President’s Corner
by Minister & President Rev. Dr. Jim Antal
December 2006 / January 2007
What does God’s vulnerability make possible?
... Jesus brought us a new life in ultimate vulnerability. As a child he was dependent on the care and protection of others; he lived as a poor preacher without any political, economic, or military power; and he died nailed on a cross as a useless criminal. It is in this extreme vulnerability that our salvation was won. [Henri Nouwen]
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MACUCC Minister & President Jim Antal (left) recently honored the Rev. Dr. Mike Penn-Strah, Associate Conference Minister, on the occasion of his 40th anniversary of ordination at a combined Andover & Essex Associations fall meeting in Topsfield. Andover Association In-Care student Nancy Butcher looks on. [Photo by Art Clark; vice moderator of the Andover Association, and a member of Ballardvale United Church in Andover.]
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I write at the conclusion of my second month of immersion in this wonderful and challenging calling. By the time you read this, among other things I will have preached in eight churches, engaged eight Associations in conversation, and focused on ecumenical and interfaith issues on sixteen different occasions.
Perhaps the most prominent theme is one I have heard from clergy and laity alike. It concerns the deep relationships of our lives. We treasure, crave and celebrate these relationships. We hunger for them, miss them when our lives grow too busy, and will do most anything to re-engage them.
A few people speak of this directly. But far more testify to this value by how they live-out their calendar and live-into the time God gives us each day. In the various settings I have shared with you, joy has overflowed, hearts have embraced, intellects have engaged, and laughter has spread.
Because churches are voluntary associations their promise is to be and become places where people engage their most meaningful relationships around life’s most important opportunities. Certainly, we do not always reach this bar. But such heights are never farther away than a confession offered, a testimony proclaimed, an injustice confronted, or a joy shared. I have heard you be vulnerable in these ways with one another. I have joined you in taking risks to bridge gaps and build relationships. Many times, as I have driven away from one of your churches, I have cried in gratitude for having been a witness to such open-hearted communication.
Where we have trust – in congregations, in associations, in interfaith and ecumenical friendships, across racial, cultural and class divides – vulnerability can follow, and covenant can form. And as covenantal connection deepens, we become free to listen and learn from one another. We are able to investigate new possibilities, explore new territories, and eventually join those to whom we are bound in covenant in a journey of transformation.
That’s what God did, according to Walter Brueggemann. God chose to be defined as the One who embraced. And by embracing humanity, God gave up immunity and entered into a covenant that would transform both us and God. A conventional God would have remained “on high.” But our God “emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.” (Philippians 2:7)
This is the God in whose image we have been made. And that vulnerability, that honest engagement in mutual relationship, is possible for us because God has shown us the way.
It may seem like a leap to move from this talk to a discussion of adaptive change in our churches and our judicatory structure. But I see them as bound together. If we in the mainline church can adapt and em-brace transformation, it will be because we experience God calling us into new worlds of possibility. You and I are of course comfortable reading Scripture’s description of a new heaven or a new earth. We should be no less comfortable reading Ron Heifitz’s description of transformational leaders, or Jim Collin’s principles that could move our churches from being good to great.
In the months and years ahead, I look forward to deepening our relationships so that we can take the risks God is calling us to make, and thus transform not only the church but the world.
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