Moderator's Address 2002

Our help is in the name of the Lord

Newly-inducted Moderator John Waller took as the text for his address a phrase from Psalm 124: ‘Our help is in the name of the Lord’.

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Looking back to the 19th century John recalled that one of his great-great-grandfathers had lived in St Andrews and traced the thread of Christian service in his family down the generations since that time. Though that family might not have lived through the kind of turbulence which had led the Psalmist to cry out, the pressing problems and evils of the world still required Christians to look for help from the same source.

The phrase, John reminded Assembly, began with the word ‘our’ rather than 'my'. That word reminded us of our place in family and community and challenged our tendency to divide from others and define ourselves over against them. Within the church he pointed to the divisions – not disagreements, which were healthy – over human sexuality, and to the division which some members perceived between ‘us’ and ‘them’. Criticism of those in leadership capacities is right and healthy but when criticism came before co-operation, both fellowship and mission suffered. He challenged Assembly to struggle for fellowship, both within the URC and wider church: God is ‘our God’, the God of all, not of one group.

Turning to the word 'help', John questioned the increasing tendency in British society for individuals to be expected to look after themselves. While there was good in people taking responsibility for themselves, at the same time we must remember that we are all bound up with each other. How could that understanding, he wondered, sit alongside the contrasts of wealth and poverty which existed within British society, and even more so internationally.

Within the church the Ministry and Mission fund represented a good example of the way we supported one another in mission. Internationally, John rejoiced in the work and achievements of projects such as Commitment for Life in combating the evil of global poverty. Why did we not, he wondered, have the courage also to campaign, in the interests of justice, for an increase in direct rather than indirect taxation.

Ultimately, however, the problem was not poverty itself but the moral and spiritual failure which revealed our refusal to accept responsibility for the poor and to take seriously the Sermon on the Mount.

Turning to the third part of the phrase, ‘the Lord’ John noted that the events of September 11th had revealed how uncertain were the things on which we conventionally relied for security. We needed a greater sense of God as the ultimately reality. That in turn implied a greater focus on, and understanding of, the Bible. It also required a new generation of ‘apologists’ – those who took it as their task to convince contemporary society of the relevance, hopefulness and compelling nature of the Christian Gospel. Our society might appear deeply secular but so many people felt a deep spiritual need which, we believed, could be met by Christ. It was our task to make that relevance clear in the life of our local churches.

For The Psalmist, John reflected, the name of God was sacred because it defined the whole nature of God. For us the name which revealed the nature of God was Jesus. What we needed was passionate witness and yet those who would witness without exclusiveness – or aggressiveness to other faiths – to the God who was a safe stronghold for ever.

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