The
General Assembly will be in Portland this year; my flight is booked three weeks
from today. As I look forward to our “Presbyterian Class Reunion,” (so-called
because pastors who attend invariably reconnect with seminary classmates with
whom they have not spoken in years, as well as colleagues from previous
pastorates), I do so with a combination of hopefulness,
anticipation and dread: hopefulness because there are initiatives on the
Assembly’s agenda that I think can suggest a new path for our life together
that avoids dichotomous, win-lose conversations; anticipation because those who
attend the Assembly are shown the many ways the God who is sovereign in love
through Jesus Christ is at work to bring joy and justice, salvation and shalom;
and dread because most people will only hear about the three or four (maybe one
or two) most controversial issues and define the entire Assembly based on this
limited view.
As
I look forward with hopefulness, anticipation and dread, I would like to share
the words of the Rev. Clay Allard from Dallas, who wrote an opinion piece for The Presbyterian Outlook. Clay’s counsel
on engaging the Assembly also works for engaging one another in our
congregations:
·
Stay
connected when it hurts. The easiest thing to do is withdraw when the assumptions of
the majority inflict pain on the minority. We can only hold on if we have
committed time and attention from one another. We must
stay attentive to one another even when we know that attention will bring pain,
discomfort and struggle.
·
Respect,
even when it feels like respect is not due or returned. We can only be responsible for
our own attitude and self; that said, others can call out of us disrespect and
dismissal when they say things with which we adamantly disagree. Division is
fed by disrespect; love is killed by it. Make sure if
there is a crucifixion occurring that there isn’t a hammer or nails in your
hands.
·
Give
up outcomes as a way to understand the path. God does not owe us a mapped route to where God wants
us to be. Sometimes God’s call leads us to actions that seem frustratingly
slow/counterproductive/useless. Remember that God’s ways are not our ways, and
persist in the path you are called to be on – even when it seems to be
counterproductive. God loves us – God doesn’t give a serpent instead of a fish,
or a rock instead of bread. Trust that.
·
Work
for an audience of One. If pastors are (as someone once said) dogs at a whistlers’
convention, we need to know God’s whistle best. It is difficult to make people
unhappy, to disappoint them, to be rejected and disrespected. But if Jesus
Christ is happy with me at the end of the day, I know I’ve done well, no matter
what those around me may think or feel. I’ll have to live more intimately and
eternally with Jesus Christ’s opinion of me than I will with anyone else’s –
even my own.
When
the saints go marching in I plan to march with ‘em,
Brad
Munroe