The year was 1998. I was living in Boise, Idaho where the radical religious right was extremely active. We could see the whites of their eyes. A proponent of the religious right was a politician named Helen Chenowith. She was running for a second term in Congress. Her platform was family values and her campaign strategy included questioning her opponent’s stand on moral issues. In addition, she was a vociferous critic of Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky.

During this campaign, however, it was revealed that Chenowith – this proponent of traditional family values – had had a six-year affair with a married associate. When asked about how she could reconcile her accusations of other’s morality in light of her own behavior, Helen Chenowith had a ready answer: “I’ve asked for God’s forgiveness,” she said, “and I’ve received it.” (Spokane Spokesman Review)

Do you see how this ends the conversation?

Last Sunday I heard an evangelical preacher on the radio. He informed his hearers that the world really is black and white. Good and evil, saint and sinner and are absolute opposites, he said. There is utter clarity between them, he said. Then, speaking in a confiding tone to his congregation, he added: I know the difference.

Do you see how this ends the conversation?

By contrast, the Book of Job is one, long, probing, questioning conversation … it entertains nuance and shades of gray … and subjects these to scrutiny from every angle and in every light.

 Job, a good man, has suffered cruelly. He has lost everything: his wife, his children, his health, his home and property. Chapter after chapter and conversation after conversation, Job and his friends try to explain or understand what has happened to Job and why. They probe the wisest philosophies; they plumb the universe; they search their own souls for answers. The conversations that comprise these chapters are filled with anguish, rebuke, accusation, remonstration, pious certitude and devout defiance. It is a stunning display of argument and emotion, of question and proposed answer. Within the pages that tell the story of Job are the great questions of human existence.

Finally, in the thirty-eighth chapter, God speaks. God speaks from the whirlwind. God responds to Job’s anguish and his questions by putting things in perspective. God is God, and we are not. For all of our acquired power, for our capacity to end life on earth, we are still minute in the larger scheme of things. For all of our centuries of history, we are but a moment in time. Where were we, indeed, when the foundation of the earth was laid?”

A university history professor used to say that college is like a movie matinee. When you enter, it’s daylight outside. But when you leave, it’s dark outside, and matters aren’t so clear anymore. What Job and his friends learned is that we mortals simply do not have the capacity to see and understand everything. God is God and we are not. As much as we ache for answers and for moral certitude, it’s dark outside and matters aren’t as clear as we would like them to be.

Part of what is so remarkable about the Book of Job is the determination of Job and his friends to ask, wonder, argue, converse, posit this answer then that. All the while, although God has not shown up, they know themselves to be arguing in God’s presence. They know, they believe, they trust that God is listening in. And, in the end, they are rewarded. God speaks. God answers Job. Job trusts that to wait upon God is, eventually, to be rewarded … ‘though not, perhaps in the way he had hoped or expected.

Our Congregational forebears understood this about God … they understood what Job eventually discovered:  that we meet God by seeking God, by speaking to God and listening for God’s voice.

Today I am delighted to announce that Old South is poised to embark upon a great enterprise: a spiritual listening and speaking project. It is a project by which we will be invited to listen for and to God’s voice.

Now, Congregationalists do this very differently than people like Helen Chenowith and that preacher I quoted … those whose declaratory statements about God are designed to end the conversation.

In this regard, we are more like Job. We are given to much dialogue, given to inviting and entertaining conversation, given to probing and querying, to argument and discourse … and, to listening.

Our forebears came over here from England and Europe seeking religious freedom. The freedom they sought was the freedom to converse, wonder about and to discern God’s will for themselves. They expressed and exercised this freedom in Congregational meetings. The Congregational Meeting was one of the defining differences between our Puritan forebears and their counterparts in England and Europe. In England and Europe questions of theology and morality were decided for them through a strict hierarchy of priest, bishop and pope. Here, together, clergy and laity, were free to seek God’s will.

In the early days of the Colonies, every aspect of life, both civic and religious, was taken up in the Congregational Meeting. Our forebears met often to discern and decide everything of any import.

Over time, when church and state separated, there came to be a clear distinction between democracy, as practiced in the civic or secular arena and discernment, as practiced in Congregational meetings.

New England town meetings came to be associated with democracy. Democracy is about making decisions and it is aided in that task by debate, motions, voting and the use of Roberts Rules of Order. As democratic forums, New England town meetings were and are characterized by self-determination, majority rule and one person, one vote.

Church meetings took a different road and cannot, properly be described as democratic. Congregationalists used Congregational meetings to actively discern the Spirit or mind of Christ. Spiritual discernment places the emphasis on listening: listening to and for God; listening to and for the Spirit. When practicing spiritual discernment, Congregationalists were not interested with identifying the will of the majority. Rather, their paramount concern was with discerning the Spirit or mind of Christ. This was accomplished through a prayerful and worshipful process that usually did not necessitate a vote.

            This process of spiritual discernment is, perhaps, the most unique and precious gift and practice of our Congregational heritage. It is this that sets us apart from so many other traditions and denominations. We believe that no one person – not the Pope, not a bishop, not the priest or minister, not a wise lay leader – is fully equipped on his or her own to discern and follow God’s will. For that, the whole community is required.

Congregationalists have always made much of Jesus’ assertion, “where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” In other words, we believe that the gathered community is the true vessel of the Spirit of Christ. We believe that a congregation, gathered in prayerful deliberation, is best able to discern what God would have us do.

Today I am delighted to announce that Old South Church in Boston is poised to embark upon a Spiritual Discernment and Vision Process … a process by which we will seriously, earnestly, worshipfully, prayerfully and humbly seek to discern the Spirit or mind of Christ.

Let me step back for just a moment. When I came to Old South less than two years ago, I was often asked the question: what is my vision for Old South? As often as I was asked it, I deflected it back. I don’t believe that is right question for us. I believe the right question is: What is God’s vision for Old South.

The Old South Church Council agrees that that is the right question. At its September meeting, the Church Council authorized the launching of a Spiritual Discernment and Vision Process in which we will seek to engage all the members of this congregation. Together, we will gather around that one central question: What is God’s vision for Old South? What is God’s vision for this congregation located in the city of Boston, on the corner of Dartmouth & Boylston Streets?

What is God’s vision for this church with a great big building, three sanctuaries, two large halls, one library, three kitchens, seven  pianos, two organs, oodles of office, meeting and class rooms, and an enormous undercroft? What is God’s vision in the 21^st century for the church that was, in the 18^th century, responsible for the Boston Tea Party? What is God’s vision for the next chapter in the life and ministry of Old South Church?

The purposes of the process upon which Council has authorized us to embark are these:

•   To seek God’s vision for Old South in these next decades

•   To help more members gain a clearer picture of Old South’s heritage, present, and what it might become

•   To give the congregation an experience of responding and listening in prayerful and discerning ways to critical and significant questions about the future directions, mission, ministry and program of Old South.

•   To deepening the practices of discernment for personal, small group and congregational decision making.

•   To prepare the way for directions & decisions that are grounded in wisdom and faithful imagination, owned by the congregation and that express the boldness of Christian faith and prophetic action.

The Spiritual Discernment and Vision Process will be guided by a Steering Committee, elected by the Council, whose members are listed in an insert in the bulletin. Working with a consultant, they will shepherd this process that will largely occur during the five Sundays in Lent.

To engage meaningfully in this process we will need Job’s

humility and his devout defiance. We will seek God and demand God’s attention and time. We will attempt to listen patiently and wisely for God’s voice.

            Between now and Lent, the Steering Committee will be listening and learning. They will prepare framing statements and recruit group facilitators. Between now and then you will hear more about discernment and those of us involved in boards and committees will practice it … as the deacons recently did on their retreat in September. 

Between now and then I invite you to pray for three things: pray for the members of the Steering Committee. Pray that God will visit Old South and speak to us with wisdom and guidance and insight. Pray that we will be open to hearing God and that we will have the Christian courage to respond to God’s claim and call upon our lives.

It is the aim of this process to worship and pray and wonder, to talk and to listen, to probe and to ponder, to argue and to converse … until, from the whirlwind, God makes Godself known and answers our question.