As a former teacher and the mother of two teachers and five grandchildren of school-age, this prayer by Jill Duffield, Editor of Presbyterian Outlook, gives voice to many common concerns, and I want to share it with you.
Prayer for School Year 2020
Lord, we know you hold the future and walk with us even now on this unpredictable path of the pandemic. We trust you work through the most difficult of seasons and never abandon us to navigate life’s challenges alone.
As we look to a new school year, we worry about the ongoing impact of COVID-19. It seems to be a time of no right answers, no clear good choices and no comprehensive way for parents, educators and administrators to meet the pressing needs of students, teachers, staff and families. We do not want children to fall further behind in their learning. We do not want to put caregivers in the position of choosing between going to work or tending to their children. We do not want to endanger the health of any in our community. Already stretched resources are pushed to the limit as we attempt to reduce class sizes, expand the ways content is delivered and seek to enact needed safety precautions.
We look to you, Lord, to take, bless and multiply our efforts to educate and nurture your children. We look to you, Lord, who gives us the peace that passes understanding, hears the cries of the hurting and promises that small amounts of faith can precipitate large, life-giving change. We look to you, loving God, for wisdom, for courage, for inspiration, for creativity.
As we make difficult decisions in an unprecedented time, grant us an unshakable commitment to one another, especially to the most vulnerable among us. Send your Spirit to open our eyes to the new thing you are doing. Send your Spirit to open our ears to the voices we need most to hear. Send your Spirit to open our hearts to the profound love you have for us all so that everything we do in this time of fear, anxiety and uncertainty reveals your compassion, kindness and grace. Send your Spirit to comfort and direct us as we humbly look to you for guidance and strength. Amen.
May we all be in prayer for be in prayer for teachers, students and parents; may we offer this beautiful prayer on their behalf.
Elizabeth
Yesterday’s gospel reading told the story of Canaanite woman who was persistent in asking Jesus to heal her daughter. This woman is one of the most unwanted of the unwanted - a Gentile “dog”; a woman belonging to her father or her husband, forbidden to speak to a man in public. She’s also a mother, pleading for mercy for the child she loves, and that depth of love would not be denied, and Jesus heals her daughter.
While Matthew is trying desperately to make Jesus acceptable to his first century Jewish audience, a community entrenched in privilege and separateness; Jesus is reaching across gender, cultural, ethnic and religious barriers to witness to God’s all-encompassing love. This story opens up an absolute can of worms as it questions our places of privilege, our assumptions, and our categorizing and judging of people who are different from us. We see that we have to change if we’re going to worship Jesus from our hearts, for the Christian story is about bringing people into the fullness of God’s grace and love, rather than shutting them out; it’s about overcoming the barriers that keep us apart.
God has an amazing ability to bring about change in the most astonishing ways, through the most unexpected people. God’s word is always surprising us, always jarring us, always shaking up our worldview – taking the scraps from our table, the crumbs that we discard, and turning them into a feast to which we’re all invited. Part of our Christian journey and our calling through our baptism, is to listen for those people calling out in pain or hunger or want; to be attuned to their needs, to meet them where they are, and let them speak to us on their own terms, even when they seem as strange and foreign as that Canaanite woman.
I’m grateful for this Canaanite woman, because through her perseverance and through her outspokenness, we catch a glimpse of God’s vision for our world – a world where grace comes to us in the most unexpected ways; a world where the least speak with the loudest voice, and the powerful act with humility; a world where God’s mercy and love are for all people- those with little faith and those with great faith; those who are hungry and those who are full; the disciples and the Canaanite woman; and for you and me. We could use a whole culture full of Canaanite women who refuse to be left unseen and unheard; who refuse to be dismissed until their sons and daughters and their neighbors, and all God’s children find justice and share the blessings of our common life.
These words I heard last week are words of my heart these days, “I wish we were at the part of the story when justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. I pray for this time, but we’re not there yet.”
May God help us to widen our circle of concern by making ourselves vulnerable to the needs of strangers, especially those who have been pushed to the side; may God help us to pay attention to those experiences in life that interrupt our normal routines, for what seems to be interrupting us make take us precisely where God wants us to be; may God help us to take risks rather than play it safe, to overcome barriers that divide us and to be persistent in faith, until that day comes - that day when justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. Together, let us pray for and work for the coming of that day.
Elizabeth
Twenty four years ago, I was a Commissioner from Presbytery of the Peaks, in Central Virginia, to the General Assembly held in Albuquerque, New Mexico. At that meeting we struggled with “Amendment B” and other issues. I remember how challenging it was to work in such a large group, but at least we were face-to-face. I can’t even imagine trying to meet “virtually!”
In reading the August 3rd edition of The Presbyterian Outlook, I learned a great deal about the 224th General Assembly of the PC(USA) held virtually the last week of June. In this time of reckoning in every area of our lives, it’s only right that the church faces such a time as well.
Called into question after this Assembly is the use of Robert’s Rules of Order and parliamentary procedure. Robert’s Rules, a tool created to ensure order, a tool built around majority rule, while acknowledging and respecting the minority opinion, “a tool that in our church exists in a reality where the make-up of the majority hasn’t changed – the end is violence and oppression of the minority under the guise of magnanimity and goodness of the majority … our decency and order will not usher in the kin-dom.” (Jill Duffield, Outlook editor)
“The structure of parliamentary procedure, can actually prevent organic, real-time exchanges that could lead to honest learning and a change of course,” writes Duffield. Case in point: When a member of the national staff, a Black woman who has been working for years on racial justice issues, raised up that ongoing work and asked if the assembly might want to address some issues, and consult with those engaged in it, her voice was silenced.
“Despite the fact that a majority of commissioners wanted to suspend the rules and address in some way the plight of black women and girls at this assembly, the decent and orderly polity disallowed that movement of the Spirit because the standing rules required a supermajority of enrolled commissioners … When we put Robert’s Rules of Order above God’s law of love, we blaspheme the Holy Spirit and we wound the Body of Christ, and we are all diminished as a result,” writes Duffield.
Undoubtedly, the process of how we work together will be addressed in the months to come. “While the PC(USA) has plenty of policy statements asking Presbyterians to stand against racism and oppression, justice work can’t only be done in anti-racist statements; process is the structure of the institution….we’ve got to let the structures be examined and changed as well.” (“What Are the Lessons from the 224th General Assembly?” Leslie Scanlon)
“Sometimes Presbyterians have an inordinate amount of intensity about saying the right things and not necessarily doing the right thing. In a way, it’s a very American challenge of being more obsessed with our rights than our responsibilities, of wanting the right to speak , but not necessarily the responsibility to translate those words into actions … No matter how hard Presbyterians work to come up with the right words that doesn’t mean anything to our neighbors. What our neighbors want to see is solidarity. How do we come alongside people who are suffering, and join with them in creating a better world?” writes Scanlon.
I’m thankful for opportunities to grow in understanding, to see new truth, and to work for needed change. May our beloved PC(USA) be open to being made new as the Holy Spirit does a work of grace among us. “Come chaotic, status-quo-upending, justice-bringing, real-intimacy-creating Holy Spirit.” (Jill Duffield, Outlook editor)
Elizabeth