For the first time since January’s devastating fires, the Presbytery of the Pacific gathers in person
The Rev. Jihyun Oh’s sermon has equal measures of insight and inspiration
CULVER CITY, California — For the first time since the Eaton and Palisades fires killed at least 29 people and destroyed more than 18,000 structures, the Presbytery of the Pacific met Saturday at Culver City Presbyterian Church. Presbyters were delighted to once again be together, with hugs and tears commonplace.
A highlight was the presentation of four sets of stoles to the pastors of the only PC(USA) church in Southern California destroyed by the early January fires, Pacific Palisades Presbyterian Church. The Rev. Matt Hardin and the Rev. Dr. Grace Park were clearly moved to receive the handmade stoles. “With every stitch,” said the Rev. Heidi Worthen Gamble, the presbytery’s mission catalyst, “there is a prayer and an act of love.”
The Rev. Jihyun Oh, Stated Clerk of the General Assembly and Executive Director of the Interim Unified Agency, prayed publicly for Hardin, while the Rev. Linda Culbertson, general presbyter for the Presbytery of the Pacific, prayed for Park, asking God to “give her courage, insight and strength in order to be the pastor needed for this time and place.”
“God,” Culbertson implored, “continue to help them be weaved into a community that binds together. Amen.”
Oh, who’s leading a solidarity visit by Presbyterian Disaster Assistance staff and others, used Romans 10:8-13 as her preaching text, where Paul writes that distinctions including Jew and Greek no longer matter. “Everyone is seen equally in God’s eyes,” Oh said.
Salvation doesn’t come by our perfection in the law, our industriousness or our own resources, but rather by faith in Jesus Christ. Paul reminds his readers the word is near them. Oh asked: What does that mean?
“It could be that in Paul’s incredibly self-assured ways, he means that the words he taught, the word of faith or the word about faith he proclaimed to them is near them,” Oh said. It could be Paul reminding the church in Rome “that they had heard him proclaim salvation through Christ alone so much that they could now recite his words in their sleep.”
Whatever Paul intended, the emerging communities of Christ-followers were “filled with their own struggles and disagreements and wrestling. The Roman empire was still there, being empire. Oppression, marginalization and persecution were still there. Life, with all its ups and downs and everything in between, was still happening.”
Plenty of disagreements developed among the faithful — about how to be united in their diversity, about how to be at table together and be community and what faith “really meant and looked like,” Oh said. “Perhaps you all can join these Roman Christians in their context, even now.”
Even Jesus experienced death “as painful and being forsaken by God, whom he called ‘Father,’” Oh noted. “It can remind us that even pain and doubt and crying out are not just allowable, but maybe deeply faithful.”
“This feeling of being abandoned by God, wondering why, and crying out in protest to God does not diminish our faith and faithfulness at all,” she said, “but may indeed strengthen our faith and strengthen the faith of those around us.”
Accounts of Jesus’ resurrection being near us “can be a reminder that while death is part of the word and sometimes a necessary word, it is not the whole word, and it is not the last word,” Oh said. Those in worship responded with affirmations of “yes” and “preach!”
Those same accounts of resurrection being near can also remind us “that as Christ appeared to many here and there as they had need, his body was not the same as the one he had before his death,” she said. “His body was still marked by the trauma he suffered, even in life.”
“It can remind us that resurrection is different from a phoenix rising again” from “the ashes of that cyclical rhythm of life,” she said. “It can remind us that the body that is raised again in resurrection — the body that is reformed and given new life — may not be the body that was gathered before and may not be the body that worshiped before or served before, but a recognizable but still different body.”
For Peter, proclaiming Jesus is Lord “still meant arguing with and rebuking Jesus, that he should not suffer and die at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes and be raised on the third day,” Oh said. For the disciples in the upper room and on the road to Emmaus, “proclaiming Jesus as Lord still meant grieving when the Lord was crucified and dead and buried.”
They needed the assurance of Jesus, “who showed them his hands and his feet and ate broiled fish to show that resurrection was indeed possible,” she said. “The words about those disciples — even the ones who were closest to Jesus — remind us that proclaiming Jesus as Lord doesn’t mean a perfect faith, but a very human faith.”
Oh described Thursday’s conversation with members and leaders at Pasadena Church, detailed here. “As we listened to these stories of these siblings in Christ, I was strengthened in my faith,” Oh said. “The word of hope was near as they shared their witness to the things God was continuing to work out in their lives, even in the midst of confusion and frustration and the long road ahead as they’re looking to restoration and recovery.”
“The word of God’s reign has been near as different groups of people have shared their deep conviction and commitment that in the days ahead, inequity and the loss of generational wealth, especially for Black communities, should not prevail, and that a diverse and united community might emerge.”
Paul’s reminder is that people are saved “not by their own industriousness or close adherence to Mosaic law or by any effort of their own, but through God’s grace and action,” she said.
For many of us, believing in the resurrection and proclaiming that Jesus is Lord, “the one who saves in ways that are unimaginable to us, the one who resurrects life in ways that are unimaginable to us, may also mean being able to rest — giving ourselves permission to rest when the body, both individually and communally gets tired, because it is not our efforts that will save us, but Christ Jesus,” Oh said.
“The word is near you. The word is near us, in our mouths and in our hearts. Will we pay attention? Will we pause? Will we remind each other as witnesses? May it be so for all of us. Amen.”
Among several items of business, presbyters held a commissioning service for Ruling Elder Lynn Mack-Costello, a member of Pacific Palisades Presbyterian Church and the presbytery’s new moderator, and Ruling Elder Derrick Coy of Bel Air Presbyterian Church, the moderator-elect.
“No one is more surprised than I am to be standing here today,” Mack-Costello, an attorney and former university instructor who testified before Congress in 1974 in support of amendments to Title IX, which prohibits discrimination based on sex in any educational program. “My high school yearbook named me least likely to become a Presbyterian moderator.”
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