Calling

Jim Goodmann

Regional Director, Calling Congregations

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May 01, 2009

The Way the Word Works…in the Lives of Our Children and in Our Lives

This issue of Calling focuses on seminary programs for high school youth. Several theological institutions have had the support of Lilly Endowment in recent years for their work in summer programs that support young people in their first adult forays into using theological language and applying the language of vocation to their lives. It is nothing short of an initiation of power for many of these youth—the power the Holy Spirit brings when young people recognize themselves and their unique role in the life of God’s people.

In Calling Congregations we believe these youth academies in their activities and their moments of reflection, in their worship and their study, bear portents of what the next generation looks for from the church. The question is whether congregations—those that send and those who ponder the benefits of these programs—can also receive who these young people have become when they return home, having begun to find their voice and their hearts with regard to where God calls them. Can we accept new being when it comes back to us, not quite sounding the same as before but looking to be recognized as actors and leaders in our midst? Like the dove sent forth from the ark by Noah, these young people leave and come back—bearing something with them. Before they leave more permanently for other addresses, can we receive what they bring? Program directors from four of these academies—Union PSCE, Richmond; the Catholic Theological Union and Lutheran Theological School in Chicago; and the Urban Leadership Academy in Minneapolis—will represent the work and voices of these young people and the work that they and so many of you engage.

This issue also contains a reflection on the power of story-telling and memory from the leader of a Jewish congregation in Atlanta. As Rabbi Sandler demonstrates, the act of telling the Great Story of Scripture lies somewhere between the sacred text, itself, and the commentary of historians. It lies in that intersection of flesh and blood with the human voice as the re-telling, not just recitation, brings the story into our bodies and joins us to it. A prime example of this, of course, is the Passover Haggadah in the Jewish tradition. The built-in anticipation is that both the leader and the hearers become the story they remember and re-tell. In Christian theological terms (and Rabbi Sandler leaves the application to us) our extension into the primary story of redemption is through our sacramental life. Baptism and Eucharist are movements that re-member us to Christ in ways that, similar to hearing again the story of the Exodus, introduce us to the kairos or "fullness of time" that shapes all our consideration of time. It colors our preaching and our service; our liturgies are soaked in it. We find ourselves named through this story of Jesus.

We visit this practice in the Jewish tradition—that of our elder brothers and sisters in faith—as a way of seeing again, through their voice, the power that the story of the Exodus has to re-awaken us. Not least does that story call attention to God as liberator, the one who releases our vision. Liberation remains an important part of the landscape of both of our faith traditions. In the life of our congregations liberation perhaps means freedom to be present to our lives and the lives of our children as they are named by God. Who we are as temples of God can be accessed only by honoring the Presence that lives within each other. As Thomas Merton said to a group of contemplative women toward the end of his life, "It is important to remember that the Church itself is presence…community is presence, not an institution. We have been banking on the ability to substitute institution for presence and it simply won’t work." It is out of this practice of being present to one another that we connect to our calling. And out of this practice we connect our longings for God to the same longings coming to life in our children.

For more information on theological programs for high school youth go to our website.