're there and that time thinking that it's safe but actually the war comes into Freetown about three months after we leave.

I make friends with a guy named John Yambasu who's a pastor there. And in 2000, he and I deepen this friendship, he comes and starts taking classes at Candler School of Theology and spends time with me and Karen and our family during holidays and such because he separated. And his spouse needs help getting out of the country because the rebels are literally in front of their apartment shooting tracer bullets in.

Over the next couple of years—and I'm really decreasing a story here—together the Sierra Leone Annual Conference and the church I was serving at, Floris, and later other churches, start a ministry for children called Helping Children Worldwide because that rebel war utilized a lot of children horribly and with opium patches on their heads sent them into combat. I'm talking 10-year-old kids carrying AK-47s. And village life was disrupted. And for the first time in that country, your extended family was no longer your safety net because people were in such disarray.

I have watched that ministry grow from 40 children in residence to now a family-based care ministry that doesn't utilize a place for children to live but utilizes families and trains them and gives them economic help that now touches about currently about five to 600 children and a small hospital. And the hospital is run by one of the first children that Reverend Yambasu found on the street and convinced to come in and become a part of the CRC.

That's resurrection. And I have experienced it. And the thing that almost undercut it every time was the shortage of hope and moments of hardship. There were moments where there wasn't enough money where we thought everything was lost, where relationships were hard, where just everything was difficult. And we had to constantly avail ourselves to believing that if God was in this work, there would be hope and resurrection. And once you have that as a part of your theological framework and not just like way back in the back of the backpack, but just right in front of you, you see problems differently. You see opportunities differently and you see the people around you differently.

And so I, I find that having a very centered theology of the resurrection is essential and it's very easy to lose. It's very easy to lose sight of. So that's why I started writing the book. Lanette, I write things for me. I write things to give myself an experience that I know I need, but which I think I'm just not that different from most people. Most people need some form of resurrection.

Bishop Lanette Plambeck: Absolutely. I would argue that all people, all people, right?

Bishop Tom Berlin: Yes, true. I think most people are aware of it.

Bishop Lanette Plambeck : So when you finish the book, you tuck it away and it's put out there– thank you Abingdon, and we have this beautiful resource. And I don't know if writing a book is a bit like writing a sermon. Even when I put the sermon away, there's more that I would add if I had a little more time. What would be a chapter, we're a couple of years later now, what would be your addendum chapter? What would you add now that they didn't have space for then, or it just wasn't sitting here at the time?

Bishop Tom Berlin: Funny that you would ask because I am currently working on another six-chapter study just like this and others that I've done on the Lordship of Christ. And what does it mean when we say Jesus is Lord?

I think we're in a time where the church broadly, church with a small C, and United Methodists within our church need to really think about who's the Lord. Because I think we're living in a time of very deeply divided loyalties, and we want political parties to save us, and I say this to all political parties. We want political parties to save us. We believe that one leader or another is Messiah and Savior.

And lordship is, you know, the old question, I think, was, well, "If Jesus is Lord, what does that mean about other religions?" I think most Christians can manage the understanding that in God's providence, that's really not mine to answer. I believe Jesus is Lord. I've got a really clear doctrine of the Lordship of Christ, Lanette, in case anybody out there is wondering. But my job is not the judgment of every other faith tradition. And we are interfaith people, and we are ecumenical people. We tend to be people of low judgment and high confidence about Lordship. And I think the new question is, who's the Lord, really? Because who the Lord is really is the person who's driving my behaviors, my actions, and the tensions I experience with other people. And I think when Jesus is Lord, your life is fundamentally so much better because you're developing Fruits of the Holy Spirit around, you know, love, compassion, kindness, you know, all the standard Fruit of the Spirit, but big words like love, grace, you know, these critical great commandment attributes of discipleship. When Jesus is not Lord, all that gets set aside.

I read an interview, I heard an interview with a woman who said out loud, when someone said, doesn't Jesus call us to forgive? She said, and I quote, yes, and Jesus is weak, and I forgive him for that. I would suggest that's somebody with a lordship problem who has taken how the world treats people. So you have to understand resurrection or you'll never get lordship.

Our theology is a lot like math. It's a building block learning experience. In math, I can't learn multiplication and division unless I understand addition and subtraction. I'm never going to do basic algebra until I know how to divide and how to multiply. Our theological journey is very similar and I think that the natural extension of the resurrection and the hope of the resurrection is around thinking now what. Those first disciples in the book of Acts and letters to Paul had a very, very high Christology. And I think that unless we have a high Christology in The United Methodist Church, we will be a dead sect. That's S-E-C-T in case you're wondering.

Bishop Lanette Plambeck: Absolutely, yes. And I think that it is just that Savior and Lord relationship. And it has to be more than words that we say, but it is our daily lived experience that should be evidence absolutely and manifested. You will see the Fruit of the Spirit. So, no matter where our leaders are, no matter where we find ourselves, if we want to know is this of God, if we see the Fruit of the Spirit and we don't have to squint to do that, if we see the Fruit of the Spirit, that's part of that connection.

So, for those joining the study in the Dakotas- Minnesota Episcopal area, what word of encouragement, hope do you have for them as they step into The Third Day this Lenten season?

Bishop Tom Berlin: Yeah, I would just encourage you to actually read the book. So, when you do this study, we've created videos for each segment that are different from the book. I don't know if you have had this, but I've had the experience where you do a study like this, and the video is basically the author reading the chapter. That is punitive to people who actually do the work because it means, it's like, "I've already read this." So what we have done, what I've done with this is we have filmed this, because you film things with a group of people, in a way that actually, if you didn't do the reading and you show up and they show the video, you can talk about that and you can enter into the conversation. But if you did the reading, you get two experiences. Do the reading, Methodists. Be like those early Methodists that actually did the spiritual work and didn't just show up and say, well, I'm giving this 50 minutes.

I mean, because here's the deal. I'm going to introduce you to the characters, the characters, the people who actually experienced the resurrection. I think Mary, when she experienced before right before the resurrection, I imagine that Mary was thinking, "If Jesus is actually dead, will the demons I once struggled with return because he's not there to hold them off?" And I think once she experienced the resurrection, she knew she had a power in her life that was never ever going to go away—totally dependable. And I think she became a powerful disciple and the reason I believe that is, her story is told all over the gospels and it wouldn't have been told had she not told it. So I think she became what they call, “the apostolarium—the first of the apostles,” because she's the first one that spoke of the resurrection.

I think Peter wondered, "Can I be forgiven for running off and for betraying you and denying you?" Who among us has not wondered the same thing about our own lives? So you're going to read an experience that's relevant to you and people you're talking to. You're going to meet Thomas who had doubts and you're to discover that actually one way we manage doubt is that we live in community with our doubts until our doubts are not controlling our life. And because of our doubts, we actually grow deeper. Who among us hasn't had periods where we're just like, I don't even know if this is true anymore?

So the thing about doing it, Lanette, is if people will engage all six weeks and do all the reading, they're actually going to be dealing with things that really matter and matter to their own lives. And it's going to give you a way to talk to your family and friends when they have spiritual questions. So it's a training of yourself so that when somebody says, "You know, sometimes I have doubts," you don't say, "Well, read this book." You say, “You know what? I do, too. And you know I was with a group of Christians recently, we were in this group together, and here's the thought I had…I don't know if you know the Biblical story….” You're going to be able to do that work and that's going to be your own experience of how God's going to use you.

Bishop Lanette Plambeck: Very good. Amen. Amen to that. As we are formed and transformed to inform and to come alongside of others to talk about this Jesus who loves us so desperately.

So Tom, I want to thank you for your time with us here in Dakotas-Minnesota. We are looking forward to this study. We are looking forward to the learning and the loving of it. And I'm looking forward to the Area that I serve and love learning a bit about one of my colleague bishops who we didn't have a lot of intersection before our election, and one of my great joys is the time that you and I get to spend together when we are together as the Council. And so I'm excited for my folks to meet them.

Bishop Tom Berlin: I would like your Conferences to know that sometimes they make other people sit between us to stop the yapping. I just want people to separate those two. They're like, and you can't text either. Nothing. You know, it's fun when you meet people—I won't dwell on this—but it's fun when you meet fellow leaders in Methodist Church, fellow participants in The United Methodist Church who also share a value on joy. And it's not always joy, but friends, if there's not joy in it, it's not Christianity. It's just some other thing. It's just a dead religion. And so, I appreciate it about you, too. So, I just hope everybody has a great experience.

Bishop Lanette Plambeck: And I trust that we will. We've been in the Year of the Floridians. Magrey deVega led us in our Advent study. We did The Christmas Letters. So now we're needing a Floridian to do something on Pentecost.

Bishop Tom Berlin: It's pretty powerful. There's a lot down here, I'll tell you. Yeah, we're bringing redefinition to Florida person.

Bishop Lanette Plambeck: Very good. Thank you so much, Bishop Tom Berlin of the Florida Episcopal Area of our beloved United Methodist Church. Thank you for being with us today.

Bishop Tom Berlin: Hey, great being with you all. Thanks.