The Rev. Gregory J. Bentley’s ample preaching gifts put a charge into opening worship for the National Black Presbyterian Caucus
by Mike Ferguson | Presbyterian News Service
The Rev. Gregory Bentley, Co-Moderator of the 224th General Assembly (2020), was the preacher during this spring’s Vision Convocation. Staff of the Presbyterian Mission Agency gathered at the Presbyterian Center in Louisville, Kentucky for the PMA-wide event March 20-24. (Photo by Rich Copley)
LOUISVILLE — Hermeneutic skills of a higher order were on display Friday during the National Black Presbyterian Caucus’ opening worship service, which featured inspired and insightful preaching by the Rev. Gregory Bentley, Co-Moderator of the 224th General Assembly (2020).
That’s the year, Bentley reminded worshipers, that “Covid 19 struck with the ferocity of a supercharged Category 5 hurricane on steroids. Its devastating impact was felt and is still being felt locally, nationally and globally. The pandemic has been the most disruptive and disorienting event of my lifetime … It has caused cataclysm and convulsion in every area of our lives, and the church is no exception.”
As some commentators pointed out, “Covid 19 didn’t so much cause many of the maladies we experienced as it amplified and revealed what has been there all along,” including racism, poverty “and the ungodly unequal distribution of wealth and resources in our nation and our world,” Bentley said. “Ecclesiastical life is not immune to this.”
“We’re trying to find our way forward from this place of loss to a place of thriving and flourishing,” he said. “If you find yourselves so situated, I’ve got some good news: Whatever we have, no matter how seemingly inconsequential or insubstantial — rather than leaning into our own understanding, rather than trying to make our own way under our own power — let us take what we have, no matter how large or how small, and put it in the hands of the Lord.” That was one of many applause lines those assembled gave Bentley.
The “powerful pericope” for Thursday’s worship service, John 6:1-14, an account of Jesus feeding what was likely 15,000-20,000 people, “opens with Jesus leading his disciples into the desert to get away for a little rest and relaxation,” Bentley noted. “Jesus has enough sense to get away to recharge, and we better have enough sense to do the same as well. It’s been said but it bears repeating: Rest is not a reward. It is a requirement for the work of ministry.”
“On their way to the retreat center, the text says that a large crowd kept following Jesus because they saw the signs that he was doing for the sick,” Bentley said. “Church, if we want a large crowd to follow us, we’d better get busy doing some signs! No tricks, no gimmicks, no slick marketing campaigns, but ministries of wholeness and healing for the wounded and the weary, the broken and the bereft, the helpless and the hopeless.”
According to John’s account, Jesus goes up to a mountain and sits with his disciples. Bentley traced biblical examples of mountains as “places of revelation and transformation, where we stand on tiptoe in anticipation as the sacred story unfolds.”
“Here’s the thing we need to know: Jesus often issues an invitation to the work of ministry,” Bentley said. “It’s not about our giftedness. It’s about God’s grace. It’s not about our competence. It’s about God’s capability. It’s not about our proficiency. It’s about God’s provision. Jesus wants us to know from the get-go that the battle is not ours — it is the Lord’s.”
We’ve analyzed our strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, and “in so doing we notice there is a young boy among us who has five barley loaves and two fish,” Bentley said. “Could it be that the key to our future is in the hands of our children? The children we don’t listen to and the children that we constantly complain about and criticize? The children we have written off? The children we put on parade for Christmas and Easter productions and then tell them to be quiet for the rest of the year? The children we have run off from our congregations because we refuse to change and include music and modes of worship that they like? Church, we need to realize the children we have dismissed and disregarded might be the very ones with five loaves and two fish in their hand and are the key to our survival, not only as a church but as a people.”
Jesus “engages the people in a process of organization,” Bentley said, adding there are two main sources of power in society: organized money and organized people, “and organized people will beat organized money every single time. That’s why organized money spends so much time and treasure on keeping the people divided and unorganized. They know the jig is up once we realize we have more in common than we do in differences.”
“We’ve got to get ourselves organized, to join God in God’s redemptive and transformative work in the world,” work that includes the Matthew 25 invitation and its three foci: building congregational vitality, dismantling structural racism and eradicating systemic poverty.
“You know, there’s something about gratitude. There’s something about being grateful for what you already have,” Bentley said. “Our eyes are open when we are grateful. Our pocketbooks are open when we are grateful. In our hands, five loaves and two fish are just a fish sandwich. But in the Lord’s hands, it’s a seafood buffet.”
Photo by Dawn McDonald via Unsplash
“When we turn it over to the Lord, we can unleash the miracle of multiplication,” Bentley said. “I can’t explain it, but I must proclaim it.”
“The thing I like about our God is that God doesn’t piecemeal or half-do anything. God opens up the windows of heaven and pours out a blessing,” he said. So much food was available that day that 12 baskets were filled with the leftovers, “and there ain’t nothing wrong with leftovers,” Bentley said. “The Lord said, ‘bring the leftovers, that nothing may be lost,’” a phrase that carries similar meaning to “should not perish” found in John 3:16, he said.
“I don’t know how you feel about this, but that’s why all to Jesus I surrender,” Bentley said, reciting some of the lyrics from that hymn to a loud ovation as he wrapped up his sermon.
Read an account of the many activities that went on before Thursday’s worship service here.
Presbyterian News Service thanks the Rev. Jimmie Hawkins, the PC(USA)’s director of advocacy, for recording Rev. Bentley’s sermon on Thursday and for transmitting the audio recording.
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