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Together in Christ
Dear Presbytery Family,
I am happy to report that I have visited 42 of our 50 churches! Certainly not always on a Sunday morning – sometimes it has been a midweek visit with a pastor or a Session, but in one way or another I have made contact with 42 of our congregations, and I have visits scheduled with the remaining eight. So – if all goes well, I will have connected with all 50 of the churches in our Presbytery in some way by the end of the year.
As you might imagine, at this stage I am beginning to have a better sense of the issues our congregations are facing. While there is wonderful diversity among our churches, and not every church is facing every challenge, there are some things that I am hearing repeatedly.
Many of our congregations are struggling with numbers. I am hearing, even among some of our larger churches, that attendance is not what it was pre-pandemic. It follows that several churches are also wrestling with their finances. Can they continue to afford a full-time pastor? Can they continue to afford a part-time pastor? Is there money for building maintenance or the high cost of heating a church in the winter? And finally, for some of our churches, a huge challenge exists in even finding a pastor. Some have been searching for several years, and that search becomes exhausting and discouraging.
I have found myself reflecting regularly on the story in John, chapter two, of Jesus turning water into wine at that wedding in Cana. The wedding was in crisis mode – they had run out of wine! It would bring an end to the celebration and be such a source of embarrassment to the bridegroom’s family. What could be done? I have been thinking that perhaps our churches struggling with so many challenges might put the problem in a similar way, “We are out of wine.” The joy, the celebration is ebbing as we struggle with our finances, sit in a sanctuary filled with empty pews, and wonder if a pastor will come and serve our congregation. We have worked hard to be the church God intended, but now we feel like we have simply “run out of wine.” What can we do? Running out of wine is a way of saying that we have come to the end of ourselves, our solutions, our ideas. We need a miracle.
In the story from John’s Gospel Jesus instructs the servants to fill the stone jars with water – water that is used for all the traditions and ceremonial purification rites that were a part of keeping a proper Jewish household. It would be the waters of tradition, the waters of purification that Jesus would turn into wine.
I have wondered how the servants might have felt relinquishing that water. It was a lot of work to tote water from the village well to fill those jars! And they needed the water! You could not have a proper Jewish home without it. Did they want to let Jesus use that water? We aren’t told. Perhaps some were very excited at the prospect of so much wine! But others may have felt cautious or concerned, even reluctant about letting go of the water.
I cannot help but wonder if Jesus is coming to us with a similar invitation for our churches. Are we willing to give him the waters of our traditions? The waters of our purification rites? The waters that reflect our hard work? The waters that are what we trust in to run a proper church and live a proper Christian life? Would we be willing to hand over those waters to Christ?
I was with a church recently that did a little reflecting on what was in their stone jar of traditions. One member mentioned music as a sacred tradition. Another mentioned being kind to others. Yet another mentioned seeing the good in every situation and knowing the good comes from God. What is in your
jar? If your church was asked to reflect on the traditions and values that matter most, what would they list?
And my friends, what would happen if those were the very things we handed to Jesus? What if we said, “Jesus, do what you will with our music. Turn this water, that is life-giving and important to us, turn it into wine.” And we allowed our music to change.
What if we said, “Jesus, take our belief that we are to be kind to others. This is life-giving water for us, but we give you permission to turn it into wine.” Who might Jesus suddenly bring into the circle of our church family? Who might we welcome or include? Where in our community might we go to serve that we have overlooked? What would happen if we allowed the waters of kindness to be turned into wine?
And what about the life-giving water of seeing the good in every situation and trusting the good is from God? Could we see the good in people with whom we may disagree? Could we trust that God is at work in their lives too? How might Jesus change this water into wine?
We are at such a crossroads in the life of the church. It seems unlikely that things will go back to the “way they always were before,” as much as we might long for that. We humans are creatures of habit and change is always hard. But change is the one constant in life.
We are not the first Christians to come to this crossroads. I am remembering those very first Christians, right after Pentecost, who were living in Jerusalem, worshipping in each other’s homes, sharing everything in common, seeing their numbers increasing every single day. What an incredible season! But it did not last. The winds of change came when persecution descended upon those early Christians, and they had to scatter to survive. They went home to their own countries, and how discouraged they must have felt as they missed the friendships formed in Jerusalem, the energy of a rapidly growing church, the joy of a life shared in community. But it was that season of persecution and that scattering that resulted in the Gospel being shared in far distant places!
What about those wonderful churches the Apostle Paul planted? All seemed to be going so well – the Jewish Christians finding their stride and enjoying the life they shared. But that didn’t last. The Gentiles came to faith and wanted to be a part of the church. Remember the conflict? Those Gentile men weren’t circumcised! Those Gentiles didn’t follow Jewish dietary law! How could they possibly be welcomed into the church?? Pork sandwiches at a potluck made Jewish Christians want to gag. How could this possibly be God’s will? And yet Paul and those early church leaders determined that this was exactly God’s will. Gentiles would not be required to embrace the laws of Judaism. They would be welcomed just as they were, a valued part of the family of God. Not an easy change – one that rubbed many of those early Christians the wrong way – and yet the very change that resulted in the spreading of the Gospel and God’s love far and wide to people who otherwise never would have heard or experienced the good news, including most of us my friends, including us.
We are in our own season of change. We have had our status quo disrupted, our way of being the church challenged. We have had our controversies and persecutions and seasons of feeling discouraged. We can look over our shoulders at that great cloud of witnesses and know that we are not the first to face such challenges and we do not walk alone. This is the course set before us, and those who went before us are cheering us on toward the finish line!
And so, my 5,311 Presbyterians of the Minnesota Valleys Presbytery, I believe this is our challenge and the invitation that has come to us from God. Will we offer the waters of our traditions so that they can be transformed into the wine of celebration? Can we trust Jesus with the very things we hold most dear, and believe that in his hands they will become something even better?
The story of the wedding in Cana ends with everyone exclaiming over the wine that is being served. “You saved the best for last!” they say. I believe that will be true for us as well. Getting to that point is challenging and will require surrender of things we hold near and dear. We may not all see the results of our surrender in our own lifetime. But if we faithfully run the course set before us, and we say, “Jesus, take the water of my traditions and transform it into the wine of celebration” I believe the best is yet to come.
Friends, we are the Bride of Christ! We are not abandoned or forsaken. We are dearly loved by the God of the Universe, who stands with us in every trial and tribulation. We are surrounded by the Great Cloud of Witnesses who went before us and leave us not a legacy of buildings or ceremonial rites, but rather a legacy of their courage and willingness to depend on God in times of change and uncertainty, and now they cheer for us.
I draw an odd comfort from knowing that none of the churches the Apostle Paul planted are still around. Churches come and go, and that will be true for us as well. Our task is to simply take the life-giving water that we depend on and offer that very thing to Jesus, confident that in his hands the wine of celebration will once again flow. “L’Chaim!” to Life!
Together in Christ,
With courage, devotion and good spirit as a colleague,
Rev. Beth Buckwalter-Miller
Rev. Beth Buckwalter-Miller is available to come and lead a discernment exercise with your Session or congregation that would allow an opportunity to apply this unique story of the wedding at Cana to the life of your congregation. To schedule, email Beth: [email protected]. Daytime hours preferred for scheduling this event.
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