The Crane Church: A New Hope for United Methodism

A tale from Japanese folklore holds a metaphor for the UMC of today and tomorrow.

The Crane Wife

One of the stories from Japanese folklore is Tsuru Nyōbō (鶴女房) translated as “The Crane Wife.” As with any folklore, there are many variants and versions–now there are anime versions and a popular band the Decemberists’ version of this folktale. But here is a retelling of the first version that I saw that had little details that I think were the Holy Spirit’s way of capturing my imagination, and I hope yours too. 

The story goes that one winter, a man was heading toward the local village when he came across a crane that had been caught in a trap. He set the crane free and the crane flew away. In Japanese culture, a crane is a symbol of good fortune, so that was a good act of kindness. The next evening, a beautiful woman came to the man’s doorstep, and asked to stay the night. The man was very poor but offered her his home, and eventually his heart, and they were married that same week. His new wife said she would be able to provide beautiful silks and textiles, but only if he promised that every seven days, he would leave her completely alone for a whole day to get the fabric prepared. He did this and upon his return, he saw his wife very tired but holding a beautifully woven cloth of fabric and feathers.

This went on for many months. He would go away for one day every seven days, return for a new woven cloth that he would sell at the village market and lift them out of poverty. Things were going very well, but he began to notice his wife was looking more and more tired each time he would return from the day away. So finally one day he broke his promise and doubled back and crept up to the window to look inside. There, in their house, was a crane that was plucking out all of its feathers and was weaving the feathers into the fabric. And as he watched, after all the feathers had been plucked out, the crane turned into the woman, bloody and bruised. 

The crane saw him and said “Yes, I am the crane you helped those months ago. I have returned the favor, but since you have seen who I really am, I know you can no longer love me. I must return home. Take this cloth and be happy.” She turned back into the crane and flew away in the night. 

The Crane Church

The Crane Wife story makes me wonder if the United Methodist Church is a Crane Church in a dark echo of that story.

For too long LGBTQ+ United Methodists have plucked themselves out, offering their gifts without acknowledgement or acceptance of their true beautiful forms. My friend, the Rev. Sean Delmore, a trans pastor in New England, once said that queer community in the church is wrung out like lemons to make lemonade, and even then, the church cannot accept the community as they are; the church has to add sugar and dilute the community to accept them. 

For too long, the church itself has contorted its natural form into something pleasing to a particular demographic and allowed that demographic to erase 25% of the church in the disaffiliations of 2022 and 2023. 

For too long, women especially have given themselves in secret, the invisible work that women often do in households is no different in the church. Women take pieces of their selves and weave them into the very fabric of the Church’s existence, and we don’t dare look too closely at the blood, sweat, and tears mixed in with the fabric of our community.

For too long, we have forgotten who we are.

A Crane without the Magic

In some versions of the story, the woman loses her magical abilities when she plucks out her feathers; in the same way, the UMC has lost its magic from its origin story. There was a time when we poured ourselves out to expand the church to more and more people rather than forcing people to pluck themselves for our benefit.

• The ordination of women happened in 1956, over 30 years after women’s suffrage in America. A shameful wait but one earlier than many other denominations. 
• The inclusion of African Americans away from separate but equal jurisdictions came in 1968, 14 years after Brown versus Board of Education. We got a little better. 
• These were amazing acts of inclusion. But since then, for 52 years, we’ve been fighting to expand the circle to gays and lesbians and now the entire queer community.  We forgot how to be an inclusive church…or this is what blowback looks to those twin acts of inclusion. This June is the 9-year anniversary of same-gender marriage becoming the law of the land, and I hope we keep narrowing the gap between societal and church affirmation. 

For too long, we have been a Crane Church, and have forgotten who were meant to be, and we keep on forcing minority segments of our church to pluck out their feathers, to give their gifts without regard for what they cost so that the Church to give grace and welcome to someone else, even as it hasn’t given the same grace to its own members.

(You can learn more about how we got here in our 2024 updates part 1, 2, and 3)

A New Hope

The 2024 General Conference has a chance to invite our Crane Church to be its authentic self, and no longer be twisted into a form that does harm to itself and to others.

• We can choose to support better polity that opens up the church to the full inclusion of LGBTQ+ persons–and add “gender” to our list of inclusive statements, which bafflingly is missing.
• We can choose better practices like divestment from fossil fuels and a more equitable church structure that gives the mission fields priority.
• We can choose to speak more clearly in our Social Principles in a world that would rather we keep silent.
• There’s a whole list of things that we as a church could do better–and also vote for our values to hold the line against those who would turn the UMC into a lesser version of itself. 
• You can view many of these hopes here.

My hope is that we realize we are a Crane, and we have been generous, plucking ourselves over for decades to satisfy someone else. But we are born to soar and to transform not ourselves to satisfy the world, but to be our best selves so that we can transform the world through disciples of Jesus Christ.

I pray you join me in that hope.

Your Turn

Thoughts?

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