wfn.org | Presbyterian Women urged to imagine communion

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Note #6126 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

00263
July 18, 2000

Presbyterian Women urged to imagine 
communion as a banquet for the hungry

by Alexa Smith

LOUISVILLE, Ky. —  "Free at last!," the liturgist read. "The waters of
mercy, Alleluia."
	"Free at last!," the people responded. "The Word proclaimed, Alleluia."
	"Free at last!," the liturgist read on. "The Bread of Heaven, Alleluia."
	"Free at last!," said the people. "The Cup of Salvation, Alleluia."
	"Rejoice," more than 5,000 women's voices rang out. "Free at last! Holy
things, holy people, holy task: to set at liberty! Alleluia!"
	And so the next-to-final-worship of the "Jubilee" Gathering of Presbyterian
Women opened here: amidst women waving scarves, signifying the movement of
the Spirit; roaring into cupped hands like the sound of a trumpet,
signifying greeting, African-style; and applauding pleas for churches to be
more active in liberating those who suffer.
	The Rev. Glaucia Vasconcelos Wilkey, liturgical coordinator for the School
of Theology at the University of Seattle, drew upon Luke 24: 28-35 to
proclaim that it is at the communion table where Christians, like the
apostles of old, are "free at last" to see the dual demands of grace and
justice placed by salvation's God upon the world.
	"Re-imagine Jubilee," she told an applauding crowd. "Re-imagine a banquet
served not for the well-fed but the (hungry). . . . Re-imagine a cup poured
out, not for the self-righteous, but for the least of these. Not for the
insiders, but for the outsiders."
	Wilkey chided her Presbyterian sisters for failing to come to the table
often enough, for feasting only on "meager monthly meals," when the
epiphanic purpose of the feast is what pushes disciples to draw outsiders
in, and turns their own lives inside-out. The bread of heaven and the cup of
salvation, she said, have too often been misunderstood as being for
"you"(singular), rather than for "you" (plural), leading to self-absorption
and insularity.
	"What has happened to the Equal Rights Amendment in this country?" she
asked. "Some are trying to set it back . . . but these Jubilee-people will
not let it happen. What has happened to the women's movement in this nation?
Some are trying to set it back . . . but these Jubilee-people will not let
it happen . . . What has happened to the children's advocacy committee? Some
are trying to set it back . . . but these Jubilee-people will not let it
happen."
	Wilkey drew the loudest round of applause for the last of her questions:
"What has happened to the work for justice for homosexuals in our midst?
	"Some are trying to set it back . . .but these Jubilee-people will not let
it happen," she said, contending that those who would hold back liberation
movements are people who understand the gifts of God as singular, rather
than plural, and who believe they are for insiders only.
	The Rev. Carol Bechtel, a Hebrew Bible Scholar from Western Theological
Seminary, in Holland, Mich., worked with Leviticus 25's portrait of Jubilee
as a time when humanity's wish to own and control the world is tempered by
God's mercy and grace: the 50-year-cycle when ancient Israel's covenant
demanded that debts be canceled, confiscated property be restored and
polluted soil healed — a time that is begun with the sounding of trumpets
throughout the land.

	"‘Mine' is one of the first words we learn," Bechtel said. "And as we grow,
our greed tends to grow with us. We want more clothes, more cars, more
muscles. Jubilee is a check on our tendency toward insatiable greed."
Bechtel emphasized that God's notions of ownership are unlike our own.
	How are the faithful convicted personally?  Bechtel pointed to Scripture,
to transforming moments when even familiar words on the page "talk back" to
people — experiences that Bechtel playfully called
"Purple-Rose-of-Cairo-moments," referring to a Woody Allen film by that name
in which a character steps out of the film and into a woman's life.
	Bechtel said those "electrifying" moments happen when "suddenly God turns
and starts talking directly to you."
	The women who attended worship were told to live in expectation of such
moments, to reach out as Jubilee-people in their own settings, to push their
churches beyond the pews — an idea endorsed in a "Horizons" magazine skit in
which staffer Leah Bradley named all the conference attendees Jubilee 2000
"People of the Year."
	A prayer was offered for children of starkly different worlds: those who
sneak Popsicles before supper, have goldfish funerals and can never find
their shoes; and those whose monsters are real, who live in an X-rated world
and will never squeak across a floor in new sneakers. Then the worship wound
down with a scarf-waving procession of children, part of the PC(USA)'s
continuing "Year of the Child" celebration.
	Denominational leaders spoke briefly about mission opportunities within the
church, in this country and abroad. John Detterick, executive director of
the General Assembly council, told the women that much of the denomination's
mission work was begun by "their mothers, grandmothers and
great-grandmothers."

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