Progressive Faith - Celebrating 20 Years as HCUCC
Written by Sarah Reddish for our 20th Anniversary
Driving West on 421 and passing through Vilas, you may notice a building fronted by six rainbow-colored doors in its breezeway. These doors display the High Country United Church of Christ’s welcoming message, “God’s Doors Are Open to All.” On Sunday mornings, a light-drenched room fills with the High Country UCC community. People gather in a circle, surrounded by signs of the seasons displayed in flowers, leaves, and fabrics, welcoming the high country’s natural beauty to worship. Art drenches the walls, including a newly added mural of the mountains as seen from the vistas of Vilas. The music of guitars, a piano, flutes, an oboe, a soprano, and an Appalachian dulcimer bring life to songs old and new. As the gospel song says, “There’s a sweet, sweet Spirit in this place,” indeed.
This summer, High Country UCC is celebrating twenty years of fellowship and ministry. The church’s founders hoped for a place that values asking difficult questions of faith, embracing mystery, and seeking social justice for all human beings. For this, they looked to the United Church of Christ (UCC) as the congregation’s denominational identity. The UCC is a Christian denomination that encourages people to hold the traditions of the past in tension with what faith may look like in the present.
The church’s logo, a comma, points to the UCC’s bold proclamation, “God is still speaking!” Unlike a period, a comma indicates a new idea will follow, inseparably linked to the previous idea. A sentence ending with a period is a grammatically complete sentence. A phrase ending with a comma indicates an incomplete sentence, a sentence that is still being written. UCC Christians sometimes evoke the words of the comedienne Grace Allen, “Never place a period where God has placed a comma.” The tradition demands a dynamic faith that embraces God’s still-speaking voice. High Country UCC seeks to do this today as they embrace mystery and seek justice in community.
At High Country UCC, embracing mystery happens in worship, book discussions, attending lectures, and talking around a campfire. Over the years, seeking justice has looked like supporting people who are experiencing food insecurity, advocating for racial justice and marriage equality, and caring for creation. It has looked like co-sponsoring an interfaith day camp called Peace Village that teaches children to create peace inside themselves and their communities through skills in art, mindfulness, and conflict resolution.
High Country UCC’s mystery-embracing, justice-seeking faith has encountered both backlash and celebration in the community since its inception. While some say asking questions shows a lack of faith, HCUCC finds good company in its Christian theological roots. Evidence of a mystery-embracing, justice-seeking God exists throughout the Bible.
The Psalmists, for example, are continually asking questions. “How long, O God, will you forget me forever?” cries Psalm 13. “Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?” is the gut-wrenching, honest question found in Psalm 10. Jesus himself utters the 22 nd Psalm from the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Biblical wisdom traditions portray the journey of gaining knowledge and wisdom as a spiritual treasure hunt. Think of Proverbs which instructs its readers to find wisdom as they “seek it like silver, and search for it as for hidden treasures” and Jesus who likens God’s reign to a search for fine pearls or treasure in a field (Proverbs 2:4; Matthew 13:44-45). Faithful questioning is continually valued by the biblical writers.
Even more crucial is the Bible’s priority of caring for the marginalized and abused. The biblical prophets like Amos and Micah called God’s people back to their mission of caring for the vulnerable. These ancient books identified Israel’s vulnerable people as immigrants, the poor, widows, and orphans. These same people groups are vulnerable today, and we can add other
people made in the image of God who mainstream society has pushed to its margins. For Micah, the answer to what God requires is simple, “do justice,” “love kindness,” and “walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8). Jesus put this type of welcoming, justice-seeking love to work in his own life, giving a seat at the table to the financially destitute and differently abled (Luke 14:12-13). He summarized all the Hebrew commandments in his teaching to “love God” and to “love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:28-31).
A final key for understanding High Country UCC’s evolving faith is the work of the Spirit. John’s gospel beautifully describes the work of God’s Spirit evident in the life of Jesus. As Jesus prepares for his own death, he invites the disciples into this life of the Spirit. In Jesus’s absence, the Spirit will continue instructing the disciples on how to live as a community of love (John 14-17). The disciples are on the verge of a new chapter of their faith, guided by the voice of the Spirit.
The dynamic evolution of faith expressed in the Bible causes HCUCC to say, “I wonder what God is saying to us now?” “How is God present with us today?” The church seeks to notice how the Holy Spirit is continuing the sentence begun by the ancestors of faith as they discern how to put neighborly love into action. The sweet, sweet Spirit is still speaking. We can’t wait to see what happens next!
