One good way to live out its embodiment is for the church to speak the truth in love.
The Rev. Samuel Son, the Presbyterian Mission Agency’s Manager of Diversity and Reconciliation, told Synod School attendees that speaking the truth in love can dispel myths, “which you and I are addicted to.”
“Only as an adult,” the Rev. Dr. Jill Duffield told the Synod of Lakes and Prairies’ Synod School recently, displaying a picture of a familiar Presbyterian pastor and children’s television pioneer dressed in a red zip-up sweater, “did I realize how much my theology was shaped by Mister Rogers.”
During a Pastors and Church Leaders Mental Health panel discussion, four church leaders discussed ways that stress has manifested itself in their lives — and in the lives of those they serve.
The Rev. Bertram Johnson spoke about his work at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, where he offers spiritual health care support for students.
One of the evening psalms among today’s lectionary readings is Psalm 8, which includes some of the most wondrous words in the Bible:
3 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars that you have established;
4 what are human beings that you are mindful of them,
mortals that you care for them?
5 Yet you have made them a little lower than God,
and crowned them with glory and honor.
In the story of God, as we tell it, there is a barrier that exists between the Created world and its Creator. A wall. Sin, we say, separates us from God, and separation from God is unbearable.
If you think churches are divided today, reread Ephesians 2:11–22.
That, said the Rev. Samuel Son during the Synod of Lakes and Prairies’ Synod School worship, is the place Paul reminded believers they once reverted to childish name-calling: “The Uncircumcision” and “The Circumcision.”
The favorite and persistent question of children everywhere may exasperate parents, grandparents and caregivers, but it’s an important question, the Rev. Samuel Son told the 450 participants during worship at the Synod of Lakes and Prairies’ Synod School.
Blessings can come from unanticipated sources in places we might not expect. For the Rev. Dr. Jill Duffield and her family, the place was outside a Goodwill dressing room, and the sources were two older women unknown to the Duffield family.
Growing up in the City of New York, the Rev. Samuel Son said he remembers pretending that he didn’t care how early in the process he was selected to play in a pickup baseball game. “We would stand there, trying to look like we didn’t care,” Son recalled during evening worship at the Synod of Lakes and Prairies’ Synod School. “But at the same time, we tried to stand out. We definitely didn’t want to be the last kid [selected].”
After telling the 450 or so people attending the Synod of Lakes and Prairies’ Synod School that they’re co-creators with God and, as John Calvin once said, “little manifestations of God’s glory,” the Rev. Dr. Jill Duffield proved her point by asking participants to use their cellphones to take first a selfie and then a photo of the people seated around them.
