Regional Synod of Canada - Reformed Church in America

Pioneer Christian Monthly

Date - Mar/86

Contributor - Daniel Meeter

Title - When The R.C.A. Is At Its Best

Topic - Reformed Church In America

It was the first Sunday evening in December, clear and cold. I was on my way to Chicago, and I was taking the train. I wasn't thinking about Chicago, I was thinking about liturgy and worship. That morning, back in New Jersey, I had just led my congregation through a joyful celebration of Advent Communion, I was thankful that the Lord had led me through a good sermon. Tomorrow morning, ahead of me in Chicago, I would be representing the Reformed Church in America at an international ecumenical gathering to talk about Liturgy.

That gathering is a group known as the CCT. The acronym stands for "Consultation on Common Texts". The CCT Was born in the 'Sixties as a group of theologians, liturgiologists and pastors who saw the need for their several denominations to keep in touch on matters of worship. Thanks to the CCT we all share new common versions of the Lord's Prayer and the Creeds. The Common Lectionary reprinted in the RCA Plan Calendar is the CCT's most well-known product. Through Dr. Howard Hageman, the RCA was a member of the CCT from the beginning.

It is a remarkable group. It is not large, only fifteen or so members, from both Canada and the U.S. It has no budget and no staff, yet its quiet influence has been enormous. Some of its members are denominational staff executives, some are professors (one of whom is a Biologist from Alberta!), and the rest are parish pastors. What unites us is our common devotion to the one Holy Catholic Church that we confess, and our common respect for each other's traditions mixed with pride in our own.

Our approach to ecumenism is not expressed by the word "merger" but by the word "sharing". Our membership includes Roman Catholics, Anglicans, Methodists, Lutherans, United Churches, Presbyterians, Disciples, and the little old RCA.

The little old RCA, that's what I was worried about sitting in my train compartment. Why should all those big churches care about us? Compared to them we are so small, compared to theirs our liturgies look so obscure. I reminded myself of what I've come to learn, that the peculiar theology and tradition of the RCA is more respected outside the denomination than in it. I've been to enough ecumenical gatherings to know that when RCA delegates stand up to speak as Reformed, with conviction and without apology, the others listen. We've lots of treasure buried in our own backyard.

I knew all that, but as the lights of Pennsylvania flashed by in the darkness I was still worried and unsettled. Oh, I had dug one of those treasures up and brought along my copy of our Liturgy and Psalms. It's a book I'm really proud of, for all my quarrels with it. I thought I'd show it off to the other delegates, show them our communion liturgy, show them golden passages from the Heidelberg Catechism and the Belgic Confession, maybe show them our "Treasury of Prayers". But should I honestly tell them just how rarely anyone in the RCA ever uses those prayers? In showing off this book would I be giving an honest impression of the RCA, or representing my own dreams and desires? I know just how few RCA members find any use or relevance in printed liturgies. I know how many RCA members feel that reading a prayer equals squelching the Spirit. Was I being fair to either the CCT or the RCA by my peculiar passion for our old stuff?

The train stopped a while in Harrisburg; we were changing engines. Without the comforting racket of the wheels and the constant rocking of my seat I felt my restlessness. I looked around. I spied a copy of People magazine on a nearby shelf. "Worthless rag, " I thought. But then, "Well, it's a diversion, why not?" I picked it up and took it back to my seat. It was an old one, more than a year old. The cover story was on Baby Fae, who has once been in all the news, but now was almost forgotten. Baby Fae was the infant who had received a baboon's heart, had struggled to survive, and then had died,

"Oh yes, Baby Fae," I thought, as I opened the magazine. Inside I found an interview with her mother. The mother was just a young woman, a drifter with a hard life already behind her. She was a modem pagan adrift in American culture, and there's plenty more like her among us. As I read, the train started moving again, and I came to a remarkable passage. The mother said that before she brought her dying baby in for the transplant operation, she first took the child to a special ceremony which she called " 'the laying on of hands,' a kind of faith healing."

A woman performed the ceremony. She began by anointing Baby Fae with oil in the sign of the cross. Then she laid hands on the baby, and she began to pray, partly in English and partly in tongues. The mother said she then experienced a feeling like never before, it was so beautiful, and it helped her put her trust in God. She knew then that God would do whatever was best for Baby Fae. The whole ceremony was over in twenty minutes. I stopped reading, lost in my thoughts.

The tracks began to rumble. We were crossing the long trestle over the Susquehanna River. We began the slow climb into the Allegheny Mountains. I looked up at my suitcase. Packed inside it was my report to the CCT, and paper clipped to my report was a copy of our brand new RCA liturgy for services in Christian healing.

"Of all things," I thought. "There it is, right in my suitcase." This Christian healing liturgy, just approved by General Synod, was a mission document, and I hadn't even known it. It was so relevant it was painful, so useful ... Who knows how many other modem pagans drift through North America lost for God, craving God's presence like that young mother, needing God's healing, wanting to trust God?

In my mind I compared our new healing liturgy with the ceremony that the mother reported. There were similarities. In our liturgy you'll also find the laying on of hands, you'll find the anointing with oil, and you'll find that the heart of the liturgy is prayer. There are differences. Our liturgy includes no sign of the cross - it's not exactly prohibited, but our tradition fears it as superstition. Our liturgy does not prescribe the speaking in tongues - for of course, no liturgy can prescribe tongues speaking - but it's not prohibited and there is room for it. In fact, as always, the Reformed Church carefully balances written prayers with space for free prayer. Our liturgy is right on target.

The magazine did not report whether the celebrating woman gave any message or just what she prayed. As I thought about it, I realized that the mother described the ceremony using very general terms about God and "his presence". "Too general," I thought, as the train rounded a sharp curve. And just here is the chief difference and great strength of our liturgy, built as it is around Holy Communion. The clear note of our liturgy is that this God is no general God, but the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

All that we have to offer is a broken body and poured out blood, that gushing fountain of the Holy Spirit's power. That very morning I had read to my New Jersey congregation that, "we shall as certainly be fed and refreshed in our souls as we eat and drink in remembrance of him." Yes, souls and bodies. Perhaps some hungry and hurting modern pagan will come to my door asking for help and healing. Our liturgy reminds me that what we offer is not "the Force" but. Jesus Christ crucified and risen again. I thought of the Christmas hymn:

Hail, the heaven-born Prince of peace, hail, the Sun of Righteousness! Light and life to all he brings, risen with healing in his wings.

I suddenly wished I'd thought to pick that one for Advent Communion.

I finished reading the Baby Fae story. I turned off my reading lamp and opened up my sleeping berth. I lay in the dark, staring out my window. I decided I need not fear my own passion for the liturgical side of the RCA, even if so many of my own colleagues have been so cool to it. I had just seen an example of the constant evangelical relevance of good liturgy. And when the RCA is at its best, it is both evangelical and liturgical The lights that passed my window were fewer now, the mountains were dark. When I woke up, we were passing through Indiana.

Hours later, in Chicago, it was my turn to report for my denomination. I was the last of the delegates to report, I was conscious that the RCA was by far the smallest denomination represented, and its liturgy the least familiar. So first I showed them my copy of Liturgy and Psalms. To my delight, the Roman Catholic delegate from Alberta asked where he could order copies.

Then I reported on all three forms of our liturgy for healing. The Lutheran delegate who represents three denominations and millions of members, opened his eyes wide, and said, "Did you say that you have a healing liturgy built on a service of Holy Communion? Please, give me a copy." I don't have to tell you I was thrilled.

My train had passed hundreds of church buildings between Trenton and Chicago. I'm sure that not a one that I could see from my window was RCA. But that doesn't matter. Our size puts no limit on our value to the ecumenical world. Our virtue is what defines us: our confession. "We all believe with the heart and confess with the mouth," is how the Belgic Confession opens. Our confession is what unites us and defines us, and when we are ready to confess what we believe as Reformed Christians, then we have something to say and something to offer; indeed, something to celebrate in liturgy.

That healing liturgy locked in my suitcase confesses what we believe and celebrates it for needy people. I wish I'd had a copy for every church building I'd passed in the dark. I'd have opened my window to the cold Advent air, I'd have sailed the copies out from the train and into the arms of wandering pagans and weary pastors, all who need to celebrate the salvation of Jesus Christ "risen with healing in his wings".

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