Faith
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Thinking the Faith, Praying the Faith, Living the Faith is written by the PC(USA) Office of Theology and Worship.
Thinking, praying, and living the faith is at the core of ministry in the Office of Theology and Worship. In the following videos, learn more about what thinking, praying, and living the faith means to the leadership of the Office of Theology and Worship. Discover why it matters and what difference it makes in our lives, work, and worship.
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Take me to the river....
By: Karen Russell
But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. (Amos 5:24)
I’m a river person. I grew up along the Ohio River. I have lived most of my adult life along the river and worked in the river towing industry. My first ministry setting was on the river. When you live and work on the river, you tend to learn about things like river gauge readings, flood stages, crest predictions and all those other things that tell you about the river and how it may impact your life and livelihood. There are lots of people who live near rivers or work on or near them that aren’t river people, though. River people tend to recognize the call of the river on their lives. There were very few career towboat captains I’ve known that didn’t live near moving water. They didn’t all live along the Ohio River, but they tend to live near a river. They are river people. When I want to get away, I don’t crave sandy beaches – I want flowing water and babbling brooks.
Partly because I am a river person, when I think about water in general, I think about rivers. When I think of baptismal waters, I think of rivers – life-giving, life-sustaining, always moving forward. I didn’t always link baptism and rivers. I was actually baptized in one of those pool-in-the-front-of-the-sanctuary baptisteries you find in lots of Baptist churches. The Presbyterian churches I’ve attended all have some sort of basin-like font in varying degrees of elaborate-ness. But not all of the baptisms I’ve seen have been in these contained, controlled waters. When I was younger, I attended a few baptisms in local creeks and ponds. Those were more unpredictable – and sometimes there were uninvited creatures. And somehow, the memories of these baptisms seem more “real” and I’m not entirely sure why. But regardless of the reason, these “unpredictable” baptisms are the ones that, in the past few years, have been formational to my own baptismal identity.
I don’t consider baptismal waters as confined in a stylized font or heated-water baptistery. It is flowing water that reminds me of God’s claim on me. That is why when I hear the prophet Amos declaring that justice will roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever flowing stream, I hear a warning of sorts. Ever-flowing waters are risky business.
In much of the country this spring, the risky business of living in the vicinity of a river has seen floodwaters higher than most people can remember with damage wide-spread and devastating. A flooding river is dangerous – it can wash away anything in its path and alter the riverbanks to create a new channel for itself. The life-giving waters of the river can suddenly become a threat to the very life it feeds.
I’m finding that living into a baptismal identity is equally risky business. Answering the call of God with a response that includes remembering and living out our baptism can mean that all our careful plans are washed away like so much driftwood on the riverbank. Our commitments are swept away and new priorities carved out, new channels and directions formed. I’m coming to understand that the ever flowing waters of God’s claim on my life can be a lazy river with beautiful views that all-of-a-sudden becomes a fast-moving force that can threaten and change where I am and what I do. This is not necessarily comfortable. But I know that even in devastating and life-changing floods, a river can be life-giving, creating fertile bottom-land farms even as it lays waste to the way things are. It creates new channels that can lead us to the way things will be.
Here is a truth: I am baptized in the water of God’s grace and love. The ever flowing waters of God’s claim are a life-giving river of grace, mercy and love. And, thanks be to God, I am a river person.
- Posted at 11:10 a.m.
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