This last month, I have been reading a book with some of you called “Field Notes for the Wilderness” written by Sarah Bessey. In the first chapter Bessey says something that has stuck with me for weeks now, and especially spoke to me this week as I struggled with how to move forward after the election. Let me share it with you:
“There are a lot of reasons why folks like us find ourselves in the wilderness. And right now, it’s even feeling a bit crowded...You don’t have to have it all figured out right now. You aren’t required to have all of the answers you seek when you aren’t even quite certain of your own questions just yet. You certainly don’t need to know where you will end up by the end of this experience. But being willing to begin takes great courage, especially when your heart is a bit battered and broken, when your story hasn’t worked out the way you thought it would.
I loved the metaphor of the wilderness for many years now. It just seems to fit with what I understand of the world and my place in it. If the city is a metaphor for certainty and belonging, then the wilderness is for our questions and our truth.
The Wilderness can be a strange, disorienting, lonely place for a soul, I know. It can be filled with danger and loss. But along the way, we do find each other. We come across little clearings, like this, where we can spread our quilt for a while, sit around the fire together, and share some time, maybe a thermos or tow of tea. I’m glad you’re here by my quilt and campfire. You’re so welcome here.”
I think this, for me, is a wonderful metaphor for what Bear Creek UMC can be for us during this time! During the week we live out in that wilderness. During the week we feel strange, disoriented, and lonely, but as we turn onto Woodinville/Duvall Rd or head east or west on Avondale Road...we see through the trees...a campfire burning brightly...a campfire lit for each of us. And we know when we enter that building at 16530 Avondale Road, we will be greeted with some hot tea, a warm blanket, and a warm welcome. And we know that here in this place things will be different...hate won’t seem to be winning, people won’t be “clumping” up into little groups refusing to talk with each other, women won’t be silenced and degraded but will be given the full voice God has always gifted them, and there will no longer be the clang and din of all that vitriol noise! If I can say it...we will be a “holy” place.
I know, I know. I don’t always like the word either. Holy, for us, usually means “holier-than-thou” and I totally don’t want Bear Creek UMC to be that. We are a “come as you are” church if there ever was one! But when I mean “holy” I mean “holy” the way it was meant to be. In the Hebrew scriptures, when the Israelites talked about “holy” they meant “different.” They meant that they were called to live a different way in the world. God called them to be a holy (different) people called to live “Hesed” into the world they lived in. The Hebrew word “hesed” is one of my new favorite words! It can be loosely translated to the word “lovingkindness.” But it is a much deeper word than that. Hesed is a term God uses for God’s covenant people, melding together justice, love and mercy, grace and goodness, loyalty, and devotion.
This same understanding of “holy” is used in the New Testament by Jesus when he called us to bring the “kin-dom of God into the world.” He was, in essence, calling us to bring justice, love and mercy, grace and goodness, loyalty, and devotion into the world. Later in 1st Corinthians, chapter 12 and 13, Paul calls us to the same when he calls us to live a “more excellent way” and then goes to share these words:
If I speak in the tongues of human beings or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. (1 Cor 13:1-8a)
This wasn’t Paul’s wedding chapter---please don’t make it that! It was Paul’s charge to God’s people! This is what we are called to be and to live into the world. It is Paul’s definition of “hesed”!
And this is what I call the Bear Creek UMC to be as we move toward a difficult place in our country’s history: A place starkly different than this current world’s culture of hate. A campfire of hope in a wilderness full of hate. A welcome place for every human being, and especially for those who are put down and passed by and beat up in our world today. A place where their voice is heard. A place where they are seen. A place where we can all come and find hope and learn to “scheme” (just as Ruth and Naomi did) about ways we can live that “hesed” into the world and make it stick.
Do me a favor, don’t stay home this Sunday! Come join us around the campfire. We need you! The world needs this kind of church. Come and help us build it!
Your friend and pastor, out cutting some wood for the big bonfire on Sunday,
Brook
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