Objects or Subjects
We are nearing the end of General Assembly for our denomination and it has been a very powerful experience for me. I am very grateful to have been able to be here not because of the parliamentary procedures and amendments to amendments but to the consistent theme of what we are feeling led to be about as a denomination. The heart of the assembly thus far was summed up in Richard Rohr’s daily email (where he is quoting Josh Radnor):
A world of objects is a kind of hell. A world of subjects—divine beings honoring the divinity in the other—is surely heaven. May we point our feet toward this heaven and begin the hard and necessary work of walking there.
As I read these (and the rest of the email message today), I thought of the $47,000+ that the Assembly marched to and delivered to the city jail to set people free who were being held on minor crimes because they could not afford the cash-only bail. I thought of the statements made by the Assembly thus far to speak a prophetic voice against racism, sexism, and homophobia. I go to the powerful statement made today by the assembly speaking against the current administration’s policies on the southern border. I remember the prayers offered up by partners in the church from around the world (Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, South Korea, and many other countries) and from many different denominations. In all of this, it has been about “divine beings honoring the divinity in the other.”
I am deeply grateful for the time here thus far for the ways that I have felt the movement of the Spirit through the Assembly. I am grateful for how the Lord is going to move in us going forward as it is not just about what we have done in these few days together here in St Louis but instead about how we “point our feet toward this heaven and begin the hard and necessary work of walking there.” There is hard work ahead but we were not promised an easy road as we follow Jesus, but we were promised One who would walk with us, before us, and behind us as we journey in faithfulness and obedience.
