Grace in All Places

Some have told me that they love Synod because it is the United Church of Christ at it’s best and I must say even at our best we are still flawed human beings. On Friday we discovered that our “clickers”, the electronic voting devices, were not working properly. This left the delegation to vote by voice. Voting by voice is an inexact science to deciding if the “yea” or “nays” win a vote, so for a close vote an additional method is needed. For me, this is where I saw grace in action today.

You see we had just discussed a resolution on disabilities. After the discussion, the vote was called (Roberts Rules of Order) and by voice we were asked to say “yea” to pass the resolution or “nay” in favor of not passing the resolution. The vocal responses were very close so the moderator decided to ask people to “stand up represent their vote”. Not a problem right?...wrong! As one delegate who is in a wheel chair stated, “really?!...Everyone in favor of the disability resolution please stand.” We had just discussed some forms of disabilities and now we were limiting the voting to only those who are abled-bodied. This of course did not work and the moderator quickly heard our resistance and changed the course to have the delegates raise their name cards instead. It was a quick oversight and mistake, which was quickly resolved with grace and understanding.

We are all fallible humans and even when the church “is at it’s best” it still makes mistakes yet the grace of God is also ever present ready for us to reach out and accept. God forgive us for the mistakes we have made both the ones we are aware of and the ones we have no idea we made. Amen.