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There is a prayer that I say aloud when I am reflecting on the various intersections and turns in my life. It sounds like a statement, which it is. But it is also a prayer. “God takes care of me.” Thank you, God, for taking such good care of me.

Elisha may not have uttered this prayer as his mentor was swept away in the whirlwind. His loss and fear were consuming. “Now what?” he must have moaned or screamed. Where am I going to find the wisdom of Elijah? His courage? Can I love God enough to be his prophet? Transitions are often hard. Our scriptures are filled with tales of God’s people wrestling with change. We run. We hide. We say, “Send me.” We volunteer others. We break into song. We whine (and yes, wine.) Change by choice and change not by choice – it’s all about making space for yet another way to experience God’s world.

Last weekend I, along with over 9,000 other UCC friends and family, made the news in Hartford, Connecticut. We gathered to celebrate the United Church of Christ’s 50th birthday and do the business of the every other year General Synod. I had an absolute blast. I love our denomination, warts and all. Thank you, God, for taking such good care of me. I love this congregation. God takes care of me.

The original plan for General Synod 26 in Hartford was to meet in the Convention Center. However, there came to pass an impasse between Convention Center workers and management and the right to unionize. The UCC, being who we are, became informed of the issues and took what we understood to be the more ethical road. We would support the workers and not do business with the Convention Center. Anyone who has ever been part of planning a major gathering has an inkling of what our staff and volunteers experienced, changing gears when already underway. The institutional church has its share of hypocrisy. It is a human organization after all. But it is good to know that we try to indeed practice what we preach. We try to be a voice and a movement for justice. The Hartford Civic Center became our host and while I’m sure it had its share of planning headaches, from my speck in the crowd perspective it worked.

The huge assembly hall was nearly full as we opened Friday afternoon. Let It Shine UCC. We are fifty years bold! This was an extraordinary gathering. Typically there are about 2500 delegates and visitors at a General Synod. Of the 9000, there were nearly 1000 high school youth in attendance this year. This thanks in large part to the work of Rev. DaVita McCallister, national staff minister for youth, young adults and outdoor ministry. Our Covenant Class folk have met DaVita in Cleveland. She’s the one that jumps around and is physically passionate about her work.

The youth were a presence this year unlike any other year. There was more rowdiness in the stands and significantly younger bodies in the hallways. You know what a church meeting looks like. Old people. Our grandparents and lo, sooner or later, ourselves.

This Synod was a party, on purpose. That’s why I wanted to go and why I tried to recruit a few youth to go with me. Friday through Sunday contained a series of events that had something for everyone. DaVita was our Friday night preacher. She, like most of the speakers keynoting and leading workshops, would not let us simply bask in our accomplishments as a denomination. While we have much for which to be proud, we have work yet to do. Youth and young adult participation in the church is one such area. Youth are leaders today as well as tomorrow. We need to be open and inviting. We need to risk change as the generations get to know one another better. Ah, I dream of worship at CCC including on a regular basis three and four generations. I dream of our high school youth wanting to be in worship Sunday morning, being part of worship. I dream of new freedoms with music, space, and words that meaningfully interface with what we now do and treasure. It can happen. It must happen.

I learned about the 2030 Clergy Network, a coalition of UCC clergy under the age of forty. This age bracket represents only 4% of all ordained UCC ministers. That’s not a lot. What will the UCC leadership roster look like in the next 50 years? I’m curious how this number compares with other denominations. Are young people being encouraged by what they hear, see and feel to consider professional ministry as a career path? When young people think about changing the world, what does our congregation tell them? Consider today’s Hebrew scripture. A mantel is being passed. Leadership changes.

The highlight of Synod for most of us, aside from the wonderful reunions with friends from all over, was not Barack Obama’s address Saturday afternoon but Bill Moyers’ keynote Saturday morning. Both men packed the Civic Center. Both men belong to UCC congregations. Obama is an outstanding witness to faith informing and shaping a life of public service. He makes an excellent case for moral values belonging to many different stripes of Christians. But in the end, for me, it wasn’t anything new. In this changed climate of politics courting the religious and the spiritual, Obama gave us a stump speech. Bill Moyers delivered an altar call that reverberated throughout the assembly.

I’m going to borrow here from an article in the Synod daily newsletter and his actual speech. Drive out the money changers. (I encourage you to download the speech from www.ucc.org) “In a speech inflamed with passion, anger and an altar call’s possibility of hope, Bill Moyers spoke Saturday about power and justice. His 57 minute keynote address – interrupted by applause more than three dozen times and followed by a two minute standing ovation – lamented the growing gap between the rich and poor in America and called the UCC to act.

‘I have come to say that America’s revolutionary heritage, and America’s revolutionary spirit – life, liberty and the pursuit of justice through government of, by, and for the people – is under siege,’ he said.

‘And if churches of conscience don’t take the lead in their rescue and revival, we can lose our democracy!’

Much of Moyers’ speech was devoted to the conflict between power and justice. Citing the ‘Declaration of Independence as an example, he said, the man who wrote those words – All men are created equal – knew it couldn’t last. Jefferson ‘knew from his own experience the perversity of owning another person as chattel.’ Jefferson penned these words while he also ‘stroked the breasts and caressed the thighs of a slave woman named Sally Hemings. …Jefferson never acknowledged those several children Sally Hemings bore him as his own. And as he grew older, he relied more and more on slavery to keep him financially afloat. When he died, his slaves were sold to satisfy his creditors, all except Sally. In Jefferson’s will an obscure passage was found that set her children free. … Two of them, of the descendents of those children, settled in Ohio, where their descendents today have increased, some living as Blacks and some living as Whites. And two centuries later, despite their common parenting, race still divides them.

Thomas Jefferson got it right, you see, Moyers continued, ‘but lived it wrong. … Addicted to his own place and privilege, he could send the noblest sentiments winging around the world, but refuse to let them lodge in his own home.’ Moyers pointed out that this conflict between power and justice has come down through the ages. He cited the spectacular rise in the number of gated communities, both in Southern California and in Buenos Aires, Argentina, as an example of today’s powers-that-be to keep the poor and the lonely invisible.

But, he said, the realities on the ground don’t go away. Moyers told stories from contemporary life: woefully inadequate public education in New York City, deaths from Chicago’s record heat wave in 1995, the plights of a homeless person in Los Angeles, and a UNICEF report card that ranks the United States near the bottom in child well-being in the developed world.

‘For 30 years,’ Moyers said, ‘we have witnessed a class war fought from the top down against the idea and ideal of equality. It has been a drive by a radical elite to gain ascendancy over politics and to dismantle the political institutions, the legal and statutory canons, and the intellectual and cultural frameworks that checked the excesses of private power.’ (Moyers is preaching it now. The crowd is with him all the way.)

Moyers concludes with an altar call. ‘Poverty and justice are religious issues.’ He powerfully reminded listeners of Jesus overturning the tables in the temple and throwing the rascals out. ‘No cheek turned there. No second mile traveled. On the contrary, Jesus turns angry. He passes judgment. And he takes action. …

My friends, they say your church is dying. 1.2 million against the Southern Baptists, 16 million and growing. They say your church is lame, and limp and liberal. And they’re coming after you. Read the book recently done about how the Institute for Religion and Democracy is after your local congregations. (UCC churches have left our denomination under the leadership of mostly outside ministers coming in with a more conservative agenda.) ‘But you know,’ Moyers says, ‘they don’t take on people they’re not afraid of. It is a small, committed, determined People of Conscience who can turn this country around!

Please, please …listen… this new struggle for a just world, it’s not a partisan affair. God is not a liberal or conservative. God is not a Democrat or Republican. To see whose side God is on, just go to the record. … poverty and justice are religious issues.’

…And the Lord shall answer them, Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these, who are members of my family, you did it to me.  This is the Jesus who drove the money changers out of the temple of Jerusalem and it is this Jesus called back to duty who will drive the money changers out of the temples of democracy. If you don’t, who will?’

Soon we will gather round a different table. A table of inclusion. Let us come and be nourished for the work before us. We have a light that needs to shine. Like Elijah and Elisha, God calls us. Let’s call on Jesus and fight for justice. If we don’t, who will?

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