January 6, 2005

CLEVELAND - The Rev. John H. Thomas, general minister and president of the United Church of Christ today (Jan. 6) released a pastoral Epiphany letter calling UCC members to a deeper understanding of Jesus' radical welcome.

Highlighting the UCC's December 2004 television ad campaign, Thomas wrote, "The attention the commercial controversy drew to our church provided a unique opportunity to speak the Gospel in an accent not often heard in our culture. Coming in the wake of a political season laced with commercials marked by deception and trading on fear, a message frequently echoed by the highly visible theology and values of the extreme religious and cultural right, our voice broadcast an often-silenced message of grace."

"I believe we have been given a unique opportunity to help recast the public debate over values in this country and to reshape the public perception of the nature and purpose of Christian faith and Christian community," wrote Thomas. "Seizing this opportunity will take courage, for resistance to our message is formidable, cutting against the prevailing grain of a society frightened by the stranger, suspicious of difference, and easily seduced by appeals to a future secured with narrowly defined theological boundaries and well defended national borders. Living out the welcome promised in our ad will take commitment to continued growth in congregational cultures of hospitality."

While citing that more than 137,000 people used the "find a church" search engine on the two UCC websites - http://www.ucc.org/ and http://www.stillspeaking.com/, Thomas also cautioned UCC members against self-righteousness on the one hand, and complacency on the other.

"The deeper danger for us is that we will grow content with a message of inclusion and welcome," said Thomas. "An invitation to a community of amiable tolerance is certainly to be preferred to the mean-spirited exclusion around us, but as our prayer suggests, the hands we reach forth are to be an embodiment of the outstretched arms of Christ in his passion. The welcome we extend is to a baptism that names us children of God and members of the church, a baptism that does not bless us and the culture in which we live, but reshapes us for costly discipleship, resisting those elements of our culture that demean, diminish and destroy. The invitation we give at the Table is not an offer of friendly dinner conversation, but an encounter with Jesus, crucified and risen, and with a vision of the realm of God that contends with the violence and injustices of our day. The Jesus who never turns anyone away is the same Jesus who asks us to take up the cross."

'"God is still speaking' invites us and those who may join us to an identity that at the deepest level is a 'putting on Christ,' and therefore a process of repentance for those things in our lives that separate us from Christ," Thomas continued. "The Stillspeaking God, whose prayer 'that they may all be one' led to the formation of our church, calls us today to discern and receive the gifts of other Christians even as we celebrate our own, and to repent of all those things that continue to divide the Body of Christ."

The pastoral letter concluded with praise for the outpouring of gifts from the UCC and its ecumenical partners for Asia tsunami relief, which Thomas called "gifts that reflect the deep compassion of God."

"Once again we were reminded that vital responses to urgent need require vital churches deeply attentive to neighbors," wrote Thomas in closing. "Our hospitality ultimately must be a welcome to the consoling embrace of Christ."

Here is the complete text of the Epiphany letter sent Jan. 6
by the Rev. John H. Thomas to United Church of Christ congregations

"While on a silent retreat at the National Cathedral in Washington during the week following the public controversy over the refusal of the networks to air our television commercial, I encountered this prayer in the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer:

"'Lord Jesus Christ, you stretched out your arms of love on the hard wood of the cross that everyone might come within the reach of your saving embrace: So clothe us in your Spirit that we, reaching forth our hands in love, may bring those who do not know you to the knowledge and love of you; for the honor of your Name. Amen.'

"This prayer, mirroring the extravagant welcome of our commercial - 'Jesus didn't turn people away; neither do we.' - roots our message of hospitality in the person and passion of Christ, and invites us to a deeper reflection on the purpose of that welcome.

"The attention the commercial controversy drew to our church provided a unique opportunity to speak the Gospel in an accent not often heard in our culture. Coming in the wake of a political season laced with commercials marked by deception and trading on fear, a message frequently echoed by the highly visible theology and values of the extreme religious and cultural right, our voice broadcast an often-silenced message of grace. Hundreds of letters and emails received in response to the ad suggest that such a message was a source of profound and unexpected encouragement and hope to persons who have believed themselves to be outside the reach of Christ's outstretched arms and for whom the cross is experienced only as judgment, never as embrace. Many who saw the ad took the further step of seeking out a United Church of Christ congregation. Over 137,000 people used the "find a church" feature at http://www.ucc.org/ or http://www.stillspeaking.com/ in December, compared with 5,700 in November.

"I believe we have been given a unique opportunity to help recast the public debate over values in this country and to reshape the public perception of the nature and purpose of Christian faith and Christian community. Seizing this opportunity will take courage, for resistance to our message is formidable, cutting against the prevailing grain of a society frightened by the stranger, suspicious of difference, and easily seduced by appeals to a future secured with narrowly defined theological boundaries and well defended national borders. Living out the welcome promised in our ad will take commitment to continued growth in congregational cultures of hospitality. Taking advantage of this moment will require a level of generosity unprecedented in the United Church of Christ, for if the ad controversy taught us anything, it was the power of the media to thrust heretofore quiet voices and perspectives into amazing, almost unnerving prominence.

"The giddy experience of seeing our church featured on television, in newspaper reports, on editorial pages, and even in the daily political cartoon lends itself to two dangers. One is a self-righteousness that tempts us to 'think of ourselves more highly than we ought to think.' The other is a complacency that forgets the short attention span of our culture and assumes our point has been made, and is remembered. Will we be courageous enough, committed enough, and generous enough to seize this unique moment with humility and confidence?

"The deeper danger for us is that we will grow content with a message of inclusion and welcome. An invitation to a community of amiable tolerance is certainly to be preferred to the mean-spirited exclusion around us, but as our prayer suggests, the hands we reach forth are to be an embodiment of the outstretched arms of Christ in his passion. The welcome we extend is to a baptism that names us children of God and members of the church, a baptism that does not bless us and the culture in which we live, but reshapes us for costly discipleship, resisting those elements of our culture that demean, diminish and destroy. The invitation we give at the Table is not an offer of friendly dinner conversation, but an encounter with Jesus, crucified and risen, and with a vision of the realm of God that contends with the violence and injustices of our day. The Jesus who never turns anyone away is the same Jesus who asks us to take up the cross.

"Thus, our 'God is still speaking' identity campaign is not just about getting our name more visible, or helping our people remember their heritage of 'firsts,' or joining in playful musings on the theology of "the comma," no matter how valuable and helpful these might be. And, as a "united and uniting church" for whom the ecumenical vocation is at the core of our identity, it cannot be our presumption that a distinctive Gospel voice makes us superior to others with their own distinctive and critical voice. No, 'God is still speaking' invites us and those who may join us to an identity that at the deepest level is a "putting on Christ," and therefore a process of repentance for those things in our lives that separate us from Christ.

What are those things? The Stillspeaking God who inspired the Amistad captives and their New England supporters calls us today to repent of the racism that continues to deny dignity and distort community in our nation and in our church. The Stillspeaking God who called missionaries to live sacrificial lives among the poor and the oppressed throughout the world calls us today to repent of the consumerism that holds our spirits captive, impoverishes most of the world in a global system lavishly feeding the few at the expense of the many, and imperils the very creation that sustains us. The Stillspeaking God who led our generation to welcome and affirm gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Christians into membership and ministry in the church calls us to repent of all forms of exclusion that diminish or demean persons and families in church and society. The Stillspeaking God who led a courageous few of our forebears to be arrested rather than support the creation of our weapons of mass destruction calls us today to repent of the militarism that no longer seeks merely to restrain evil but now would impose an imperial agenda on the rest of the world. The Stillspeaking God whose prayer "that they may all be one" led to the formation of our church calls us today to discern and receive the gifts of other Christians even as we celebrate our own, and to repent of all those things that continue to divide the Body of Christ.

During Christmas the world witnessed the horror of destruction caused by the tsunami in Southern Asia and parts of Africa. We also witnessed the beginning of an outpouring of gifts from the United Church of Christ and our ecumenical partners, gifts that reflect the deep compassion of God. Once again we were reminded that vital responses to urgent need require vital churches deeply attentive to neighbors. Our hospitality ultimately must be a welcome to the consoling embrace of Christ.

The day of Epiphany concludes our celebration of the incarnation, a mystery of divine visitation and halting human hospitality, where welcoming the stranger includes welcoming the Christ and the vision Christ brings. For all the hospitality announced and extended through our Stillspeaking Initiative in December, we confess what the poet acknowledges: 'Once again as in previous years we have seen the actual Vision and failed to do more than entertain it as an agreeable possibility' (W. H. Auden). Thus may we be clothed with the Spirit that the One revealed may more and more become the One welcomed. With the whole church may we discover deeper dimensions of that welcome, praying on Epiphany,

'"Radiant Morning Star, you are both guidance and mystery. Visit our rest with disturbing dreams, and our journeys with strange companions. Grace us with the hospitality to open our hearts and homes to visitors filled with unfamiliar wisdom bearing profound and unusual gifts. Amen.' (Revised Common Lectionary, Prayers of the Consultation on Common Texts)"

United Church of Christ News Service