Last year when the United States went to war against Iraq, I was absolutely opposed to that decision. As a Christian pacifist, that wasn't difficult at all. What was hard was the commitment my wife and I made to become reservists with Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT). Responding to a strong sense of call to do nonviolent, direct-intervention in situations of extreme conflict like Colombia or Iraq was very difficult for us as parents of an eight year-old.

Yet our CPT training was one of the most important experiences of our twelve-year marriage. We spent a month with fourteen other Christians, who ranged in age from twenty-two to seventy-seven years old. Together we explored the roots of non-violence in scripture, trained in techniques of conflict transformation, and role-played how to respond effectively when confronted with soldiers or extremists who are addicted to violence.

Violence and terror will continue to reign unless and until we who profess Christ follow his nonviolent example. This must become matter-of-fact, much as few of us blink when we send Christian soldiers off to war. As challenging as this decision has been, I know that our nonviolent witness in those situations of conflict is the greatest gift I can offer my son.

Most of us in the church don't know very much about the work of the Task Force.

Still, the Task Force is important! As a church in the reformed tradition, we must constantly rethink the way we express our faith in light of God's continual revelation to us. Just as important, the Task Force is modeling how to work respectfully with one another to find common ground.

However, in spite of the best efforts of the Task Force we are likely to remain a church deeply divided over important theological matters. Affirming the core convictions that unite us as the people of God is the best way to deal with that reality. We must celebrate our common faith in Jesus Christ, one Lord and Savior of us all, and follow that Christ into a suffering world.

No one I know is qualified for ordination in Christ's church. All of us fall short of what God desires for us. For instance, few Presbyterians have sold everything they own to give the proceeds to the poor and follow Christ. Not many of us, in a time of terrorism, are genuinely prepared to respond to Christ's radical call to turn the other cheek and love our enemies. Most of us can point to broken relationships in our lives and we must confess that we often don't have the strength to make things right.

Ordaining our leaders is a humbling task in a church where no one is qualified. Each of us would do well to remember our own brokenness as we accept that challenge. With God's grace and some humility from us, we can nurture good leaders. We can be a community of believers who support one another as we each discern our sense of call and what God has in mind for us.

There is no way to avoid tension and disagreement over this important issue. I pray that we will remain mindful that we are one body - the body of Christ crucified and suffering but also resurrected in the world.

I try to remember three things:

· Jesus constantly challenged his community's definition of who was in and who was out. We should do no less.

· My heterosexual marriage is in no way threatened by someone else's nontraditional, loving marriage and family.

· The goal for the church is to nurture and care for all families, and to support them as they are called into the world to do God's work.

Eighty percent of the world's citizens live on the underside of the global economy. For the few of us who are the winners in the global economy, it's hard to imagine what it is like to work hard every day without any chance of securing our families' futures.

In Matthew 25, Jesus is clear about how we will be judged, not just as individuals, but as nations. "I was hungry and you gave me food, thirsty and you gave me drink, sick and without clothing and a stranger and you cared for me."

As Presbyterians of great wealth, we face hard choices. Will we choose to take Jesus at his word? Or will we refuse to see Jesus in the face of the homeless person in our neighborhood, the undocumented migrant crossing our border, the Palestinian living under occupation, the fifty-hour per week factory worker in Mexico who still can't feed her kids.