October 31, 2005

E-newsletter # 18

Dear Friends,

Happy Halloween! If there is to be an October 2005 e-newsletter, it has to happen today. We have been traveling internationally three out of the last four weeks and have just returned to East London. So we are a bit behind our usual schedule.

Among the many impressions we have brought back from our trip to the United States and Germany are some reflections on “church.” Here are some personal pictures and comments on the subject.

This is St. James Episcopal Church in Wooster, Ohio, where our daughter Lisa married Jason Nester on October 8. This occasion, as you will imagine, was the main reason for our journey.

The wedding was a wonderful celebration of Lisa’s and Jason’s commitment to each other and involved families and friends who came from very different backgrounds and walks of life. During the ceremony, as a symbol of support for the young couple, the priest invited everyone present to come to the front at the time of Holy Communion. And everyone came, a picture reminding us of the vision of the day when “people will come from east and west, from north and south and will eat in the kingdom of God” (Luke 13:29).

From (rainy) northeast Ohio we transferred to (sunny) southern Germany, primarily to see Susanne’s ailing mother. We received the Eucharist there also, in the small chapel of a Roman Catholic nursing home with a Reformed pastor presiding. One of the nuns had prepared the setting for our family gathering and participated with us in the service.

During an outing in Upper Bavaria, we visited a monastery in the tiny village of Seeon. A plaque informed us that the institution was founded in 994 and had celebrated its 1000th anniversary 11 years ago.

As we walked the grounds, we came across a gathering of families and friends preparing for a wedding in the huge chapel of the monastery, the building with the two onion-shaped steeples in the photograph.

Not far from Reeston, in the former township of Duncan Village, is the more substantial Roman Catholic Church of St. Peter Clavier. A police watchtower from apartheid days still stands on its grounds. The contrast of the building’s imposing architecture and the flimsiness of the shacks below creates a visual impression of overpowering dominance and contextual disconnectedness.

But in fact this church is deeply involved in the surrounding community. Every day hundreds of children are fed from its kitchen, and a memorial statue tells the story of Sister Aidan Quinlan, a missionary nun and physician who was murdered in 1952 while assisting victims of police violence.

“Church” comes in many different shapes and sizes. The Communion liturgy in the Presbyterian Book of Common Worship acknowledges this in phrases like “joining our voices with…all the faithful of every time and place,” be it 2005 or 994, Reeston or Seeon, Wooster or Duncan Village, or your own worship settings past and present. When you hear these words in worship, we invite you to envision Christian communities in all of these diverse times and places.

Ken and Susanne

The 2005 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 339