June 28, 2020 | Liturgy

Welcome

Opening Music

Prayer

Statement for Black Lives from the Session of Grace Presbyterian Church 

We, the Grace Church Session, strongly believe in the pursuit of social justice and equity as taught by scripture. We have been called to respond to the events of our world. After the murder of George Floyd, our church began a series of prayer vigils to pray for an end to violence and racism and to pray for healing. 

It’s important for us as a church to stand up for and to defend the marginalized. It is important for us to be present within the community and to not be silent.  We condemn senseless police brutality and we hear the cries of the communities that have been impacted for generations by institutional racism. The issues are complex, but our calling is simple. 

As Jesus left the 99 sheep to lift up the one, we are called to do the same.

As God requires us to act justly and love mercy, we are called to do the same.

As Jesus tells us to love your neighbor as yourself, we are called to do the same.

  ….We affirm that BLACK LIVES MATTER. 

The Session of Grace Church firmly stands behind this statement. We believe that BLACK LIVES MATTER is not a political statement but a statement of biblical truth. Our support for this statement is an embrace of social justice and equity within our church and the world. 

Brief Statement of Faith

We trust in God, whom Jesus called Abba, Father. In sovereign love God created the world good and makes everyone equally in God’s image, male and female, of every race and people, to live as one community. But we rebel against God; we hide from our Creator. Ignoring God’s commandments. We violate the image of God in others and ourselves, accept lies as truth, exploit neighbor and nature, and threaten death to the planet entrusted to our care. We deserve God’s condemnation. Yet God acts with justice and mercy to redeem creation.

The Confession of Belhar

We believe 

• that God has revealed God’s self as the one who wishes to bring about justice and true peace among people;
• that God, in a world full of injustice and enmity, is in a special way the God of the destitute, the poor and the wronged
• that God calls the church to follow God in this; for God brings justice to the oppressed and gives bread to the hungry;
• that God frees the prisoner and restores sight to the blind;
• that God supports the downtrodden, protects
• the stranger, helps orphans and widows and
• blocks the path of the ungodly;
• that for God pure and undefiled religion is to visit the orphans and the widows in their suffering;
• that God wishes to teach the church to do what is good and to seek the right;
• that the church must therefore stand by people in any form of suffering and need, which implies, among other things, that the church must witness against and strive against any
• form of injustice, so that justice may roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream;
• that the church as the possession of God must stand where the Lord stands, namely against injustice and with the wronged;
• that in following Christ the church must witness against all the powerful and privileged who selfishly seek their own interests and thus control and harm others.

Therefore, we reject any ideology which would legitimate forms of injustice and any doctrine which is unwilling to resist such an ideology in the name of the gospel.

Responding to the Sin of Racism and a Call to Action 

(Passed by the General Assembly of the PC(USA on June 26, 2020)

We believe that the work of [attending to the pain, suffering, and long-standing oppression of our BIPOC siblings in Christ is central to our work of proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ]. When Black Americans are killed at twice the rate of white Americans, we have much to lament. We, in particular white people, and as a predominantly white denomination, must confess our complicity in perpetuating systems of oppression against our BIPOC siblings. The church must be the first place seeking racial justice and reconciliation, the dismantling of structural racism, and the healing of our marginalized communities. It has, unfortunately, not often been so. We must have our own denominational and congregational houses in order. We must dare to be an image of hope for those around us.

While we recognize and honor the work towards justice that has been happening and continues at every level of the PC(USA), we also name that in this time it is not enough. We must become actively antiracist in our theology, policy, and praxis. When our colleagues, siblings, and neighbors protest in the streets to say that being Black should never be an excuse to be targeted and killed, when so many stand in solidarity to say #BlackLivesMatter, and when our own communities are weighed down in grief and anger, it is the time to stand alongside our BIPOC siblings in voice and in action.

Luke 4:16-22a

When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

    because he has anointed me

        to bring good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives

    and recovery of sight to the blind,

        to let the oppressed go free,

to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, “Is not this Joseph’s son?”

Facing Racism – A Poem On the Church in This Moment in History

A knee on a neck

laying bare for all to see

the evil of

callous

soulless

entitled

power

choking the life from

God’s beloved

just because.

We know what must change.

Will we, church?

We have written many

true, significant,

sometimes even sincere

words.

We have confessed:

Belhar, C’67, Barmen …

Enough words?

Never enough witness.

We know we must change.

Will we, church?

Kairos.

Prayer

8 minutes and 46 seconds of silence

Closing Music