It started with a phone call in August, 2006. A woman in our community, who has struggled with homelessness since her childhood, called in anguish to tell me that our local government had just bulldozed a homeless camp in the woods behind a shopping center, loading their possessions into a dump truck. One man, a disabled veteran, pleaded to be able just to retrieve the only picture of his late mother and was threatened with arrest if he tried. Identity cards, letters, and clothes were trashed along with Bibles and blankets. It was cruel response to complaints that the homeless were taking food from nearby dumpsters.
The incident was so shocking, that even churches who had little commitment to mission were moved to respond. Meeting Ground was asked to organize the overwhelming desire of churches of every denomination across the county to open their doors to those who had been so treated. Churches who had never considered justice as an issue of faith began to advocate for persons they now knew by name. It was a movement of the Spirit which dazzled us in its possibility for the Church.
The call to stand for Moderator began to take hold of my soul on a winter night when I walked into a church fellowship-hall-turned-shelter. An older woman arrived with nothing more than the clothes on her back. Bent over and sullen, she was bewildered, ragged, sick, and withdrawn. She had been "shipped" in a taxi from a church 70 miles away. She needed us.
Shelter volunteers befriended her and did what they could to help, including getting her into a hospital for emergency treatment. When she returned, I went over to greet her and reached out to shake her hand, but she instead flung out her arms and bear-hugged me with gusto. Even though quiet-natured, she talked and smiled broadly, making eye-contact with excited energy... like a kid happy to be home.
She was sharing the grandeur of redemption. The small attentions of kind people, words of care and light, loving touch - even the simple assurance of shelter in a church hallway - had moved her deeply, and she found hope alive again. In the warmth of her smile and grateful embrace she spoke all this reassuringly to me as if I were the one in need, as indeed I was. We needed her.
Together we were church - confirmed through the beauty of a living sanctuary of gathered souls, and the awareness of God's presence, pressed dearly in human relationship, revealed in almighty power - though we were 2, 3, or 20 gathered, in our midst. I am compelled to know this as a new and vigorous moving of God's Spirit in the Church, and I long to be part of this stirring.
The role of Moderator is pastor and servant-guide to the General Assembly as it seeks its heart and voice. It is also to share the voice of this body with the Church over the next two years. I stand in the hope and desire that our Assembly will be open to the fire of the Holy Spirit. It can be that the very hush of God, in singular mercy, will inspire us together to:
- Bring us to respect and honor each other in love, different as we are and hope to be, and open us to the authentic space of relationship and dialogue among ourselves and with the world.
- Create among us a "new thing," confirming a revival of that great spirit of mission and justice in a desperate world, discovering in our vulnerability and need a most amazing grace and unity.