From the pastor

Sunday Letters: Memories

October 5, 2003

It is 6:30 a.m., and the first thing I notice outside this morning is the cloud cover in the southeast. It looks like a gray/white quilt, each cloud nestled against the next, held in place by invisible divine stitches. As the sun rises, the clouds begin to scatter and the sky is transformed into light blue.

I got back in town a little before 11 o’clock last night after spending the week at the Benedictine monastery in Madison, Wisconsin. It is an annual retreat time for me, an opportunity to listen for that which is beyond the usual threshold of my hearing. In the routines of our work, leisure, and relationships, there are things of the heart and things of God that we don’t see. The word "routine" comes from a French word meaning, "route." When we travel our daily, normal routes, we don’t see those things that may be along other routes.

In the book of Exodus, when the Lord appeared to Moses in a flaming bush, Moses said, "I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up." When he said, I must turn aside, he indicated that he had to disrupt his routine. God can be very present in our hearts, in the ordinary world, and in the people around us. But when our routines become a rut, we often become oblivious to divine presence. God may be intensely present with us, but unless we have moments of turning aside, we may never know it.

Our Christian faith is a rhythm of trekking along for a spell, and then stepping off the beaten path for a while. The whole notion of taking a Sabbath is that of stepping off the beaten path for a time. Worship beckons us off the beaten path of our daily routine and we are ambushed by a song or a sermon or a prayer that burns with the lively presence of God. We wander out of the normal routine to celebrate our festivals and Holy Days (Christmas, Easter, Pentecost, All Saints’ Day, Lent, Advent, Epiphany) and discover depths to our humanity and our human purpose that we hadn’t imagined.

As I return from this annual spiritual retreat time, I feel a renewed urgency to advocate rhythm. (Christians have become known for advocating the wrong kind of rhythm method.) The rhythm method we should be teaching is the rhythm of turning aside from the routine to hear God’s word afresh and see God’s possibilities anew.

To go on retreat is to be replenished for the mission and vision at hand. It is our mission to be Christ to one another. It is our mission to pay close attention to what is happening in the lives of people around us. It is our mission to gather people into lively gatherings where the Bible comes alive, companions of spirit are found, and our unhappy realities transformed. Our mission happens in worship that inspires, weekly healing and renewal services, small groups, the adventures of Grace Street and Grace Years, and all the ordinary things we do to care for our grounds, each other, and our routines. --Mike