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Moderators' Report 

Transforming present

1. Transforming presence

The Orthodox Christians of the East have a picture parable. They recall the story of the catering disaster at the wedding that Jesus attended; they tell how it was the reflection of the face of Jesus in the jars at Cana changed the water to wine. A modern poster artist, Sieger Köder, plays with the same image as he shows the transforming presence of Jesus reflected in the dirty water in which he has just washed Peter’s feet – the mark of costly and humiliating service.

The Catholic Church of Regina Mundi, Soweto was a focus of prayer and protest during the apartheid era in South Africa. It still bears some of the scars of the day a meeting was broken up by the security services. One of these scars is a statue of Jesus standing to give a blessing, from which both the hands were deliberately shot off by an officer. The statue still stands as a reminder of the troubles and as a challenge to today’s people. It brings to mind words of Teresa of Avila: Christ has no body now on earth but yours; no hands but yours; no feet but yours. Yours are the eyes through which He is to go about doing good; yours are the hands with which He is to bless people now.”

2. Anxiety about the future

So much of the life of today’s Church seems to be characterised by an anxiety about the future.

There is a personal angle on this, probably fuelled by the traditional way in which we have talked of salvation. It is concerned with just how individuals can ensure their own certainty of a safe place after death, in heaven or whatever.

There is concern about the Church itself. Hardly a month goes by but one or another newspaper prints a projection of figures of decline in church membership and attendance; the only difference between them is when they might suggest the graph dips below the surface, indicating annihilation in 10, 20, or is it 30 years time.

There is our own brand angst that asks if there is going to be a distinctive future for the United Reformed Church? Ought there to be?
If it disappears into some glorious union, or simply by withering on the vine, will it have helped shaped the future? Or should the question be – will it have ever, in any way, have shaped the present?

3. Redeem thy mis-spent time that’s past; live this day as if ‘twere thy last

How do we take Thomas Ken at his word and respond appropriately as individual Christians and as the people of God? When Martin Luther was asked – What would you do if you knew the world was due to end tomorrow? He replied – Plant an apple tree.

There are strong biblical images of taking the risk of sowing. We live in a time of guaranteed germination of seeds. But there are many in the world who will readily understand the tense emotions of the person who takes the grain out of the larder – the food from the children’s mouths and throws it upon the ground – Those who are sowing in tears will sing when they reap. They go out, full of tears, carrying seed for the sowing; they come back, full of song, carrying their sheaves. [Psalm 126] Jesus picked this up in his parable of sower – a warning of risk but most importantly a promise of fruit for those who will faithfully engage in their calling.

4. Think not of the harvest, but of faithful sowing – TS Eliot

The challenging example of costly sowing is in the life poured out as God-with-us touched earth and shared the human life and situation to bring a harvest of hope and new life. Paul describes it when he wrote to the first church members at Philippi [Phil 2: 5-11] of the Lord who did not think that equality with God was something to be grasped at, but emptied himself – gave himself away – that a whole world of people and things might find life in all its fullness. Why did Paul quote a hymn they already knew? He set the context when he wrote: let this mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus. The call to be the body of Christ in their time and place.

5. The calling of a kenotic Church – a Church that gives itself away.

We are living, I believe, in a frontier time, one of the great hinge periods in human history, in which great changes are coming about at great speed…. The frontier both shapes our character and tests our mettle.

I hope we pass the test. Salman Rushdie – Step Across this Line published by Vintage, London, 2003.

“It must … be questioned how many missionaries today really do cross any decisive frontiers.” (Peter Beyerhaus)

One of the constant criticisms of Jesus seems to have been that he was always in one way or the other pushing the boundaries of what was acceptable in terms of culture and religion. Helping people find life in all its fullness, being a transforming presence, meant touching those who were considered untouchable and engaging with people who were beyond the pale in all manner of strange places. Wherever Jesus met Mary of Magdala, it was not at a synagogue coffee-morning.

There are comparable risks for those who heed the call to be his transforming presence in each time and place. Risks in how we see and understand ourselves, and in how we are perceived – to identity and integrity; in how we decide how to use the resources we have, people, money and things; and in the ways we express and hold to our faith.

“… a real evangelist is by the nature of [his] calling something of a heretic. [He] never knows beforehand how [his] message ‘comes alive’ in the hearers’ context.” (Walter Hollenweger).

Peter and the Council of Jerusalem knew the risk to identity when they crossed the impossible frontier and acknowledged the calling of Cornelius, and millions of subsequent Gentiles. Paul described the peril to personal integrity, and also the missionary imperative of risking the frontiers when he described himself as having made himself all things to all people, so that in one way or another some might be saved.

There is a risk we may find ourselves facing within the Reformed tradition, and not simply to identity, especially as we engage with people in our time and place in terms of new paradigms of belonging, different understanding of membership and a new expression of calling.

6. Transforming present

Ronald Reagan wisely said: status quo is Latin for the mess we are in. Status quo describes an attitude that says this is where we are, we are comfortable with it, and therefore we are staying. There may well be a new world here demanding our attention, but we are concerned to protect what we have and what we have known.
 

We believe that the people of God is called to an intentional focus on the present. This is not preservation of the status quo, but a creative and faithful relationship with the present that says this is where we are – it is the basis of our reflection and preparation for where God takes us next. Therefore, we are called to a depth of quality engagement in each moment of challenge and opportunity. We cannot rest in yesterday’s present. We are the servants of a purpose of love that is as old as the hills, eternal and unchanging yet new every morning as the God of that purpose seeks to bring life and hope to each new time and place. As R S Thomas observed: Our God is a fast God, always leaving just as we arrive.

7. Now is eternal life if risen with Christ we stand

Our call is to recognise and be prepared to enter into the eternal life into which we are invited by the gospel in terms of a qualitative depth of living that may be provisional rather than be about continuity or permanence.
 

– in personal terms – if the contemporary body of Christ comes and goes in order that people might find life in all its fullness, this entails a total commitment of every human relationship in which each word and action, each plan and hope aim to enable people to recognise the life of God in themselves and respond to the challenge to make a whole world of people and things reflect the purpose of love we encounter in Christ. Or, as David Peel memorably quoted Bishop David Jenkins in last year’s moderatorial address: ‘I cannot be fully me until you are fully you, and that means that you must be you in such a way that it enables me to be me; and similarly I must be me in such a way that it enables you to be you’.
 

– in terms of the life and being of a Church which reflects Calvin’s marks of the true Church as where the gospel is preached, the sacraments are duly administered and the service is given. These criteria are pointing to a contingent, provisional apostolicity of being and doing, rather than a Church that identifies and celebrates its authenticity in some form of continuity of historic succession, or even just survival. This has implications for how we make and develop our strategies for mission and service:

• it helps us see how both the planting, and the closing of local churches may be to the glory of God.

• it challenges and enables us to rediscover the New Testament verbs for mission of GO and SEND, rather than (whatever can we do to make them) COME.

• it saves us from the heresy of a manipulative view of work among children and young people that sees them as the future of the Church, our seed-corn for survival; and helps us see it as a significant and authentic ministry in its own right to provide for their nurture and growth in faith.

– as the focus of eternity is known and felt in the passing experience of worship. This places an immense weight on the quality and consistency of our worship encounter with God as being the nurturing and equipping which enables the people of Jesus to be a transforming presence as we draw closer together, as together we draw closer to God.
 

Michael Harper asked: “How can you ask unrenewed people to renew the world? It is like asking non-swimmers to save a drowning person?” It may actually be precisely through the people of Jesus who know that they are unrenewed – in need of renewal – finding themselves being renewed, being made perfect, as they engage in that worship encounter which is itself transforming.
 

That makes demands about how we prepare and engage in worship which makes it both duty and delight. It requires that every stage of preparation, experience and reflection are of the highest quality. We want to ask if the whole of life is an offering of worship – why are we so niggardly about time – grudging giving more than the token hour. Fred Kaan invites us to sing and pray: “Redeem us from the blasphemy of praying with lazy hands and unintending feet”
 

A creative focus on the present seen in the quality of preparation – experience – reflection makes demands on all who engage in worship. It might be seen as a pressure on the minister and worship leader; and so it should be. But it challenges all who are called to support and sustain and nurture each other as together we gather in worship. The quality of our worship relates to the quality of the commitment and preparation of each person who comes and shares, and is thereby nurtured and equipped to go and be transforming presence.

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