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On June 10th, the United Church of Canada celebrated its 89th anniversary. To mark that milestone, Moderator Gary Paterson, along with six former moderators of the United Church offered a short reflection via an online presentation. Each shared a reading that was insightful for them both in their time as moderator and in what it means to be faithful as a church.
I'd like to share some of what they offered. If you wish to listen to the entire online webinar, go to www.united-in-learning.com/50minuteretreat and click on the icon for the 89th anniversary of the UCC. What follows is a longer Friday message than usual. As an alternative to trying to digest all of this at once, I invite you to take the next seven days to read one of the seven moderators' reflections each day.
Past Moderator, Mardi Tindal offered this quotation from Reinhold Niebuhr, an American 20th century theologian.
"Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing true or beautiful makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore, we are saved by love."
To be faithful as a church, Mardi affirmed that we need to be able to name our gifts and our limitations, and to rest our hope both in the power of the Holy Spirit and in our efforts, no matter how small, to be faithful in our time and place.
Past Moderator Bob Smith, reminded the listeners of a pivotal document 'Mending the World' which was endorsed by the United Church of Canada in 1997. It called upon the church to join with people of different faiths and ideologies to work together for justice for all people and for the mending of creation. Here as some excerpts from that report:
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel used to tell the story that when God, the Holy One, gets up in the morning, God gathers the angels of heaven around and asks this simple question: "Where does my creation need mending today?" And then Rabbi Heschel would continue, "Theology consists of worrying about what God worries about when God gets up in the morning."...We hold the conviction that the world is at the centre of God's concern. In the words of the Psalmist, "The earth is the Lord's, and all that is in it, the world and they who dwell therein."...Life in the "whole inhabited earth" (oikoumene) is life in relationship. We are bound up with one another and with the world of nature-not just our kinfolk, or our kind. We are thus led to speak of "whole world ecumenism," naming the search for justice for God's creatures and healing for God's creation as the church's first priority, and joining with other persons of good will in the search for justice, wholeness and love.
Bob Smith urges the United Church to continue to use this document as a lens by which to assess our faithfulness as a church today.
Past Moderator, Bruce MacLeod spoke about the importance of the New Creed of the United Church of Canada. Adopted by the UCC in 1968, the following words of the Creed inspired Bruce during his term of office in the early 70's.
'We believe in God:
who has created and is creating,
who has come in Jesus,
the Word made flesh,
to reconcile and make new,
who works in us and others
by the Spirit.'
For Bruce and for the UCC, these words expressed a shift in our thinking about God. God was no longer the God who worked solely through followers of Jesus; God also worked in 'others' - those of other faiths and traditions, other cultures and philosophies. Bruce urges today's church to continue to listen and learn and work together with 'others' so that together we can faithfully work with the Spirit.
Past Moderator, Marion Pardy also remarked on the importance of the 'Mending the World' document. She echoed the words of the document in saying that churches should join with peoples of good will to work together for the cause of peace, justice and the healing of creation. The scandal is the institutional preoccupation of the church in the face of the suffering of the world.
Past Moderator, Anne Squire remembers a day in June 1925 when she was four years old. She was standing outside her home church - Wesley Methodist Church in Amherstburg, Ontario when some men came along and took down the church sign and put up a new sign that said, 'Wesley United Church'. As a four year old, she wondered what the new sign meant. She says that she has spent the rest of her life learning what it means to be the United Church of Canada. While Anne was moderator in the 1980s, a study on ministry formed the basis of a report called 'Project Ministry'. The report expanded the concept of ministry to include all followers of Jesus, not only those who were ordained or commissioned to ministry; a radical idea at the time.
Anne remembers the hymn written by Jim Strathdee that spoke of the ministry of all the people. Based on 2 Corinthians 4:1 'Therefore, since it is by God's mercy that we are engaged in this ministry, we do not lose heart', the hymn is in our Voices United Hymnbook
'We have this ministry and we are not discouraged;
it is by God's own power that we may life and serve.
Openly we share God's word, speaking truth as we believe,
praying that the shadowed world may healing light receive.
We have this ministry, O God receive our living. (Voices United 510)
Past Moderator, Marion Best spoke about how denial in the church that can lead us away from the truth and away from the hope and wisdom that can guide us into the future. She quoted from Margaret Wheatley's book, Perseverance.
'Looking reality in the eye is an interesting experience. Often, people are startled to realize how much information they've been avoiding, and how much information is out there, waiting to be useful...We move away from all the information that's available, retreat into denial. It's the way we keep our world intact and avoid being challenged or threatened...We get led into the practice of non-denial by failure and defeat. When we have no choice, we seem to get curious...We discover solutions not available from our former position.'
As the United Church of Canada ponders its future, Marian seems to suggest that we would do well to move away from denial and become curious and open. In that curiosity and openness we may well discover new inspiration, wisdom and insight that will lead us to faithful ways of being the church in the future.
Current Moderator, Gary Paterson concluded the online seminar with a piece of poetry by Raymond Carver entitled 'Late Fragment'.
And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth."
Gary affirmed that we all need to feel beloved and to be called beloved. At Jesus' baptism, the Holy Spirit descends upon Jesus and God speaks these words to Jesus. Surely, God longs for all God's children to hear these same words spoken to them.
Nevertheless, many in this world have not experienced the truth of those words. As the UCC, Gary invites us to reach out to others in our congregations and beyond to the larger community to ask what it would mean to feel beloved on this earth. And in our asking, to offer and express the gospel of love to all those who are longing for love.
Following on with the moderators' reflections, I ask this question of all of us: What reading or quote or scripture passage is insightful for you as you ponder what it means to be a follower of Jesus and to be faithful as a church? I'd appreciate hearing from you, either in person or by return email.
Peace, Kathy Toivanen
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