The most controversial topics before us-divestment in products used in the middle east and same gender marrage were both defeated. However, in both cases the votes were painfully close. My heart has been very heavy in how deeply divided we are as a church. But to be divided does not mean we have to be divisive.
I have been encouraged about how people who are on opposite sides of issues and yet can embrace each other as brothers or sisters who are nevertheless united by the grace of Jesus Christ.
I dreaded being on the marriage and civil union committee because I hate anything that has the potential to fracture the church. But that is to deny, I suppose, that we are already fractured. One of the beliefs of the reformed faith is that we are completely tainted by our own sinfulness. All of us. But in the committee work I did, I experienced the sacred moments of being the fractured church together. I feel a deep affection for those who struggled with me, and a deep gratitude to the Presbytery, First Pres in Ashland, and my family who gave me up for a week so I could be here. I have experienced how divided people can still love each other. I see now that the blessing in serving on that committee was to experience how very broken we are so that there is nothing that possibly could hold us together but the grace which is ours through Christ.
It is time for me to finish the business of G.A. With love from your sister in Christ, Jennifer
