The Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis joins the 71st edition of Synod School to lead worship

STORM LAKE, Iowa — The 71st Synod School, put on each summer by the Synod of Lakes and Prairies at Buena Vista University in Storm Lake, Iowa, commenced Sunday with two activities Presbyterians love best: worshiping God followed by enjoying ice cream.

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577 people, including more than 100 first-timers, are in attendance, said Lisa Tarbell, Synod School dean.

A lively band including guitarists, a tuba player, a flautist, and pianist and music leader the Rev. Burns Stanfield backed five singers Sunday during worship. For some songs, the Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis, who’s leading worship this week, joined the singers.

Theoharis is executive director of the Kairos Center for Religions, Rights and Social Justice and co-founded the Poor People’s Campaign together with the Rev. Dr. William Barber II.

She began Sunday’s service with a time with the children, asking them about this year’s theme: “Re-Forming ‘Normal’: Expanding Hope.” “What is normal?” Theoharis asked the young attendees. “What does hope mean?”

“It’s when you really wish something would happen,” one child said.

“We’re going to keep talking about this,” Theoharis told the 30 or so children who were seated up front. “We’re excited about having a whole week together, making new friends and looking forward to things.”

“That’s a lovely and very hopeful group of young people,” Theoharis told the congregation after the children’s time was finished.

She based her mediation on Matthew 18:20: “For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.”

She said the theme for the gathering made her think of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous speech during the 1963 March on Washington.

During his speech, King “took a long time laying out an American nightmare” of systemic racism, low wages and pervasive injustice, Theoharis said. The theme he’d considered for what would become his signature talk was “Normalcy Never Again.”

Today, “families are being separated and detained and deported,” Theoharis pointed out. Too many can’t make ends meet, and millions will be losing their health care and nutritional aid following passage of President Trump’s so-called One Big Beautiful Bill. “I would say now is also a moment for ‘Normalcy Never Again,’” Theoharis said. “In his speech, Dr. King didn’t keep people gathered by cursing the darkness. He reminded people that hope can come in struggling, even losing — but still persisting.”

“It doesn’t have to be this way,” King was saying that day, according to Theoharis. “This isn’t as good as it gets. We as a nation can expand hope, have a dream and expand justice.”

Jesus’ “I am there among them” is “a pretty expansive vision,” she said, asking those in worship to look at others seated nearby in an effort to find God in them. “Take a breath. Try to feel that Holy Spirit among us,” she said, a Spirit that moves “in the cry of little ones and in our restless body moments.”

“We have 577 people here. That’s a lot of space for God, a lot of space for grace,” Theoharis said. “The March on Washington had hundreds of thousands of people. Think of all that space for God.”

Theoharis said she finds comfort that Jesus is present even in much smaller gatherings. “Maybe your session meeting didn’t have enough for a quorum,” she said. “Maybe it’s a social justice rally, and only two or three showed up. God is there, too.”

When Jesus would show up at gatherings large or small, “often he re-formed normal” through the people he associated with or the norms he turned over, Theoharis said. A friend of hers wears a T-shirt advising people to “stop trying to sit at tables that Jesus would have flipped.”

“Jesus truly extended hope,” she said. “The stone the builders rejected could become the cornerstone of justice and kindness.”

“Here at Synod School, let’s do it. Let’s re-form normal,” Theoharis said. “Let’s be sure to expand hope.”

Theoharis’ most recent book, which she co-wrote with Noam Sandweiss-Back, is “You Only Get What You’re Organized to Take.” In September, “We Pray Freedom: Liturgies and Rituals from the Freedom Church of the Poor” will be published. Theoharis co-edited this volume with Charon Hribar. Theoharis is using some of what’s found in “We Pray Freedom” during Synod School worship services, which are held each evening through Thursday and again Friday morning. Follow Synod School posts here. Presbyterian News Service will report on the gathering throughout the week.