Diocesan Bishop, Ian Douglas, will visit St. Francis this Sunday. He will preach and preside at the 10AM service, greet members of the parish during the expanded coffee hour, and then meet with the vestry for a discussion with the leadership of the parish.
In preparation for his visit and this discussion, the Bishop sent three questions for the vestry to consider. I offer them now to everyone as food for ongoing personal and collective thought. Bishop Douglas's questions emerge from the core belief that the mission of God is centered around reconciliation and restoration. The questions are:
1) Tell one story about when you, as an individual, felt caught up in God's mission of restoration and reconciliation in your own life. Be as specific as possible in telling the story. Tell the story in the present tense, using the first person ("I")
2) Tell one story about when, as a part of the Body of Christ (your parish, some part of your congregation/vestry, the Diocese of Connecticut, an ecumenical group, etc) you were actively involved in God's mission.
3) Given these stories, what is God up to now, in your life and in the life of your community? How might you/we better join God in that mission?
In a gathering last spring, Bishop Douglas introduced these questions as part of a deliberative process for individuals and communities to consider what God calls us to in our life, our life together, and life here and now. It is easy to see that the stories told when addressing these questions create a narrative, a narrative that can be broken down into:
The story of I
The story of Us
The story of Now
And this is how we often engage the world--consciously or unconsciously-- is it not? We think about our own lives (or perhaps we sometimes obsess about our lives). and we are concerned about the life we share with others (e.g. families, friends, communities, workplaces, church, recreation, and on and on), and while we reflect back and anticipate what will come, we live--like it or not--very much here and now.
What is wonderful about the questions the Bishop asks is the implicit belief that God is up to something with each one of us, with the collectives that we are called church, and God is very much present with us right now. And why not? Ours is a tradition that holds incarnation (enfleshment and embodiment) up as central to how God works, and affirms that God works in the world!!
I suspect too often we think that religious or spiritual matters are "special" or profound or occur because of deep connection or transformation. While this can be the case, I wonder if we miss so much of the presence of God and the work of God around us because we are looking so hard for major events, when all the while God is right in front of our nose.
God is in all of the activities of our day. God presides over the activities of the various groups of which we are a part. The presence of the Holy permeates each moment. The trick, of course, is figuring out what exactly God is up to in each situation and each moment. That is a story that takes a lifetime to tell.
Yet, we catch glimpses. We hear the encouragement of another to utilize the gifts God gives us, and there is a bit of God speaking. We encounter moments that should not possess any grace and yet yield a surprise and we feel the rush of God walking by. We share simple and tender and life-giving moments and we don't need the Mormon Tabernacle Choir to affirm the goodness of those times. A simple, "Amen," will suffice. And there are just so many more ways that God is present in your life, our life, and this life now.
The season of Lent is a gift in that it calls us to slow down a bit and to consider our lives and God's presence in life. We are invited to slow down and consider the questions of Bishop Douglas and, hopefully, to recognize a bit more of God in our own story, our story of life together, and the story of now. Of course, the story-telling doesn't end with Lent. There's a wonderful surprise that we tell in a few weeks, a surprise that has had people talking for quite some time. And as far as I'm concerned, there is no reason to quit telling stories now!
Blessings,
Mark
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