‘It’s not just praise — it’s a promise’

LOUISVILLE — Ahead of their joint meeting on Thursday, members of the Presbyterian Church, A Corporation Board and the Unification Commission joined for a moving worship service in the Chapel at the Presbyterian Center in Louisville, Kentucky. The Rev. Stephanie Anthony of the A Corp Board and the Rev. Dr. Dave Davis of the UC led worship, with Phillip Morgan providing piano accompaniment.

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For his meditation, Davis relied on Ephesians 3:14-21, Paul’s prayer for readers across the generations.

“This prayer ought to be a prayer for every family, every day,” Davis said, “as memorized, as deep within, as the Lord’s Prayer, as routine as the nighttime prayers offered at a child’s bedside, as common as the table grace passed on from generation to generation.”

“It really should be … a prayer we offer for one another, for ourselves, for our congregations, for the church, for the staff of our General Assembly, and yes, for all God’s people, that we might have the power, the means, the bandwidth to comprehend with all the children of God what is the breadth and length and height and depth, that we might have some inkling of what reaches from east to west, from the north to the south, that we might have some glimpse of that which is invisible, that we might have some sense of the weight that is beyond measure, that somehow we might see that the Lord is good every day, and to know the love of Christ.”

We can’t just know that love, Davis said. We have to feel it and live it.

“The love of Christ surpasses all knowledge, but for good’s sake — for God’s sake,” Davis said. “The love of Christ has everything to do with what we think, what we conclude, what we decide, what we teach our children, how we live, how we act and how we vote.”

“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul and all your mind’ — there’s no either/or here,” Davis said, including the thinking of the Rev. Dr. Peter Gomes in his sermon “Loving Minds and Thinking Hearts.” Gomes preached that to know love “is not an oxymoron,” Davis said. “It’s a prayer, actually, to know the love of Christ so that you and all might be filled with the fullness of God, which is to be filled with the love of Christ himself, which is to know the love of God, which surpasses all knowledge every day.”

“God can do more in us than we can ever dream about,” Davis said. “The fullness of God so fills us, the love of Christ so overwhelms us, the piercing light of Christ so shines on us, the matchless grace of God so washes over us, that God can use us, work with us, transform us in ways beyond what we can see. It’s not just a prayer. It’s not just praise — it’s a promise.”

Nine years ago, Davis used a sabbatical to minister to four tiny congregations on the Scottish island of Islay, home to 2,000 people, 20,000 sheep and 12 distilleries, he noted.

During worship, Davis found himself stumbling while leading the Lord’s Prayer, saying his cadence was out of sync. It came down to the petition, “thy will be done, on Earth as it is in heaven,” as Davis and most U.S. Presbyterians render it. The folks in the Church of Scotland put the pause elsewhere — “thy will be done on Earth, as it is in heaven.”

“One Sunday I just stayed silent,” Davis said. “That’s when I heard the difference.”

That change in cadence “brings some urgency, some expectation, some immediacy, a sense of right now, a timeliness that God has the power to work with us, through us, beyond us, despite us, to accomplish far more than we could ever ask for or imagine — now, every day, right now,” he said. “The love Christ offers comes with such fullness that hearts and souls and minds can be inspired and spark and change and guide and protect and calm now, all in service to making the world more like what God intends, now — even as the mind-numbing, soul-sucking powers and principalities of this present darkness rage.”

“The children of God can dare believe in, work for, collaborate, build relationships, love justice, do kindness, walk humbly with God, in service to God’s will being done on Earth as it is in heaven, because God is able to accomplish far more abundantly than we can ask for or imagine, now.”

Last month, Davis’s granddaughter celebrated her fourth birthday. Davis and his wife journeyed to New York City to help decorate the backyard for the 15 guests and their families, but bad weather drove the party indoors. At one point, “it was strangely quiet” in the toy room, he said. “There was no arguing about toys, no tiffs about space. Then I realized, all the children were playing by themselves. It was like speed dating with toys. Each child played with a toy of some sort, and then they all rotated to the next toy like gymnasts rotating around various pieces of equipment.”

“They were together but they weren’t. They were playing but not collaborating. They were all in the same room while being in their own world,” he said. “I know I am not the only one in Chapel this morning who realizes this possibility: that a Unified Agency of the General Assembly could look a heck of a lot like that playroom in the Bronx — together, but not. Operating, but not collaborating within the Agency, and with A Corp, and with other agencies of the national church. ‘If they build it, they will come,’ but in building it, will they be one?”

The antidote for what Davis called “the ‘s’ word, silo, has to be doubling down, digging in, calling forth, seeding, collaborating and relationship-building, now. The unifying that we can see a bit better but still through a mirror dimly, the unification that we now dare to believe is happening, the unity of a national agency of the PC(USA) that we have been beckoned here to create, is not going to happen because of a ragtag group appointed to this commission, or the tireless work of the senior leadership team, or getting together on a more regular basis with the members of the A Corp Board … or the work of gifted and professional consultants,” he said. “No. Our work, our calling, will be fulfilled by nothing other than the promise of God that meets us in everyday promise, in everyday praise of the nowness of the God we know in and through Jesus Christ … to God be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus for all generations forever and ever. Amen.”

Anthony offered a prayer afterward, thanking God that “although we are frail creatures, we are not useless … You have trusted us to discern your will,” Anthony told the Almighty. “You have equipped us to show your love and pursue your justice. … Fill us with your Spirit, that we will be worthy of the task.”

“Thank you for the community of faith with whom we bow before you in praise and in worship. Bless our lives, sanctify us, and in your way, grant us your heart’s desire. Anoint us with your grace so that what we desire is also what you desire,” Anthony prayed. “May we know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so we might be filled with all the fullness of God. May your love take root in our lives, and may we walk by faith. Amen.”