Biography
The Rev. Dr. Joan Brown Campbell is General Secretary of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA, the nation's leading ecumenical organization. Joan is ordained as a minister in both the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and the American Baptist Churches in the USA, and is the fist woman minister to serve as the NCC's chief executive officer. Dr. Campbell's position gives her the opportunity to represent the religious community both nationally and internationally. At the invitation of the President of the United States, she has traveled as a U.S. delegate to international conferences in Cairo and Copenhagen and she accompanied the President to Israel for the funeral of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Recently, she joined the Rev. Jesse Jackson on his courageous mission to Belgrade, Yugoslavia, to gain freedom for three American soldiers captured by the Serbian Army during the war in Kosovo. Dr. Campbell has received dozens of honors and is in great demand as a speaker. [Biographical information is correct as of the broadcast date noted above.]

"All Are the Children of God"
When I was a small child, my stern, Calvinist grandfather—a Presbyterian minister—insisted that my sister and I memorize scripture. When he came to visit, he would quiz us on our progress. He was quite a different model from the warm cuddly grandfathers we know today. He was formidable and learn we did! When I inquired as to why we needed to memorize these verses, he would look at me and, without a blink, say "My child, you may be in prison some day without a Bible. Your remembrances will bring you comfort and give you strength and courage."

This seemed a bit unlikely to the daughter of a middle class doctor, but I did not question his wisdom and today I know those verses. My forays into jail for various protests—civil rights, Vietnam, South Africa—were rather short-lived and allowed little time for reciting Bible texts, but over the course of my thirty year ecumenical pilgrimage, I have known several who have in fact been imprisoned, most recently the three soldiers held captive in a Yugoslavian prison. Their story has been told many times but one of the untold stories comes from my first hand experience as one who traveled to Belgrade to gain their freedom. When Jesse Jackson and I visited them in prison, we carried Bibles signed by the Religious leaders un the delegation. They wept and told us how often they drew strength from the memory of Bible texts that flooded in and gave them peace. In solitary confinement for forty-two days their faith gave them hope. So I call my grandfather blessed. One of the texts that I and many others memorized was that text from the 8th chapter of Romans that was read earlier. The words are familiar and as Martin Luther said, "It were good that this text were written in letters of gold so admirable is it and so full of comfort." The promises of God are powerfully and poetically set forth:

We are children of God and if children, then heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. We, along with the whole of creation, will be set free from bondage and decay. We are assured we will be adopted as sons and daughters of God. (Romans 8:16-17, 21)

The meaning of this cannot be over-claimed. It is by God's hand that we are turned from death to life. It is by God's hand that in the most desperate of life situations the impossible seems possible, where judgment is tempered by love and forgiveness and reconciliation takes hold. We can give that power no name but God, no form but the Spirit.

At least a part of the power of the text is Paul's obvious knowledge of the human condition. Having given us the good news of our adoption, Paul then speaks to the reality of our suffering. He speaks, of course, to the early Christian community. But from time immemorial, suffering has been part of the journey of the whole of creation, of whole nations, of captive people. Most recently we have seen this in Kosovo among the refugees. Those of us who traveled to Belgrade saw also the pain of those who are victims of the NATO bombings.

We enter God's suffering on the cross and God reckons with us at the door of our suffering.

As Karl Barth says in his fine commentary on Romans, "In the Spirit we are enabled to know the meaning of our life as it is manifested in suffering. In the Spirit suffering, endured and apprehended, can become our advance to the glory of God." We could each bear witness—I would guess—to times of despair, loneliness, pain and suffering. For some of us more desperate, even life threatening. And though we would not choose the way watered by tears, we would confess that when we are alone and in our darkest hours we come to know our God in a deeper way.

What does the text say? "The Spirit helps us in our weakness." When we do not even know how to pray, that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. When we cry, "Abba, Father," the Spirit bears witness that we are God's children and God is there for us.

Perhaps this rather heavy theological treatment of something so real as our pain could better be expressed in a true but rather lighthearted story.

When my youngest son—a medical doctor named Jim—was an intern and doing his obstetrical training he was assigned to a wise old Roman Catholic doctor who had many years of experience. As my son, came to the day when he was to deliver his first baby, the mature physician was at his side. The mother, surrounded by her husband, her mother and random family members, began the journey toward birthing a child. As the pain deepened, Jim was in and out of her room many times. Finally, the wise old doctor said, "Jim, you're making her very nervous. Just sit quietly and listen to her. She'll tell you when she is ready." Minutes went by and suddenly she called out for her husband. Jim jumped up. The doctor sat him down saying, "She's far from ready." A bit later she called out in audible pain for her mother. Again, Jim got to his feet, but again the teacher said, "Not yet. She'll tell you when she's ready." Sure enough, in a bit, amidst the groaning and pushing she cried out, "Jesus! Mother Mary!," and the wise man at Jim's side said, "Now, son. Now she's ready." He said, "When the pain becomes unbearable, they inevitably cry out for the Deity by whatever name." And out of the groaning and the pain comes new life, new possibilities. Hope is born anew and in many a birthing room the unspoken prayer is, "Thank God."

The rewards for suffering are not always so joyful—so clear—so concrete. God's presence is not just in the result but in the suffering itself. It is in the encounter with hopelessness that hope is illumined. Perhaps it was well said by a priest friend in his Christmas letter of this year. "God is in the rapids as well as in the rocks. You don't have to cling to be saved."

So far we have dealt with the text's pastoral dimensions. The words are, as Luther pointed out, comforting. Our faith is deepened and we are given strength for the struggle. But there is more—much more. We would miss the point entirely if we stopped here. The text is not just about you or me in our isolated, individual lives. The text is about all God's children living together in community in the midst of the gift of a lush and welcoming creation. We are children of God. We await for adoption as sons and daughters. What does the text say? "All who are led by the spirit of God are children of God." So family is defined as large and generous and inclusive. We hear lots of talk these days about family values these days. But if we listen carefully, the family of record is small, narrow, exclusive. We are kin to all God's children and because he first loved us, we are called, expected and equipped to love one another. This understanding is key to the development of a just society.

Think of the time, energy, pain, and suffering that has gone into humanity's attempt to define who is in the family and who is not; who is a member of the family and who is on the outside. We have separated people by race, by gender, by class, by sexual preference, by denomination, by national identity, by age and by a thousand other separations. All are feeble and faithless attempts to define God's flock as smaller than it is. War and violence have been justified to protect the divisions that we as human beings have drawn, carefully defining who is friend and who is enemy—who is in and who is out. What does the text say? "All who are led by the spirit are children of God." Once we dare to believe that all are children of God, then the idea of one community—one family—is all that makes sense. It is that community for which Jesus gave his life.

We must be very clear when we speak of family. Yes, we must honor and care for our own family. But our world view must go beyond our own—those like us. If it doesn't, we run the risk of living with attitudes of prejudice. Our way becomes the way. Smug self-righteousness sets in. As Christians, we are part of a larger family and we have equal responsibility to that family.

On that glorious day—a day born of miracles and belief—when Nelson Mandela was being inaugurated as the first African president of the Republic of South Africa. After much suffering and a long struggle, he looked out at the multitude gathered there for the occasion and spotted the man who had been his jailer for nearly thirty years. He invited that man to come forward and be seated with the Mandela family. In that single gesture, Mandela redefined the meaning of family and set the stage for the remarkable reconciliation that has marked South Africa's journey from darkness to light—from slavery to freedom—and now the orderly transfer of power from Mandela to Imbecki.

How do we explain a Mandela who could so easily have turned to hate? Perhaps Desmond Tutu in his own simple way gives us the answer. Desmond—himself a complex and, like the rest of us, an imperfect human being whose gift to God is that he was there when God needed him—puts it this way:

"God loves us. There is nothing we can do to make God love us more and nothing we can do to make God love us less. Our adoption is forever. We are all God's children."

This profound understanding of God's unconditional love frees us to love one another, to lace judgment with mercy, to seek reconciliation in a divided and war-weary world. This came home to me in a statement made by my little nine-year-old granddaughter. When the announcement was made that the bombing was to be stopped in Yugoslavia she said, "Gramzy, I've just lived through my first war." Dare we believe that Katie's first war might be her last?

One could dangerously assume that love this blind means we can do as we please—serve only ourselves. But it is quite the other. Although the Christian has been freed from the law through faith the Christian is under considerable obligation. The freedom to which the Christian is called is intimately related to life within the Christian community. Christians whose lives have been touched by the spirit will find it impossible to ignore suffering and hunger and hatred.

These are difficult days, my friends. There is suffering enough to go around. We as a nation need to be reminded of our familial obligation to one another—to all of God's children.

So come let us gather up our bruised selves for there are people to be fed, captives to be freed, the lonely to be loved, and babies to be born and nurtured and cradled and kissed. The promises of God are true and can be trusted. That is all we need to know. Hope is not cheap, it is bought with Christ's suffering. Hope is not solace for the sad or disappointed. Hope is surely not the reward for the victorious. But hope is our Christian calling. It is a mark of our faithfulness. A hopeful people bear witness in a doubtful world that the Lord of History has hold of us and we are not afraid. Amen.

Interview with Joan Brown Campbell
Interviewed by Lydia Talbot

Lydia Talbot: Joan, a compelling message on the inclusiveness of all humankind. How was that understanding first revealed to you personally?

Joan Brown Campbell: I think it was a long time ago, almost thirty years ago now, when I began my work with Martin Luther King and it was, in fact, a very major revolution in my life that changed my whole life. I think it did begin to open my eyes to the inclusiveness of our family.

Talbot: You are about change, transformation, as the leader at the helm of the nation's top ecumenical agency. You engaged the NCC, National Conference of Churches, in that transformational process. What do you think will be your legacy after nine years in terms of leadership and your vision for the ecumenical movement?

Campbell:I hope that my legacy will be that very diverse people have learned to live together and to find common ground. We've had our rocky moments in which one or another of our groups have said, "Perhaps we can't stay at this table." But we're here and we're together and it's been almost fifty years. I think the legacy is that people with very different backgrounds, heritages, and expressions of faith can stay together and there are important things they can do together.

Talbot: At the table. You were at the table with the Reverend Jesse Jackson in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. What was the untold secular media coverage of that story?

Campbell: The untold story was really the role of the church—the importance of the Serbian Patriarch and his call for the resignation of Milosevic and his call for confession by the Serbian people. That hardly ever made our media. We were invited there by the Patriarch. That's never told, and he invited us to come that we might be agents of peace. I think that's the important story out of that adventure.

Talbot: Agents of peace. You say that we are a nation in crisis and the core of that crisis is spiritual. Are you hopeful about the future?

Campbell: I am always hopeful about the future! You know, God writes the agenda for us and has given us this great gift of unity which is ours to claim. If we claim it, I think that regardless of what the future holds, it will be hopeful.

Talbot: We thank you, Dr. Joan Brown Campbell, for your remarkable contribution as a woman of faith.

Campbell: Thank you.