Motion and emotion: Waiting to believe us
The retiring moderator of the United Reformed Church General Assembly, the Revd Dr Michael Jagessar, gave the following reflection during thefirst business session of General Assembly 2014.
Moderator, members of General Assembly, distinguished guests and visitors: grace to you in the name of Jesus, leader of a different free world, who offers abundantlife for all.It is no joking matter to say that it has been a very full two years in this role as your moderator– one filled with surprises, joys, frustrations, much learning, and mischievous moments.Unlike Paul, I was not whipped, pelted with stones, shipwrecked or left adrift in the open sea – though I can now better grasp the cost of leadership at this level in the life of the church.
There are many to say thanks to: my GA moderator colleagues, various colleagues at Church House, across the URC, and my RJiM network who were genuinely concerned about my well-being; the many who have been kind and affirming – always willing to share their wisdom. So,to the many whose prayers embraced and lifted me on this journey:to Tracey who most competently and exceptionally organised/managed my moderatorial schedule; to my very wise, gifted and kind chaplain (Melanie),and to my family who had to put up with my very busy schedule: I say a huge thank you. I have run the race – stuck to the discipline of sharing the good news of a loving, gracious and generous God - and I know I have kept my faith. Whether I have encouraged you and the wider church to keep the faith is a matter I leave for your judgement.
Among the emphases I have tried to articulate as I changed batting partners on a sticky wicket was to affirm and encourage us to live as a blessed people, seeing everything from the perspective of generosity. A constant question I have asked: can we change the narrative/stories of scarcity we tell of ourselves? So whether it was Arttalk, conversations around evangelism, sexuality, money, ministries, church growth, future of the Church, learning church –next chapter, new forms of ministry, mission etc I worked with the conviction that we are not alone and are blessed! I knew that the small ship called the urcwould have to ride some choppy waves, make emergency berthing, dump some of the dead weight to ride the storms. I lost count of the number of times I was seasick, lost, anxious,and tired yet amazingly through grace could sense us feeling our way to lighthouse and shore. We certainly turned corners and here we are with renewed energy and exciting possibilities before us. In retrospect, I wished I could have been more adamant in encouraging us that:instead of worrying about finances, to release our grip on the accounts we are guarding for hard-times, instead of talking and quarrelling about sexuality, to just delight in and enjoy itand instead of nailing colourful theological flags that we could have broken out more in poetry, music and silence to catch a glimpse of the Divine.
Travelling across our church, I have seen much to affirm that God is not yet finished with us – a very young church. I have seen and heard numerous stories of faith and faithfulness – stories thatno amount of statistical analyses can capture, figure out, or know how to rationalise. Our moderatorial blogs tried to capture some of these! My simple thesis still stands: “we have been generously blessed and when our starting/entry point is that of the habit of generosity we are released with new energy to face the challenges before us in exciting ways that witness to way of Godin Christ.”For we are not alone! “The URC is a small church, with a large heart” I trust that this habit of generosity would continue to shape and inform all our conversations here and beyond. It does not mean that church will continue to be as our ancestors and many of us knew it! God may be unchanging but everything around us is changing, and “church” has to die to some of the former ways and rediscover new skins and forms in order to carry the treasure in the sort of earthen vessels that would indeed communicate “good news” and spread its lingering fragrance.We have a story to tell!The world is still waiting to hear and believe!
Sometime ago I saw the movie: The Courageous heart of IrenaSendler (Polish Social Worker). In one of the scenes, we have the wife of the Rabbi saying to him, as he did not wish his granddaughter to be smuggled into a convent, imagining she may possibly be converted to Catholicism: “Chaim, I have not said anything as yet, but I wish to give my opinion now. The child should be smuggled away to avoid death at the hands of the Nazi.” But Chaimwasstill resistant: “We can’t trust the Christians (Catholics)”. His wife continued: “Chaim, you loved me since as a girl with pigtails. You should know by now that an opinion from me is not a suggestion!”
Allow me, in the spirit of generosity to make a few observations – you can think of these as opinions – but most importantly remember them as we work the agenda before us, “drinking deeper” in faith and faithfulness.
There are threatening dispositions in and around us that pose a danger to our life together and we need to recogniseand name them in order to counterthem: There is the danger offunctional atheism – related to functional rationalism –which raises questions about our integrity as a people of faith.Do our practices suggest that we really believe the story of grace and generosity-that with God all things are possible? As a called and gifted people with high commitment to a “learning church” how prone are we tothe dangers of functional stupidityas we discern and carve out long term policies, visions and plans?Do we give in “group-idity” doing something just because others around us seem to think it is the best thing to do or it is the next new thing?These dispositions are dangerous to our discerning vocation! As we enter into the business of GA make a mental note when you sense being pulled by any of these tendencies. And remember that when our personal and ideological preferences become greater than our passion for the gospel, we are skating on thin ice. For when we become wrapped up in self, we miss the opportunities knocking at our doors.
As a visible minority ethnic person, it has been constantly pointed out to me that the URC must be an inclusive Church to appoint someone like myself in this leadership role. We do have a rich heritage of being a welcoming and inclusive church. We do well when it comes to representation. However, enabling full participation of all around a common and reconfigured tableremains the challenge!The fact that I am a moderator of GA is not necessarily indicative that more space around the table has been created or is being re-negotiated to include the diverseand culturally shaped giftingsI mayembody. In fact, to be accepted and to be listened to, I have had to largely fit into a white-male-extroverted-hetero-sexual-abled-bodied-normative-framework (our default mode).This is the framework we feel assures us that things are under control, safe and comfortable, while ourhost of good intentions become a form of rationalised armchair addiction. The habit of all around the table being mutually inconvenienced for the sake of the economy of the host (God in Christ), and in the specific context of finding a new identity, is proving to be far too uncomfortable and demanding!Belonging together must be renegotiated! Learning how to generously do our God-talk together, without reducing the practices of the “newcomer” as underdeveloped, conservative, childish or those of the “host” churches as impoverished spiritually, is an urgent task. As we have our debates: remember we are all in need here! We need to be open, accountable and honest about our deploying of power!
One of the things I have observed about us is a protestant faith that tends towards far too much activism. My sense is that it is premised on an unhelpfuloveremphasis of God as creator asactuspurus – with no space or agency for God as “rester”. Hence, we invest little in and are unable to develop and nurture an interior life to feed our activism. We do not know how to be silent, how to pause or to see silence as a countercultural act in today’s world. Related to this is our suspicion of mystery, while favouring rationality. We are quick to think the faith, to deduce and reason out every act of mystery, miracle, magic and grace. Mystery terrifies us and hooked to a rational/linearway of thinking we emphasise “growing in the faith”. Christians who subject their scriptures, liturgies and creeds to critical analysis are assumed to have grown up.No wonder what is charismatic and emotional (many black churches) are considered immature and childish expressions of the faith. It is easy to see how this leads to arrogance and superiority.Can it be that the Protestant tendency (its own idolatry) to overemphasise word and give agency to rationalism, along with its culturally linear thinking and either-or categories may be a significant contributor to our continuing theological polarisations? Perhaps a rediscovery of sacramental ‘mystery’ may open up ways for us to reimagine community in terms of in-between-space(s) and ‘homelessness’ around a common table.Our wordy tendency drains us, makes us tired, creates more polarisations in our life together and we miss the in-between-spaces of the Divine acting in our midst. We end upcrucifying God and God’s spirit with our desire forprecise words to parcel out truth. I hope in our conversations at this GA we can give more agency to mystery – to silences – to discerning the in-between-spaces. We need to move beyond yes and no as our answers to urgent and vexing questions: there is “I don’t know” (underscoring humility and our dependence on God) and even better “total silence”. For the question or matter may be larger and more profound than our tame efforts at trying to discern the mind of God or even wanting to speak on God’s behalf!
Many of you would not know this: I mostly find myself moving along the liberal end of the theological spectrum.You would not even know that I have written/edited books and numerous essays on theology, worship and practice of ministry, much less read anything I have written (Black postcolonial theologian).I have come to the conclusion that certain habits of liberals are detrimental to our life together. I am referring to an intransigent, a dismissive and often arrogant habit of some liberal colleagues, so prejudiced that they can hardly see anything of merit, goodness, of worth or learning in the theological discourse and conversations of those we pigeonhole as coming from “conservative, evangelical or pentecostal end” of the theological spectrum. Liberal faith (and evangelical) need to engage more with complexities to find its true life. However or wherever we locate ourselves theologically on the diverse theological spectrum one of the dangers of naming or categorising our faith and religious beliefis that we can end up totalising what is more complex and blurred than we wish to admit - resulting in theological polarities. There is the intra-diversity that we often fail to recognise and seek to understand. A disempowering habit is when liberal colleagues view our BMEcongregations, leaders and pastors as conservative with underdeveloped theologies. When liberals label evangelicals as stuck to a narrow reading of scriptures, and evangelicals represent liberals as people with no faith, no love, and little (if any) knowledge of the scriptures as the inspired word of God we bring shame to the gospel of Jesus Christ. At work in our various categorisation and representation are un-deconstructed prejudices. This is not to deny the diverse lens through which we read Scriptures and formulate our theological positions. The reality is that most of us move along the theological spectrum. Within traditional/evangelical/conservative perspectives there are liberal perspectives on a range of issues,while also holding restrictive views on leadership, gender and sexuality to give a few examples. There are also liberals who would espouse the most radical view on what it means to be a Christian and almost every aspect of theology, while at the same time holding narrow and traditional views on styles of leadership, the way we govern our life together, order, church polity, worship, hymns, how we conduct our business etc. By not paying more attention to the complexity of our theological views we often end up talking cross-purposes. We all need to interrogate our prejudices- to be aware of our own internal processes. This is important given that there are many of us who walk around with un-deconstructed notions, especially on the rarely questioned inherited deposits of faith and ideas that inform our God-talk. We need to break out of a liberal-conservative dichotomy, political correctness,the inability to engage with and understand the intra-diversity within each group, and our own need to learn.What would the church look like if all of us become humble learners?What if together we tithe, observed a Sabbath and radically disengaged from social and economic structures every week?What if together we engage in serious and honest study of our scriptural texts and heritage and applied their lessons to the issues of today? Maybe we will only eat food that's sustainably grown, humanely raised, and for which workers are paid a living wage, even if that rules out most of the food we currently eat -- and explain to our outraged children, "It's because in this family, we try to walk the Jesus way." Maybe straight couples refuse to get married until there is marriage equality for everyone -- and explain: "It's because of our faith." Maybe we stop to pray two, three, five times a day to keep ourselves oriented toward God….
I have never been the owner of a Peugeot car – good French Protestant family though they are! But a recent ad for one of its new cars caught my eye: “motion and emotion” – two relevant descriptors for church, theology, mission and ministry and the possibilities before us: church in motion – people with emotion. The gospel does not allow us to crawl into holes, to avoid conflicts, or to stay home, draw the curtains and curl up. The gospel compels us to discern to speak, act, or be silent to discern- so that God’s good news of bread for the hungry and healing for the wounded and peace for the abused can be known. Let us bring hopeto those who thought they were lost and could not be found; to a denomination made anxious by depressing news that it wonders if it can even stand; to congregations/individuals that are ready to try something new. Let us bring the good news that God’s love is wider than we can ever imagine; thatwe are not a people in need of more condemnation. And let us together build a church, and a world, that reflects God’s heart!
God is here! Indeed!
Go well!Step out!Sin boldly! Grace abounds!
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