A Belated Presby-Meme

Two persons, Quotidian Grace and Aric Clark, tagged me for a Presby-Meme which was started by moderator hopeful Bruce Reyes-Chow. It’s been several weeks ago and because of busyness, a short stay in the hospital and the flu I put them off. Actually I thought I would just forget about it, since as I keep protesting, I don’t like such things anyway. But as I have been reading other's answers, including the National Network of Presbyterian College Women, and thinking about it I find I do have some answers. Still, I have to admit that although I am an orthodox lady, I have some very unorthodox answers to these questions. In fact I may twist the questions just a bit. (And I warn all that this will be long with a lot of side tracks. A Meme can be a dangerous thing.)

1. What is your earliest memory of being distinctly Presbyterian?
I did not grow up in the Presbyterian Church. After spending fifteen years in an independent church in a warehouse my husband and I decided to find a denominational church for our home. We walked into Fremont Presbyterian Church on the first Sunday of Jazz festival in Sacramento. We were faced at once with several things: A rousing good jazz choir, long forgotten(by us) stained glass windows and a gospel filled sermon by the then Pastor Darrell Johnson, and sorry to say one of the most heretical Sunday school classes I have ever attended. (Thankfully that last bit has changed hopefully forever.) It also rained that day for the first time after a very, very long drought. I wrote a poem about it and that Sunday’s sermon. This is one of my side trips.

Rains in California

Rain, washing even wounding
The proud dry dirt I have not
Touched with hoe or spade or hand.
Luxuriant growth protrudes
Here and there
In flower beds, in herb and produce plot,
Yet, dry barren spots I left untouched.
The needed rain, the longed for rain,
The rain we waited for three years,
Has come and washing,
Wounding, melting hardness,
Prepared what neither I nor they could dream or vision.
Such rain in May in California
Has drawn my hands to try again
The soil and seed
And work the beauty in
Empty places.

The empty places,
Hard, unfruitful, washed
This morning
With the grace of word.
A word full of past, and now
And future, yet
Longed for like rains in California.

2. On what issue/question should the PC(USA) spend LESS energy and time?
I am almost certain, with this question, conservatives are thinking "we are so weary of going over and over the issues of homosexuality and pluralism and the Lordship of Christ. Shouldn’t the progressives just back off?" And I am sure the progressives are asking “why can’t the Church just allow us our rights and get on with more important things?” But our Church has a Lord and a King and he through his word sets the rules of the Kingdom. Those issues, the ordination of practicing homosexuals and the Lordship of Jesus Christ in the midst of a pluralistic world will not go away, should not go away until the Lord of the Church has his way. We will gag on those issues until we make Christ Lord over our sexual sins and Lord over all other ideologies.

3. On what issue/question should the PC(USA) spend MORE energy and time?
I wanted to put missions here which thankfully the Church has begun to pay more attention to. But one of the problems with this is that unless the Church as a whole believes that all humans are sinners in need of a savior and that Jesus Christ is the only way to the Father our missionary ventures will be only partially successful. We still have missionaries on the field who do not believe that people of other faiths need Jesus Christ as savior. So I think the most important issue is that the Church must take a strong stand on Jesus Christ, his Lordship and his atonement bought on the cross. The Church is lost without a strong stand on those two issues.

4. If you could have the PC(USA) focus on one passage of scripture for an entire year, what would it be?
This goes along with what I have already stated and it is instead two passages. (What else did you expect from me?) One passage is the transfiguration of Jesus. (Take Luke 9:28-36) Jesus is there on the mount with Elijah (the Prophets) and Moses (the Law). God had already spoken through the law and the prophets and he had promised the savior through them. Now God the Father tells Jesus’ disciples “This is My Son, My chosen One; listen to Him!” The Church needs to listen to the Son of God. The other passage is about Jesus and the disciples on the road to Emmaus. Luke 13-35. I am interested in that place where Jesus begins speaking, “O foolish men and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into His Glory.” Then beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures.” This will lead the Church in a study of Christ within the entire Bible, both Old Testament and New Testament.

5. If the PC(USA) were an animal what would it be and why?
Someone else changed the rules and made it a tree. I am sorry I forget who. Anyway I will break the rules even more. For the last couple of days this image from the scriptures has been running through my mind. But it is the whole Church. The Church that is the complete Church that is within the visible church but known only by God. And I know that some will say that I have ripped this out of its context. That’s okay. “Who is this that grows like the dawn, as beautiful as the full moon, as pure as the sun, as awesome as an army with banners?” (Song of Solomon 6:10)

6. Jesus shows up at General Assembly this year, what does he say to the Presbyterian Church (USA)?
Surprise! Jesus never quit speaking to the Church. He still does through his word and the Holy Spirit. They will both be there at the GA. For instance, “Because you say, ‘I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing,’ and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked. I advise you to buy from me gold refined by fire so that you may become rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself, and that the shame of your nakedness will not be revealed; and eye salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see. Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline; therefore be zealous and repent. (Rev 3:17-19)