Monday, July 28, 2008

Recalculating as a Process Theology Metaphor


After a wonderful week of teaching Emotional Intelligence in an experiential learning mode (more on that in the next post), which included a module on process thought as a theological reflection partner for a relational leadership model, I was moved by the sermon I heard Sunday from my favorite preacher. Full disclosure: she's my wife, Rev. Deborah Fortel (shown at left), Interim Pastor at St. John Presbyterian Church in New Albany. Her sermon follows:
"Recalculating…"
Romans 8:29-28
St. John, July 27, 2008

We have a new companion in our car. It’s a Nuvi, a little computer that connects with a global positioning satellite and gives us directions that get us from one place to another. David’s two kids presented him with the Nuvi for Father’s Day, and having it with us when we were driving around San Francisco and northern California on our vacation was a great stress-saver. It’s like having the most skilled map-reader in the world with you, keeping you from getting lost, even if, like me, you are seriously map-and-direction-challenged. Now since David is a very generous man, and because he doesn’t do a lot of driving around for his work, he has let me use the Nuvi. The other day, when I got in the car, going someplace I knew perfectly well how to find, the Nuvi came on. Out of curiosity, I used the screen to direct the Nuvi to take me home, and then went off in a completely different direction…just to see what would happen. I pulled out of the church parking lot, and the Nuvi told me to turn right, but I turned left. Immediately, the computer voice, (a calm pleasant woman’s voice) said, “Recalculating.” And a few seconds later came the instruction to go 200 feet and turn left. But I turned right. And the computer said, “Recalculating.” And again gave me instructions to get me home. Again I went on my own way and again the computer announced that it was “Recalculating.” And again gave me different directions to follow. And so it went. I haven’t tested it out, but I really think that I could go 3,000 miles in the opposite direction and the Nuvi would keep “recalculating” and giving me a new way to get me home.
Now I always want to be careful about what kinds of metaphors I use for God, so I don’t want to push this very far – after all, God is definitely not a computer – although I might argue that God could choose to speak in a woman’s voice! Still, I think that God’s love for us and guidance to us is something like that GPS device. God has an infinite capacity to be patient with our mistakes, foolishness and outright downright sin – and God is always offering us a way to use our wrong turns and mistaken shortcuts to get us back on the path to the place we really want to go, recalculating over and over again on our behalf and for our good.
That is how I hear Paul’s often-quoted words from Romans, “All things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to God’s purposes.” (Romans 8:29) Paul means that God is at work in and through everything that happens to help us bring good from the events of our lives, and to guide us through even the most difficult and challenging times – even the ones we bring on ourselves
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Because it is sometimes easy to misunderstand Paul, I invite you to notice with me some things that Paul is not saying.

1. Paul does not say that everything that happens is good. And that is a relief to me, and probably to you as well. It would be very hard indeed for me to find any way to name as “good” all the hardships and sufferings in our world. Sometimes, of course, suffering and hardship can lead to learning and growth and we see it quickly. But sometimes as far as I can see they are only pain and hardship that may, in fact, sour and harden a person. Sometimes, tragedy is just awful tragedy in which nothing good can be seen – for a long time, if ever.
2. Paul does not claim that everything that happens is caused by God. The floods in Indiana are not the proof that God is utterly disgusted by our friends less than a hundred miles north of us, nor did God single out the children who died in the schools of China at the time of the earthquake and mark them for death. Natural disasters are the consequence of natural forces at work, sometimes worsened by human efforts to control the environment. Exceptionally heavy rains overflow riverbanks, and tectonic plates shift far beneath the surface of the earth. And bad things happen to good people and bad people alike.
3. Paul is certainly not suggesting that God is responsible for human evil. The long-delayed arrest this week of Radovan Karadzic reminds us of the origin of the terrible term “ethnic cleansing.” Karadzic is the man who planned the massacre of 8,000 men and boys in pursuit of “ethnic cleansing” of Bosnian Muslims. He is a horrifying sample of what humankind at our worst can do. Let us be clear that it was not God’s doing – it was human evil in a particularly dreadful form.

Through suffering and tragedy of every kind, God weeps with those who suffer and yearns over us and our world. God loves us persistently and waits for us to find our way back to healthy, peaceful, faithful patterns of life. When Paul says that “all things work for good for those who love God…” he is describing God’s way with us. God never gives up on anyone. And because of God’s great love for us, God is with us, partnering with us as we learn how to be God’s faithful people. And here is the most radical thing I will ever say: I believe that even Radovan Karadzic, even Adolf Hitler, even Osama bin Laden, could, if they only would, be encompassed by the love and mercy of God. No one is excluded from God’s love and mercy except by their own choice to turn away from the love of God.
Paul affirms God at work with us, in the hearts and souls of those who love God. God is involved with us, choosing to be for us and on our side, but choosing, also, to give us the freedom to keep taking wrong turns. God doesn’t wipe out our troubles or manipulate events. Instead, God stays with us. In the joyful times, in the challenging times, in the worst times we will ever experience, God is with us, and if we are able to listen for the voice of divine love, we will discover how even tragedies can become part of the developing pattern of our lives that moves us toward the good that God intends for us.
Some years ago I saw an exhibit of Chinese technology from the thirteenth century. What I remember most clearly is a special loom that was developed for weaving the very finest silk fabrics from silk threads as fine as a human hair. It is a two-person loom, constructed on two levels. One person stands on the upper level of the loom where the design is clearly visible. That person is responsible for knowing all the possible patterns that can be woven from the silk threads. The person who actually does the weaving is seated in front of the loom at the lower level. From the weaver’s vantage point the design is never seen clearly, for the weaver works on the side of the fabric that will become the inside of the garment. The person on the upper level of the loom sees the emerging pattern of the fabric, including not only variations, but also mistakes made by the weaver. The most important part of the task of the weaver’s partner on the upper level is to help the weaver incorporate any mistakes made into the design of the fabric so that new patterns emerge. And when more mistakes are made, yet more creative ways are discovered by the two working as collaborators in the creation of useful beauty.
And this, too, has become a part of the way I understand how God is with us. We do the best we can – and sometimes we do the worst we can – in weaving the fabric of our lives. We can’t see the pattern of the whole because we are in the midst of living. Often we get things wrong. Sometimes we deliberately muddle the pattern of our lives, but still God is with us, gently guiding us, and steadfastly loving us. There is, I trust, an overarching purpose of God at work in and through human lives and human history as a whole, but God is usually subtle and gentle with us. We can so easily close our ears to what God is saying…but no matter how far wrong we go, there is the divine voice saying gently, “Recalculating…” and offering us another way to create of our lives something good and beautiful, another way to find the place we most want to be. God yearns over us, urges us toward wholeness, and loves us into faithfulness. There is no end to God’s love, no mistake too awful to be incorporated into God’s great design, no way for any of us ever to be so lost that God cannot guide us home again.
“All things work for good for those who love God…”

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Time for a new Gardiner Spring Resolution?


In the wake of the PC(USA) General Assembly Action to propose to the presbyteries that G-6.0106b, a paragraph of the denomination's constitution explicitly blocking faithful, monogamous lesbian and gay members from serving in church office, the next discussion is about what will happen in the presbyteries. More specifically, the discussion is focusing on whether pastors, members and whole congregations, like the New Wineskins group, who have been talking loudly for the past two years about withdrawing from the denomination will take this action as a prompt to go ahead and leave, or whether some in that group will decided to stay and "fight" this latest move toward a more inclusive and open church.
My own passion on this discussion leads me away from my usual pro-union position--I was a strong supporter of the reunion of the southern and northern streams of our tradition in the 1970's and 1980's. Today I'd like to start a thread of this discussion about whether we should craft a new "Gardiner Spring Resolution" for our presbyteries.
This is a real departure for me, because I'm usually critical of the action of the 1861 General Assembly which adopted the resolution of the Rev. Dr. Spring (shown above, from reformedpersepectives.com), pastor of Brick Presbyterian Church in New York City, requiring commissioners to pledge allegiance to the "integrity" of the United States of America. It seemed to me to be an unnecessary hurdle that led to the split of the north and the south.
Practical theology leads one to reflect on current situations and re-think theological views and political strategies. Thus I'm now moving to a position that would prevent anyone who is planning to withdraw from the denomination from voting in a presbytery's deliberation on the proposed constitutional amendment to remove G-6.0106b. In other words, should we create a resolution that requires a statement of allegiance to the PC(USA) in order to vote on that amendment.
My practical theological reflection includes another piece of history, more recent than Gardiner Spring. In the preparation for Presbyterian reunion in the 1970's and early 1980's, a group of conservative southern Presbyterians were appointed to the Reunion Committee in order to assure that their perspectives were considered in the plan for reunion. Rev. Andy Jumper, pastor of a prominent congregation in St. Louis MO, was part of that group. He used his considerable persuasive power to frame and shape the Plan of Reunion and the proposed new constitution in his image. Then shortly after reunion was enacted, he led his congregation out of the denomination. I still feel the anger of betrayal in that set of actions, and that anger and reflection on that bit of history prompts me to raise this question for discussion.
Not that any of us can ever predict our future actions, but we can be more honest and transparent about our current intentions. If I were planning or hoping to withdraw, I would personally recuse myself from voting on that constitutional amendment. Since I'm not planning on withdrawing, I would be happy to pledge my allegiance to this denomination.

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Presbyterian Stated Clerk Heritage--Gradye Parsons








There's a kind of historical joy in seeing a new Stated Clerk of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) elected and installed at the recent General Assembly meeting in San Jose. Gradye Parsons has been a very popular member of the staff of the outgoing Stated Clerk, and did a very fine job with the question and answer time on the floor of the assembly.
I'm reflecting on the half-century of memory I bring to this event, starting with the saintly Eugene Carson Blake of the northern stream (shown at bottom). He sort of set the tone for both ecumenical and social justice stances that marked the denomination for the middle part of the 20th century. It was Blake who envisioned the Consultation on Church Union, for example. He was succeeded by William P. Thompson in the northern flank of the family. Jim Andrews (with the white Beard) was clerk of the southern stream at the time of Reunion and Thompson and Andrews jointly oversaw the early years of reunion. Andrews was chosen Stated Clerk afterwards and he retired and was succeeded by Cliff Kirkpatrick. Blake, Thompson and Andrews have all since died.
Although, since reunion, the social justice role has been severely limited, the ecumenical roles have continued. Blake, Thompson and Andrews were all presidents of the National Council of Churches, and Kirkpatrick is president of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches.
The Stated Clerk is the chief ecclesiastical officer, with oversight of the denomination's constitutional polity, the connectional system of governing bodies, and the national meetings, and serves as primary parliamentarian for the biennial General Assembly. The Clerk is a major public face of the denomination and the kind of personal and spiritual presence that each of these men has represented serves us well.
Welcome to this grand succession of great leaders, Gradye. I offer prayers of intercession for your strength and courage for the days to come!
Welcome to this grand