Other Possibilities (So You Want to be Moderator?) April 15, 2012

(So do we want this guy as our Moderator?)

"Other possibilities"

Rev. Kathryn Ransdell

April 15, 2012

In order to stay in touch with culture, it's important for ministers to watch what the people are watching.  Curt Allison and I do this not because we like it, but because we must.  We must watch things like GCB--Good Christian "Belles"--and, Real Housewives of Vancouver.  It's a tough price we have to pay...

Who would have thought that my beloved city of Dallas and my new beloved city Vancouver would be the focus of two quite popular tv shows?   GCB is fiction, but filmed in Dallas in and around my Methodist stompin' grounds.  Watch it with me and I can tell you exactly where they are, who their neighbor is, and probably some juicy story about them or their neighbor. 

Real Housewives of Vancouver is non-fiction, what they call reality tv.  Maybe there are people who live this way in Vancouver, but these five women seem more GCB than beautiful, natural British Columbia.  After watching one episode, I think I've decided that the fiction series is closer to reality and the reality series is complete fiction. 

Step-back from the antics, and the storyline between the two shows is similar: people trying to define and establish what living means for them.  After a marriage ended by a cheating-spouse suddenly dying (or has he only stowed away to Mexico with lots of money?), or, after pictures of you half-naked and tipsy at your good friend's birthday party are tweeted across Vancouver, they just want to understand what living means. 

And in some strange way, the people in the early story of Acts share this in common...for they too, after experiencing this surprise eruption of new life, they are trying to find what it means to live as Christian. 

How do we share this same thing in common...having had some experience of Spirit, some inkling of divine, some joy and celebration, how are we asking that question of what it means to do this life as a follower of The Way, and, walk this life together? 

It's the stuff that fuels young adults to set-out on quests...how will I live my life?  What will matter to me?  And, it's the stuff that is easy to forget as life gets more complicated, jobs get busier, illnesses set-in, babies keep you up at night...

Let's start here... Over the history of the church’s history, there’s been several different special names for this Sunday after Easter:

            1.  White Sunday

            2.  Low Sunday

            3.  Thomas Sunday

            4.  Associate Pastor Sunday

            5.  Quasi-modo Sunday – 1 Peter 2:2 “Like newborn babes, (quasi modo geniti infantes) long for the pure, spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation – if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.”

This second Sunday of Easter took on the name Quasimodo Sunday because the church wanted us to remember that having seen the resurrection, we have been born into a new kingdom and we are just newborn babes.  We have been born into a reality that we really don’t understand, a kingdom we cannot comprehend, a God who has mystified us by first becoming human and second defying the grave.  We don’t have a language for what we’ve experienced in seeing Jesus resurrected.  And what we have been born into is totally new.

Which means, even though we may be "mature adults" on this first Sunday after Easter, we are in this space of complete amazement at this new reality that is around us.  Perhaps we quasimodos don't even have words for it yet.  And that's okay.  It's probably better.  Because words will take us away from the heart, and our head has a hard time with things like this story from Acts.

These earliest people who had an experience and from that experience believed are described in the book of Acts behaving:

³² All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had. ³³ With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all ³⁴ that there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales ³⁵ and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need.

It's easy to get stuck in your head reading this passage and feeling frustrated that it's just not possible in our day and age...sell all we have, give it to someone else, and trust how they will allocate it? 

Listen to the descriptions of these believers...one in heart and mind...shared everything they had...and God's grace was so powerfully at work in them all...that there were no needy persons among them.

I wonder what it would be like to be in a community where we were one in heart and mind and that it was said of us that God's grace was powerfully at work in all of us...and no one among us was in need.

I wasn't introduced to this other possibility of how to be Christian until I hit seminary.  Until then, the way you were Christian was this:  you went to church service.  The service was nice, but not exhilarating.  You attend a Bible study.  It was nice, but not challenging.  You prayed for each other, but only if the prayer had to do with being physically ill.  If it was about divorce, fear, job loss, sexuality, or doubt, keep it to yourself. 

And I think I wanted Christianity to be something else...which is probably why I went to seminary (that, and Duke basketball).

I've only been a "lead minister" twice in my life now...the first time being my first church gig...Joy, TX.  19 members.  And I was barely 19.  What I remember about this very rural congregation I didn't fully understand until later in life.  By the time I arrived at church on Sundays, there was a table in the back that was being filled with extra eggs from the chickens, extra veggies from the garden, extra loaves of bread, some canned goods that were no longer needed in someone's pantry, and sometimes there were a couple of perishable items that were close to the date. 

It was all there...for you to take what you needed that week.

That experience has shaped me in many ways in my ministry.  What if we did that?  What if it wasn't just our food we shared, but our clothes...we all have things in the closet that we could pass along to someone else among us?  What if it wasn't just our food or our clothes, but our wonderings, our doubts, our dreams, our greatest visions? 

Quasimodos, what if there really were other possibilities for how we do this thing called life together as followers of The Way?

For us to find other possibilities means we must hold open the space for God to call us. 

For us to find other possibilities means the church must hold open the space for innovation. 

For us to find other possibilities means living more on the margins of uncomfortable newness rather than settled-in mediocrity.       

For about 200 years, the church has lived in the space of a theology of Jesus being in heaven, a place somewhere other than here.  And we look forward to joining Jesus in that place at the end of this hard journey we call life.  We hope and pray we’ve been good enough so that we can be there.  It makes sense to us to have Jesus up there and us down here. 

But take Jesus out of heaven, and put him here on earth, and well, it just gets kinda outlandish, don’t you think?  We already have to make the claim that we not only believe our God became one of us, but that our God then resurrected His only Son, and now we have to claim that this same resurrected God came back to earth. 

But wait, the outlandish claims don’t stop there:  Believe it or not, as Ripley would say, the Christian claim continues:  The Kingdom is here, not something we have to wait on, but something here, right now, right here before us, waiting for us to see it and then being like a piece of leaven in a loaf of bread, through our actions, give it the ability to rise. 

As a retired Methodist bishop said about being a young adult in the 40s, “We really believed we were bringing about the kingdom of God.” 

Liberal theology was supplanted after World War 2, by modernism and then post-modernity and the era of theological deconstruction…which means, we shifted from being able to say what we want to see to a much different place…speaking more of what we don’t want to see. 

And somewhere in there we lost the ability to see the kingdom, which means we quit talking about it, we quit struggling to describe it, and in turn, the kingdom of God quit forming our bodies, our actions and our desires. 

Quasimodos, what if there were other possibilities for how we live this life as followers of The Way?  What if we spent more time looking for the kingdom of God here on earth now as it is in heaven, and speaking of it, and giving thanks that through Jesus our bodies, our actions and our desires CAN BE FORMED so that thy kingdom does come, thy will is done on earth as it is in heaven?

Where is God calling us?

It's a big question to ask, so let's not shy away from it.  Let's ask big and expect big.    

Quasimodos, let us long for the pure spiritual milk so that we may grow into salvation, so that we may see the kingdom of God, and in seeing it, struggle through finding the language to speak of it, and when we begin speaking of it--wow--who knows what might be next.

DISCERNING THE WAY
(“So you wanna be a Moderator…?)

Rev. Gary Paterson

April 15, 2012

  It is so good to be here with you; back home, my own bed, my family…. you.  I need to say how grateful I am for the time you have allowed me to be away on sabbatical… including the next two weeks, an opportunity to begin processing and integrating all that has happened for me in the past couple of months in Israel.  And thank you for your prayers… I know I wasn’t supposed to be keeping up with congregational life, but I confess that every week I clicked on  “Gleanings”… thank you, Kathryn, for including me… and I would update the list of folk that were praying for me.  It was a good feeling, to be held by all of you all in this time when I have been away, when I have been journeying as a pilgrim. 

 A pilgrim -- one who wanders to Holy Sites, and hopes for connections with the Spirit.  Which means, of course that one must travel thoughtfully, prayerfully, open to questions and moments, with no constricting preconceptions and answers.   Another word for this might be discernment, attentive to the “nudgings “of the Spirit… which were many, whether at the top of Mt. Sinai as the sun came up; or tramping the walls and streets of Jerusalem; or watching the sun set over the Sea of Galilee..
 Lots to think about.  And, as you know, there was one question in particular that claimed much of my energy…  whether or not I would let my name stand for nomination for Moderator of the United Church. 
 Now, I need you to know that this was not a new struggle; that suddenly upon arriving in the Holy Land, I had my own personal, “descent of the dove” experience.  No, over a year ago I was approached by some people, friends, who asked, “Have you ever thought about running for Moderator?”  A surprise question, totally unexpected -- to which I quickly responded, “No.”  But it stayed with me, that question; and I talked to family, to friends, colleagues, and team mates; and I prayed a lot. 

 It was easy to find reasons not to accept a nomination.  Who would want to be a Moderator, especially in challenging times like these?  Besides, I’m not the right kind of guy; too old; what do I have to offer?  And it would be too disruptive… so much time spent in Toronto, or travelling.  Anyway, it isn’t the right moment to be leaving St. Andrew’s-Wesley… we’re just getting ready for another move forward. 
 So again, I said “No.”  But in truth, it felt a bit like a “Jonah-no”; like trying to side-step an important invitation; to duck a call.  So, of course, it kept reappearing; sometimes just in passing conversation; other times, a little more pointedly… like last January.  Along with a dozen or so folk from here, I went over to Victoria to attend the educational event called “Epiphany Explorations.”  But one week before the event, there was an emergency phone call; someone was sick – would I be willing to be the guest preacher for the Sunday morning service?   Sure, I said, but bargained for an extra five minutes of preaching time!  At the end of the service, in the greeting line-up, I was suddenly accosted by… well, a United Church patriarch, someone I’ve appreciated for some thirty years.  He pointed his finger at my chest, and said, “Great sermon… now listen… you need to be Moderator; we need to hear that kind of hope.  Don’t say anything right now; just go think about it… and consider this to be a call to let your name stand.” 

So… I go to Jerusalem at the beginning of February, still carrying the question with me.  Now, you know that I have a passion for the United Church… maybe it was being at Tantur, an Ecumenical Centre, in the midst of folk from different denominations, that I recognized once again how special and important is the voice of the United Church.  We may be small in numbers… some half a million folk, and shrinking; but we are a gift to the larger church, and to the community, where so many people are spiritually hungry, but aren’t feeling fed.  Liberal Protestant Christianity at its best… and liberal is not a dirty word.  Sharp and critical in its thinking; progressive in its theological vision.  And inclusive… let me tell you how proud I was to casually point out that the United Church has been ordaining women since the mid-thirties; and gay or lesbian people for twenty years.  I was able to talk about the $25,000 grant we received from the government for the work we are doing in interfaith dialogue.  And committed to the work of peace and justice… a moment from my time in Israel:- our group was in Hebron, one of the hotspots where Jewish Settlers keep claiming and building on Palestinian land.  We  bumped into a World Council “Peace Accompanier,” who was observing and monitoring the conflicts -- Tom was his name; he just happened to be United Church, a lay person; who will probably be speaking at General Council in August.  That’s us, eh?
 I love this church of ours… and believe passionately in its vision of Christianity; I know we’re not perfect, and we have much to learn from other denominations (you just wait for the incense in May – no, just joking.)  And I am worried… like you I have seen the statistics, heard the stories…. numbers dwindling, membership aging, finances declining, churches closing.  And I keep wondering how best to serve.
 Well, you already know that eventually I said, “Yes!” -- yes to letting my name stand for nomination for the position of the Moderator of the United Church.  Maybe it was because I was in Jerusalem; the city that speaks of crucifixion and resurrection; a city that has itself been destroyed over twenty times…by invasion, conquest, fire, earthquake; and yet, sooner or later, over and over again, it rises from the ashes.  Talk about an embodiment of hope even in tough times.

Maybe it was because I heard the voice of Jeremiah, the prophet who speaks in those moments when it seems like everything is falling apart; for Jerusalem, in Jeremiah’s time, it was conquest and a time of exile into Babylon; for us… well, who knows exactly; but the times, they are going to be hard.  But Jeremiah didn’t just speak about doom and gloom, he also had a lot to say about hope; and about God; and about what comes after.  And what developed out of the exile in Babylon, strangely enough, was a new vision of what Judaism was all about; not so much about the Temple, the church buildings; more about the vision, the story, and the people.  Tough times … and change and rebirth.  A word for the United Church, perhaps.
 Maybe I said yes because of Capernaum… the town where Jesus lived for a while, as he began his ministry.  A place we visited on a rainy day, up at the north end of the Sea of Galilee.  Bob, a member of our group, shared a few thoughts, asking, “Why would Jesus ever leave Capernaum?”  His ministry was going so well… growing reputation; crowds coming; people liked him.  Probably he had a nice home… with a view of the water.  And his parents off in Nazareth…. not too close; not too far.   And then of course, Bob asked his second question, “Why do any of us leave our Capernaum, the place where we feel “at home” and secure; where people like us and the ministry is going well?  How do we hear the Spirit’s invitation to consider a new call?”  And then Bob said, “Sometimes you need to leave where you’re wanted, but perhaps not really needed; and go where you are needed, though perhaps not yet wanted.” 

Hmmmm….

I had hoped that I could have shared this news with you earlier, in person, as I’m doing now, to talk with you about this process of discernment.  However, that’s not how it happened.  The news about my willingness to be nominated had been shared with someone without the whispered addition, “This is confidential!”  Which might have been okay, except that that person was the minister of my mother’s church!  So… when I heard that two hundred some people over in Victoria had been delighted to hear, during their Sunday morning welcome and announcements, the news about Marjorie’s son being nominated for Moderator .. well … I know how news travels in the United Church.  And I didn’t want you to hear it second hand.  So… my deep thanks to my colleagues and team mates, here at the church, for their assistance in getting the message out in a helpful way.  Especially Kathryn… who called a Monday afternoon meeting of  the members of the Executive, who agreed to do as much phoning as they could; meanwhile, I was drafting an email letter to all of you, and that got sent out on Tuesday afternoon; that evening Vancouver Burrard Presbytery nominated me…. and then the news got shared again, the following Sunday.  Talk about fast.

 Kathryn emailed Tim and me on Wednesday -- “So… this IS happening! Yes!”  However, my spouse, Tim, he has a wicked sense of humour, and he emailed Kathryn a cryptic note:  “Gary just had a dream last night -- he’s changed his mind.”  And Kathryn, not at all used to Tim’s style, whipped back… “I have booked my flight and will arrive in Jerusalem tomorrow, ready to kick some serious butt!” 
 So what now, friends?  Well, there will be an election this August, when the General Council meets in Ottawa.  And guided by the Spirit the Church will choose a leader whose gifts are the best match for the demands of the present moment.  And that won’t be easy… there are fourteen nominees, more than there have ever been before.  So I might very well be phoning you in August, saying, “Guess what!?!  I’m coming back; hope you still want me.”  Who knows… but my logical side says it’s going to be difficult for the delegates to GC to get to know that many candidates; and most of my ministry has been in BC, and I’m not that well known; and… . but who knows. 
 

This will be a strange four months together, knowing that things might change radically this coming September, or maybe not… or rather, they will change in a different way.  But we’ll walk this time together.  And regardless of August decisions, I remain a minister here at St. Andrew’s-Wesley.  If I do become Moderator, then yes, I’m away a lot, and Kathryn would once again be our acting Lead Minister.  But I would also be home a lot, bringing back “news from abroad”; and preaching occasionally.  And then, at the end of three years, I would return to you, my family; full-time; and we’d all enter into yet another part of our journey together. 
 

I have a new favourite word, from my time over in Israel… Arabic…. “Inshallah!”  Meaning… “As God wills.” And that’s what this whole journey is about… from first questions to discernment to decisions…. 

 

Inshallah, as God wills … a word big enough to hold us all.