Feature story
Abdul-Mohan serves as Moderator of Synod in the Presbyterian Church of Trinidad and Tobago. She gave the sermon in the closing service, or “sending prayer”, at the conclusion of the 11th Assembly of the World Council of Churches (WCC) in Karlsruhe, Germany on Thursday 8 September.
“Our task as an ecumenical community is that of building the bridge between others and ourselves through this audacious love of Christ,” she told hundreds of gathered delegates and visitors. “We leave this assembly determined to move from hostility to hospitality, to love in action.”
Reflections were also offered by the Rev. Canon Christopher Douglas-Huriwai of the Anglican Church in Aotearoa New Zealand. He identified the sending prayer as a ritual of encounter and described such a ritual among Maori people, an encounter called the Hongi. Two people push their noses and foreheads together, seeing eye to eye and feeling in each other the breath of creation. “Tena koe,” they greet one another, or “I see you.”
“This assembly is a ritual of encounter. I see you,” Douglas-Huriwai continued. “I see you in all your created glory. I see you, and I acknowledge the divine within you.” He encouraged the congregation to turn and greet one another: “Tena koe.”
Near the end of the service, recently elected or re-elected members of the WCC central committee were commissioned to serve until the next Assembly in approximately seven or eight years’ time. The commissioning was primarily enacted in sign language, with teachers of signing instructing the faithful in the necessary phrases. The charge at the commissioning was a recurring theme of the 11th Assembly: “Act justly, love mercy, walk humbly with your God.”
The gospel lesson came from the final chapter of John’s gospel, in which Jesus asks Peter whether he loves him. When Peter insisters that he does love Jesus, his Lord replies, “Then feed my sheep.”
As always in Assembly prayer, the music provided a rich tapestry of melodies and bass lines, instrumentation and percussion, gleaned from every inhabited geographical region. After final words of parting from Frank Mentrup, the mayor of Karlsruhe, participants left the prayer tent to the final lines of an African-American praise song, “You have to Go when the Spirt says Go!”
Livestream of the WCC 11th Assembly in Karlsruhe, Germany
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8 September 2022, Karlsruhe, Germany: Participants in the closing prayer service of the 11th Assembly of the World Council of Churches, held in Karlsruhe, Germany. The August 31-September 8 Assembly's theme is "Christ's Love Moves the World to Reconciliation and Unity."
Paul Jeffrey/WCC
