Change
The act of theologising, especially in the midst of a strategic planning process, is always important. Perhaps more so than in some other time. The reason for the import of this act of reflecting occurs as The United Church of Canada (UCCan) moves from a time of missional discernment to implementation. It does so with a commitment to live into the aspiration of becoming an intercultural church. We take seriously the need to confront our legacy as an agent of a colonial state. In this complicit role, the denomination continues, though not always easily or perhaps well, to recognise our responsibility for supporting and developing a settler state that has led to harm and trauma.
In the naming of such truths, there is also an irony that must be recognised. The strategic planning process is in and of itself a vestige of a coloniality. What this means is that often such exercises intend to adapt to a changing context, but perpetuate the primary task: formation, peaceably or coercively, of the Other. As such, how the UCCan has not only developed the strategic plan but also its implementation must be seen and critiqued. Such intention ensures that future action does not perpetuate past ways of being a settler by simply dressing us in new clothes.
What hurts has the denomination caused?
What steps have been taken to seek healing for all?
What do we need to begin as we move from theologising to doing?
So, to theologise in this reflection, which is about the Good News, let us imagine that Philip is the church. We must remember that who we have been, when acknowledged honestly as we have begun to do, is not a burden or judgement. The Good News in this story, as in our own commitment to truth-telling, reminds us that Creator longs for our communal liberation and healing so we recognise one another as Beloved.
Let us first take a moment to note that this story is about the coming together and formation of the early church. The church was an unfolding communal endeavour, which sought to share the Good News wherever and whenever opportunities were revealed by the Spirit. These were not subtle acts of Creator. They were immediate and invitationally demanding.
Philip, and the early church, was in the wilderness at the opening of this story. In the wilderness, there are doubt and questions, opportunity, and possibility. The pandemic, as a moment in the wilderness, has clarified that the denomination has experienced loss and contraction. There has been dying and grieving. While in this wilderness, we have been collectively focused on this loss for some time. But that is not the only story of the wilderness.
Wilderness
The wilderness is one way in which we might understand the strategic planning process. In times of wandering, we are able to recognise our struggles and mistakes. The journey invites us to discern opportunity, to awaken to call, and to embrace it boldly. We have reflected on where we have been, in order to make clear the path before us. To leave the wilderness emboldened requires preparation. This time of preparation has led us to a mission of Deep Spirituality. Bold Discipleship. Daring Justice.
Philip’s path immediately brought him to a moment in which the Good News was sought after. Without faith’s confidence, without a bold understanding of call, Philip would not have been prepared to nimbly and responsively share the Good News that the Unnamed Ethiopian sought.
How do we ensure that our confidence in faith does not again become obscured by the ego formed within institutions?
What does it mean for a faith community to respond nimbly to the Other, as opposed to assuming we know what they need?
In letting go of the vestiges of being a state agent, what might we learn from the early church’s commitment to inclusive community?
When community is the central touchstone, what does evangelism mean when engaging with Other?
If in this theologising we imagine that Philip is us, our UCCan denomination, then who is the Ethiopian? Who is this person we know the early church considered an Outsider? This Outsider demands of Phillip the Good News. Millenia later this may simply seem like an old tale that has lost its significance.
We must recall a few things that connect our wilderness time and emergence with that of Philip’s and the early church. Some even call this tale part of the proto-church—a time when faith sent people out boldly. With every encounter, the church changed and shifted toward becoming an aspirational community that embraced a counter-cultural egalitarian inclusivity. This encounter is simply one moment in that becoming.
The Unnamed Ethiopian, according to purity laws, was an Outsider. The person clearly reads and understand scripture. When the person sees this Christ-follower, he knows that the Good News is being shared by the early church as it journeyed out of the wilderness. Phillip, in the act of responding to the Ethiopian’s demand, forces the early church to have to address emergent tensions.
Is traditional scripture’s understanding of who is in and who is out
reformed by the radicality of Jesus’ message?
If so, was the early church willing to be changed
from where it had come in order to arrive communally somewhere new?
As this brief act of theologising comes to an end, let us thread Phillip and the Ethiopian together in one other manner. As the denomination emerges from our time of wilderness journey, reflecting on the past and considering the future, it discovers a world that has changed. This sense of change can be experienced as foreboding and promise-filled, fearful and hopeful.
Inaugural Service, 10 June 1925, Mutual Street Arena
Image: The United Church of Canada
https://flic.kr/p/7YUsRo
For Philip, sharing the Good News required that the forming church recognise that its message was not only needed, but also sought after. The Ethiopian was aware of the traditions and scripture of the world that was. The early church was trying to understand what it was meant to become as it recognised that the world from which it had journeyed no longer existed. The mutuality of awakening, however, required meeting each other without pretence or assumption.
Philip, in the act of answering the Other’s demand, continued the process of ensuring the church changed. What that might look like, however, Philip never knew. At the end of the encounter, the Spirit abruptly snatches him away toward another meeting in a context in which change was constant. How does this vision of Philip, which the UCCan brings out of the wilderness, prepare us to theologise well, act justly, and let go of that which we were in order to discern that which we are becoming?
Called by God, as disciples of Jesus,
The United Church of Canada seeks to be a bold connected,
evolving church of divers,
hope-filled courageous communities united in deep spirituality,
inspiring worship,
and daring justice.
Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch
26 Then an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Get up and go toward the south[a] to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” (This is a wilderness road.) 27 So he got up and went. Now there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of the Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, in charge of her entire treasury. He had come to Jerusalem to worship 28 and was returning home; seated in his chariot, he was reading the prophet Isaiah. 29 Then the Spirit said to Philip, “Go over to this chariot and join it.” 30 So Philip ran up to it and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah. He asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?” 31 He replied, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” And he invited Philip to get in and sit beside him. 32 Now the passage of the scripture that he was reading was this:
“Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter,
and like a lamb silent before its shearer,
so he does not open his mouth.
33 In his humiliation justice was denied him.
Who can describe his generation?
For his life is taken away from the earth.”
34 The eunuch asked Philip, “About whom, may I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?” 35 Then Philip began to speak, and starting with this scripture, he proclaimed to him the good news about Jesus. 36 As they were going along the road, they came to some water; and the eunuch said, “Look, here is water! What is to prevent me from being baptized?”[b] 38 He commanded the chariot to stop, and both of them, Philip and the eunuch, went down into the water, and Philip[c] baptized him. 39 When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away; the eunuch saw him no more, and went on his way rejoicing. 40 But Philip found himself at Azotus, and as he was passing through the region, he proclaimed the good news to all the towns until he came to Caesarea.
Thoughtful and apt. I have hope for our willingness to change and be changed at the local level. Or not. I see it happening here. I’m not so sure about the willingness of the Institutional Church to do the same. It seems to me to be focused more on maintenance than possibility. Not that we don’t need to maintain the space for possibilities, I think we do.
It will be interesting to see if our Institutional deliberations are guided by this reflection.
Thanks, Keith. Your last sentence encapsulates well both the possibility and challenge whenever any institution aspires to let go and become something new. Does that make sense?
I think I follow. My wondering arises from experiencing the institution as a body that seems willing to embrace (or at least put a big toe and maybe even a leg or two into the waters of) change while folks charged with maintaining the security of the institution’s responsibilities seem unwilling to follow that energy and enthusiasm. We may well be willing and we may well block that willingness. I wonder if remits might be a way to test the former while providing the latter with enough assurance to let go. I am, however, ahead of myself. We shall see what the next GC has in store and go from there, I suppose.
We shall indeed see and I will hold onto Hope 🙂
I think the problem is the Institutional Church. By its very structure makes it very difficult to embrace the witness it wants to share. We are supposed to be a Concilary Church, which means that it is to be driven from bottom to top. Yet, too often it is too down, which doesn’t lead to buy in from the Congregational level
Hi Doug,
I think that is a fair challenge. I also think there is a circularity to the denomination. Who offers direction? How do we move beyond the us/them that seems to be endemic at this point. Does that make sense?
Yes, it does, Richard. I think this has been the Church’s problem since 1925. I don’t think this latest reorganization has solved the problems. It has eliminated the only link the local congregation had with the larger church. I had occasion to call the Regional Office and they couldn’t even give me an answer who was responsible for the issue.
Hi Doug,
I believe that is not an uncommon experience. I am hopeful as we live into the new model that such experiences become intention teachers to address the disconnect sometimes experienced as you have shared.
Dear Richard:
Thank you for composing this informative and exciting piece.
However, as I read it, questions came to mind.
You say: “The strategic planning process is in and of itself a vestige of a coloniality. What this means is that often such exercises intend to adapt to a changing context, but perpetuate the primary task: formation, peaceably or coercively, of
the Other.”
Strategic planning a vestige of coloniality? I’d like some more on that. The words puzzle me. (Like Winnie the Pooh, I am a bear of very little brain, and long words bother me.)e
And is the goal really to change the Other? I would think before we can do that, we need to change, or be changed, ourselves. I’m recalling that Phillip (if he’s the one named in John’s gospel) spent years with Jesus being transformed through that relationship. It was that transformation which enabled Phillip to teach the eunuch. As UCCan, we like to do things; I worry that we do not do them with sufficient reflection.
Peace and joy, my brother.
Rob
Hi Rob,
As always thanks for the thoughts reflection and challenge. In my experience in organisational development, there is a traditional set of underlying assumptions. Those assumptions are shaped by our cultural context. As church, being embedded in the colonial enterprise, it has carried with it a set of assumption that perpetuate an organisation. Change is not sought to change, but to adapt to continue to do what it has always done. Philip, as you have named well, was transformed. His reorientation – not as a settler with a converting orientated world view of privilege – to engage in mutuality means that teaching was not unidirectional, it was dialogic. In essence, to respond to the Unnamed Ethiopian illustrates that Philip had prepared well to continue in the transformative journey that is engaging with other. Without ongoing change, transformation, the temptation of monologue arises, which it too often an inheritance that settler people must confront.