wfn.org | Churchwide Gathering ends with a ‘Jubilee moment'

[PCUSA NEWS <PCUSA.NEWS@ecunet.org>]

Note #6127 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

19-July-2000
00264

Churchwide Gathering ends with a ‘Jubilee moment'

Jesus is present in the healing touch of a neighbor, closing preacher says

by Jerry L. Van Marter

LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- With the Great Hall of the Louisville Convention Center
still echoing from chants of "Glory! Hallelujah! Thank God!" the 2000
Churchwide Gathering of Presbyterian Women concluded its five-day run July
19 with communion for 5,000.
	"We may have thought at first that we came here for networking or
fellowship or workshops or whatever," said the Rev. Ella Busby, pastor of
New Harvest Presbyterian Church in Florence, S.C., and the preacher for the
closing worship service. "But now we know we came, as those New Testament
followers came, because we wanted to see Jesus and touch him and be touched
by him."
	Preaching from Leviticus 25 -- the Jubilee passage that was the theme of
the gathering -- Busby exhorted the congregation to recall and celebrate the
Jubilee moments that occurred in their lives during the July 15-19 triennial
gathering. "If you have not experienced Jubilee here, you cannot proclaim it
back home. What will you proclaim?" she asked.
	Busby then recounted a couple Jubilee moments she experienced.  One, she
said, came when she got on a bus to travel to the Presbyterian Center. "The
driver told me to move to the back of the bus," the African-American
graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary said. "And before I could react I
heard Jesus telling me that he came to set me free, so I moved to my seat .
 . which was not in the back of the bus," she said to uproarious laughter.
	Another moment, she said, was when a woman who knew Busby's mother is
fighting leukemia, stopped her on the street to pray with her. Asked all the
worshipers to join hands, Busby said, "This the Jesus you have come to see. 
The healing touch of Jesus is in these hands you hold. This is your Jubilee
moment. Take it by the hand."
	Communion was led by the Rev. Barbara Dua, executive director of the New
Mexico Council of Churches and former associate director for women's
ministries in the National Ministries Division in Louisville.

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