[6-23-08]

The Witherspoon Society’s Awards Luncheon, following the Sunday morning service of worship, honored outgoing Stated Clerk Clifton Kirkpatrick with the Andrew Murray Award, and presented the Whole Gospel Congregation Award to First Presbyterian Church of Palo Alto.

The Rev. Carol Hovis, Executive Director of the Marin Interfaith Council, gave the keynote address with the title, “Interfaith Community and Social Justice: How to practice the balance between building community and advocating justice.”

Wareham Award to Kirkpatrick

Witherspoon Co-Moderator Trina Zelle presented the Andrew Murray Award to Kirkpatrick, introducing it by reading a note from Murray’s widow, Dorothea Murray, who wrote:

I am so pleased that the Witherspoon Society chose to present the Andrew Murray Award to Clifton Kirkpatrick at this year’s Witherspoon Awards Luncheon at G.A.

Andy would see in him the example he set for those working in the Church. Clifton Kirkpatrick always started with his deep faith in God and applied that to the injustices and problems for peace that exist in our world in so many painful ways.

I am becoming more and more aware of the need for courageous people of faith to patiently and without malice let their vision be known.

I believe we are at an important crossroads in the Church and in our country. I sense a longing in the country for a significant different direction. The path we choose will make all the difference.

May God bless the meeting of the 218th General Assembly meeting in San Jose, CA., June 21-28, 2008.

Grace and Peace,

Dorothea Murray

Zelle then told the crowd that for the Board, the choice of the outgoing Stated Clerk “was a no-brainer.” She also mentioned her own appreciation for a letter he wrote to be included in a bilingual document for undocumented immigrant families in Arizona. Because of that letter, she said, at least in Arizona, the Latino Evangelical community, the human rights community, and the labor community all see the PC(USA) as a great friend and ally.

Further, she said, because of Kirkpatrick’s leading role in the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, and the formulation of the Accra Confession, “any Presbyterian can hold their head up high, with the prophetic work of WARC under Clif’s leadership.”

“Through all the GA’s I’ve attended since 1999,” she said, “Clif’s gracious, courteous, unflappable presence has been like a steady, strong North Star. ... No matter what the topics is, you can always count on Clif to make things OK.”

The Witherspoon Society presents the
Andrew Murray Award
to Clifton Kirkpatrick
in grateful recognition of his good-spirited ministry as Stated Clerk,
his responsiveness to the General Assembly,
his commitment to ecumenical partnerships, and
his eloquence and courage as the public voice of our church.

June 22, 2008

He went on to talk about the Witherspoon Society as he has seen it from his perspective as Stated Clerk over the past eight years.

In many ways, the Witherspoon Society is in an interesting place at this GA. There’s a passionate sense that the church is fundamentally wrong on a number of issues of justice, particularly related to sexual orientation, gender, and the like. And yet on the other side there’s a fundamental sense that the Assembly is so right on a number of issues related to Israel/Palestine, to immigrant rights, to social justice, to all those kinds of things.

And your work within that role is not an easy one. The great gift that I think you have offered is that you’ve really held all those together. And you [remind us] in a time when we have a slew of interest groups, of that broader sense of God’s justice at the heart of our calling.

He then spoke about his deep involvement over recent years in the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, concluding:

And I believe when we look back at this period of history, the message of the world church to all of us is the message of the Accra Confession – that this world in which we live, the good world created by God – is being plundered by our actions and [broken by] an incredible growth of the gap between the rich and the poor. And the fundamental call for Reformed Christians is to work for a different kind of world.

In conversations among Reformed churches, Lutherans and Catholics, there is always the discussion of whether it’s justification by faith or justification by works. But for us, he said, that’s not the real issue.

It’s a question of why we have been justified by God. Indeed we have been justified by God in order to be sanctified to live life to the glory of God, to be about God’s transformation of the world, to be agents and people, not worried either about good works or about faith, but being understanding to live out our sanctification to free the world to resemble God’s justice, God’s love, God’s peace for all the world.

And that’s what the Witherspoon Society offers to the church. And I hope you will ever be faithful in that call.

I hope to find some different and better ways to be related to you in that call, once I’m out of this job.

And I do want to say thanks, and God bless all of you, and God bless the Witherspoon Society.

And off went the Stated Clerk to put out another fire.

This year’s Whole Gospel Congregation Award went to First Presbyterian Church of Palo Alto, California. The Rev. David Zuverink, former Witherspoon treasurer and member of the General Assembly staff, who now lives in nearby Los Gatos, CA, presented the award, telling of the great impression the congregation has made on him as he has moved to this area after retiring. He stressed the broad diversity of the congregation, its constant sense of being on a journey, seeking greater truth and new areas of service for its own neighborhood and for the wider world. He said this is a congregation where “they aren’t just lucky to have these pastors; the pastors are lucky to have this congregation.”

Zuverink then held up the morning’s issue of the San Jose Mercury News, with a full page ad saying “We congratulate the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community on the recent California Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage. We rejoice and celebrate this historic decision!” With that, he turned to the Rev. Rob Martin, pastor of the congregation, asking “Well, other than that, what have you been doing this year?”

Zuverink then read the citation for the Whole Gospel Congregation Award:

The Witherspoon Society presents the
Whole Gospel Congregation Award 
to the 
First Presbyterian Church of Palo Alto
in grateful recognition of its broad and multifaceted ministry
 to its community and all its people.  

"Do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God."

 June 22, 2008

Martin stepped forward, along with the Rev. Nan Swenson, another pastor of the congregation, and Kathy Merkle-Raymond, the Clerk of Session. Martin said “I have never served in a church that’s more like the Kingdom of God” – in its diversity, its activism, its caring. He listed some of the categories of people in the congregation, including people with health issues, “and some just have issues.” He introduced Swenson as “the spiritual heart and rock of our congregation,” and she in turn talked of how “we (the pastoral staff) are mainly just trying to keep up” with the whole congregation.

Kathy Merkle-Raymond, as Clerk of Session, then spoke on behalf of the congregation, saying that “We are grateful to be recognized as a Whole Gospel congregation, meaning one that “involves both service and evangelism, both love and justice, both individuals and communities, following the model of Jesus' own ministry.”

She spoke of what the congregation has meant to her over the past 15 years, and then told of the congregation’s mission statement, reading:

I believe that we are all here as the body of Christ, connected relationally in the spirit and charged to work together for change, justice, compassion and access to equal rights for all. This mandate is echoed in our congregation’s vision statement, which says “We live in times that call out for positive change: change in how we think and act as a nation, change in how we understand and share our Christian faith, and change in how we work together as a church to seek justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God.” How should we take on that challenge and create positive change?

Isn’t that what it’s all about? What does the Lord require of you? May we each embrace Witherspoon’s challenge and seek to become a Whole Gospel person, taking on “both service and evangelism, both love and justice, both individuals and communities, following the model of Jesus' own ministry.”

On behalf of First Pres Palo Alto, thank you to the Witherspoon Society for this amazing award. And thanks be to God for granting abundant grace, passion for peace and a calling to each of us to be faithful followers of Jesus the Christ.

Read the rest of her remarks >>

The keynote speaker was the Rev. Carol Hovis, speaking out of her experience over the past five years as a member, and then Executive Director of the Marin Interfaith Council. She described Marin County as a challenging environment for religion. Economically very well off, with little ethnic diversity, the whole county, she said, like a small spread out to fill a county, with lots of open space. It is also a community with a low percentage of residents (perhaps 5 or 10 percent) who claim any religious affiliation – along with a high percentage of “spiritual seekers.”

In such an environment, with all its resources, there is still a lack of vision – just when “there’s so much we could be doing.” While the county has a self-image of being progressive, there are many who seem to feel “I’ve arrived here, and got a piece of the pie, and I don’t want to give it up. I’m sorry about you.”

In this setting, the Marin Interfaith Council was founded to break down barriers among the many and diverse religious communities, including 120 Christian churches, two large synagogues and a Jewish community, and some 20 Buddhist centers – said to be the most diverse group of Buddhists in the world.

The organization has carried on a variety of activities, such as observing the National day of Prayer, but making it an interfaith observance rather than the generally “Christian” event around the rest of the country. They have held a forum on raising Muslim children in the West, and another one on immigration. They put on interfaith education events for congregations, and retreats held on Monday to make it easier for clergy to attend.

All these efforts, said Hovis, are not aimed at saying “We’re all one.” Rather, differences are acknowledged and discussed – for example in a retreat on prayer led by a Pentecostal pastor, a Quaker, and a Muslim.

Along with the commitment to interfaith understanding, the group engages in efforts for justice. Hovis herself leads a trip each year to Cuernavaca, to help North American to gain some understanding of the conditions that are driving people to leave and move North.

MIC also maintains a large and active e-mail list, which has been used to develop statements supporting compassionate immigration reform, and opposing the death penalty. When the Canal neighborhood, with a high population of immigrants from Mexico, Haiti, and many other places, was being subjected to frequent raids by federal agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), e-mails to that list resulted in a call for a vigil in support of the people, with some 75 participants.

This listener had the impression from Hovis’ talk that combining just-making and community-building is not easy there, but that the pairing of those two aims can be fruitful and mutually reinforcing.

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