Posts
Why do you sit alone while all these people stand around you from morning to evening? ...you will surely wear yourself out, both you and these people with you... (v. 14,18)
Years ago when we lived in Mexico City, Omar and I started attending church regularly when our twins were infants. Their arrival in our lives was so lovely--we were beyond grateful--but it was a lot. Our friends didn’t have kids, our family wasn’t close by, we worked from home, and we needed to be with some familiar faces. So, we started going to church.
Our congregation met in the big, old-fashioned parsonage. As we’d walk in, I would hand the twins--still strapped in their car seats--to some of the mamas and aunties. (Usually the Tapia family: Ruth, Mago and Don~a Juana) and then I would leave the room and curl up on the world’s smallest, stiffest loveseat in the hallway—this red velvet hard thing, like a big stiff pincushion with carved wooden arms—and I’d fall asleep while the hymns and liturgy sounded out from the next room.
Occasionally, I’d sit up, open one eye, and notice that the twins were getting passed around the congregation like little bundles of holy incense that people would nuzzle and slowly breath in. Then, I would change position on the loveseat and shut my eyes again. After the service, we would stay for tacos or coffee and churros. And I would wander around the lawn with dark sunglasses on kind of talking, sometimes just sitting while the twins slept in people’s arms.
I didn’t preach or preside. I didn’t baptize anyone or lead any liturgy. I didn’t change any diapers. I didn’t teach any theology or lead any small groups. I didn’t even put a particularly pleasant or interested face. I just came.
The people holding the twins those mornings weren’t doing anything particularly impressive, except for the fact that they had made that tiny church a place where I could find some connection and rest.
How does a congregation become a place like this? Because not all churches are.
The first answer to the question is an easy one and sitting right on the pages of our Bible story from the book of Exodus: Find more leaders! Involve them! Give them the tools they need to succeed! And it goes like this:
Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, pops out to the wilderness to visit the fam as they’re wandering out there in the desert. While he’s hanging with the grandkids, he happens to notice that Moses is overworked. Now Moses, a stellar legal scholar, is a master at settling disputes. But everyone is vying for his attention and he is burning the candle at both ends. Jethro suggests that he should enlist some more deputies, who can help him take care of things. Moses does and everything calms down.
More leaders means the community accomplishes more means everyone can get out of there and home to their tents faster! Efficient, capable, economical: Excellent work everyone!
But as I wondered about this story…is efficiency the main thing Jethro is after here?
We can’t know for sure, but we can notice that while Jethro has certainly got his eye on Moses, he’s also studying the people. All these folks milling about: Are they just bored and waiting? …Jethro notices that the people are “wearing out” (v. 13) just as much as Moses. It seems, he notices, that the people are not initially “at peace” (v. 23).
Remember, out there in the wilderness, God brought these people out of Egypt but they are still learning what it means to be free. You can take the people out of Egypt, but it’s harder to take Egypt out of the people. God is working on these people, forming and shaping them. Not long ago, they learned a hard lesson about how to share their bread (Ex. 16) and here, it looks like maybe God is onto something else.
Jethro studies everyone.
What if… these people waiting on Moses have a few things to offer too: wisdom, creativity, good common sense, experience. But no one has asked them for any of that. Their requirement is to stand there and wait their turn with outstretched hands.
Could it be, Jethro might wonder, that there’s something more for all of them? …But of course, getting people involved in the life of community isn’t going to make things easier… People are complicated.
Consider this old story told by Tim Vivian in a book about early monastics (a true story about a monk who lived 1000 years ago). Our monk was the sort of person that was very easily frustrated and continually angry with the brothers in his community. So much so that one day, he decided he’d had it. He decided he was done and going to live alone where he wouldn’t have to deal with everyone.
He moved to a cave.
One day, the text in Latin roughly says “he filled his jug with water and put it on the ground. It happened suddenly to fall over. He filled it again, and again it fell. And this happened a third time. And in a rage he snatched up the jug and broke it. I have gone, he said, to live alone and even here, I’ve been defeated!”
Originally, our monk thought that he’d find an easier time finding God if he didn’t have to put up with all these people. But on second thought: these brothers that drove him bananas weren’t getting in the way of his spiritual life. These brothers were actually his spiritual life.
You cannot practice patience without a person next to you who will test it. You cannot learn what it means to forgive someone without sitting next to someone who may have hurt you and needs forgiving. You cannot try to shoulder another person’s burden with them if you are not actually close enough to feel its heaviness. You cannot deepen community if you’re just standing in line with hands outstretched.
What if Jethro sees that these people need more than someone to solve their problems? What if Jethro sees that when people help carry each others burdens their shoulders get stronger? What if Jethro sees not only a better more efficient way to get things done (get more leaders!) but beyond that, what if he sees the possibility—the beginning—of a different kind of community: The kind that doesn’t have to wait for someone else to notice a need. The kind that knows how to turn to each other and reach out a hand. The kind that take the children so the parent can have a rest on the loveseat.
In think that in our bible story, Jethro sees that the vitality of this people doesn’t have to flow one way through Moses, but can flow between all of them. That by belonging to community across these seasons of our lives, we learn to both receive love and offer it.
There are times, of course, when we come to church because we need someone else to do the carrying. There are times when we need to park it on the red velvet loveseat in the hall. I certainly did at points in my life. Sometimes, the most faithful thing we can do is just let ourselves be loved.
And then there are times when our participation in this community actually deepens our capacity and our wisdom to care for each other and the world beyond.
********
There’s so much goodness hanging out quietly in the pews. What would happen if more of it made its’ way out?
Maybe we’re busy. And we worry that if we offer to help in the kitchen or the sacristy, we’ll suddenly be asked to become council president. Maybe we’re pretty new here—or we’re just visiting. Surely, it would be too much too soon to jump in, we think. Maybe no one has asked us and we can’t imagine that our involvement or our presence in the group would actually make a difference—we assume someone else has got to have this covered.
But, I look around and I see all sort of people with so many gifts: people know how to fix things, and offer support, find insight in a book group. There are people in here who have buried loved ones. Folks who have made mistakes, felt offended, forgiven, tried again. There are people around us in the room who are full of goodness to offer… Sure, of course we could use more lectors, more hands at coffee hour, more support in many places, but not because we need to get things done faster, but because… participating is one of the ways that God works on us.
Shai Held, has this beautiful essay where he talks about how God builds character in us. “Compassionate character , he says, “yields compassionate behavior which in turn deepens compassionate character, and so on in a virtuous cycle.”
Practicing forgiveness makes us more forgiving. Practicing generosity week after week makes us more giving.
It goes both ways, a community can also form us in resentment and suspicion and exclusion… but when we listen, and show up and give of ourselves, God forms us in love. Little by little, God works on us and forms us into a different kind of people.
When we offer something of ourselves to a congregation, we don’t just become a more efficient church that can make better music, serve more people out there, fill more volunteer slots filled. We don’t just amp up what we can DO around here, we change what we can become. And what we become here, doesn’t stay here: The courage we find in each other goes with us. When we practice standing beside each other here, it’s easier to stand beside our neighbors out there. The compassion we practice here pulls on us when we’re next to our neighbors. The generosity we experience—opens our own hearts and causes us to live more generously.
*****
Back in Mexico City, when the congregation passed the twins around during the worship service it was, at face value, inconsequential. The twins aren’t going to remember the faces of Don~a Juana or Mago or Ruth, but somewhere in them, they will remember what it was like to be safely held. And I have remembered this too.
This congregation passed us their love. And that love continues.
Today is Pledge Sunday. One of the ways that love is passed from one to another is through giving. Omar and I are pledging again this year. A pledge to support the church’s budget is one of the ways we support people we may never meet: the next worn out person who needs the loveseat, the unsure neighbor who is visiting for the first time looking for a little hope. When we make our pledges, yes, we help keep the lights on and we provide a space for the currently 9 folks who temporarily live on the third floor. But we’re doing something else too: We’re helping make this community possible for each other. We’re helping pass God’s love around this space and ready it--strengthen it--to be carried out into the world.
How does a congregation become a place where a worn out person can fall asleep on the loveseat while others take care of her family?
Well, one person at a time passes the baby to the next. Another joins their voice with the choir. One person shares his burden with the the other who listens sitting at the end of the pew. Another makes a pledge to support the ministry next year. One installs a microphone in the sanctuary, another pauses to talk to a neighbor after the service. A virtuous cycle. All of us learning to love and be loved.
And the next time someone walks in who is running on empty, someone will be here to take their outstretched hands and show them the loveseat in the hall.
No comments:
Post a Comment