Monthly Message (Aug to Sept 2008) - Messages from the URC General Assembly
Dear Friends,
I’ve just returned from a long weekend in Edinburgh at the United Reformed Church General Assembly. And while a four day business meeting might not sound the most appealing way to visit Scotland’s first city …. I have to say that it was a positive and encouraging Assembly.
At the outset, the new Moderator the Revd. John Marsh, took up his role of setting the course for the Assembly and the Church. The United Reformed Church and its people, he said, as followers of Jesus, are a pilgrim people …. And we’d be wise to remember that there’s ‘quite a way to go’.
Pilgrimage. It was an inspiring call to our life of faith and our Churches and I’d like to pick up and share some of John’s thoughts here.
The Moderator reminded us that Christians have, from the very earliest times, been named and described as the ‘people of the Way’, pilgrims. He described his experience of being on pilgrimage, on the way to Santigo de Compostella, and how being the guest of those who kept the Christian traditions of prayer and hospitality in the monastic houses along the way had led him to reflect upon questions of faith, spirituality and church life again. He suggested …….
The pilgrim is not so concerned with where they’ve come from … but where they’re going. Having a sense of destination … setting out and going purposefully somewhere … a vision to pursue. On the journey pilgrim learn, grow, travelling towards a greater understanding, a deeper spirit, a destination. And yet along the way there are pools of physical and spiritual refreshment found in the small monastic communities that keep the ancient rhythms of prayer and Christian discipline. The Christian Way is anciently rooted … but it is a lived and living faith …. Anciently rooted and yet having a sense of its destiny.
Maybe, like the pilgrim, we need to open to welcome a life as yet untried. Being on pilgrimage means being on ‘the Way’. Jesus’ call to follow him is a completely open one with no preconditions at all. Anyone can be a follower ….. we’re simply invited to set out on a journey, with others also taking is way, following the pioneering Christ-led way. Many have walked this way before us and give us helpful signposts on the way. But the pilgrim makes the journey themselves, from where they are, towards deeper participation with all God’s people in God’s creation. As pilgrims we are called to engage in a process, not buy into a package.
A pilgrim people, a pilgrim church, will be attentive to the ‘future echoes’ of what God’s destiny involves for the world now…. It will be shaped by God’s passion for justice, peace, truth, and love made real in the world here and now.
He summed the Christian pilgrim people us as: “Future freaks and history buffs while living for the holy moment.” Taking three classic words the Moderator challenged the church to be :
- Catholic …. All embracing, welcoming and inclusive.
- Orthodox … passionate in Christian faith while connecting with the world in all rich variety.
- Reformed … knowing that change can bring light and deeper truth, he called us to be ‘unsettled by hope rather than troubled by change.’
And in all of this …. to recognise that there is ‘quite a way to go’!
The Moderator left us with questions …
- What would personal life look like, and Church, if it were shaped by our God given destiny more than by its history and contemporary circumstance?
- What might the church look like if understood itself to be a research and development community for God’s Kingdom?
- Can the perspective of Christian life as ‘pilgrimage’ help us better engage with an authentic, Christ focused vision for life and the Church?
Lots to think about, to chew on, to live up to …… as we hear again the call to be God’s pilgrim people in the world.
Yours,
Tracey.
