Today in the Mission Yearbook - Synod executive preaches on the ‘decent and in order disorder’

‘We might miss the work of the Spirit,’ the Rev. Dr. Chip Hardwick says

October 22, 2024

The Rev. Dr. Chip Hardwick preaches during 

the opening worship of the Inspire! regional 

gathering of immigrant leaders in the Synod of 

the Covenant.

According to the Rev. Dr. Chip Hardwick, when you Google “Why are Presbyterians like that?” one of the top five questions asked is, “Why are Presbyterians called the ‘frozen chosen’?” Hardwick, executive for the Synod of the Covenant, recently preached at a regional gathering of immigrant new worshiping community and church leaders in Cincinnati. Hardwick brought greetings on behalf of the synod, which spans most of Ohio and all of Michigan and as of 2022 had 623 churches reporting 82,264 members, to a group that included the praise team from Korean Presbyterian Church of Cincinnati and other regional leaders as well as immigrant leaders from California and Georgia.

“I think the reason we’re probably frozen chosen, at least in white churches, is because if you put motion sensor lights in a Presbyterian sanctuary, they might not ever go on during a worship service right there. That might not be enough motion to make any life happen,” said Hardwick. He attributed some of the freeze of white Presbyterian churches to be related to a habit of control and what he called “the decent and in order disorder.”

Hardwick looked to the Bible for examples of when God did the unexpected and shook up the order of things. His chosen Scriptures focused on the story of Pentecost in Acts 2 and on the story of Moses in Numbers 11, who commissions 70 elders in the tent of meeting. But in the Numbers account, it is the two extra elders who remained in the camp, Eldad and Medad, who receive the spirit and prophesize in the camp.

“The Holy Spirit’s supposed to come on 70 people, but the Holy Spirit comes on 72 people,” Hardwick said about the Numbers story, which pointed out that “we get not one, but two bonus elders of the Spirit coming, the spirits doing what they don’t expect.” Hardwick characterized Joshua and another objector to Eldad and Medad’s prophesizing as “great Presbyterians.”

“Wait, wait. The Holy Spirit is doing something. Stop, stop, stop. Keep it under control,” Hardwick said, impersonating their reactions. “Presbyterians are great at thinking that we can totally project what God is going to do and when God is going to do it,” he said.

The Rev. Lindsay Armstrong and the Accents! team of 

the Revs. Rafael Viana, Sam Kim and Gad Mpoyo 

introduce themselves during opening worship.

When prophesizing God’s will for the people, more important than the ability to predict and project is the ability to observe, to listen and to understand. In the Pentecost story, Hardwick saw the power of the Spirit not just in Peter and the disciple’s ability to speak many languages into the crowd but also to listen to the many voices speaking back to them. According to Hardwick, God “gave Peter and the disciples the power to understand the languages that came back and to learn from the people who were there from all over the world.”

“We have to admit that the Holy Spirit is just as active in immigrant communities and can teach us in our established churches what’s going on, too,” said Hardwick. “If we only imagine God to work in very specific ways and very specific times, and that we can control them, then we have a decent and in order disorder.” Hardwick ended with the caution that “we might miss that work of the Spirit.”

“The purpose of the Inspire! [events] is threefold,” said the Rev. Gad Mpoyo, associate for 1001 New Worshiping Communities’ Eastern Region. “To celebrate new immigrant church creativity, resilience and commitment; to reflect on best practices for bringing immigrant new worshiping communities and the established church into mutually beneficial relationships with one another; and to have a renewed, shared sense of hope and direction for a vibrant church future.” Mpoyo co-leads the Inspire! events with the Rev. Lindsay Armstrong, executive director of the New Church Development Commission, the Rev. Rafael Viana, organizing pastor of Casa Brasil Church, and the Rev. Sam Kim, coordinator for transnational ministry at Columbia Theological Seminary.

There is another regional gathering planned for Stony Point Center in New York with a new date of Nov. 11–12.

According to Armstrong the Holy Spirit is at work and is not easy to miss. Armstrong said, “The Inspire! regional gatherings continue to gain momentum.”

Beth Waltemath, Communications Strategist, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

Today’s Focus: Rev. Dr. Chip Hardwick preaches at an immigrant new worshiping community in Ohio

Let us join in prayer for:

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Mark Thomson, Publishing Manager, Communications Ministry, Presbyterian Church (USA) 
Paula Tibbs, Mission Specialist, World Mission, Presbyterian Mission Agency 

Let us pray

In you, Living God, the young are given wisdom. In you, the old are given enthusiasm. Forgive us for our foolishness and laziness. Unite us in harmony and community with each other and with you, our Triune God. Blessed be the Father, and Jesus Christ the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Today in the Mission Yearbook - Presbyterians Today columnist suggests we open our eyes to the poor

Helping others begins with identifying with them

May 10, 2023

Originally published January/February 2020

Rev. Dr. Chip Hardwick

Which Harry Potter character are you? Which famous clown are you? Which “Friends” character are you?

Quizzes like this abound on the internet, claiming to tell us who we identify with most in pop culture. And they’re not just on the internet. I remember a rogue questionnaire — “Which Princeton Theological Seminary professor are you?” — that a couple of seniors with too much time on their hands wrote.

While I’m not sure how my preferring glazed doughnuts contributes to being most like Ronald McDonald, the fact is that we often connect with some characters better than others. Whether it’s our life circumstances, physical appearance or the personality to which we aspire, some shoes just fit more comfortably.

It happens when we read Scripture, too. Think about it: Is it easier for you to identify with the father, younger brother or older son in the story of the prodigal son?

Where we see ourselves in the story often reveals what we understand God’s call to be. Yet when we are willing to put ourselves in someone else’s shoes, we will see a different way to join Christ’s mission.

Psalm 40:1–11 gives us the opportunity to place ourselves in a couple of different places to understand how God might be calling us to respond to eradicating poverty. This psalm seems to be a full-throated, joyous song of praise, with the author filled with gratitude for God’s work. There are incomparable wondrous deeds that have been multiplied and glad news of deliverance to be proclaimed.

Now let’s place ourselves in the first two verses as a family who had been stuck in systemic poverty. The psalmist describes our gratitude because God has heard our cry. The Lord has drawn us up from the desolate pit, out of the miry bog, and made our steps secure. The psalm gives no hints how God accomplished this rescue, but let’s imagine. Could it be that people mired in a bog of poverty might have their steps in life made more secure via access to better education, job training and mentoring, and legislation confronting systemic racism?

Now let’s return to our own place in life, rather than that of the family in “desolate” (verse 2) poverty. While those of us reading this article come from many financial backgrounds, it is safe to say that most of us are not impoverished. That means when we identify with the psalmist who says, “I delight to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart” in verse 8, we can imagine the Holy Spirit working through us, nudging us to follow God’s law by addressing poverty in our communities. By joining Jesus’ work to free others from the pain of poverty, we can join the psalmist as he tells God that we “have not concealed your steadfast love and your faithfulness.”

We don’t need internet quizzes to tell us who we are. We are children of God, and as such we need to look beyond who we think we are or want to be and insert ourselves into the story of poverty that’s growing in our nation.

Pray that the Holy Spirit will inspire a unique ministry for you, your family or your church, so that the impoverished in your community can experience God using you to answer the closing prayer of the psalmist: Do not, O Lord, withhold your mercy from me; let your steadfast love and your faithfulness keep me safe forever.

As you share steadfast love and faithfulness, perhaps you’ll realize that the One with whom you’re identifying the most in this passage is our God, who puts a new song in our mouths.

Chip Hardwick for Presbyterians Today

Let us join in prayer for:

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Tim Cargal, Associate Director for Ministry Leadership Development, Office of the General Assembly
César Carhuachîn, Mission co-worker serving in Colombia, World Mission, Presbyterian Mission Agency

Let us pray

Lord, in a world where we are often so busy with our own lives and needs, help us to remember that it only takes small acts of kindness to remind others of your love. Let us take the time to share those small acts of love and kindness wherever we may be. Amen.

Today in the Mission Yearbook - Remembering with honesty

The good old days weren’t good for everyone

February 28, 2023

Marco Bianchetti /Unsplash

The older we get, the more we begin to think, “My memory isn’t what it used to be.” With each successive decade, we seem to remember less, and less accurately, than we used to. Sometimes we look back and see what we want to see, rather than what really happened. We see this in Numbers 11.

The Israelites are in the thick of 40 years of wandering toward the Promised Land. The persnickety pilgrims look back on what they remember as an incredible buffet from before their journey began: fish, cucumbers, melons and leeks. Except, of course, they aren’t remembering everything just as it was. They seem to forget that the King of Egypt enslaved them. They don’t remember the order given to the midwives to kill all the baby boys. Somehow making bricks in the blazing desert sun had faded away. As Moses listened to them, he probably thought, “Their memory is definitely not what it used to be.”

The Numbers passage goes on to describe how God answers Moses’ call for help, and how the Holy Spirit empowers the elders to keep the tribe moving forward. But let’s stay in the first few verses of Numbers 11, with the Israelites’ faulty memory, since it has some connection to our own faulty memories today.

The Israelites want to return to the good old days, which in reality were not as good as they remember. Sometimes we who are white in America are seduced into this same impulse. Maybe like me, other white readers look back to earlier times when racial division seemed so much less prominent in our country. I was not old enough to be aware of the struggles over race in the 1960s and early 1970s. By the 1980s, my high school and college days, I don’t really remember much attention being paid to race. In fact, I don’t really remember learning about racial disparities until I went to work at our national church headquarters a decade ago. Maybe like me, you who are white remember the “good old days” when racial justice was not front and center as it is now.

But our memory is not what it used to be. I feel quite certain Black, Indigenous and People of Color who read this column are wondering what country I’m describing. After all, in the 1980s I was part of a fraternity giving demeaning racist pledge names to our Black pledges. The decade of the ’90s saw injustices such as the Black and Latino teens called “Central Park Five” who were unjustly found guilty of assault, a conviction vacated in 2002. The first decade of the 2000s saw marked progress in our national leadership, but also found Islamophobia skyrocketing after Sept. 11, 2001.

These brief examples, out of many others that could be recounted, jolt us to remember more fully that the “good old days” were not as good as we might remember. Needless to say, older readers would be able to describe memory mismatches in the decades before the ones I remember myself. For instance, many of us have only now heard of and are learning about the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, where hundreds of Black people were killed and an entire section of the city was destroyed. We don’t remember it because the story was quashed for decades afterward. Maybe like me, you are only now learning more about Juneteenth, our newest national holiday, so that we can remember better what it means to be liberated from oppression. Presbyterians Today spotlighted Juneteenth in a 2020 story at presbyterianmission.org/story/pt-0520-juneteenth.

Our memory may not be what it used to be, but the remainder of our Scripture passage gives us hope. Moses prays, “If only the Lord would put the Spirit on all God’s people!” The Holy Spirit has come to all of us, equipping us to live faithful lives, and, yes, sharpening our collective memories. Even more importantly, the Spirit’s clarifying power shows us the world as it is, not as we wish it were. As the Spirit comes on us, we are empowered to pursue racial justice, so that increasingly these become the good old days for all of God’s people.

Chip Hardwick, Transitional Synod Executive of the Synod of the Covenant, which includes presbyteries in Michigan and Ohio

Let us join in prayer for:

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Rebecca Snipp, Administrative Project Manager, Presbyterian Disaster Assistance, Presbyterian Mission Agency
Barbara Soete, Mission Specialist for Special Offerings, Mission Engagement & Support, Administrative Services Group (A Corp)

Let us pray

Almighty God, giver of all good gifts, bless our efforts to provide to the people of this world. Through these efforts, may more of your children know the abundant life that Christ came to bring us. Amen.

Today in the Mission Yearbook - Faith gives certainty in life’s uncertainties

Tomorrow brings hope

October 22, 2022

iStock photo

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.” Helen Keller observed that “faith is the strength by which a shattered world shall emerge into the light.” And John Calvin wrote faith is “the firm knowledge of God’s benevolence toward us.” While none of these definitions are fully complete, each gives us a glimpse of this Christian cornerstone, much like the beginning of Hebrews 11, which affirms that “faith is the assurance of things hoped for.”

Now more than ever, it seems faith is important in our personal lives as we struggle to believe “when sorrows like sea billows roll.” In this column, though, I want to focus on the importance of faith as we think about the future of our congregations.

Things are in such flux as we haltingly move beyond the pandemic into a new season where old patterns are questioned even more. It is natural to worry about what will come next.

Yet to have faith, as Hebrews tells us, is to hold on to the assurance of things hoped for. God’s promises can be trusted even — and especially — when the church is unsettled. God still creates. Christ is still risen. The Holy Spirit is still on the loose. Of course, we do not know how the church will grow into this reality in its next phase, a fact the writer of Hebrews also acknowledges when writing that “faith is … the conviction of things not seen.”

It’s much easier to follow the Spirit when every single step is obvious, but according to Hebrews, that’s not faith. Faith is journeying obediently with Jesus Christ into the future that is not yet seen. I’m not sure there’s a better way to describe the challenge of ministry in 2022 than this: stepping into an unknown future in which many are daring to do.

Recently, at a panel held in the synod that I serve, I heard stories that illustrated what stepping out in faith looks like today. One such example was the Rev. Bethany Peerbolte — known better by almost 300,000 TikTok followers as RevBethany. The associate pastor for youth and mission at First Presbyterian Church in Birmingham, Michigan, has created a following with her videos that preach the grace of God creatively, comedically and courageously. My sense is that the demographics of her social media flock are quite different from those in her congregation.

What will the church look like in its next season? We don’t know exactly. But we do know this: “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Thanks be to God!

The Rev. Dr. Chip Hardwick is the executive of the Synod of the Covenant.

Let us join in prayer for:

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Lorraine Henry, Director, Financial Protection & Retirement Program, Board of Pensions
Brian Henson, Desktop Support Analyst, Information Technology, Administrative Services Group (A Corp)

Let us pray

Loving and liberating God, help us to work together to advance the cause of Christ in the world today with faith and certainty in life’s uncertainties. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

Today in the Mission Yearbook - Windshields and rearview mirrors

Where are we looking these days?

June 21,  2022

It makes a big difference how much time we spend looking forward to what’s coming our way, and how much time we spend looking backward at where we’ve been. At least it does in driver’s education. I remember my driver’s ed instructor telling us to look in our rearview mirrors once every two seconds — which seems like bad advice to give to a bunch of literalistic teenagers.

Getting the balance between the windshield and the rearview mirror, though, is critical not just for safe driving, but for life in general. After all, how often do we find ourselves taking in the rear view rather than looking ahead to new possibilities?

As the pandemic rolls on, I bet I’m not the only reader of Presbyterians Today who finds myself longing for the way church used to be. But living faithfully in this season means mastering the time of looking forward and backward.

Isaiah 43:16–21 speaks directly to this balance. In the passage, God first looks backward, reminding the Israelites of the glories of the Exodus. The rear view reassures them of God’s work in the past, even as they struggle to find their way in the exile. But then God quickly shifts to the windshield, reminding them, “Do not remember the former things. I am about to do a new thing!”

Promising rivers to quench the desert, God calls the Israelites to shift their gaze toward the future, where they will find the faithfulness they’ve experienced in the past.

The pandemic has disoriented us, leading to clear parallels to the Israelites’ exile. We can’t practice our faith as we always have. We wonder why God is letting all of this happen.

God invites us, though, to look toward the faithfulness we will find. Like the Israelites, there will be a lot of rebuilding and reconfiguring. Some treasured traditions will fade away, and others will become more compelling than we can imagine now. Can we trust that God will do a new thing in a strange land?

I experienced a taste of this hope this past Christmas Eve. I was looking forward to worshiping with my father at his church as usual. I could look in the rearview mirror and see decades of candle lighting, bell ringing and Gospel proclaiming. But a worsening non-Covid cough kept me home, frustrated I could not join Dad. Then a lightbulb went off. We had an idea. A half-hour before he was to leave for church, we realized he could stay home, and we could join the livestream worship.

It wasn’t the same as being there in person, but it was a new thing. It was our way in the wilderness, and a river in the desert of our disappointed souls. It was meaningful, and certainly better than my missing Christmas Eve worship and his going to church by himself.

The Isaiah passage concludes by proclaiming that God gives us drink, that we might declare God’s praise. That night we turned away from the rear view and looked through the windshield, toward God’s future. And we praised God for the new way forward.

Chip Hardwick, Transitional Synod Executive, Synod of the Covenant

Let us join in prayer for:

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Teresa Waggener, Manager, Immigration, Legal Resources, Office of the General Assembly
David Walker, Executive Vice President & Chief Investment Officer, Board of Pensions

Let us pray

Gracious God, we thank you that you are a miracle-working God and a multiplier of loaves and fishes. We thank you for your love and the opportunity to tell and show your love to all. We hold up to you the needs all over the world. Amen.

Bless, do not curse, changes

BIBLE EXPLORATIONS: FAITHFUL LIVING IN A NEW SEASON

Understanding and embracing a new day

by Chip Hardwick | Presbyterians Today

“Seems like changes come faster and faster all the time!” My grandmother, who was born in 1904, told me this one day, as she described her youth without cars and then astronauts on the moon six decades later. Some of the changes over her 97 years were unwelcome. She never did buy a microwave. Other changes, like the “www” in her morning newspaper ads, intrigued her.

As we haltingly step out of the pandemic, changes still seem to come faster and faster all the time. We have Bible study on Zoom and worship on YouTube. Masks are on; masks are off — and of course, everyone has an opinion about the latest public health guidance.

We are not the first generation to see such change. And I am not just reaching back to my grandmother’s generation. Acts 11:1–18 describes a monumental change in the history of God’s people that was not welcomed.

Peter has been preaching to the Gentiles in Caesarea, and the Holy Spirit comes upon them —much to the surprise of his missionary team, all of whom, like Peter himself, are Jewish converts. The new Gentile believers are baptized before Peter heads back to Jerusalem, but not without some criticism as Christians of Jewish descent ask, “Why did you go to uncircumcised men and eat with them?” Peter’s enthusiastic baptisms of his new siblings were not received all that enthusiastically by his longtime siblings. Peter is not alone.

In our families, workplaces and churches, sometimes a change that we prefer is less preferable for others. The pandemic exposed this as one of the many divides in our culture. In our churches, this divide has been over online worship: Some embrace the opportunity to not worry about keeping their children quiet during worship, while others fear that online options will thwart the relationship-building necessary to the faith. One member’s unwelcome change is another member’s intriguing possibility.

In our passage, Peter meets his resistance by describing two dreams: one of his own and one that comes to an inquiring Gentile. Both dreams explain his decision to baptize the newcomers. In Peter’s dream, he has a vision of all the foods that Jews considered unclean coming down from heaven in a sheet, along with a voice telling him to eat up. By the third time Peter hears the words to eat, he realizes that the Gospel is open to Gentiles without their following Jewish dietary laws. In the Gentile’s dream, an angel promises that Peter will give him a message by which his entire household will be saved. He and his family are among the ones Peter baptizes.

In some ways, Peter’s double dream functions as what contemporary authors Dan and Chip Heath call a “destination postcard” in their book “Switch.” Sometimes the best way to bring about change is to sketch out an inspiring picture of the way the world can be, after the desired transformation has taken place. Doubters can then picture a future they want to join. Peter helps his critics imagine a world where doors are opened, barriers are lifted and even Gentiles, of all people, come to faith in Christ.

The pandemic has thrust change onto our congregations; some of it is unwelcome, and some is intriguing. What will your “destination postcard” look like?

The Rev. Dr. Chip Hardwick is the transitional synod executive of the Synod of the Covenant.

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Let’s Discuss

• Which of the changes brought about by the pandemic are unwelcome? Which are intriguing?
• Describe a destination postcard for your church. How will you join God in making this vision a reality?

Today in the Mission Yearbook - Don’t weary while doing good

Bring God back into the racial justice work we are called to

December 2, 2021

Blacks, Indigenous peoples, and other people of color (BIPOC) are not simply those who are marginalized because of their race. They often find themselves working the hardest for racial justice. My friends of color tell me it is grueling to feel the oppression and to also be left with most of the responsibility for fighting it. Working toward racial justice can be exhausting.

We who are white often tire of working for racial justice, too. However, we have the very real advantage of backing away if we become overwhelmed trying to make a difference — an advantage never permitted for our BIPOC siblings.

In one way, BIPOC and white communities both face a similar challenge: Our faith tradition often treats progress toward racial justice as an ethical demand that we, as a society or church, must do. The work of racial justice is often framed as something that we must engage and support person to person, group to group, with God often left out of the equation. Yet in Ephesians 2:11–22 we hear again that Jesus Christ is the one who breaks down dividing walls. These verses describe an “in” group — “the commonwealth of Israel” — and an “out” group — “Gentiles by birth.” The latter is the group that is marginalized and oppressed. They are described as “aliens” and “strangers to the covenants of promise” who have “no hope” (v. 12).

The author of Ephesians, though, does not demand that either group jump into action, as if reconciliation depends solely on them. Instead, our attention is immediately drawn to Jesus, who has united the groups, creating one humanity out of two. On the cross, Jesus has put to death their hostility and given peace to both. Yes, the Bible does repeatedly proclaim that Christians need to work for reconciliation and justice. In this specific passage, though, the focus is first on Jesus’ ministry itself, reminding us it is Christ’s work that precedes, accompanies, and equips our own. 

We can see this in the ministry of Father Gregory Boyle, a Jesuit priest who founded Homeboy Industries, an organization on its way to becoming the largest gang intervention, rehabilitation, and reentry program in the world, with an annual budget of $19 million. Through Homeboy Industries, Jesus Christ is destroying hostility and ministering to the out-group. Jesus is bringing gang members near and uniting them with a society that often marginalizes and mistreats them. Jesus is bringing peace as the ministry fights racist structures that make inequalities so difficult to combat. 

At the time of his 2017 book, “Barking to the Choir: The Power of Radical Kinship,” Father Greg had performed the funerals of 220 people lost to gang violence and had gathered a multiracial team to develop a dozen social enterprises to train and employ the overwhelmingly BIPOC gang members. In a video on the organization’s website (homeboyindustries.org), Father Greg points to God’s primary work to love and show compassion for all of humanity, saying, “We want to see people as God does — with the highest, deepest reverence [for human complexity] — to see each other today and always … as God’s delight.” He adds, “Everyone is a lot more complex than the worst things they’ve ever done.”

Father Greg focuses first on God’s action before ever considering what we might do in response. This fortifies him to continue work that can be tiring and overwhelming. Like Father Greg, we have our role to play in breaking down the walls of racial injustice. It is a role that can wear us down and wear us out. But we can’t give up just because we grow tired.

Rather, we must seek the strength that comes from seeking God first and recognizing that Jesus is before, alongside and in us, breaking down the dividing walls, creating in himself one humanity instead of two.

Chip Hardwick, Transitional Synod Executive, Synod of the Covenant

Let us join in prayer for:

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Leo Dorsey, Web Developer/designer, Communications Ministry, Presbyterian Mission Agency
Kate Duffert, Manager for GA Business & Per Capita Promotion, Office of the General Assembly

Let us pray

God of grace and justice, may we empower our families and children with the means to stand up together for economic security and physical safety as we seek to become the beloved community. Amen.

Today in the Mission Yearbook - Confession is not a downer, but moves us forward

Acknowledging sin is the first step toward walking in God’s way

July 18, 2021

Katie Rodriguez/Unsplash

In this classic prayer of confession, we remember both the sins of commission (what we do) and the sins of omission (what we do not do), and we acknowledge that sins are both personal and corporate. Of course, when worship rolls around to the prayer of confession, it’s not unusual for pastors to hear, “I don’t come to church to feel bad about myself. Can’t we just skip the prayer of confession?”

In our Gospel text for Jan. 10, however, Mark tells us that “people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him [John the baptizer], and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.” Jerusalem is about 20 miles away from the traditional site of Jesus’ baptism, while “the Judean countryside” could mean locales five times that distance away or more. They literally spent days traveling to be baptized by John. And part and parcel to their baptism was the confession of sins.

Confessing our sins is not meant to be a “downer.” Rather, it’s the first step we take in becoming a new creation in Christ. After confession, those who came to John were ready to enter the waters of baptism. After confession, what would we be ready for?

Confession and racism

I want now to explore how we who are white need to confess our sin of racism. To be honest, I’ve only been wrestling with this idea recently. Probably like you, I can’t really think of any specific acts that I have done that seem racist. I admire and love many people of color, and I don’t remember saying anything to them or about anyone who shares their background, at least not on purpose, at least not for decades. Most of us who read Presbyterians Today are probably in this same boat. Why would we confess our sins of racism if we can’t think of any bigoted acts, we might have taken? Remember, though, that prayers of confession are corporate as well as personal.

It’s helpful to think about how our culture and society corporately are guilty of the sin of racism. For instance, could it be that one reason for the tragically high incidence of COVID-19 deaths among Blacks, Hispanics/Latinos and Indigenous people is a society that often prevents them from sharing the excellent medical care that whites typically receive? Could it be that Blacks’ wealth on average is one-tenth the amount of whites’ because of redlining and a GI Bill that prevented their grandparents from having access to the wealth-generating resources that whites enjoyed?

Probably none of us have made decisions that led to these specific racial injustices. We probably do not need to confess a sin of commission. Yet living in a culture stained by racism all too often deadens our desires to love our neighbors of color as ourselves.

Our faith in Christ is strengthened when we ask forgiveness for our sins of omission. As we repent, we learn to take steps to join the divine mission toward a more racially just society. We will mess up along the way — saying something wrong or failing to act. But when we confess, our most merciful God will forgive us so that we might delight in God’s will and walk in God’s way.

Chip Hardwick, Transitional Synod Executive of the Synod of the Covenant

Let us join in prayer for:

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff

Elmarie and Scott Parker, Presbyterian Mission Agency
Stephanie Patterson, Presbyterian Women

Let us pray

Most merciful God, we confess that we have sinned against you by what we have done, and by what we have left undone. We have not loved you with our whole heart or our neighbors as ourselves. We humbly repent. For the sake of your Son, Jesus Christ, have mercy on us; that we may delight in your will, and walk in your ways. Amen.

Today in the Mission Yearbook - God’s vineyard parable exposes privileges taken for granted

Asking for what is fair and just for all: It’s time to take a stand

March 16, 2021

Christian Wilhelm Ernst Dietrich, “Parable of the workers in the vineyard,” (ca. 1790)

In Matthew, Jesus tells the story of a landowner needing workers for his vineyard. Before dawn, he strikes a deal with some workers, promising to pay a full day’s wage for a full day’s work. Apparently needing more help, he finds more laborers midmorning, assuring them that they’ll also be paid fairly. By lunchtime, he’s returned for more help. He goes out again midafternoon for workers and then again, with only an hour before closing time. At dusk, the last to begin working are the first to get paid — and instead of receiving the rate for one hour, they receive enough for a full day. They are ecstatic! The only people happier are those early birds — the first workers of the day — whose imaginations go wild dreaming about what they might do with the pay they will be getting. They might also be thinking that they’ll never show up for work that early again. Their dreams crash when they get paid what they had agreed to at the breaking of dawn’s first light. They shout, “It’s not fair!”

If we’re honest, we shout it with them. Whether it’s Jesus’ skill as a storyteller or our proclivity to feel aggrieved, we usually place ourselves with the early-to-rise workers in this story, thinking of the times when we have been treated unfairly. This passage reminds me of my first post-college job when a new graduate got paid the same as me, though I had already been working for two years. Let’s talk about fairness.

A few years ago, when teaching on this passage, I asked others to share a time when they had been treated unfairly. I expected stories like mine, but the tone quickly shifted when an immigrant from Nigeria spoke about his move to Oklahoma for college in the mid-1970s. The third week in his new home, he visited an all-white (non-PC[USA]) congregation where the pastor told him, “Your kind is not welcome here.” Hearing his experience, I realized instantly how privileged my perceived injustice was over my already-generous pay in my first job. I also saw the parable in a new light. I realized that in America, we who are white are often the late afternoon workers, receiving a metaphorical full day’s wage without having to put in all the work required by people of color. Let me explain.

One of the far too many unjust murders of African Americans last year was that of Ahmaud Arbery, who was out jogging when white vigilantes shot him. In the days following his killing, an article in the Chicago Tribune noted, “Arbery’s shooting death — and fears of racial profiling — weighs heavily on Chicago’s Black running community.” The article described all the precautions these runners take to stay safe. We might say they’re like the parable’s 6 a.m. workers, putting in a lot of work to get the payoff they want running a few miles without danger.

Meanwhile, like the parable’s 5 p.m. workers, I don’t have to put in much work to get the same payoff: running a few miles without danger.

The Belhar Confession, one of our denomination’s statements of faith, reminds those who are in the category of God’s late afternoon workers — showing up, doing half the work and getting full pay — that, “We believe that the church must therefore stand by people in any form of suffering and need, which implies, among other things, that the church must witness and strive against any form of injustice, so that justice may roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”

We are called to live faithfully, joining Christ in service to those who are having to take precautions we would never think of just to live.

Chip Hardwick, Transitional Synod Executive of the Synod of the Covenant

Let us join in prayer for: 

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Sarah Foreman, Presbyterian Publishing Corporation
Valdir Franca, Presbyterian Mission Agency

Let us pray:

Living God, you are a God on the move and you call us to follow you. Give us courage that we may share your love and grace with others. Help us to hear your call and respond in faith by bearing good fruit and growing in the knowledge of you. Amen.

Today in the Mission Yearbook - God’s commitment to the poor is our commitment, too

Moving mountains of poverty

October 9, 2020

In his book “Breaking the Code,” Bible scholar Bruce Metzger says that different types of Scriptures engage us in different ways. Revelation primarily engages our imagination. Paul’s letters like Romans develop our intellect. Old Testament law connects with our will. The Book of Psalms largely meshes with our emotions.

We can see many emotions in and behind Psalm 68. There’s an underlying frustration right from the start: Let God rise up, let God’s enemies be scattered (verse 1). Why hasn’t God saved us? By the third verse, the tone has brightened with a call to let the righteous be jubilant with joy. This moves quickly to awe in verse 4 (God rides upon the clouds) to gratitude in verse 10 (in your goodness, O God, you provided for the needy) to wonder in verse 35 (Awesome is God from your sanctuary, the God of Israel).

Amid all of this joy, the psalmist calls God to act on behalf of the poor and downtrodden. Our author calls God the “father of orphans and protector of widows” who “gives the desolate a home to live in.”

The Scriptures are filled with stories of God’s care for those Jesus called the least of these. God calls Israel from all the peoples of the earth not because they are the most impressive of all the tribes, but because they are the least of all people. Israel’s law reflects God’s care for the lowly. Prophets repeatedly highlight God’s concern for the poor. Mary’s Magnificat looks forward to God’s work to lift up the impoverished and weak.

I’m sure that if Jesus showed up in person in our churches, one of his first sermons would be about these priorities of our God. (I’m sure our attendance would go up, too, with the Son of God in the pulpit!)

The God who makes a way where there seems to be no way can live up to this commitment to the poorest among us in so many ways. Our God who created the universe with a word can surely snap two fingers together and turn our world upside- down, ending structural and individual poverty. Yet, God seems to be betting on us as the best means to demonstrate care for the least of these, attacking the societal structures while also caring for the poor nearest our front doors.

Almost two decades ago, I was part of a team that went to Honduras to assist local experts with construction in areas destroyed by a hurricane. One of my least favorite tasks was to help move concrete blocks. A chain of more than 20 of us would pass the blocks across a dirt road, through a weedy path, up and down a ravine, and on to the staging area next to the home being built. We were humbled as we watched a young woman who would be moving into the home carrying two blocks at once — in flip-flops. Meanwhile, our sweat wore us down while passing the 50-pound blocks from person to person for what seemed like hours. We tried to remember that the soreness we would feel was a sign of discipleship and not just a measure of how out of shape we were.

On the third day of block-chucking, a college student on the team said, “Hey, isn’t there a Scripture that says God will move a mountain if we pray hard enough? Why don’t we start praying that God will move that mountain of concrete over to the house?” He was right. God did say that. But the next person to pipe up had an even better insight: “Guess what? God is using you to move that mountain!”

God uses us not only to go on mission trips to help move heavy concrete blocks. God uses us to move the mountains of poverty in our communities. Be it in Honduras or elsewhere, God still gives the desolate a home to live in. As God uses us to do this work, I pray our emotions will move with the psalmist’s, from frustration into joy, awe, gratitude and wonder.

 Chip Hardwick, Transitional Synod Executive, Synod of the Covenant

Let us join in prayer for: 

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Jason Raff, Administrative Services Group (A Corp)
Ed Ramsey, Administrative Services Group (A Corp)

Let us pray:

O God of love greater than we can imagine, teach us how to love your children as you have loved us, especially those who suffer unnecessarily. Give us boldness to argue and plead for your reign, especially in your house. In Christ’s name we pray. Amen.

Today in the Mission Yearbook - Learning from those we ignore

Our table-turning God reveals true sources of wisdom

June 10, 2020

Wisdom comes from unexpected places. We might expect the best dressed, the most educated, or the tallest and fittest to be the one to turn to for leadership and guidance. God, though, often surprises us with a great reversal, revealing to us that the people who can open our eyes most fully are those we would have least expected.

“King David Playing the Harp,” Gerard van Honthorst, 1622

We get an example of that in 1 Samuel 16:1–13. The New Revised Standard Version summarizes this selection as “David Anointed as King,” but that doesn’t quite capture the thrust of the story. A better title would be “God Sees Differently from Samuel.”

God has rejected Saul from being king over the budding country of Israel, and so these verses begin with God’s telling the prophet Samuel to stop grieving and start anointing — specifically, to mark one of Jesse’s sons to be the new king. After Samuel’s fears about retribution from Saul are answered, the prophet starts to meet the parade of Jesse’s eight sons. God’s challenge to Samuel is to identify which one Israel needs as the next king.

“Surely it’s Eliab!” Samuel proclaims when he sees Jesse’s oldest boy — Mr. Tall and Handsome. God cautions that it’s foolish to go by outside appearances when figuring out who God’s chosen might be. Son after son walks by until the youngest, David, is brought in from the fields. In a characteristic move of our table-turning God, David — rather than any of his presumably more qualified brothers — is anointed as king.

God has been turning tables like this for millennia. We see it when Abel is preferred to his older brother, Cain; when Jacob is blessed over Esau; and when Joseph — rather than any of his more impressive older brothers — receives the coat of many colors. It comes around when God chooses Israel not because they are the most impressive group, but because they are the least of all peoples. Of course, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, born in a backwater village and nestled in an animal trough, is the biggest reversal of all.

Throughout the Scriptures, God’s people learn to listen to surprising sources of wisdom. As they do, knowledge grows and understanding broadens. When God’s people realize that the Spirit chooses unlikely people to speak truth, more faithful lives begin to be lived.

I recently had a reminder of this when I served at a soup kitchen. After dinner, I had the chance to spend time with “Joe,” an articulate man around 40 whose story tumbled out over chocolate peanut brittle and lemonade. Joe told me he had been struggling with depression and that he had been living on the streets for some time before his big break came: His brother bought a new home and offered Joe a place to stay.

He stayed there a while, he said, until “things just didn’t work out.” He didn’t give more information, and after a pause, I said, “Sometimes it’s hard to live with family.” After an even longer pause, he replied, “Yeah, but it’s even harder to live on the streets.”

God equipped Joe to be an unexpected carrier of truth to me. In my privileged world, living with family is a preference, one choice among many. Depending on the personalities involved, it might not be too pleasant. But to Joe, the chance to live with his brother was the difference between a warm sofa bed and being forced to look for a safe place to sleep when the wind is whipping around a 22-degree night. It’s the difference between security and fear, and between daily hygiene and a once-a-week shower (on good weeks).

I’m trying to listen to Joe as God chose him to be the one this time to shatter once again the comfort of my life. I pray I will see the world more as God sees it because of my conversation with Joe, whose eyes have been opened in ways that mine have not. Even more importantly, I pray that I will be part of a church whose eyes are open to new ways of fighting for the homeless and disempowered, again and again and again.

 Chip Hardwick, Interim Associate Pastor, First Presbyterian Church, Lake Forest, Illinois

Let us join in prayer for: 

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff

Joe Ferguson, Administrative Services Group (A Corp)
Michael Ferguson, Presbyterian Mission Agency

Let us pray:

Almighty God, our Creator and Sustainer, you provide richly for your people and for the mission of Jesus Christ. Anoint us with your Spirit that we might trust your word and bear the good news of Christ to the nations. In Jesus’ name. Amen.