bridge ministry and following the small strands of synchronicity...

Some know that by holding onto and trusting the small strands of synchronicity of these days, I am now serving a very part-time ministry as the "interim bridge pastor" of First Congregtational Church in Williamstown, MA. This blessing was negotiated in December and runs for the five months between February and June 2023. I had NO idea (or even interest) in doing pastoral ministry again. After 5 full years of retirement, I was in a groove. But as St. Paul used to say, "Now we see as through a glass darkly, later we shall see face to face... all we know for certain is three truths abide: faith, hope, and love - and the greatest of them is love." The mystery of faith, hope, and love rings true to me in the abstract and now resonates in my flesh as a sacramental reminder that God is God and I am not! This poem by William Stafford gets it right:

There’s a thread you follow. It goes among things that change. But it doesn’t change. People wonder about what you are pursuing. You have to explain about the thread. But it is hard for others to see. While you hold it you can’t get lost. Tragedies happen; People get hurt or die; and you suffer and get old. Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding. You don’t ever let go of the thread.

After a month of engagement, a few insights are taking shape and form:

+ First, this historically important congregation is intentionally exploring how to ripen into a church for the 21st century. They have a LONG and noble history of social activism and engagement with the wider community. They have financial resources, big hearts, creative minds, and souls saturated in compassion. What none of us know in any of the branches of Christianity, however, is what the Spirit is saying to the bewildered Body of Christ in the West. There are clues, of course, like listening to the wounds of a broken culture; grieving what is dead or dying; trusting that waiting is a key charism of this era; and knowing that when we are fully empty, then the Spirit will engage our imaginations. One of our tradition's wisdom keepers, Walter Brueggemann, put it like this:

The prophet engages in futuring fantasy. The prophet does not ask if the vision can be implemented, for questions of implementation are of no consequence until the vision can be imagined. The imagination must come before the implementation. Our culture is competent to implement almost anything and to imagine almost nothing. The same royal consciousness that make it possible to implement anything and everything is the one that shrinks imagination because imagination is a danger. Thus every totalitarian regime is frightened of the artist. It is the vocation of the prophet to keep alive the ministry of imagination, to keep on conjuring and proposing futures alternative to the single one the king wants to urge as the only thinkable one.” (The Prophetic Imagination)

The challenge is to learn to trust the emptiness - and the darkness. What will be revealed is currently a mystery. Our call, therefore, is learn to walk in the darkness and practice active waiting. Paradoxical, I know, but rushing into action without the Spirit's guidance and inspiration is just another self-help distraction that will run out of gas.

+ Second, most of us raised in the United Church of Christ - and especially those sisters and brothers of the Congregational Way - are not comfortable with waiting. In our personal and public lives we are women and men who know how to get things done; learning to trust the mystical wisdom of waiting does not come easily. Like any spiritual commitment, it takes practice. And I am realizing that OUR practice has something to do with building up our mystical muscle memory. Liturgy is not just an order of worship or container to guide us through an hour on Sunday morning. It is literally the "work of the people" It is our time-tested way to regularly practice a new way of being so that over time our minds catch up with our flesh. How did  Douglas John Hall, systematic theolgian from Canada, put it: 

Jesus says that in his society there is a new way for people to live: we show wisdom by trusting; we handle leadership by serving; we handle offenders by forgiving; we handle money by sharing; we handle enemies by loving; and we handle violence by suffering. In all things we have a new attitude: toward nature, toward politics, toward sexuality, towards the oppressed; and towards every other living thing. Because, in the Jesus society, we repent - change our direction in life - not by feeling bad, but by living and then thinking different.

In my new role, I try to emphasize this truth in both my Sunday morning refletions as well as in my pastoral work which includes our Lenten study of Barbara Brown Taylor's book, Learning to Walk in the Dark. She cuts to the chase saying: 

“There’s no established path to follow. There’s simply taking small steps beyond our comfort zone as we open ourselves to the reality all around us… (not-icing) what patterns are being revealed, what our dreams are telling us, what symbols catch our attention?”

+ And third we all have found a useful resonance in a quote shared by the visual artist, the Naked Pastor, who crafted this cartoon:

Lent is the right time for this journey into faith, hope, and love. I am grateful for the chance to wander with this community in the wilderness as they prepare to welcome their new settled pastor in July. I have already been blessed by their openness and gentle sense of humor. And I look forward to discerning where the Spirit may be leading us as we practice letting go. Walter Brueggeman's Easter prayer gives us a fitting guide to sojourn into the darkness of Lent.

On our own, we conclude: there is not enough to go around
we are going to run short
of money
of love
of grades
of publications
of sex
of beer
of members
of years
of life

we should seize the day, seize our goods, seize our neighbours goods
because there is not enough to go around

and in the midst of our perceived deficit
you come: you come giving bread in the wilderness
you come giving children at the 11th hour
you come giving homes to exiles
you come giving futures to the shut down
you come giving easter joy to the dead
you come – fleshed in Jesus.

and we watch while the blind receive their sight
the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear
the dead are raised, the poor dance and sing

we watch
and we take food we did not grow and
life we did not invent and
future that is gift and gift and gift and
families and neighbours who sustain us
when we did not deserve it.

It dawns on us – late rather than soon-
that you “give food in due season
you open your hand
and satisfy the desire of every living thing.”

By your giving, break our cycles of imagined scarcity
override our presumed deficits
quiet our anxieties of lack
transform our perceptual field to see
the abundance………mercy upon mercy
blessing upon blessing.

Sink your generosity deep into our lives
that your muchness may expose our false lack
that endlessly receiving we may endlessly give
so that the world may be made Easter new,
without greedy lack, but only wonder,
without coercive need but only love,
without destructive greed but only praise
without aggression and invasiveness….
all things Easter new…..
all around us, toward us and by us
all things Easter new.

Finish your creation, in wonder, love and praise. Amen