based on I Corinthians 15
Text: ©2006 Carolyn Winfrey Gillette.
Used by permission.
Tune: BEACH SPRING
(God Whose Giving Knows No Ending)
Listen, sisters! Listen, brothers
To the news that we proclaim;
Spread the word and tell your neighbors:
We have life in Jesus' name.
All because God loves us dearly,
Jesus died for all our sin.
On the third day, God showed clearly:
Love has conquered, death can't win.
This is not a land for the faint-hearted.
As congregations involved with the New Wineskins Association prepare to leave the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) -- many of them bound for what they see as the promised land of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church -- first they will wade through the swamps of property disputes.
Already, roughly 10 lawsuits involving church departures and property are pending in courts across the country -- and, in other places, presbyteries and congregations are trying to negotiate their way towards some sort of amicable parting.
Whether it be spouted by the Jesus Seminar scholars, the Da Vinci Code author or The Lost Tomb of Jesus producer, this is the season when magazines give undeserved attention to Jesus' detractors. In spite of their allegedly formidable arguments, confident Christians worldwide will gather in huge numbers on Easter morning chanting, "He is risen. He is risen. He is risen indeed."
Such affirmations continue undeterred, because the arguments supporting the resurrection and the legacy of Christ-changed lives far overwhelm lame claims about some Passover Plot.
This is a good question for church officers to consider, especially at Easter. But what does it really mean? If we preach Christ raised from the dead on the third day, do we have a concrete sense that he still exists and is vital in our midst? Or are we thinking in symbolic terms, "He lives in our memories" or on a more pedestrian level that we encounter at funerals, "I just know that Uncle Fred is looking down at us right now"?
How alive is Christ in your congregation?
In light of the coming revisions to the Book of Order - I hope the responsible parties will keep in mind our..
Background links: "Marks of the True Church" (Original article by Merwyn S. Johnson) "Faith is a Result of Salvation?" (Open letter response..
The board of directors of the Montreat Conference Center is asking for a six-month "season of prayer, study and dialogue" regarding the request that Montreat Church has made to be dismissed from the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
The historic North Carolina congregation -- where Billy Graham's wife, Ruth, has long been a member -- voted 311-27 on Jan. 21 to ask to be dismissed to the Evangelical Presbyterian Church.
Between Two Ribs
that spear was cast,
a deadly blow,
an icy blast.
The Warmth of life
came streaming forth
then, earth to mud,
a Balm ....
Of endless worth.
Lent 6 ¢ Introduction
This week's Face By the Wayside is an anonymous one. He is simply called a Disciple and represents all those nameless ones who took off and followed Jesus because there was something in the way he looked, something in the things he said, something in who he was, that made life richer, fuller, truer than it had even been before. Don't ask them what it was. Most of them, all of them really, didn't even begin to understand until much later, much much later. All they wanted to do was to be near him, to learn from him, to laugh and even weep with him, and maybe even to become just the tiniest bit more like he was, even if it came to walking on water!
If you were going to invent a religion, what would you include?
Probably you'd begin with devotion: we humans have a need to worship, pray, and maybe offer expressions of sacrifice to the deity.
Probably you would add some kind of divine revelation. A seer, sage, or prophet can speak on behalf of the deity, offering words of wisdom to address the human condition.
No doubt you would incorporate teachings about morals and ethics. Any decent religion requires its adherents to love one another, to promote justice for all, and to live their lives in the light of high standards embodied by the deity.
Would you also include the notion of the deity becoming human? Most religionists would think it outlandish to profane the life of the spirit like that.
When Percy Strickland and his wife, Angie, decided to buy a house, they did what many Presbyterians would never dare to do. They left the suburbs. They moved into an inner-city neighborhood in Richmond, Va. -- becoming one of the few white families in an impoverished and mostly-black area.
They spent the next months meeting the neighbors -- initially, by playing basketball on nearby courts and helping kids with their homework. It got so that every time Percy pulled his truck up to his house, he'd find a dozen or so kids on the front porch, waiting for him.
The Stricklands opened the doors of their home to these children. They started an after-school tutoring program. They got volunteers from their church and the community involved. Others moved into the city and joined their work -- altogether about 10 houses of people.
They have created -- from scratch, from passion, from an open-hearted faith -- an intentional community called CHAT, or Church Hill Activities & Tutoring.
When we are hurt or offended, we cover our tender hearts to protect against further "heart attack." Underneath the cover--denial, resentment, or rage--can come pain, memories, and flashbacks. If we are honest with ourselves, we reluctantly admit that in the late show that plays in our mind, we often watch reruns of hatred, resentment, bitterness, hostility, anger and fear. Worse yet, these images and thoughts do not always intrude forcefully. We too often invite and indulge them. Then we feel vandalized, ashamed, and violated because of the ugliness we permitted our minds dwell upon. How can we stop these experiences of un-forgiveness, bidden and unbidden?
Any discussion of forgiveness must surely open with the fifth petition of the Lord's Prayer which reads,
Forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. (NRSV)
This prayer was crafted within the piety of first century Judaism and its famous eighteen prayers (Amidah) most of which are thought to have been in use at the time of Jesus.
One of those prayers (No. 6) is called "For forgiveness" and reads,
Forgive us, O our Father, for we have sinned; pardon us, O our King, for we have transgressed; for thou dost pardon and forgive. Blessed are thou, O Lord, who art gracious, and dost abundantly forgive.
(Used by permission of the author.)
When I knelt to wash the feet of an African-American woman who is an elder of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), I knew the moral universe of my youth had vanished. A cynic viewing the action only moments before when she knelt to wash my feet could argue that nothing had changed. But when the roles changed, even a cynic could acknowledge that deep change has occurred.
It certainly did to me in last Maundy Thursday, when a small group of Christians gathered to remember the gospel story of the night Jesus washed his disciples' feet. We listened to the story and I said a few words about servant leadership. Then we came forward, two by two, to wash one another's feet, reenacting Jesus' humble example of love.
Jesus' parable of the laborers in the vineyard is one of those stories that sounds increasingly outrageous the longer we think about it. The manager's decision to pay the same full-day's wage whether workers labored a single hour or a full day strikes us as grossly unfair. And Jesus, of course, makes matters worse by stepping in and telling us that this picture of scandalously unfair treatment is in fact what the kingdom of heaven is like.
What are we to make of that? God is unfair? God plays favorites? God violates the norms of justice? What comes leaping out at us from the parable, of course, is that the late hires did not deserve the reward they got. They did not qualify for such compensation. We are quite naturally outraged by this miscarriage of justice, and if this is how God does things, isn't there something just wrong about that?
I asked a non-Presbyterian friend not long ago to read what has become not so fondly known by some as "The PUP Report," and to give me his views as an outsider on what all the stir is about. He said, after a serious reading of the document, and an additional look at the actions of the 2006 Birmingham General Assembly, he was a bit mystified by why anyone would get upset over what our denomination had done. Nothing much seemed to have really changed. The Book of Order is still the same. The actions of the Assembly did not change the paragraph that seems to concern some so much.
Recently, I joined 49 other adults in traveling down to New Orleans. For the sake of this trip and our well being throughout our weeklong stay, our group raised more than $28,000. I am certain that we left the dozen homes we worked on in better condition. I am also confident that $28,000 could have been used to reconstruct many more buildings if we had only donated the money to local causes.
The question then becomes, why did we go?
In most Presbyterian circles, the term "calling" is debated and discussed almost ad nauseam, but I trust that the reader's constitution is strong enough to permit a little discourse on the subject. Though we represented many different churches from across North Carolina, each individual committed to the same Bible verse for the week, Isaiah 6:8: Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I; send me!"
The question still becomes, why were we sent?
by N. T. Wright. Downers Grove, Ill: InterVarsity, 2006. ISBN 0-8308-3398-6. Hb., 176 pp. $18.
Every pastor and every politician should read N.T. Wright's newest book, Evil and the Justice of God. It serves as both a concise explanation of what the Christian faith has to say about evil and also as a way of understanding all of the terrible things happening in the world around us.
Wright starts by discussing the problem of evil, which is not only a philosophical riddle but a terrible reality in our world today. Wright says that most of us in the West have accepted the Enlightenment myth of progress. Thus we tend to ignore evil in the world for as long as we can, and when it slaps us in the face, we respond to its existence in immature and inappropriate ways.
Editor's Note: The following essay is the seventh in a series dealing with topics of interest and importance to Presbyterians. Author Johnson explains: "The report from the General Assembly Task Force on Peace, Unity, and Purity of the Church provides us both the occasion and the urgency for theological dialogue within the PC(USA). This and succeeding essays are offered as a constructive effort in that direction."
Sola gratia--grace alone--may well be the heart of the Gospel for Presbyterians, going back to the Reformation and beyond. Salvation, that is, comes from God alone in Christ alone through faith alone by grace alone. Grace preserves the gift character of each item in the list. Without grace each of the other items could become a mere means or a method we humans can manage or manipulate on our own. When that happens, God is irrelevant. One way to move beyond the deep divisions within the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) may be to recover the historic, Reformed vision of grace.
(PNS) The Mission Development Resources Committee (MDRC) of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) recently awarded more than $1 million in grant money to 14 church-related projects across the United States.
The short-term start-up funds will enable congregations, presbyteries, and synods to organize new churches, transform existing congregations, or develop church-based community outreach programs.
Presiding Bishop of the Church Of God In Christ, Bishop G. E. Patterson, passed away March 20 at 4:03 p.m. at Methodist University Hospital in Memphis, Tenn., as a result of heart failure. Patterson was surrounded by his wife, Mrs. Louise Patterson, and his family.
Patterson served as the leader of the fourth-largest Protestant religious denomination in the world with an estimated membership of 6.5 million members. He led the denomination since November 2000.
More information about funeral arrangements will be posted later.
There have recently appeared in the electronic version of Presbyterian Outlook a number of "open letters" responding to the New Wineskins Convocation. To date, six different open letters have criticized to some degree or another the finding by the New Wineskins Strategy Team that departure from the PC(USA) is a faithful option for those called by God to do so.
I suppose it should not be surprising that those most invested in the man-made construct known as a denomination, who place so much faith in its polity and bureaucracy, would be opposed to any diminution in the core membership of the group. Thus, four of the open letters were written by executive/general presbyters (one of whom is also one of the newest members of the denomination's Advisory Committee on the Constitution): Messrs Hooker, Wyatt, Evans, and Ms. McRight. Only one serving associate pastor, Ms. Jongewaard, and one elder, Mr. Newkirk have commented. With one exception, all of the letters have been polity-based and there has been no real response in any of the open letters to the Biblical and theological concerns that have led us to the point at which we now find ourselves.
Presbyterians for Renewal has named Harry S. Hassall interim National Wee Kirk funding consultant, effective April 1, Hassall will be working with designated fundraisers in the nine regional Wee Kirk conferences across the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to mentor and encourage them in their ministry and to deepen and broaden financial support for these conference opportunities.
Hassall was for many years on the staff of Highland Park Church in Dallas, Texas. But he has a long background relating to the needs of small-membership churches. Beginning as member of a General Assembly-level planning team for small membership churches in the mid 70s, Hassall was responsible for birthing the Wee Kirk ministry, coordinating the first national Wee Kirk Conference in 1980 at Montreat.
Here are your instructions. Take out two pens, one red and the other blue. Read through this edition of The Outlook, underlining everything you like with the blue pen and everything you don't like with the red. Then compare the blue-marked words with the red-marked, asking yourself, 1) "Why do I like or dislike this?" and 2) "Why do other Christians of sincere conviction like or dislike this?"
Before taking on that assignment, do finish reading this editorial.
by Hannah Elliott
©2007 by Associated Baptist Press. Used by permission.
AUSTIN, Texas -- The characterization of Muslim and Christian conflict as a "clash of civilizations" only prolongs problems and encourages dangerous forms of fundamentalism, one prominent scholar told listeners at an ethics conference Feb. 19.
Charles Kimball, who has visited the Middle East 40 times and worked closely with Congress, the White House and the State Department, spoke at Ethics Without Borders, an event in Austin, Texas, organized by the Texas Baptist-affiliated Christian Life Commission.
A professor of religion at Wake Forest University, Kimball called the clash of civilizations framework "an extremely unhelpful one" for people in the United States, most of whom know very little about Islam.
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