Praying our way to San Jose
Update from the road

Reno

View of Reno. Photo by Tammy Wiens-Sorge

Last night we worshiped at St. John's Presbytyerian Church in Reno, Nevada. Participants came from all over the three connected presbyteries and I am grateful to all who were in attendance. We were especially blessed to have two special guests from Texas who were also "praying their way to San Jose" and made an intentional detour in order to be part of last night's service. Debbie Cenko and Mary Mahlmann traveled from Wharton, Texas. Can you believe it! I also want to thank those who provided leadership in pulling the service together:

Jerry Hurst from Sierra Mission Presbytery; Chris Rhodes from Covenant Presbyterian in Reno; Bruce Kochsmeier from First Presbyterian in Carson City; Karen Woodley also from Covenant; and our host Dick Wiggers. Bruce Taylor, pastor of Spanish Spring Presbyterian in Sparks, Nevada, gave a powerful message and I think you'll appreciate a flavor of the service from the opening words of his sermon: “Theme for a Prophetic Church”

As a perpetual member of the Sparks area high school baccalaureate committee, I recently went through the annual process of helping to pick a theme for the celebration that claims graduation from high school as an event of spiritual significance. As usual, the themes were suggested without any particular spiritual reflection; it always seems to be a matter of selecting something that sounds good, is slightly aspirational if not genuinely inspirational, and then I always somehow get assigned the task of finding some scripture passage that supports the theme that has been chosen. As in past years, I objected again this year that the process is backwards; the theme should emerge from reflection on the scriptures, not the other way around. But once again, I found myself searching a concordance, trying to think of key words that would point me to a few verses from the Bible to give some religious legitimacy to what the committee had already decided the preacher for the occasion should say.

Happily, the theme for the meeting of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) always comes from scripture itself. The challenge in our case is not to allow denominational headlines to force a meaning upon scripture, but rather to allow scripture to inform and shape the meeting of the General Assembly, and beyond the meeting, to shape the program of the church and, derivatively but most importantly, to shape the lives of Presbyterians. Few passages of scripture could be so admirably suited to that last task in any season as Micah chapter 6, verse 8: “He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” The passage from First Timothy chosen as the second reading for this series of worship services on the way to San Jose suggests a specific example of how Paul, or somebody writing in his name, thought that should be done — prayer of every sort, and for every sort of person; To these two readings I have taken the liberty of adding a third, from the gospels, believing that every occasion of worship is a proper occasion for hearing the words and remembering the deeds of our Lord (extending the injunction of W-2.2002); The passage that appeared in the lectionary a few Sundays ago is, I think, an important commentary on the apostolic encouragement to prayer, and an explanation of the prophet’s critique of Israel’s worship life.

The prophets are not well enough known in many of our churches. Despite the insistence of our confessions that the Old Testament is every bit as much the concern of Christians as the New Testament, some Presbyterians, regrettably, hear from the prophets only around Christmas or when we find some of their verses to be useful in backing up our condemnation of this or that sin. And if that’s the only exposure people have to the prophets, or the only exposure our people are given to the prophets by their ministers, the prophetic message and the prophetic task will be misunderstood in our churches. The prophets must have a meaning for us beyond providing ammunition against those with whom we disagree or proof-texting theological claims that the prophets could not possibly have thought of making. The integrity of the Bible demands that we hear from the books that make up more than a quarter of the Old Testament, and that we hear aright a word that stubbornly insists that the spiritual health of a people is tied directly to the social health of their nation, that the condition of the soul cannot be separated from the treatment of the body, that the well-being of the individual cannot be disconnected from the well-being of the community.And that means that the church cannot ignore or isolate itself from the hurts and fears and hunger and hardship of the neediest. The prophets declared that the God who created the world and everything that lives in it is supremely concerned for the world and everything that lives in it. And nothing in the New Testament contradicts that truth, but only makes it the more emphatic ....

Download the full transcript of the sermon.

Until then ... keep praying!

— Tammy Wiens-Sorge

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