Sunday, May 29, 2011

Presbyterian Heritage Sunday

Today in church, we celebrated Presbyterian Heritage Sunday. This morning, Presbyterian churches across the country took a minute to sit back and remember who we are, who we as Presbyterians claim to be, and what we have done for the world and in the world.

All of which leaves this a prime Sunday for some Presbyterian jokes. Now, perusing the internet, there aren’t as many Presbyterian jokes as one might think – most seem to be reserved for the Catholics and the Baptists, but I’ve put together a few of my favorites. So here goes:

What is a Presbyterian? A Presbyterian is a Baptist who likes to drink but doesn't have enough money to be Episcopalian.

During a Presbyterian worship service a man began to be moved by the Spirit.
Out loud he said "Amen!" People around him were a little disturbed.
Then louder he said, "Hallelujah!" A few more people were becoming disturbed.
Louder still he shouted "Praise Jesus!"
An usher moved quickly down the aisle. He bent over and whispered to the man, "Sir! Control yourself!"
The man exclaimed, "I can't help it. I got religion!!!"
To which the usher responded, "Well you didn't get it here!"

How many Presbyterians does it take to change a light bulb?
10. 9 to form a committee and 1 to change the bulb.

All great jokes, and they all highlight a sense of the priorities we might find in our Presbyterian congegations. Presbyterians greatest strength is our sense of community. More than anyone else, Presbyterians are all about community. From the local church, to our Presbytery regions, to our national General Assembly, Presbyterians go out of their way to be in community with one another – for better or worse, to be a family.

I’ve always thought of Hebrews 12 as kind of the Presbyterian identifier. More than another other Bible excerpt, this passage tells us who we are as a community of believers. The author of Hebrews, who some scholars believe was a female Jew, has just recited a litany of Isreal’s past, of heroes important to the Jewish faith – people like Abraham and Jacob, Abel, Enoch, even the prostitute Rahab.

According to the author of Hebrews, each of these people bring something unique to their community.
The people who have gone before, the people who are with her community now, those who share with her in this newly formed Christian faith, all of them make up her cloud of witnesses. These heroes of the faith are the bystanders along the race of her life – cheering her on to the finish line where God calls her to be.

The author Hebrews, reminds her community that each individual brings something unique to the party. Each person’s background, each voice brings something special to their family. For her, it’s the differences that make her group stronger.

To put it another way, Presbyterians are like a large scale version of the Breakfast Club. The breakfast club is one of the quintessential bad 80s movies we all love. The plot follows five students at a fictional Shermer High School in the suburbs as Chicago as they report for Saturday detention. While not complete strangers, the five teenagers are each from a different clique or social group.

The five students, who seem to have nothing in common at first, come together it seems, only to be harassed by the antagonistic principal,  who orders them not to speak or move from their seats They are forced to remain together, despite their protests, in a locked library. In fact, The principal leaves them mostly unsupervised, returning only occasionally to check on them. The students pass the hours in a variety of ways. mostly of the movie arguing and fighting with each other. The students call each other names and belittle one another.

Through this argument and disagreement, they also discover some eerie similarities. These students who are seemingly so different discover that they all have strained relationships with their parents and are afraid of making the same mistakes as the adults around them. In the end, this divergent group of thinkers make out their own unique little group – strange, quirky and unusual – but all together a club that’s special only to them. Like a big dysfunctional family, the breakfast club disagrees, but end up loving each other anyway.

This is our Presbyterian legacy, what makes us unique. We accept different viewpoints, we seek out people from different places, with different stories, with unique backgrounds. We are community who comes to support one another, to be witnesses for each other in midst of struggle and strife.

For better or worse we are family. That’s what makes us unique. We say, that in the end, if all we can be as a church is a cloud of witnesses for each other than that is enough. For Presbtyerian being a community is the highest calling. We are unique, we are each of us different. It is through the combination of our voices, through the harmony of our lives that we become stronger, in our faith, in our life, in our walk with God.

We are Family. We are Presbyterians.

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