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The Challenge of Always Reforming

It can be dangerous to expose a child to a strong tradition. Taking root in her, it may grow in ways that crack the walls that custom and society seek to build. This is particularly true when the tradition recognizes, as Presbyterians do, the call to semper reformanda. For an individual, a congregation or a denomination, to be "always reforming" is not easy and has its risks. Yet, it is the cost of following a living God, a God who is always ahead of us, calling us out of familiar territory in ways that shake our sense of who we are.

One Sunday, when I was very young, I noticed that a few members of our church stood silent as we sang one of the hymns during worship. When I asked why they did this, my parents explained that not all of the songs in the new hymnbook were from the Psalter and some church members would only sing metrical psalms. True to their convictions, these stalwart Presbyterians refused to sing some of my favorite hymns, but joined in the psalms with quiet fervor.

The Holy Spirit Beckons

With the challenges now facing the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), I am grateful that I was raised in the traditions of our denomination. But I am becoming more and more aware that tradition itself can become an idol. Clamoring for "the way we've always done it" can drown out the still small voice that seeks to lead us through the wilderness. I recognize that I am redeemed not by tradition, but by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.

The Presbyterian tradition is simply the home country of my faith. It shapes my witness, much as my Western Pennsylvania roots shape my speech. Taught to see God as a mighty fortress and God's people as called into covenant and exile, I might have lived within this tradition as a walled city. But the Holy Spirit is always opening the gates and calling us out to witness to the wideness of God's grace. This is one of the gifts I received when I was too young to know I was receiving it. The hymns and responsive readings of my childhood taught me that God's reign is not limited to our church or our denomination. I learned, too, that the Church is always growing and changing-semper reformanda. The Book of Order reminds us that "the life of the Christian flows from the worship of the church, where identity as a believer is confirmed and where one is commissioned to a life of discipleship and personal response to God" (W-5.1001). Thoughtful tradition not only steadies us in the crosscurrents of contemporary life, but delivers us from rigidity and legalism. The Presbyterians of my home church did not mean to teach me all that I learned under their watchful care. Sermons and catechisms communicate church doctrine for our heads. But worship and experience transform us, deeply shaping the faith of our hearts and souls.

All Are Called

Growing up Presbyterian, great doctrines took early root in me. The "priesthood of all believers," for instance, was demonstrated for me long before we studied it in our confirmation class. Of course, when I was young, women did not serve as lay readers, let alone serve Communion. They sang in the choir, arranged the sanctuary flowers and were the driving forces that encouraged their husbands and children to attend church. But from my perspective as a child, women were so visibly important in our church that I never stopped to measure their true status. It was the men who lifted the snowy cloth, prayed over the bread and juice, and distributed the elements, but I knew real priests were sitting in the pews.

Besides, I was aware of the mysteries that made Communion happen. I saw firsthand the rites of boiling water, lemon juice, bleach and ironing boards required to produce those snowy white linens. I tagged along with my great aunts as they picked up the Communion bread at the Croton Bakery. I watched in awe as these women poured grape juice into the tiny cups. In my eyes, women as well as men worked in the kingdom of God. Women carried powerful stories and formed them in us. Sitting at the feet of women, I heard the missionary adventures of strangers and realized how much important work-at home and around the globe-was in the capable hands of women.

Slowly, our denomination and my congregation caught up with the vision the Spirit had been for a long, long time. When I was in junior high school, our denomination formally recognized the gifts and leadership women had been exercising all along. Although Eastbrook Presbyterian Church where I grew up was rural and conservative, there was little fuss when Dorothy Smith became our first woman elder. She was unquestionably the church member most versed in scripture and most faithful in worship and witness. She was a hardworking farmer, a sturdy wife, a wise mother and a gentle grandmother. When I joined the church, Mrs. Smith wrote me a note, welcoming me. She was the only member of our congregation to do that. Only now, seeing church history with adult eyes, do I wonder why her ordination as an elder took so long.

The Book of Order calls us to worship so that we see "the world in the light of God's grace" and find "vision and power for living in the world" (W-5.1002). Of course, this means different things to different people. Some people resist any sort of change at all, while others embrace anything that is new. We wrestle with God's word that challenges us even as it comforts us. Our denomination's history has shown that we also continually wrestle with and challenge one another.

Walking Together in Conflict

As I write these words, I find myself standing on ground that heaves and shakes with change. Like many, I have Presbyterian friends who seem to ignore the liberating strands of the gospel, using scripture to create rigid and walled versions of the living gospel. Yet I know others who seem to feel that scripture and The Book of Confessions are museum pieces. As someone committed to scripture and to the challenges of semper reformanda, I feel a little like Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof, singing, "Tradition . . . but on the other hand."

Both scripture and the Book of Order can call us to thoughtful stability as well as authentic change. The way is not easy. Our polity makes division possible and perhaps even likely. Again, that is the price of living with a faith that is always reforming. Still, some of the deepest joys of a shared tradition come when it enables us to walk together, despite our differences. Sometimes, in this uneasy companionship, I glimpse the mysterious power of grace.

Together, even as we quarrel, we can seek God's way for us in the light of the Bible, our historic confessions and the dynamic presence of the Holy Spirit in our worship and our work. Even in trying times, we are called to trust a grace that is flexible, powerful and always ahead of us.

The Bible is filled with stories of people who grumbled at God's words and wanted to turn back to what was familiar. They made idols. They laughed at God's shattering good news. They complained that God's promises did not come as quickly as they would have liked.

But the good news for them, as for us, is that God goes before and will exist long after any and every change that takes place-in us, in our congregations and in our denomination-for God embodies the very spirit of semper reformanda.

Linda Mills Woolsey is a freelance writer living in Rushford, New York.

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