Reflections from Beneath the Arch--223rd General Assembly
The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) is in the books. While no decision from the floor of our meeting made the national news, as in more recent Assemblies, the decisions that were made will perhaps shape and form our denomination in transformative ways that will have an impact for years to come.
First, by electing Co-Moderators, a pattern of shared leadership seems to be our way now. We recognize the need to make personal contact with one another, and when speaking of a church that covers the entire country and has strong global outreach, the thought that one person can meet that need is ludicrous. It stretches two people thinly enough, but we are trying to create a leadership model that can be present with people everywhere.
Second, by electing one of the Moderators who is a Spanish-speaking immigrant, we are making the attempt to realize that we are a diverse people in this country. As a resident of California, where the largest single ethnic group is Spanish-speaking, this election speaks directly to our context. If the PC(USA) is to be relevant, we must present ourselves as welcoming of diversity as we can in a context that diversifying at a dizzying rate.
Third, by electing a pair of women to the office of Co-Moderator, we are recognizing the need to overcome the systemic marginalization of human beings based on the false assumptions of our culture. We overcome marginalization by giving voice to those routinely marginalized.
All of these first three actions speak to community of Jesus that is seeking to live into a way of life rooted in the Gospel of Luke and the Epistle of James--the two New Testament books that argue vehemently that faith that is not lived, embodied, and emboldened by action is not worth very much, falling even into the caricature of being only empty words and false posturing.
We saw that further manifested in the way that we followed the lead of Stated Clerk, the Rev. Dr. J. Herbert Nelson, who strongly wanted this year's General Assembly to be Hands and Feet in St. Louis--i.e., active agents for embodied compassion, not simply consumer conventioneers. We saw that in marching to the courthouse to pay the bail for non-violent prisoners, held simply because they could not pay their fines or bail--modern-day debtor-prisoners. We saw that in activists working to change our dependence on industries and lifestyles that lead to environmental havoc. We saw it in simple interactions between commissioners and the citizens of our host city as kindness, respect, and basic awareness acknowledged that we were guests in someone else's home.
We also saw it in lifting up the voices and presence of those once considered outside the norm who now are becoming the norm. We want welcome to be real. We want inclusion to be felt. And we want to take seriously Jesus' call to embody radical hospitality.
But we also saw it in a decided choice to avoid extremes. Some folks left the Assembly disappointed because their passion was not met in full. We chose to remain engaged with non-green companies, to work from inside the house, so to speak, instead of divesting, for example. There were other moves, motions, and choices that could have been decidedly more radical, but instead the Assembly chose to make a decision that would allow for more people to remain at the table, taking seriously Jesus' own model of including divergent faces in his own circle--people who may well have not had much to say to one another--a tax collector and a Zealot, for instance--to work the wonder of compassionate welcome.
We nibbled at the edges of institutional restructuring, making some initial moves that would be fascinating only to wonks, but which will afford us a way to meet a changing church that is smaller, older, with limited resources, and passing through restructuring at the local levels. We still have a long way to go, but the journey got started.
So, we ended ten days of meetings, motions, amendments, counter-amendments, and voting a little further along the way to bringing the kingdom of God into our midst. We ended realizing the Kingdom of God is more Kin-dom of God--we are all brothers and sisters, children of the Living God.
First, by electing Co-Moderators, a pattern of shared leadership seems to be our way now. We recognize the need to make personal contact with one another, and when speaking of a church that covers the entire country and has strong global outreach, the thought that one person can meet that need is ludicrous. It stretches two people thinly enough, but we are trying to create a leadership model that can be present with people everywhere.
Second, by electing one of the Moderators who is a Spanish-speaking immigrant, we are making the attempt to realize that we are a diverse people in this country. As a resident of California, where the largest single ethnic group is Spanish-speaking, this election speaks directly to our context. If the PC(USA) is to be relevant, we must present ourselves as welcoming of diversity as we can in a context that diversifying at a dizzying rate.
Third, by electing a pair of women to the office of Co-Moderator, we are recognizing the need to overcome the systemic marginalization of human beings based on the false assumptions of our culture. We overcome marginalization by giving voice to those routinely marginalized.
All of these first three actions speak to community of Jesus that is seeking to live into a way of life rooted in the Gospel of Luke and the Epistle of James--the two New Testament books that argue vehemently that faith that is not lived, embodied, and emboldened by action is not worth very much, falling even into the caricature of being only empty words and false posturing.
We saw that further manifested in the way that we followed the lead of Stated Clerk, the Rev. Dr. J. Herbert Nelson, who strongly wanted this year's General Assembly to be Hands and Feet in St. Louis--i.e., active agents for embodied compassion, not simply consumer conventioneers. We saw that in marching to the courthouse to pay the bail for non-violent prisoners, held simply because they could not pay their fines or bail--modern-day debtor-prisoners. We saw that in activists working to change our dependence on industries and lifestyles that lead to environmental havoc. We saw it in simple interactions between commissioners and the citizens of our host city as kindness, respect, and basic awareness acknowledged that we were guests in someone else's home.
We also saw it in lifting up the voices and presence of those once considered outside the norm who now are becoming the norm. We want welcome to be real. We want inclusion to be felt. And we want to take seriously Jesus' call to embody radical hospitality.
But we also saw it in a decided choice to avoid extremes. Some folks left the Assembly disappointed because their passion was not met in full. We chose to remain engaged with non-green companies, to work from inside the house, so to speak, instead of divesting, for example. There were other moves, motions, and choices that could have been decidedly more radical, but instead the Assembly chose to make a decision that would allow for more people to remain at the table, taking seriously Jesus' own model of including divergent faces in his own circle--people who may well have not had much to say to one another--a tax collector and a Zealot, for instance--to work the wonder of compassionate welcome.
We nibbled at the edges of institutional restructuring, making some initial moves that would be fascinating only to wonks, but which will afford us a way to meet a changing church that is smaller, older, with limited resources, and passing through restructuring at the local levels. We still have a long way to go, but the journey got started.
So, we ended ten days of meetings, motions, amendments, counter-amendments, and voting a little further along the way to bringing the kingdom of God into our midst. We ended realizing the Kingdom of God is more Kin-dom of God--we are all brothers and sisters, children of the Living God.
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