My Theology

DISCIPLESHIP

Dietrich Bonhoeffer famously wrote, "Costly grace is the hidden treasure in the field, for the sake of which people go and sell with joy everything they have. It is the costly pearl, for whose price the merchant sells all that he has; it is Christ’s sovereignty, for the sake of which you tear out an eye if it causes you to stumble. It is the call of Jesus Christ which causes a disciple to leave his nets and follow him. Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which has to be asked for, the door at which one has to knock"(Bonhoeffer, Discipleship, 45). This is how I believe we are called to live our faith: by saying “Yes” to God. By being willing to run with dangerous abandon towards the voice we hear summoning us. To give everything we have for the promise of obtaining something even more precious. To knock again and again at the door to God’s redemption.

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COMMUNION.

Gustavo Gutierrez wrote that, “In the eucharist we celebrate the cross and the resurrection of Christ, his easter from death to life, our passage from sin to grace” (Teología de la Liberación, 381). On the night of his betrayal, Jesus ritually gifts his body and blood to his disciples because he knows that through them, his mission will never die. It was for this reason that Romero said, “As a Christian, I do not believe in death without resurrection. If they kill me I will resurrect in the Salvadoran people.” In communion we profess our historical and eschatological faith that as long as there are disciples willing to take up the cross, neither death nor darkness nor evil nor sin will ever have the last word over justice and life (John 1:3-5).

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COVENANT

I believe that we are called to live out our faith according to the holy bond of our covenant--with God, with Creation, and with one another.

GOD AND CREATION. God covenants with the world to provide the conditions for life of all kind to survive and thrive. For this reason, in the beginning God looked at everything God had created and called it "very good" (Gen 1:31). We uphold our end of that pact by treating one another and all creation with that same love and care. Our greatest sins--the sins of slavery and genocide, environmental devastation and the destruction of the poor--destroy life and thus fatally rupture the bond that connects us to one another, to creation, and to God.

GOD AND THE CHURCH. God establishes God’s pact with the church in the same way that God did with Abraham (Gen 15). Just as God promised a mighty and numerous future for Abraham and his descendants, so too does God promise a mighty and beautiful future for God’s church. It is our responsibility to discern what that future is and pursue it with the faith of Abraham.

OUR PACT WITH ONE ANOTHER. We covenant to live out our Christian discipleship in community because Jesus taught us to love one another as Jesus has loved us, and to show the world that we are his disciples by the love that we have for one another (John 13:34-5). In the UCC, the primary place where we live out that commitment is the local church. Since we believe that each church derives its authority directly from Christ, we reject the dictatorial imposition of authority from higher ecclesial bodies. At the same time, we affirm that we are all a part of the body of Christ and as such are joined in covenant with other churches, the other denominations, and the church universal. We have a responsibility to support, nourish, and move in unison with this greater body just as we have the freedom to determine our destinies as individuals and individual congregations.

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