For the past few years, my friend Kay and I have kept a look out for somewhat ridiculous church signs. Whenever we see a worthy sign, we send the text to one another and either shake our heads and/or laugh at the exchange. Such is the reason that I was paying attention to a church sign that read, “Taize Lent Service. Sunday at 7pm,” as I passed it on Saturday. Instead of sending Kay a ridiculous text, I filed away the information and thought to myself, “That church sign actually did what it was supposed to do. It drew me in.”
As I sat in the silence of the service last night—a service that I felt compelled to attend because of my soul’s hunger both for peace and quiet, sacred space—I felt tears forming in my eyes as they gazed upon a stained-glass window of Jesus with open arms. In those moments, I wanted nothing more than to walk toward those arms and feel them wrap around me in warm embrace. I wanted to say, “I’m sorry, Jesus. We’ve gotten it so wrong. We’ve messed it up so bad.” Not wanting to make any noise, though, I decided not to find a ladder, set it up, climb it, and attempt to embrace the stained-glass Jesus. Instead, I simply sat in the pew, hands postured to signal an opening, and whispered my words to God.
Contrary to many in my generation and generations younger, I don’t worship most fully and freely with loud rock-style music, projected words and images, and a master teacher seeking to teach me how to live. While I know that this style of worship is desired by many, I find myself desiring its opposite. I am surrounded by noise, chaos, movement, competition, information-bombardment, consumerism, experts, choices, and passing fads every day. My body and mind are saturated to overflowing with the fast-paced, “now” of modern American culture.
What my soul desires, therefore, is to slow down—to meet God in silence—to feel grounded to words and acts of worship that have carried God’s people for thousands of generations—to be challenged to encounter God in God’s mystery and fullness, though murky and mind-boggling they may be. So much of life has been stripped down to certainty and explanation. I need permission to let God be God and to let Christ’s words and actions speak for themselves as they come alive through the presence of the Holy Spirit today.
When I look at Jesus’ life, I see a man who surrounded himself with community—who upheld the faith traditions of his family and his historical people even while he transformed those traditions into life-giving reality for all of us. I see a man who, when weary from ministry, sought refuge from the crowds and went to a mountain to pray or a safe place to rest. I see a man who valued silence as much as noise, tears as much as power, and parable as much as check-lists of morality. This is the balance of worship that my soul needs. And this is the balance that I found last night after a very discouraging week of noise.
Church signs sometimes present somewhat ridiculous information. But thank you, God, for that simple church-sign invitation that drew me in.
No comments:
Post a Comment