Let’s see if we can recount all the things that are piling on in these next few days. Well, of course, it is Mother’s Day on Sunday. Better put that one at the top of the list. Then the kids come back next week. Maddie is done on Tuesday and Rhys is done on Thursday (actually Wednesday, but says he needs another night to pack and recover - uh huh.) Maddie’s 19th birthday is next Friday (19? How in the world did that happen? One more year and we won’t have teenagers anymore. The mind boggles.) Then the following Monday I leave for Minneapolis for a week of preaching and preachers, my very favorite Continuing Education event of the year. Then I come back in time for our 34th Wedding Anniversary. Hmm, better come up with something significant for that. (Email your ideas to me, ASAP!) After that is Annual Conference (not my favorite continuing education event of the year). And somewhere in the midst of all of that the kids head off for summer jobs, Rhys back to DePauw where he works in the housing department all summer and Maddie off to Lakewood Camp where she is on the activities team for a summer-long series of elementary camps.
Not to mention that we are about to enter into the third week of the new Sunday morning schedule with Heartbeat worship at 9am in the Sanctuary and Genesis worship at 11am in The Street. A radical and undoubtedly unsettling shift in time and style and setting that has gone - admittedly for only two weeks - amazingly ... well.
I almost hesitate to mention it for fear that I’ll destabilize the peace that has reigned since we made the switch at the end of April. Like the sports commentator who doesn’t want to point out that the pitcher has a no hitter going, afraid that he will jinx it. And yet it is an event worth celebrating. We are moving forward. We are still in one piece. One peace. I’m sure that there are those disturbed by the changes, and everyone is still adjusting, but no one seems to be talking about it at this point. No, that’s not right. No one is talking negatively, no one is complaining, there is peace at Aldersgate.
Surprisingly. Startlingly. Suddenly. Peace. Which is how I know that it has little to do with me or any of the other leaders, lay or clergy. Suddenly peace isn't something within our capabilities. Everything has changed, and yet nothing has changed. The schedules, the plans, the busy work of the church is all over the place. There are some folks who are working their ... well ... their selves off to accomplish the new things. There are some folks who have always been hard workers who have had to shift what they are doing, re-energize, re-think, re-work what they have been doing in order to accommodate changes. And that still continues. There is excitement and fear in equal measures. There is faith and doubt laboring side by side. There is hope and there is caution vying for our attention almost constantly. There is vision and uncertainty swirling around in all of us.
In other words, business as usual. When has it ever not been like that? When has it ever been calm and easy going, everyone content and happy little campers, without expending boatloads of energy and effort? When have we ever been able to bring about more than a lull in the struggles, a cease fire in the antagonism, a temporary truce among combatants?
Well, never, really. At least on our own. We need something, or Someone to break in with good news of a great joy that we might have peace. Wait, that sounds familiar.
Luke 2:8-14 In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9 Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10 But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid; for see-- I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: 11 to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. 12 This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger." 13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, 14 "Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!"
Suddenly peace. It is an interruption. It is a moment that stands apart, out of time, out of the box, out of the norm. They were minding their own business those shepherds. Well, someone else’s business actually. They were laborers, workers in the field that had nothing invested except the need to make a living, to provide for themselves and their families. It wasn't their flock, they were assigned. But they were doing their job, whatever the people thought of them. And the evidence is they didn't think much of them. They were looked down upon, those shepherds. But they didn't care. They did their job, hung out in fields, maybe drank a little too much, maybe were a bit course for polite society, rough around the edges. No big deal. You try spending time with sheep, they are smelly and stupid and more trouble than they were worth. Wasn't much of a job, but it was a job. So, who cares what the city folk thought. They didn't want to be friends with them anyway, they could all go to ... temple, as far as the shepherds cared. Nothing to do with them, all this worship stuff anyway.
Until worship came and found them. Until the skies lit up and voices rained down and their guts turned flip flops and their ability to speak deserted them. Until they looked up and saw the immensity of the universe. Until they felt about as small as they ever had and still wished they could get smaller. Until they began to get the sense that maybe all that immensity was on their side, was for them. And then they began to feel bigger than they ever had. But it was a bigness that had to be shared. A bigness that needed community, needed connection. It was good news of a great joy. So, they ran off to make peace. To bring the peace that was in them to anyone and everyone, and especially the one they were sent to find. The one that was the source of that peace. The one who looked like any of a number of other poor kids born to parents too poor to buy him a bed. And yet this was the one, somehow this was the one who came bringing peace.
Into our midst has been slipped a present. No, a presence. Something beyond us and yet within us. Something from someplace alien to us, and yet our true home. Something that is so unlike us and yet is what we long to become. This Something, or Someone, is like us, is in us and yet is still far from us. And that gap wounds us, that distance is like an ache that we need to soothe, a wound we need to heal. And sometimes we lash out in anger or frustration because we are not whole, because we are hurting and it feels like this world is what is keeping us from healing. We look for someone or something to blame. We cover ourselves with stuff, with activity, with going and doing so that we won’t have to think anymore. Because when we do, we think of what is missing. We think of what isn't ours. We think of the sadness of our soul.
Then suddenly. I wish I had a better way to describe it. I wish I had a formula for making it happen. A three step process to bring you peace, a four word code that would fill the hole in your heart, a ... but I don’t have one of those. Because it doesn't come from me, or from you. Or from anything you can do or stop doing.
Except listen to the angel voices. Except look up into the immensity that is the universe in which we live. And believe. Believe that it is for you. For us. For the family of God, the community of faith, the body of Christ. And trust that someday, maybe someday soon, maybe suddenly peace will come and enfold you, it will bring you home. And your calendar will be just as full. But it will be full of peacemaking, peace living. It will be full of love and joy and peace. Suddenly. Wow.
Shalom,
Derek
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