ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHING
November 18, 2021
A week and a half ago, I participated in an online event for clergy called Pro-Reconciling Anti-Racism Training. To maintain one’s standing as either an Ordained or Commissioned Minister, our denomination requires participation in this training every few years. I have always been drawn to the title of the training as it is not simply focused on what we are against. Too often, no matter the issue, we know exactly what we oppose. We are passionate about our opposition, but we do not necessarily know what we’d like to see happen. More importantly, we have not pondered our participation in the positive work. It is so much easier to oppose something than to be a part of the solution. Solutions require work, lots and lots of work. Of course, on the issue of race, the question becomes whether or not reconciliation is really the right word. Reconciliation suggests a return or a restoration of an earlier healthy relationship. Can we really point to that moment? I do not believe so. Maybe it is about forging an entirely new understanding around race. We must take seriously the past, while seeking a future that is not REstoring, but dreaming what is possible and living into that dream. On the day of Pentecost, the day on which the Spirit empowered the new community called the church (Acts 2), the Apostle Peter referenced words from the Prophet Joel: “In the last days, God says, ‘I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your young will see visions. Your elders will dream dreams. Even upon my servants, men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy.’” A prophet sees things as they really are and speaks the truth. Those who dream dreams are the ones who see what is possible and beckon the world forward. We probably need a little bit of both.
Holy God, the community called forth on Pentecost must be about the good work of the Gospel. It is not fluff or warm-fuzzies, but the honest work of confession and transformation, a healing of self toward the goal of a world where grace mends the fractured pieces of every system and structure. Amen.
