by Rev. Dr. Mary Susan Gast, Conference Minister, October, 2004
Monthly Reflections from The Pacific ~ News and Events of the NCNC United Church of Christ

THE LANGUAGE THING

Words of encouragement and support for those ministering "in the fields."

By the time I got around to preaching, the word for the day had already been spoken. It was Sunday morning at Annual Meeting.

“God Is Still Speaking,” we proclaimed, and then the singing began, “Jesus Loves Me.” We sang it in many languages. It was exciting to hear the whole crowd singing and to notice that when we came, say, to the verse in Japanese, the volume surged from a pocket of people about halfway up the aisle on the left side of Merrill Hall. The Samoan verse was louder at the front on the right side. We’d all heard it before, of course. And like the multitudes gathered at Pentecost, we each hear it in our own language.

The language thing. The miracle of Pentecost was not that the apostles spoke in tongues, but that the crowds heard them— each in their own language.

W o r d s Words Words Words Words Words Words— that’s how Dorothy Streutker had begun her ballad at the Annual Meeting Talent Show the night before, blasting the judicial stuffiness of argumentation regarding the authority of the Mayor of San Francisco to set the right of equal protection under the law over the state of California’s law defining marriage as taking place between a man and a woman. With the brazen exasperation of a Broadway show tune, she demanded, “Don’t talk of laws—show me!

Jesus loves me. Don’t talk about laws and restrictions and whether you take literally my “literal” interpretation of certain select passages of scripture, particularly from the book of Leviticus. Never mind that you refuse the literal application of explicit Deuteronomic law that would condemn any of us for wearing the evil fabric blends of cotton and linen, cited right there in chapter 22, verse 11, just show me.

“Gather to Me My faithful ones, who have made a covenant with me by sharing bread!” the Almighty bids us in Psalm 50. You don’t have to follow a bunch of arcane rules and restrictions. Make the simplest kind of covenant, share bread with me, says the Author of the Universe.

Don’t talk of laws. Show me. Make a covenant with Me. Share the bread. Jesus loves me. Share the bread with one another and the covenant expands. Jesus loves us. None of us will ever be the same. The ones who were “they” yesterday are “us” today, and “we” are forever changed. Beyond words.

“God is Still Speaking” and “Jesus Loves Me” segue delightfully into the theme for next year’s Annual Meeting: hospitality. Linda Jaramillo, PSR student/ UCC sage, wrote about hospitality in her final exam for the UCC Faith & Polity course. Citing the thoughts of Tony Robinson and John McFadden, she described the differences between hospitality and friendliness. Friendliness comes easily toward others like ourselves. Hospitality, though, does not assume that we are all alike; hospitality more than hints at the possibility that we may be different from those we welcome, and that those differences are a source of joy and wonder, to be cherished. “Hospitality,” Joan Chittester has declared, “is love on the loose.” Hospitality is at the heart of the scriptures, the wacko etiquette prescribed by the Holy Spirit in Miss Manners’ guise, for every messianic feast, every “comma as you are” party. Hospitality shapes and re-forms all who dive into it. None of us will ever be the same. The ones who were “they” yesterday are “us” today, and “we” are forever changed.

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                                                                  ~ Mary Susan

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