Packing for GA is always a problem: What will the weather be like? How
well will the air conditioning work? (Sometimes too well!)
How can you keep decently clad for a long eight or ten days of sitting?
Your Editor has sought diligently the
best advice on GA styles. Being clad in the whole armor of God seems
biblical enough, but we would hope our gathering might be a little less
warlike than that metaphor suggests. So ... what kind of
"threads" might work? Here are some thoughts:
Woven through this special pre-Assembly
issue of Network News are the usual signs of the tensions in our
church: protests against the continuing attacks on women’s programs;
overtures to affirm our church’s stance of welcome toward all people;
other overtures to strengthen the barriers against gay and lesbian
people, or against any people who fail to fit some standard of
orthodoxy or of supposedly "Christian" behavior; differences
about whether to face our differences head-on, or to postpone yet again
the decisive action called for by many.
Surely all of us are weary of
those struggles, yet no one seems to offer any new and hopeful way
through the mess. What clothes should we wear to such a gathering?
Into this tangle comes the
letter from Barbara Dua, who has served until recently as Associate
Director of the Women’s Ministries Program Area. (See page 17 for her
letter.) She raises important questions, not just about recent actions
of the General Assembly Council’s executive committee, but also about
our church’s dealings over the past decade with its women’s programs
and those who have staffed them.
Ms. Dua closes her letter with a phrase
which, in all its biblical echoes, offers us a way to think about and
deal with the many tensions that confront us. Her closing
"blessing" is simply this: "Grace and peace, as
together we seek the Truth that sets us free." Now there’s
a suit of clothes fit for the Assembly!
Grace
is the first word of blessing, as it is so often in Paul’s letters.
Not Law, not purity, but Grace is the core of our faith and life and
hope. The Reformed tradition has always valued the Law, and has found
security and strength in rules — but only as guides, never as a means
of assuring salvation or divine favor.
And peace ... not some kind of
non-hostility achieved by avoiding differences, but the peace which
comes as a gift beyond our capacities. Yet the peace which God offers is
always a task as well as a gift ... a holy calling to those who would
follow Jesus, "who is our peace." This peace is won not when
one side gains victory over the other, but when all sides recognize the
smallness of their "holy causes," and accept their
opponents/antagonists as equally loved by God.
Seeking together
is something many of us are reluctant to do, when we all prefer to
believe that we have some kind of lock on goodness or truth or beauty
— or all of them. Yet our tradition teaches us that we are always
seekers, pilgrims on a life-long journey, people of the Way and not of
the Right Place.
The truth is what we seek;
it’s not our possession. The deepest wisdom of the Reformers is found
in their recognition that God alone is True and Holy. That affirmation
reminds us over and over again, in spite of all our human tendencies to
the contrary, that Truth is not an intellectual battery of doctrines,
but a quality of life — righteousness, if you will — lived in
harmony with God, with our neighbors, and with all of creation.
And finally, this never-ending seeking
for Truth will set us free. This divine truth (call it
righteousness, call it harmony!) frees us from fear — fear of people
who are different, fear of the uncertainties and ambiguities of life.
This truth frees us for love — for a love that welcomes the other,
that rejoices in the diversities and the ambiguities of human life, that
grows through the confusions and the messiness of our world.
Grace and peace, seeking the truth. Why
not slip that into your carry-on bag for GA?
| As God's chosen
ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion,
kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one
another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive
each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must
forgive. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds
everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of
Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in
the one body. And be thankful.
Colossians 3:12-15
|
