“I love the chance to remind them that Christ’s love is not just contained in their home sanctuary, but that it is waiting in any place they worship, connecting them with Christians around the world.”
Katie Styrt
Lenten Reflections on the Confession of Belhar
Love binds us together.
Binds us to Christians.
Binds us to all God’s family.
Love experienced in worship.
Love experienced in daily life
as we offer each moment to God.
Love binds us to people in the United States
who struggle with racism, sexism, classism, heterosexism, ableism,
and related, intersecting systems.
Love binds us to girls in Guatemala who died and were injured
in a fire at a shelter where they were locked in.
Love binds us to Shiite pilgrims killed and injured
in bombs in Damascus.
Love binds us
and brings tears
and inspires anger.
May love move me to act.
This Lenten season I am using a new resource to explore the Belhar Confession: Lenten Reflections on the Confession of Belhar, edited by Kerri N. Allen and Donald K. McKim. The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), in which I serve as a teaching elder (pastor), added the Confession of Belhar to our Book of Confessions in 2016. This confession came from the Dutch Reformed Mission Church during its historic struggle against apartheid in South Africa.
See you along the Trail.
“As a new creation, the church must remember the very incomprehensible love of God that reminds it of its comprehensive mission in the world.
“God hopes we don’t approach the gift of our unity out of begrudging obligation, but that by God’s grace, we will embody our unity from a spiritual posture of joy and awe, amazed at how wonderfully God has made us one.”
“We deliberately and intentionally practice giving ourselves to one another because we realize we belong to each other. We need each other. We are inextricably tied together. We pursue this unity like a brutal physical regimen. It is not something we come by perfectly, all at once. It is terribly messy, awkward, and fully human. In many ways, it brings out our deepest insecurities and vulnerabilities if we are doing it faithfully and hopefully.”
“We are blessed saints by God. Bound in God’s grace, we live within God’s mercy. In God’s mercy, we need to build up instead of tear down. We show God’s mercy to each other through forgiveness. Lent reminds us of the important role forgiveness plays in unity. To forgive others is crucial in situations of conflict, as is accepting forgiveness offered to us. Mercy and forgiveness are essential.”
“After his resurrection, Jesus commissioned the creation of a family originating not from a common human ancestor, but a divine calling. This family transcends national borders, cultures, and languages. Jesus called for disciples to be made of all nations–indeed, as Belhar says, the ‘entire human family.’ That does not mean that we reject or erase our differences, for a family made from all nations will necessarily have variety. We can, however, reject the lie that such variety cancels out unity. The vision, after all, has always been that this family would be different.”
“Belhar constrains us to say out loud to God and the faithful how we have been complicit through our unwillingness to speak and act, even as we witness injustice in the public square.”
Along the Graybeard Trail 