I Want a Do-Over

There aren’t that many in my life, but there are certain points, certain moments, when I desperately want a do-over – another chance, a time re-set – to do again, to do better, that which went awry before.

It’s not the moments you might expect – a marriage choice that did not stand the test of time . . . important acts of kindness missed . . . the chance to have harsh words recalled . . . it would be nice if I had done differently, but I didn’t, and consequences are a part of life too.

No – what I want for my do-overs, is the chance to begin certain conversations again, to start afresh without the ringing of (my own) false words in my ears – false not because untrue; false because beside the point.

I want a do-over to recast what becomes an argument into something else, something more important, something more true . . . like a prayer . . . or a gentle question . . . or even a silence.

I want, in my do-overs, the wisdom to remember a few things, things like:

1. What worked for me might not work for you.

2. Logic is not the place from which most of us make up our minds.

3. Discussion about people not in the room is, perhaps, never wise, seldom kind or loving.

4. When encouraging you to look through the lens of love to make a decision, I must make sure that I am looking through that same lens when beholding you.

5. Words have weight as well as meaning and sometimes (most times) less of them is better.

6. My epiphanies are not (necessarily) yours.

So in my most recent do-over desire, the first time around, I am in a room with a handful of other folk and we are convened to discuss what the church, our local incarnation of it, will do; what the bible has to teach us, how we read and understand this thing we call God’s Word.

It quickly becomes not a conversation, but a debate, the thing I had prayed so hard would not happen, happened.  And it is (largely) my fault, my responsibility.

How could I do it differently?

In so many ways.

But I didn’t.  I got sucked in.  I forgot the things I already know – silence is as much a part of a conversation as are words . . . questions matter even more than answers . . . a word from (as opposed to of) God is something that must be waited for . . . breathing room matters . . . my understandings need to be shared (if at all) as just that – mine . . . the Spirit doth move across a group yet requires the space to do so . . . sound, like fury, signifies – well, not much.

It wasn’t horrible.  No one died.  No one stormed out.  And lots will be percolating in the days to come.  But somehow, against all my own plans and desires, I ended up back where I never wanted to be – in a debate rather than a prayer.

For that, O Lord, I would so appreciate a do-over.

Revived

Revival has come and gone and July has drawn to a close.  Vacation Bible School lessons have been learned and volunteers can put their feet up until next year.  Vacation to Chicago had and memories await storing.  The local Volunteer Fire Department has commemorated the community’s vision and its 35th anniversary.  Ice cream made has been eaten and dunking preacher balls have been thrown.  And one very tired but very happy preacher is ready to say good-bye to another July.

July is my birthday month and in years past, I would celebrate from beginning to end, labeling July as “the month of Beth”.  I haven’t done that for a long time, but this month brought it back to mind in a very different way than those days when I would self-reward the whole month long.

This July’s month-of-Beth celebrations include a grandson at the age of discovery and great good humor. . . local friends, old and new sharing their journeys of faith . . . time well met at the communion table again and again and again . . . songs of faith and love and sorrow and pilgrimage whispering into my soul . . . prayers colored into lasting shapes to remember the ones prayed for by . . . young moms laughing with delight at their children racing across the lawn . . . families struggling to find their place and their way . . . time spent with my son, whom I respect as well as love, enjoy as well as treasure . . . doors opened by friends to this weary traveler . . . a hiatus in conflicts that just might become something more than a cease-fire . . . a congregant finding joy as well as meaning in the Bible as it speaks directly to him . . . old ladies sitting on lawn chairs doing their job – watching the children with joy in their existence . . . sorrys offered and accepted . . .

Yes, July has passed.  It was a very good month.  And I am grateful.

Sermon Cliff Note: How God Is Is Who We Are

To understand God as Trinity is to understand ourselves as church.
In the Orthodox tradition, the church is the icon – the visual sign and symbol – of the Trinity.  We – the church – are the incarnation of the Trinity in the present tense.
Trinity is not a unity of decision or will; rather, the Trinity is a unity of identity – unity is an integral part of who God is.  And because it is a unity of who God is, it is a unity of who we are.
But what does it mean to be one?  As Paul points out in 1 Corinthians 12:

For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body . . . the body does not consist of one member but of many.  If the foot would say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. . . there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another.  If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.  Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.

Thus, quite literally, to wage ‘war’ against each other is to wage war against ourselves.  In a very real sense, if I kill you, I die.
I am church and so are you, for without you or without me, there is not church, for we are always and only church together.
A poured forth people, we are God’s own icon. . . of the one-ness of the Loving God.  We’re the peace sign to a world at war with itself.  We’re the grace note to a world of discord.  We’re the solid ground, the standing place in a world off kilter.  We’re the glory of God shining into the darkness.  We’re the patient ones in the face of suffering, showing that there is nothing to fear.  We are the love of God poured forth into the heart of a world stretched beyond its patience, near if not beyond its own breaking point.  We are the heart of God laid bare to the world.
That is who we are.

Mule & Plow: Being Church

You’ll be the mule; I’ll be the plow.

Come harvest time, we’ll work it out.

There’s still a lot of love

here in these troubled fields.

Singing the pain, sorrow and hope of hard times in the farm lands, Nanci Griffith speaks into the soul of despair and in their singing, somehow reshape the darkness into light.

Reshaping the darkness into light: that, I think, is the principal ‘job’ of the Christian.

It’s not Pollyanna.  There’s no call for Hallmark here.

What there is is the belief, surely based on past experience, that together is the tipping point, if not the answer.

Fundamentally, that’s what church is: a together enterprise.

Far from perfect, shoot, we’re often not even friends.

But what we are is not alone.

What we are is together, mule and plow – plow and mule.

What we are is stepping out of darkness into the hope of love – there, where the light lives.