From Syracuse to San Jose –
The Perseverance of the Saints

Covenant Network Convocation Dinner
PCUSA General Assembly
San Jose, California
June 20, 2008

Susan R. Andrews

Last Saturday, I attended a picnic celebrating the Yonkers Initiative – a unique three-congregation experiment in a rich urban stew of a city – a Presbyterian presence that has risen from the dead with a brand new multi-cultural body – two bi-lingual pastors, immigration and health and educational initiatives for their largely Latino neighborhoods – and salsa bands who actually enjoy using the Presbyterian Hymnal. I figured out that of the 150 folks at the picnic, there were at least 20 nationalities represented – and I marveled at the new thing that God is doing in the PCUSA.

I spent about half an hour talking to Sonia, one of the strong lay leaders in the South Presbyterian congregation, an immigrant from Nicaragua, who has just begun her seminary studies at the age of 60. I asked Sonia how she ended up being a Presbyterian – having been raised in the Roman Catholic Church and nurtured as a young adult in a vibrant and vocal Baptist congregation. Sonia got more and more excited as she gave me her answer – because, she said, the Presbyterian church is open-minded – it allows me to think and ask questions – it encourages study of the Bible, not brain washing by the Bible – and because this church allows me to be a leader and a servant in the community around me.

I smiled as Sonia talked and felt my heart strangely warmed. So different from me and yet so much the same.  Sonia used the exact words I would use if someone asked me why I am a Presbyterian. You see, my friends,  this bruised, beloved church of ours has been for me the same kind of nurturing, challenging, liberating and inviting community - a church open to the God who then opens us up and pours us out. Which is why most of us are sitting here tonight. Something has gone deeply wrong with this church we love. And the justice and generosity that nurtured many of us as children has somehow gone into hiding.

Now some of our colleagues and fellow disciples in the PCUSA would say that we – those who have been part of the Covenant Network community for so many years  - we are part of the problem. That anyone who has been involved in an affinity group since G.6.0106b has been in the Book of Order has just added to the dissension and fragmentation in the PCUSA. And this, of course, is where our commitment to unity and our commitment to justice run into deep, deep conflict.

Twelve years ago in Albuquerque, Amendment B was voted out by the Assembly, and a year later, in Syracuse, it was ratified as G6.0106b in the Book of Order, after a majority of presbyteries concurred with its  rather eccentric, confusing and exclusive wording.  I remember clearly the day that the decisive presbytery took it over the top. I was driving my car while making a pastoral visit in Bethesda, and NPR announced the vote.  And I can still feel my heart sinking, my gut twisting, and that clear sense of being betrayed by the church that had raised me and called me and sent me to embody God’s grace in the world.

It was that same year at the Syracuse assembly that the Covenant Network was born – out of the prophetic anger and courage of Bob Bohl and John Buchanan – and soon in September of 1997 over 200 of us gathered in Chicago to start the journey -  from Syracuse to San Jose – though most of us thought that the journey would end in Long Beach or Charlotte or Denver or Birmingham. But, as Oscar McCloud once told us at a Board Meeting, what we are engaged in is a civil rights movement – and transforming human spirits does not happen over night. Even God needs time to soften and expand the human heart.  And so here we are, 11 years later in San Jose, and the journey and the struggle continue.

There have been so many memories as we, the sinful saints in the progressive wing of the Presbyterian Church, have persevered. And many of those saints are sitting in this room. Moments of joy, moments of utter fatigue and hopelessness, moments of hope, and moments of deep anger.  I remember soaring sermons at Covenant Network conferences, calling us to our best and deepest selves. I remember both collaboration and conflict in working with our progressive allies in this struggle. I remember tears at microphones, courage in out-of-the-way places, crippling defeats, votes too close to call, moments of victory and joy, and demonstrations both inside and outside the convention hall – with rainbow scarves ands signs and buttons proclaiming our love and solidarity with our GLBT  friends, and solidarity with all of God’s precious children. I remember that moment on the stage in Denver, the year I stood for Moderator, when I was asked the question – and as clearly as I could, I articulated my utter commitment to opening up the offices of the PCUSA to all those called by God through the gifts of the Spirit. After that, I was sure I would not be elected – and absolutely stunned when I was.

And then at a most personal level, I remember a More Light and Covenant Network prayer meeting at New York Avenue PC in Washington, DC – probably in 2000 - when my then 82-year-old Dad – my mentor and my role model and my spiritual guide - I remember when Dad called and asked me to pick him up and take him to the service. You see, he simply couldn’t park and walk that far – but he wanted, he needed to be there – to sign the Covenant Network commitment and to give his meager funds to support this struggle for justice and truth and grace. And friends, when my Dad died this past May, on Ascension Day, I knew that his spirit and the spirit of all those gentle giants who have gone before us will sustain us until this particular journey reaches the promised land.

Of course, for five years, we pursued a different approach  – a period of time when the Covenant Network painfully but persistently resisted any GA legislative action to remove G-6.0106b  – a period of time that frustrated our allies, confused our antagonists – a period of time while we painfully and persistently waited and prayed for  and encouraged the work of the PUP Task Force. And then two years ago, by the grace of God, a brilliant, dynamic, complex and utterly grace-filled “solution” was found, rooted in the ancient traditions of our passionate Presbyterian tradition  - an invitation to practice the art of scrupling while allowing presbyteries to determine the non-essentials of our faith.  Some saw it as a crippling compromise; but others of us saw it as the paradoxical promise of our covenant God – yes ,a vision that offered a path to pursue justice and unity, honoring those with whom we disagree, but  opening a way where there was no way to welcome our GLBT brothers and sisters into the fullness of God’s grace. How good it felt to leave Birmingham 2 years ago!

But then this Spring came the crushing blow of the GAPJC decision, setting us back to where we were in Syracuse, and making this journey to San Jose so much harder and so much sadder. And that original Covenant Network vision of a “church and generous and just as God’s grace” seemed once again beyond our reach. But, dear friends, our God is a faithful God, and our call is to be a faithful people. And so we will persevere again – on God’s time table, and not our own.

Which leads us to this night, this week, this General Assembly in San Jose.  The leadership of Covenant Network has a strategy, which we’ll be discussing tonight. Yes, a “strategy” – even though that is an offensive word to some. Isn’t it “political” and manipulative to claim a “strategy”? – somehow suggesting that back stage machinations and carefully crafted wording and coalitions and amendments can somehow force the hand of God? I hear and take seriously those horrified whispers suggesting that we are turning real people into a “strategy.” But then again I look to scripture – to the bedrock foundation of our living and resurrected faith – and I see “strategy’’ unfolding all over the place.  In a scientifically elegant way, God strategized the creation.  Through guts and grace, Moses strategized the best way to escape Pharaoh.  For better or worse, Deborah and Barak, David and Jonathon and all the mighty warriors of ancient times strategized through God’s Spirit the creation of a people Israel. Fueled by God’s righteous anger, the prophets strategized the exile and the restoration.  And though it may seem anathema to suggest that Jesus used political strategy to embody the very grace of God, I think his entire ministry was a holy strategy to turn the world upside down, to alienate the powers that be, and with the stunning solidarity of suffering, to inaugurate the very reign of just and generous grace in the very heart of a very human community.

So, yes, the CN is suggesting a strategy for the week that lies ahead of us – a suggestion about how to handle overtures and reports and votes in order to once again pry open the doors of hope that were so decisively shut this past February. This is not mandate. It is advice. This is not control. It is an invitation. This is not manipulation. It is the beginning of a conversation about how together we can embody grace. So, what is this advice – this strategy?

1. Restore the heart of the PUP Report by passing the John Knox overture;
2. Forcefully encourage every presbytery and council to practice the tough and tender process of spiritual discernment whenever contentious decisions need to be made;
3. Send out to the presbyteries an overture to remove or revise G6.0106b, and make clear that the harmful, exclusive Authoritative Interpretations that preceded it no longer carry weight;
4. Restore the ancient and traditional language of the Heidelburg Catechism; 
5. In this historic week in California, reiterate our strong support for full legal and civil rights for same-gender couples and their families. And authorize a task force to begin a focused conversation about gay marriage – and the meaning of marriage and covenanted relationships in general. 

In other words, this week let’s do what we can to once again lift up that central vision – of a Christ-centered and biblically-based church, as generous and just as the grace of God.

One of the reasons I became a charter member of the Covenant Network of Presbyterians, back in 1997, was its name. Because quite simply “covenant’ is the one-word summary of my most personal and passionate faith. Covenant – that rock solid, gracefully flexible, all encompassing promise that God makes to us through our baptism – and our woefully human and feeble attempt to embody covenant in every relationship of our life. Covenant is about faithfulness and loyalty and perseverance and stubborn commitment.  If folks outside the church want to embrace materialism and infidelity and license to cross boundaries and forsake promises, that is their right and privilege. But for those of us sealed within the covenant of baptism and discipleship, such frivolous freedom can only lead to despair. Covenant is about monogamy and single-minded commitment to our utterly dependable and gracious God – and to those with whom we are covenantally tied. And covenant means something in every corner of our living.

How can we not welcome the gifts and lives of GLBT folk into the offices of the church – when we promised at the moment of baptism, as a covenant people, to nurture them and love them unconditionally? And, as we begin to wrap our hearts around the volatile issue of gay marriage, how can we tell our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters not to make commitments of monogamy and faithfulness and covenant fidelity – the very heart of our understanding of sexual and emotional and spiritual love  within the Christian tradition?

But heads up, good liberal folk, covenant also means saying no to promiscuity and no to adultery.  It means saying no to sexual misconduct and to pastoral behavior that thumbs its nose at covenant fidelity and maturity. The very fact that covenant is at the very heart of God’s holy strategy – and ours – means saying no to cheap love, and saying yes to the rich blessings, and boundaries, of faithfulness before God.

And so covenant is at the heart of the strategy of grace we are suggesting for this week. But so is paradox – a way of affirming that we have a both/and God, not an either/or God. 

Deleting G-6.0106b is a both/and strategy. It puts the responsibility for deciding who is called by God into the hands of the presbyteries, with utter freedom to vote yes or no on particular candidates. Call and spiritual gifts, not law or prejudice,  is God’s basis for ordered ministry in our church. The same holds with the heart of the PUP report  - a nuanced invitation to uphold individual conscience, mutual forbearance, and presbytery wisdom, suggesting that some presbyteries will accept scruples related to ordination exclusions, and some will not – and so the Spirit of God, and not human squabbling,  can be free to transform the church.  One of my top five scripture verses is found in the mystery of John’s incarnational language – the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of Grace and Truth. Not Grace or Truth. But Grace and Truth. Both/and – not either/or.

On Father’s Day, my husband and I wandered around Storm King – a five-hundred-acre park with rolling hills and gorgeous landscape that is home to several dozen huge sculptures by Calder and Nevelson, Moore and Suvero. At one end of the park is a sculpture by Andy Goldsworthy. Actually, it is a stone wall – meandering for half a mile, gorgeous rock piles with graceful design stretching over hills, through a pond, and disappearing into a far horizon. But what is stunning about the wall are its curves – a graceful and playful ribbon of rock – curling, undulating,  surrounding and protecting every single tree in the wall’s path. Unlike most walls, this one refuses to divide and exclude. Instead it embraces and includes – a perfect symbol of this church we are called to serve, a church as generous and just as the grace of God; a church that is the resurrected body of our resurrected Lord, the one who came to break down the dividing walls of hostility and radically embrace all  the children of God.

Friends, that is our strategy for this week – to model the covenantal, paradoxical love of our utterly dependable God, to break down hostile walls and open doors, to hold onto one another even as we hold onto our deepest convictions.

May it be so for you and for me – and for all the saints of God called to persevere in these hallowed halls of San Jose.

Amen.