Morning includes interactive plenary on ‘Welcoming the Stranger’
by Gregg Brekke | Presbyterian News Service
J. Herbert Nelson, II, speaks to the Association of Presbyterian Church Educators in Louisville. (Photo by Randy Hobson)
LOUISVILLE – Speaking to attendees at the 2018 gathering of the Association of Presbyterian Church Educators (APCE), the Rev. Dr. J. Herbert Nelson, II, Stated Clerk of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), assumed the role of cheerleader for educators during today’s opening worship service.
This year’s convention of church education practitioners from the PC(USA), the Reformed Church in America, the Presbyterian Church in Canada, the Moravian Church in America and the Christian Reformed Church in North America has a theme of “Deep & Wide: Boundless Hospitality.”
Nelson’s sermon, based on Luke 10:25–37 — known as the Parable of the Good Samaritan — took him to a “place I was not intending … it is subversive teaching.”
“Teaching is the most important work we in the PC(USA) can do in these times,” he said. “Teaching the gospel is life-saving work. Teaching gives life and offers life to those who would otherwise dwell in ignorance to the God of our salvation.”
Acknowledging the presence of those thriving and others struggling in their ministries, Nelson gave voice to the tendency for labels such as “left, right or middle” to divide the church.
“I am convinced we have become lazy in the church today,” he said. “Therefore, it is easy to put on labels rather than getting to know who people really are; rather than getting to know their context and find out why they are who they are.”
Expounding on the beginning of the Luke passage to “love the Lord God with all your heart, soul and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself,” Nelson wondered aloud about how labels prevent people from recognizing others as neighbors.
“This is really the pertinent question of the day,” he said. “Neighbors are often those we agree with. But in this text Jesus changes and transitions who our neighbor is. He changes the definition so that anyone we come in contact with is our neighbor.”
Nelson told of his trip to Israel and Palestine less than a month ago, the day after President Donald Trump announced that the U.S. would move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
“I was standing on the Jericho Road looking at the security wall,” he said. “Even today [the wall] is heavily symbolized by this desperation and despair. … A wall built to divide the Palestinian and Israeli people. … If the wall we’re talking about building in the U.S. is anything like the one in Israel, it is a sin, and a shame to humanity.
“We are not finished teaching about the theology of our denomination — why we are teaching about justice work, why we are teaching about the priesthood of all believers,” he continued, drawing connections to the theme of welcome. At times, he said, “we are not teaching about our core theology.”
Recalling his own history as the product of Presbyterian education, Nelson said, “All my education post-high school has been in Presbyterian institutions. If we are to receive what is required in greater measure, it will require subversive Christian education. To teach us to love our God, and our neighbor as yourself.
“Christian education is essential. Don’t let any session tell you you’re not worth your weight in salt. Don’t let any pastor tell you they can do it without you,” he encouraged. “If we don’t learn to teach again as we have done historically, and as we are known for — theology, education and how-to — if we don’t begin to learn how to do this today, we will probably be no more than a remnant going into the middle of the 21st century.”
Saying the denomination must teach what it means to love the Lord God with all our hearts, souls and minds, Nelson said, “I want to make sure by the time you leave here, this Stated Clerk has given you a holy pep rally.
“You are needed. You are needed,” he emphasized. “You are needed to help make a difference in the transformation in this present age.”
Calling on his common refrain that the PC(USA) is not dying, but reforming, Nelson encouraged educators to be at the forefront of the reform.
“Reformation will not happen without Christian education, without teaching, without building us from the core up that we might engage in subversive teaching and preaching, that the world we’re living in will be turned upside down, [so] the people some have already counted out will be welcomed in,” he concluded.
Interactive plenary
‘Welcoming the Stranger’ takes attendees on immigration journey
Alison Harrington. (Photo by Randy Hobson)
Alison Harrington, pastor of Southside Presbyterian Church in Tucson, Arizona, asked, “What would it be like to leave home behind and move into an uncertain future?”
Saying 65 million people are on the move across the globe, she wondered, “Migrants are showing up at our doorstep. … Will our hospitality be deep and wide or will it be so narrow that only a few squeeze in?”
Teresa Waggener, coordinator in the Office of Immigration Issues at the PC(USA), added, “[Migrants’] pain and suffering is all too familiar,” noting that the examples used in the upcoming exercise could be triggering for some attendees. The conference set up a safe space with a variety of chaplains available to provide pastoral care for those re-traumatized by the topics discussed in the interactive plenary.
The hourlong exercise asked attendees to introduce and “root themselves” via a short meditation in their sense of home. Juxtaposed with these feelings of belonging, Harrington asked the group to leave that space and “imagine that you will never return to this place again.”
“No one puts their children in a boat unless the water is safer than the land,” Samuel Son said as attendees listened to a litany of the horrors encountered by migrants.
Employing examples of identities of migrants from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, and video clips from the PC(USA)-produced film The Genesis of Exodus, participants received a card with a name and personal description and were asked to imagine where people from these countries “go to feel safe, in their home.”
Teresa Waggener. (Photo by Randy Hobson)
Examining the 2,500-mile journey migrants from these countries make to arrive at the U.S. border, attendees participated in an exercise that placed them in the journey, and with the attendant threats of violence, sexual abuse, financial exploitation and loss, the workshop gave examples of those deported, killed or mistreated during their trek.
Asylum-seekers in the exercise identified gang or family violence, police extortion and economic exploitation as reasons for their migration, looking to escape these circumstances to find opportunity in the U.S.
Harrington quoted statistics from 2016, saying that in 260 of 431 migrants received asylum in Canada. In the U.S., 52 percent of asylum-seekers with an attorney in the U.S. received asylum while only 10 percent of those without an attorney received asylum. Human rights advocates estimate that at least 70,000 Central Americans have died over the past 10 years on their migration journey to the U.S.
“In the midst of all that fear that you experience [in the U.S.], at least here, you are safer than home. … There has to be a land where we are welcome,” Harrington said of the biblical imperative to provide sanctuary for those seeking a new home.
“A journey now lies in front of us, and we return to the question with which we began — in the face of a crisis of global migration, will our hospitality be deep and wide or will it be so narrow that only a few squeeze in?” she concluded. “This path is not an easy path, but whoever said following Christ would be easy?”
“There is a place for each of you to show an array of opportunities to show hospitality,” said Waggener, citing current issues and the efforts of the PC(USA) Office of Immigration Issues and Presbyterians for Just Immigration.
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