Church is the body of Christ.

Christ gives to the Church all the gifts necessary to be The

his body. The Church strives to demonstrate these gifts in its life as a community in the world (I Cor. 12:27-28): The Church is to be a community of faith, entrusting itself to God alone, even at the risk of losing its life. The Church is to be a community of hope, rejoicing in the sure and certain knowledge that, in Christ, God is making a new creation. This new creation is a new beginning for human life and for all things. The Church lives in the present on the strength of that promised new creation. The Church is to be a community of love, where sin is forgiven, reconciliation is accomplished, and the dividing walls of hostility are torn down. The Church is to be a community of witness, pointing beyond itself through word and work to the good news of Gods transforming grace in Christ Jesus its Lord. (F-1.0301emphasis mine)

Claiming Our Calling: A Post-G.A. Reflection Elder Dr. Rebecca Blair, Stated Clerk Presbytery of East Iowa

This is the calling of the Church for those of us in Gods kingdom called to be

Presbyterian Christians. After each of our biennial gatherings as we collectively seek to understand the deeper meaning and consequences of our work together as a Presbyterian family both for ourselves and for the world that has been watching this work, and particularly after this year's entropic Assembly, it would be well for us to remember our calling as a prompt to prayer, reflection, and action. The sustaining constant within this calling is community. Before we can fully claim to be a people of faith, hope, love and witness, before faith, hope, love, and witness may be effectively enacted within and beyond community, we must choose to be IN community with one another as the body of Christ, and we must exhibit this community as best we can to the world. Such intentional, integrated community must exist as a functional space in order for mission, for ministry, for discipleship to thrive. Such community has existed during much of our denominational history in part because we Presbyterians held a collective understanding of our identityof what God was calling us to be and to do as the body of Christ, not [to] be conformed to this world, but [to] be transformed by the renewing of [our] minds. We understood that our Presbyterian Reformed calling is distinctive and demanding. We understood, for the most part, that our polity, rather than being optional or mere rules with which we are compelled to comply, instead facilitates our being in meaningful relationship with God, with each other, and with the world. We understood that discerning completely the mind of God requires listening to all voices in our committees, in the daily work of our

congregations and presbyteries, in our stated meetings, and in the world around us rather than intentionally narrowing the range and number of those voices, and thereby obscuring God's voice, for the sake of coalition of power or expediency. We understood and trusted that Christ gives to the church all the necessary gifts to be his body, and it is our collective task to take up this challenging calling. Now, we Presbyterians find ourselves in a much different place, a divisive place that we openly acknowledged during the General Assembly. It must be confessed that we are living in an historical moment of particularly overt humanness, one in which the Presbyterian community we have known in which we covenanted to forebear with one another seems quaint, one in which we bluntly contend for individual and ideological power, one in which our forebears advised us to recognize the human tendency to idolatry and tyranny, that very human desire to win for ourselves and our side. And in this humanness, we have scripted elaborate strategies to be deployed like military campaigns so that our side might win at any cost, we have high-fived one another on the plenary floor when our side prevailed in a vote, we have tweeted negative comments about the personal character of those whose perspectives we do not share, we have privately and publicly demeaned those whose perceived power we covet, we have ignored our calling. God, in your mercy, forgive us. Now, we Presbyterians also find ourselves in a kairos moment, a moment in which we may choose to reclaim our calling and our identity as the body of Christ called into and specially equipped to be a community in the world. And we are struggling now to do better, to figure out if we really aim to be the body of Christ rather than a political convention, to discern who we are as Presbyterian Christians, to remember how to be in community together, to recover the means to trust one another and to act in ways that make us worthy of each other's trust, to trust what Christ promises us in our calling, even if we cannot yet trust one another. In her sermon at the outset of this assembly, Ruling Elder Cindy Bolbach, Moderator of the 219th General Assembly (2010), again preached on the text from Mark 2:1-12, the text she used during her run for moderatorial office. In 2010, she expressed the proposition that the PCUSA is the paralyzed man in the story, yet, over the past two years, she has revised her understanding of this Biblical passage, observing the following in her most recent sermon:

I do not believe the PC(USA) is paralyzed although we are light years removed from the 1950s during which denominationalism and church structure thrived, we are actively engaged and concerned with what God would have us do and be. . . . At the heart of the gospel lie disciples like these in Mark who are

willing to take risks, willing to do whatever it takes to help others see Jesus. Not just [carry] those whom they like, but maybe even [carrying] those they dont know, those they dont like. Willing to go up to the roof, willing to cut a hole in it. Over the past two years, I have seen those disciples at work in every nook and cranny in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and over the past few months, I have felt those disciples. While struggling with cancer, I have been uplifted and supported by those disciples. Many disagree with me, but they have reached out to help me to the roof, and carried me to see Jesus. None of [our disagreements] matter without disciples who are wiling to take risks for the sake of the gospel. Lets commit ourselves to be those disciples who will take risks, who will carry others up to the roof. If we commit ourselves to lift someone we dont know, someone we dont like, we will soar on wings like eagles, we will run and not grow weary, we will walk and not grow faint because we will be helping people see Jesus. What more could we ask for? Indeed, this is our abiding hope. Throughout this General Assembly at each session, we heard the questioning refrain from Isaiah 40:27-29: Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, My way is hid from the Lord, and my right is disregarded by my God? Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary, his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. In this fearful denominational place in which we shrink from the spectre of schism and thus fail to act out our calling in the world, in which many of the voices around us seek to redefine our processes and structures, our ministry, our identity, our very calling as either/or propositions for personal advantage, God through Jesus Christ reminds us of the both/and possibilities. As we seek to renew our collective identity as Presbyterian Christians, as those called to be this particular body of Christ in the 21st century, we must live into the hope we proclaim by taking the risk to claim our calling and thus claim our collective identity as Reformed people, fully and without fear, trusting that Christ who calls and equips the Church will be present with us. Have you not known? Have you not heard?