DENVER (ELCA) -- "Look to the rock," proclaimed the Rev. John H. Thomas, newly elected general minister and president of the United Church of Christ, as he preached during the closing worship at the 1999 Churchwide Assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA).
"You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church," Thomas noted, citing the Gospel text of Matthew 16. "Is it enough to be a sedentary rock, an enduring place unchanged by its surroundings?"
The churchwide assembly, the chief legislative authority of the ELCA, met Aug. 16-22 here at the Colorado Convention Center. There were more than 2,500 people participating, including 1,038 ELCA voting members. The theme for the biennial assembly was "Hope for a New Century."
Christians need to go back again and again to rocks set by God, Thomas said. They call us home from the far places we sometimes stray, he added.
"Truly, God has a sense of humor!" said Thomas, when speaking of the text. "How is it that we find ourselves reading this text in this evangelical context, particularly given the ecumenical agenda we've dealt with over the past week? Perhaps we'd better simply leave it as a delightful sign of the ironic, provocative, sometimes humorous and always healing grace of God. 'You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church.'"
A significant part of the agenda for the churchwide assembly were two ecumenical proposals, which were approved by ELCA assembly voting members. The full communion agreements with The Episcopal Church and Moravian Church In America open the door for exchange of clergy and a variety of cooperative ministries. In 1997, the ELCA assembly approved=20 a full communion agreement with the UCC, the Reformed Church in America=20 and the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A).
"Presiding Bishop H. George Anderson struck the right note when he challenged us not simply to remember what we inherited, but to consider what we must bequeath," said Thomas. Anderson made the comment in his sermon at the assembly's opening worship.
Ventures into an uncertain future are risky, he said. "They have come to us this week by many different names: ecumenical ventures that will change us in ways we cannot control; a reach toward, perhaps even an embrace of our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters; liturgies shaped by the cadence of African drums as well as the rhythm of Bach chorales; theologies forged in the crucible of economic struggle; battles against racism; and the oft overlooked imagination of women," Thomas said.
As voting members concluded the assembly with the worship service, Thomas sent them home with advice. "As you leave this place exhilarated, exhausted, inspired, troubled, hopeful, fearful -- remember this: You are Peter, by God's grace skipping across the waters of your baptism, soaring, daring, dancing toward the horizon of God's day of grace, bringing wonder to children and hope to the world, until in God's providence you settle gently again into the waters that gave you birth, joining all those who have gone before you, where all will be well."
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About the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America:
The ELCA is one of the largest Christian denominations in the United States, with 2.8 million members in more than 8,500 worshiping communities across the 50 states and in the Caribbean region. Known as the church of "God's work. Our hands.," the ELCA emphasizes the saving grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ, unity among Christians and service in the world. The ELCA's roots are in the writings of the German church reformer Martin Luther.
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