Very Late Reflections on the Opening of the PW Churchwide Gathering... Very Late

Here, partly my August newsletter article, partly reflections coming from last Sunday's worship.

One Body, One Spirit

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.          ~1 Corinthians 12:12

More than seventeen hundred bodies filed noisily into the Nicollet Grand Ballroom at the Minneapolis Hyatt Regency. It was time for the opening worship service of the Presbyterian Women Churchwide Gathering. There were four of us from Union Presbyterian Church in Endicott, NY—Ruth, Carol, Sue, and me—and we were simultaneously excited and exhausted, eager and maybe a little anxious.

It was June 18, which means the terrible news was still fresh. Just the night before (the night of my last blog entry, in fact), a young man armed with a gun and his hate had gone to an historic black Charleston, SC church (known to its members as “Mother” Emanuel Church) and attended bible study (where, he admitted later, everyone was really very nice to him). At the end of the bible study, he gunned down nine of the people who had welcomed him, including the pastor.

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.

To my astonishment (though, why should I be astonished? Doesn’t God do these things all the time?), the worship seemed as if it had been created in response to this terrible hate crime. Though of course, the worship service had been designed long before that night.

We were welcomed. We sang. We prayed, and we were indeed knit together by the Holy Spirit, 1700-plus, becoming, experiencing the reality that we were indeed one body. Before long, Peggy Darrett-Brewer, a local (Minneapolis) Presbyterian Woman, was singing a gut-wrenching version of “We Are One in the Spirit,” which brought us to tears and to our feet.

We are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord.

We are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord.

And we pray that our unity may one day be restored.

And they’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love.

Yes, they’ll know we are Christians by our love.

And then the Rev. Alika Galloway, co-pastor of Kwanzaa Community Church in Minneapolis, delivered the sermon. With humor, with passion, with the heart of a born storyteller, she stirred every heart in the room with her entreaty that Presbyterian Women should once again do what they have done before: to put their hands and feet to Christ’s work, this time to break down barriers of privilege and racism.

Rev. Alika Galloway brings the Word

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.

This isn’t just the work of Presbyterian Women. It’s the work of the entire body of Christ. And, as another speaker pointed out, our diversity is our strength, because we are all called to our particular role in God’s work.

We will work with each other, we will work side by side.

We will work with each other, we will work side by side.

And we’ll guard each one’s dignity, and save each one’s pride.

And they’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love.

Yes, they’ll know we are Christians by our love.

Last Sunday we had "Messy Church" at UPC, as we are doing the last Sunday of each month in the Summer. We shared the story of the loaves and fishes and feeding from John's gospel. We had a special focus on the boy-- the one with the bread and fish. It would have been easy for him not to offer what he had. He had such a tiny amount, in comparison to such enormous need. But he offered what he had, and God blessed it.

In the face of the enormous tragedy and challenge that faces us in this country, as we grapple with, not just last week's shooting or this week's death-in-custody, it would be easy to say, "What have I to give? The need is so enormous, and my gift is so small."

But we have to do what that boy did. We have to offer it anyway. We have to trust that God will take it, and bless it, and that, together with all the small offerings, it will be enough.