Carpe Momentum

Forgive me Miss Dean, wherever you are, for my convoluted Latin. Is "momentum" even a Latin word? Sportscasters use it all the time. Maybe you Latin scholars out there can enlighten me. Miss Dean was my Latin teacher in 10th grade. (She was also a good member of the South Congregational Church in my hometown of Springfield, MA.) I wasn't very good at Latin. I failed in the first marking period. Through much patient tutoring after school (along with private tutoring by a family acquaintance on Saturdays) and by the grace of Miss Dean I passed with a C.

But I didn't want to talk about these things. Rather, the thought of seizing the moment (thus, "Carpe Momentum") came to mind with regard to the UCC full page add in the New York Times this week. John Thomas, UCC General Minister and President, sought to assuage the potential concerns over the high price of the add by stating,

"I want to reiterate that spending $200,000 on two full-page ads is a lot of money. However, people are looking at the UCC in ways and numbers that we have never before experienced. As we discern the voice of the still speaking God, it's important that we not be defined in narrow and distorted ways, but that we proclaim a message of justice and reconciliation."

In other words (or more to the point, in my own words) we have to seize the moment provided to us by the negative media coverage of Jeremiah Wright, Trinity UCC, Sen. Barak Obama, and by association, the United Church of Christ.

Apparently, John Thomas' concerns were justified. The UCC Blog posted and article about the ad as well as the number of comments from readers across the country. One commenter thought that the ad and the plans to address the issue of Race and Religion are politically motived and a violation of IRS rules. Many questioned the expense saying that the money could have been used for OCWM or to support churches in crisis. Other comments questioned the truth of the claims made in the ad. Others questioned the motives of John Thomas in some rather lurid and personal ways. Here's the link to the article on the UCC Blog: http://www.ucc.org/news/full-page-ucc-ad-appears-in-th.html.

As I read through these comments I couldn't help thinking of when the woman (probably Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus) anointed Jesus with the costly ointment. Some among Jesus' party questioned the expense. It could have been used for the poor. Jesus responded by saying that we always have the poor with us and we can do for them as we can, but we wouldn't always have him.

And so, I was wondering why can't we do both? Why can't we do more for others while also celebrating who we are (or at least who we try to be)? Indeed we need to do both. There is a continuing need to address such pervasive issues as race and poverty in America.

There are other issues, too. Responding to the continuing effects of natural disasters in the Gulf of New Mexico basin, the war against terrorism, the battle to support the victims of ethnic strife in the Sudan (Darfur) and other places. So many issues to confront. And, race and poverty are among them. Whether or not you would consider voting for Barak Obama, he was right in his speech in Philadelphia about this. We need to have an adult discussion about all of these issues. And, we also have the issue of the role of the Church in speaking to these issues in the civic arena.

In fact the discussions of race, religion and our culture are going on. The Metro Association has just posted an invitation to participate in a dialogue on race and religion on April 16, at the Congregational Church in Manhasset at 7:00 PM. Here is the link to the news release. http://uccmetrosuffolk.org/news/calendar.htm#dialogue.

Metro has also published a Resource on the discussion of Race and Religion. Here is the link to this resource. http://uccmetrosuffolk.org/justice/justice-resources.htm.

In Syracuse through InterFaith Works of Central New York there is an ongoing program that addresses this issue: Community Wide Dialogue to End Racism (CWD). I have written about my experiences in a CWD dialogue group before. Since then, I've become a member of the CWD Board. CWD has focused on reaching out to the business community and to youth in the public school systems of the region. Here is the link for more information on CWD. http://www.interfaithworkscny.org/programs/cwd/.

However, there is more that we can do in engaging churches on this issue. Hopefully, we can begin to develop some dialogue in and among our congregations. At our UCCNY staff meeting this week, we decided to make this issue and strategizing to enlarge the discussion of it a major emphasis in our planning over the next several months. And so, there's always more to do. Yes, indeed!

I've been reading Jim Wallis' book The Great Awakening in which he talks about the issues that the Church needs to address in order to be faithful to the call of Christ. Throughout the book Wallis comments that whatever we do as the Church or as individual Christians, if we want to preach the Gospel, we need to assess whether or not we are ministering to the poor. In a section in which he talks about the need to for a renewed commitment to overcoming poverty (pp. 132-133) he writes:

"If we are to take seriously the opening sermon of Jesus at Nazareth recorded in Luke 4, his 'mission statement' in which he proclaims that 'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor,' there can be only one conclusion: no matter what else the gospel does in our lives, if our gospel message is not 'good news to the poor,' it is simply not the gospel of Jesus Christ."

If his view is God's eyes also, then I fall far short of the mark. Still, there is much more that I can do, too, and God is still gracious and very patient. Last night at the Oneida Association Global Church Committee meeting we were talking about what we could do as a committee in helping our Association's churches become more involved in meeting human needs. Jeni O'Neill, a member of the committee from UCC Bayberry, said that she had been reading alot about the program, "Tents of Hope: a journey of compassion and peace with the refugees of Darfur, Sudan".

As she began describing the program to us, we became excited, too. This is something we can do. And so, we're going to do it. And, we'd love to have your help and participation. I'm including the video describing the program.

Here's the link to the Tents of Hope webpage. http://www.tentsofhope.org/

Here's the link to a more detailed description of how to organize the program. http://www.tentsofhope.org/tent2tent_info.pdf

Seize the moment. However we do it -- whether through finding out about, celebrating who we are as a people of God or through doing what God calls us to do -- it's all to the good. Or, at least with God's help it can be.

Blessings,

Rick Cowles