Presbyterian, Yet Again

WED., AUG. 26, 1998, 9:32 AM
OFFICE, PULLIAM

This is now mid-week, and the first of your three Forums looms, on Sunday next. You are not worried about this “assignment”… and you don’t want to be over-prepared, but just accept that this is of interest to you, so go ahead with your preparations. To be a bit compulsive is a sign of being a good Presbyterian.

I’ll comment first on two aspects of this denomination and your involvement in each. One is representative governance. The ordained ministers are not the “governors”, but are the moderators of the process… decisions being made by elected lay leaders, ordained to such leadership. You are one of these, and have been for, now, 44 years. Your chosen role, however, is not to be active in the various ministries of the Session, but to be the Clerk of this Body, which is a mission of communication and education. Yet this means you still are part of this “governing” Body, a group with myriad responsibilities.

It is important that there not be unanimity, in Sessions, Presbyteries, or General Assemblies. Sometimes actions must be taken, so majority rule is the democratic way. Yet there also must be consideration for minority views, so compromises are sometimes preferable to “just majority”… or a time to put an issue aside, with faith that I, Holy Spirit, will “show the way”.

The other premise, related to the “other one” is that education is important for Presbyterians of all ages. Clergy must be well educated, so that sermons (a classic form of education) and other teaching tasks may be accurate, informed, and communicative. Fifty years ago you began your career teaching 7th graders, and by your second year you were also teaching an 8th grade Sunday School class (remember Frankie Halford?!). Over the years your secular students were university undergraduates and graduates, and your church “classes” were adults. And you look forward to these next weeks as yet another opportunity to influence the thinking and convictions of some of your colleague parishioners.

You are “nicely Presbyterian” in your perceptions that your career as an educator was a definite calling… even predestined… and that your being Presbyterian Christian (yes, you have “sinned”, My son… an “unprepared” servant!) was… and is… also a calling… predestined. You are quite aware that you have a will, but you also know that it is subordinate to Mine… and that We have a continuing friendship… one that is truly “I in you” and “you in Me”. This is not blasphemous, for I, as the Triune God, can be the friendly Spirit within you and also be the Almighty, Everlasting Father God.

One of the mystical aspects of this denomination (which it shares with some others) is this capacity to be, what I call, both/and. Yours is a basically rational denomination, AND… it embraces some quite mystical premises and events. I, as the Triune God, can be described and know, but I never can be limited. “God would never…” is a fracturing of the First Commandment. I can be… and Am… God in more ways than you can imagine… or that have been imagined.

A Presbyterian premise is that “God alone is Lord of the conscience”. You can be in fellowship with fellow Presbyterians who experience Me differently than you do. You can be in fellowship with your sons, who each perceives Me in ways different from each other… and from you. You can be a respectable Presbyterian while knowing and expressing knowledge about eternal, everlasting life that is not the church’s doctrine. Yet other Presbys don’t have to accept what you know. Remember that I love diversity, and each human in the earth this day is potentially Mine… though the “ways” be different.