I’m back. I know most of you didn’t realize I was gone. And I’m not just referring to those of you who aren’t a part of the Aldersgate Community, because I know that there are those who are active at my church who didn’t realize I had left. I was there last Sunday and will be there this Sunday, so therefore, I wasn’t gone. You know, I only work one day a week anyway. At least for many folks in the life of the church.
But, my wife knows I was gone, she had to walk the dogs every day. My office staff knows I was gone, there were questions others had to answer. The participants in the bible studies I teach knew I was gone, one didn’t meet and the other did without me. Others knew, many didn’t. But I was gone for almost a whole week. Working.
Yeah, I know. But I was. Relaxing and working. Praying and listening. Planning and dreaming. This was my annual planning retreat to set the themes and texts for worship in the next year. So I read and thought, and I walked and I asked God what was the Word for God’s people in 2015. Which means it was my priest retreat.
Don’t panic, I’m not converting. I’m just claiming one of the roles that is given to anyone in the position that I have. We talk a lot about the pastoral role of my job. It is often the most obvious, the caring for people, the meeting them in their moment of need - both crisis and joy. I preside over weddings and funerals, I spend time in hospitals and darkened rooms with machinery counting down final seconds or rooms of welcoming new life and new hope. I walk with people through decisions and choices, successes and failures, healing and brokenness. The pastoral role is a humbling one to say the least.
It is, however, a human sized humility. Whereas the priestly function is another order all together. Another level. The priest is the go-between, the intermediary. The priest stands between God and the people and attempts to get them to communicate, to know each other more deeply. There is an element of the coach in the priestly function, the encourager, you can do it, you can embrace God, you can know God, let me show you just how real God is, just how present. The tour guide, the docent, I want to point out where God has impacted God’s people throughout history, but also where God is still at work among us. Let me show you the light that surrounds you. Let me show you the Spirit that embraces you, the love that enfolds you. What drives me, haunts me, compels me is the desire to bring God to the people in my care. No, that’s not right. I don’t, can’t bring God. God is already there. Already at work, already present. My job is to point out God to people too busy to stop and look, too distracted to pay attention, too full to recognize any sense of emptiness, too wounded to raise their vision, too afraid to encounter God who has been misrepresented to them for years, too skeptical to let belief take root within them and change everything they think about themselves and the world around them.
And if that wasn’t enough, I also am audacious enough to want to bring this people before God. Not because hasn’t been paying attention. Not because God needs to be woken up to our particular needs or joys or hurts. Not because God needs to be convinced we are worthy of the divine attention. No, I desire to bring the people to God because I know God wants them to come. Because I know that God will receive them with joy and will soothe their hurts and wipe away every tear, God will laugh with them and celebrate with them. God will bless them if I can bring them. You. God will bless you if I can bring you.
So, week by week that is what I hope to do. I try tell my stories and weave my words in such a way that you might be enabled to wake up to God’s presence in your life. To usher you into the loving, transforming presence. Not that you can’t do it on your own, because you can. But sometimes we need someone to take our hand and walk with us, even to a familiar place.
To do that, I need to know you. To know your heart, to know your dreams, to know your wounds and scars, your successes and failures. Which isn’t easy. Luckily I my knowledge of you isn’t reliant on just my own observations, but it also comes from the one who knows you best. Knows you and calls you blessed.
Matthew 5:1-12 When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. 2 Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying: 3 "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 4 "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. 5 "Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. 6 "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. 7 "Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy. 8 "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. 9 "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. 10 "Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 11 "Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. 12 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
Have you ever heard a song and thought that songwriter knows me too well? Or watched a movie and thought they were reading from the script of your life? Or read a book and felt that strange sense of deja vu? Like you were looking in the mirror?
When you look at the mirror called the beatitudes do you see yourself? Maybe not in all of them, but in some of them? Maybe in one of them, the one that defines your whole existence right now. The one that defines you in ways that surprise you. This is you. This is us.
There are some of us, or all of us some times, who need the gospel desperately. We need to hear the good news, that there is comfort in the midst of pain and sorrow, that there is fulfillment for those who are so empty they echo in their souls. And the promise is yes! Yes there is hope, yes there is comfort, yes there is home and room for you. Yes. That’s the word for those who live in a seemingly endless No. Yes, says the God who loves you more than life itself. Loves you into eternity.
Then there are those of us who are already claiming the yes for ourselves and are now looking for ways to share it with others. Those whose gentleness causes them to pour themselves out for others, those who seek to end injustice, to right the wrongs that we have become accustomed to, who offer forgiveness and grace like cold cups of water on hot days (or steaming cups of chocolate on cold days - when did winter get here?). There are those whose lives are a beacon of light and without even seeming to lead they are leading us, without even seeming to correct they transform us into more than we thought we could be. There are those who work to heal what was broken, to mend the fences and build the bridges. The word for all of these is Yes! Your efforts are not in vain, your labors are not unnoticed. Yes, you are working alongside the one who claims you, who knows you, who welcomes you into the divine presence.
I’m back from spending time thinking about this thing we do week after week. From thinking about the words to say to give us a sense of the Word and the Presence, the love and the life abundant. I’m back from standing on a high mountain to see if I could into the promised land, or at least a little bit the journey that might take us there.
I’m back and ready to go. To burst forth in worship and song. Rejoice and be glad, not because everything is the way we want it, but because we are on the way to wholeness, we are on the way to redemption, we are on the way home.
Rejoice and be glad.
Shalom,
Derek
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