A Change of Scenery
I'm going to talk a little bit this morning about what happened at this year's General Synod, and some of the impressions I've been hearing from our Classis delegates and the people I know who traveled out to Arizona to take part.
But first, let's talk about this morning's scripture.
Our scripture reading this morning is kind of short and to the point. Jesus is traveling with the disciples and they come to Jericho, where a blind beggar, Bartimaeus, asks Jesus to heal him. The crowd following them urge this man to be quiet, but he persists. And Jesus hears him, asks him to come forward, and immediately heals him, telling him, “Go... your faith has healed you.”
There's really not a lot to unpack here. There's no confusion about what's happened here. There aren't any intricate plot lines that need to be unraveled. There's no complicated theology that needs to be explained.
Jesus is a God of healing. Jesus works miracles. And that's what he does here. It's as simple as that.
The thing this has me wondering, though, is that in this instance, as in so many other, Jesus seems happy to do the healing. He performs the miracle without complaint and without question. That's not always the case.
Several weeks ago you may remember the story of Jesus visiting the city of Tyre in Phoenicia. And the Syro-Phoenician woman comes to him, asking for healing for her daughter. Which Jesus at first refuses. He at first doesn't want to help her. It is only after she begs that he relents and her daughter's demons are cast out.
Likewise the first miracle, the wedding at Cana, where Jesus turns the water into wine, he is also hesitant to do. He's there with Mary, who tells him the party is out of wine, and he responds with, “what concern is that to me or you?” But again, he relents, and when the servants are told to fill jugs with water, when those jugs are poured into cups, the wine comes out.
But then we have passages like today's with Bartimaeus. We have miracles where Jesus heals without question, feeds thousands with mere handfuls of loaves and fishes, quells storms, walks on water, drives out demons, even raises the dead.
And so the question I have is, “what's the difference?”
Why does Jesus need to be begged in some cases, yet is gracious and generous in others?
And of course, I cannot speak for the inner workings of God's mind. God's mystery is as great to me as it is to anyone else's.
But that doesn't mean I won't still try, though.
Because I think the thing to remember when we're talking about how Jesus uses his divinity... is that he is also fully endowed with humanity.
Which means that sometimes we see him in a bad mood.
Which means that sometimes he might act in ways that may surprise us.
When he first rejected the Syro-Phoenician woman, he'd been traveling – a foreigner in a foreign land.
In the second chapter of John, Jesus is annoyed at being asked to create the wine at the wedding.
And then later in that same chapter he visits the temple and that's where he overturns the money tables and chases and whips the lenders.
And yet, in Jericho, with Bartimaeus, he seems calmer. Happier.
He's back in Galilee. Where he's from. He's with his people.
When he feeds the thousands, which happens multiple times, with loaves and fishes... he's with his people.
When he raises Lazarus, Lazarus whom he loves, he's with his family. He's with his people.
And so I think it's fair to say that Jesus... his divinity as God of all people, God of all places, God of the universe... his divinity is everywhere. But in his humanity. He's more at ease when he's in places he knows. When he's with his people.
So many times when Jesus prays in the Bible, he goes for a walk. He escapes – to the desert, to a mountaintop, to a garden... he benefits from that change in scenery. In that regard he's like any one of us. His surroundings, his environment, depending on where he is... who he's with... what his purpose is... they can show us a glimpse of our God in anger and frustration. Or they can show us our God at peace.
That seems to have been the case with so many ministers and elders who attended our denominations General Synod in Arizona last week.
I was hoping to make a nice, smooth transition here from talking about Jesus in Jericho to our delegates in Tucson, but it's still feeling a bit abrupt to me, so please, just go with it.
I've been a part of the Reformed Church, off and on, in some capacity for the last 30 years. I've been paying close attention to the goings-on of General Synod the past 10 years. And each of the last ten years, Synod's been held in the same type of location. Usually on a college campus, always in either Iowa or Michigan, with delegates bunking up together, sharing dorm rooms often making a stressful week all the more stressful as you have to take a week out of your life, take vacation time from work, and spend that time not only dealing with the hours spent during the day on the plenary floor, but then coming back to a dorm to share a room with a stranger.
It's not a good situation at the best of times, and for the past 10 years, General Synod has not been the best of times.
This year something was different.
There was a change of scenery.
And with that, it seems, there was a change of mood.
The old battlelines that had seemed fast and hardened seemed to soften. Delegates were able to spend their week in a place of beauty. With single rooms. And weren't confined to the hard cinder block walls of a college dorm with a stranger.
This isn't to say that everything was all kum-bay-ah last week. There were still plenty of disagreements, plenty of close votes, and plenty of passionate arguments.
But for the first time that I can remember, our delegates returned home from Synod daring... very cautiously... to hope.
Hope for the future of the RCA.
We were given the opportunity to schism. And we did not.
We were given the opportunity to walk away from each other. To put an end to our covenant together. To wash our hands of centuries of history together. And we did not.
There is still much to be decided. And much to be done. And there is no perfect solution to our current situation that will make everyone happy.
But in a nutshell, here's what we did do.
There were overtures from some very progressive classes, offering amendments to our Book of Church Order, to enshrine a liberal understanding of sexuality in our constitution and our liturgy. These, unsurprisingly, did not pass.
There were overtures from some very traditional classes, offering amendments to our Book of Church Order, to enshrine a conservative understanding of sexuality in our constitution and our liturgy. These, slightly more surprisingly, also did not pass.
There was a proposal on the floor of the Synod that would have moved RCA Missions out of the RCA into a new, independent body, which many of us saw as the first formal step towards starting a brand new denomination, and using RCA funds to do it – essentially we would be paying for our own demise. This also did not pass.
What did pass were two proposals which immediately concern our covenant as a denomination and our future together.
The first was a resolution that classes should show deference to any congregation that chooses to leave the RCA. That for those churches that feel in their consciences that they cannot continue to commune with Christians they disagree with, that they should be allowed to walk away, covenant with a different denomination, and take their property with them. Which is generally how things usually work anyway.
The second proposal was the big one. And I'm still trying to figure out exactly what it means going forward, but my hunch is that it will take several years to implement, so not much will change in the short term. But essentially, it was a proposal to re-organize the RCA, such that there will essentially be three affinity groups of classes. More traditional regional synods and classes will be able to reorganize under one affinity group. More forbearing synods and classes would reorganize in another. And then the third would just be all the Canadian churches left alone to do their own thing.
And, ostensibly, each branch of the denomination would have a certain amount of autonomy and be able to apply church governance and oversight as it sees fit. Yet we'd all come under the umbrella of the RCA when it comes to those broad areas where we are largely in agreement with each other – international missions, hymnals and publishing, seminary education, and resources for pastoral care, to name a few.
Now.
Will this all work?
I have no idea.
I'm under no illusion that this will be a perfect solution. It's likely that some parts could work well, while others might require a bit of an adjustment period. Or it's possible that the whole thing proves to be unworkable at all in the long run. There are still some congregations on the hardcore fringes of the RCA that will look at the outcome of the Synod, see that they didn't get everything that they wanted, and pack their bags and head for the door. There were some voices essentially promising that very thing. I don't know how many, I don't know how serious they were. I don't know if all of them will actually follow through.
What I do know is this.
That there was a spirit present at this year's General Synod that was lacking in the past decade. A spirit of willingness to listen to each other. To reconcile. To try new things. And it seems that the product of that spirit is this potential way forward to live together... not necessarily all lumped together in one room, but still under one roof.
That for the first time in a long time, our delegates dared to feel optimism. Cautious optimism. Optimism tempered by a healthy dose of realism, of course. But still feel a tinge of optimism for the future of the RCA together.
That when push came to shove, very few people wanted to go down the road of a full schism. That we really are a better body of Christ when we have all of our parts.
So, though I cannot predict the future. And I don't know exactly how things will work, or the shape our greater church body will take in the years ahead, this morning I am hopeful. And I am grateful for the grace and generally respectful tone that most of this year's proceedings were blessed with.
And I cannot say for certain that that was entirely due to the change in scenery. Or that attitudes and decisions might have been different if our ministers and elders had been sent to stay in the dorms again.
But I do think that the step away from the ordinary... the new environment, the proverbial walk in the garden or journey into the country, as Jesus was so fond of... I do believe that helped. That people were able to come together and at least entertain ways of staying in church and in fellowship together. Not that everyone will be entirely happy, or that anyone will get everything that they want. But that our Christian unity is something worth working towards, and that there is an intrinsic value in staying at the table together.
So I am relieved. I am grateful. And I am hopeful. For the future of the Reformed Church as a body of Jesus Christ's church. To God be the glory. Amen.
Let us pray.
Gracious and loving God,
You have brought us into covenant together. You have blessed us to be one with each other. You have brought your people together from every corner of the earth. Lord, you know that we argue. We are messy. We do not always know how to put your will above our own. But we trust in your guidance as your church moves forward. We give you thanks for your many blessings, most especially for the great love and wisdom give to us by our Lord, Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen.
I'm going to talk a little bit this morning about what happened at this year's General Synod, and some of the impressions I've been hearing from our Classis delegates and the people I know who traveled out to Arizona to take part.
But first, let's talk about this morning's scripture.
Our scripture reading this morning is kind of short and to the point. Jesus is traveling with the disciples and they come to Jericho, where a blind beggar, Bartimaeus, asks Jesus to heal him. The crowd following them urge this man to be quiet, but he persists. And Jesus hears him, asks him to come forward, and immediately heals him, telling him, “Go... your faith has healed you.”
There's really not a lot to unpack here. There's no confusion about what's happened here. There aren't any intricate plot lines that need to be unraveled. There's no complicated theology that needs to be explained.
Jesus is a God of healing. Jesus works miracles. And that's what he does here. It's as simple as that.
The thing this has me wondering, though, is that in this instance, as in so many other, Jesus seems happy to do the healing. He performs the miracle without complaint and without question. That's not always the case.
Several weeks ago you may remember the story of Jesus visiting the city of Tyre in Phoenicia. And the Syro-Phoenician woman comes to him, asking for healing for her daughter. Which Jesus at first refuses. He at first doesn't want to help her. It is only after she begs that he relents and her daughter's demons are cast out.
Likewise the first miracle, the wedding at Cana, where Jesus turns the water into wine, he is also hesitant to do. He's there with Mary, who tells him the party is out of wine, and he responds with, “what concern is that to me or you?” But again, he relents, and when the servants are told to fill jugs with water, when those jugs are poured into cups, the wine comes out.
But then we have passages like today's with Bartimaeus. We have miracles where Jesus heals without question, feeds thousands with mere handfuls of loaves and fishes, quells storms, walks on water, drives out demons, even raises the dead.
And so the question I have is, “what's the difference?”
Why does Jesus need to be begged in some cases, yet is gracious and generous in others?
And of course, I cannot speak for the inner workings of God's mind. God's mystery is as great to me as it is to anyone else's.
But that doesn't mean I won't still try, though.
Because I think the thing to remember when we're talking about how Jesus uses his divinity... is that he is also fully endowed with humanity.
Which means that sometimes we see him in a bad mood.
Which means that sometimes he might act in ways that may surprise us.
When he first rejected the Syro-Phoenician woman, he'd been traveling – a foreigner in a foreign land.
In the second chapter of John, Jesus is annoyed at being asked to create the wine at the wedding.
And then later in that same chapter he visits the temple and that's where he overturns the money tables and chases and whips the lenders.
And yet, in Jericho, with Bartimaeus, he seems calmer. Happier.
He's back in Galilee. Where he's from. He's with his people.
When he feeds the thousands, which happens multiple times, with loaves and fishes... he's with his people.
When he raises Lazarus, Lazarus whom he loves, he's with his family. He's with his people.
And so I think it's fair to say that Jesus... his divinity as God of all people, God of all places, God of the universe... his divinity is everywhere. But in his humanity. He's more at ease when he's in places he knows. When he's with his people.
So many times when Jesus prays in the Bible, he goes for a walk. He escapes – to the desert, to a mountaintop, to a garden... he benefits from that change in scenery. In that regard he's like any one of us. His surroundings, his environment, depending on where he is... who he's with... what his purpose is... they can show us a glimpse of our God in anger and frustration. Or they can show us our God at peace.
That seems to have been the case with so many ministers and elders who attended our denominations General Synod in Arizona last week.
I was hoping to make a nice, smooth transition here from talking about Jesus in Jericho to our delegates in Tucson, but it's still feeling a bit abrupt to me, so please, just go with it.
I've been a part of the Reformed Church, off and on, in some capacity for the last 30 years. I've been paying close attention to the goings-on of General Synod the past 10 years. And each of the last ten years, Synod's been held in the same type of location. Usually on a college campus, always in either Iowa or Michigan, with delegates bunking up together, sharing dorm rooms often making a stressful week all the more stressful as you have to take a week out of your life, take vacation time from work, and spend that time not only dealing with the hours spent during the day on the plenary floor, but then coming back to a dorm to share a room with a stranger.
It's not a good situation at the best of times, and for the past 10 years, General Synod has not been the best of times.
This year something was different.
There was a change of scenery.
And with that, it seems, there was a change of mood.
The old battlelines that had seemed fast and hardened seemed to soften. Delegates were able to spend their week in a place of beauty. With single rooms. And weren't confined to the hard cinder block walls of a college dorm with a stranger.
This isn't to say that everything was all kum-bay-ah last week. There were still plenty of disagreements, plenty of close votes, and plenty of passionate arguments.
But for the first time that I can remember, our delegates returned home from Synod daring... very cautiously... to hope.
Hope for the future of the RCA.
We were given the opportunity to schism. And we did not.
We were given the opportunity to walk away from each other. To put an end to our covenant together. To wash our hands of centuries of history together. And we did not.
There is still much to be decided. And much to be done. And there is no perfect solution to our current situation that will make everyone happy.
But in a nutshell, here's what we did do.
There were overtures from some very progressive classes, offering amendments to our Book of Church Order, to enshrine a liberal understanding of sexuality in our constitution and our liturgy. These, unsurprisingly, did not pass.
There were overtures from some very traditional classes, offering amendments to our Book of Church Order, to enshrine a conservative understanding of sexuality in our constitution and our liturgy. These, slightly more surprisingly, also did not pass.
There was a proposal on the floor of the Synod that would have moved RCA Missions out of the RCA into a new, independent body, which many of us saw as the first formal step towards starting a brand new denomination, and using RCA funds to do it – essentially we would be paying for our own demise. This also did not pass.
What did pass were two proposals which immediately concern our covenant as a denomination and our future together.
The first was a resolution that classes should show deference to any congregation that chooses to leave the RCA. That for those churches that feel in their consciences that they cannot continue to commune with Christians they disagree with, that they should be allowed to walk away, covenant with a different denomination, and take their property with them. Which is generally how things usually work anyway.
The second proposal was the big one. And I'm still trying to figure out exactly what it means going forward, but my hunch is that it will take several years to implement, so not much will change in the short term. But essentially, it was a proposal to re-organize the RCA, such that there will essentially be three affinity groups of classes. More traditional regional synods and classes will be able to reorganize under one affinity group. More forbearing synods and classes would reorganize in another. And then the third would just be all the Canadian churches left alone to do their own thing.
And, ostensibly, each branch of the denomination would have a certain amount of autonomy and be able to apply church governance and oversight as it sees fit. Yet we'd all come under the umbrella of the RCA when it comes to those broad areas where we are largely in agreement with each other – international missions, hymnals and publishing, seminary education, and resources for pastoral care, to name a few.
Now.
Will this all work?
I have no idea.
I'm under no illusion that this will be a perfect solution. It's likely that some parts could work well, while others might require a bit of an adjustment period. Or it's possible that the whole thing proves to be unworkable at all in the long run. There are still some congregations on the hardcore fringes of the RCA that will look at the outcome of the Synod, see that they didn't get everything that they wanted, and pack their bags and head for the door. There were some voices essentially promising that very thing. I don't know how many, I don't know how serious they were. I don't know if all of them will actually follow through.
What I do know is this.
That there was a spirit present at this year's General Synod that was lacking in the past decade. A spirit of willingness to listen to each other. To reconcile. To try new things. And it seems that the product of that spirit is this potential way forward to live together... not necessarily all lumped together in one room, but still under one roof.
That for the first time in a long time, our delegates dared to feel optimism. Cautious optimism. Optimism tempered by a healthy dose of realism, of course. But still feel a tinge of optimism for the future of the RCA together.
That when push came to shove, very few people wanted to go down the road of a full schism. That we really are a better body of Christ when we have all of our parts.
So, though I cannot predict the future. And I don't know exactly how things will work, or the shape our greater church body will take in the years ahead, this morning I am hopeful. And I am grateful for the grace and generally respectful tone that most of this year's proceedings were blessed with.
And I cannot say for certain that that was entirely due to the change in scenery. Or that attitudes and decisions might have been different if our ministers and elders had been sent to stay in the dorms again.
But I do think that the step away from the ordinary... the new environment, the proverbial walk in the garden or journey into the country, as Jesus was so fond of... I do believe that helped. That people were able to come together and at least entertain ways of staying in church and in fellowship together. Not that everyone will be entirely happy, or that anyone will get everything that they want. But that our Christian unity is something worth working towards, and that there is an intrinsic value in staying at the table together.
So I am relieved. I am grateful. And I am hopeful. For the future of the Reformed Church as a body of Jesus Christ's church. To God be the glory. Amen.
Let us pray.
Gracious and loving God,
You have brought us into covenant together. You have blessed us to be one with each other. You have brought your people together from every corner of the earth. Lord, you know that we argue. We are messy. We do not always know how to put your will above our own. But we trust in your guidance as your church moves forward. We give you thanks for your many blessings, most especially for the great love and wisdom give to us by our Lord, Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen.
