Dear Incarnation,
I ended Sunday's sermon with this prayer from John Wesley. I love how it affirms that we belong to God, come what may. Several of you have asked for it, so I'm sharing the text here:
I am no longer my own, but thine. Put me to what thou wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt. Put me to doing, put me to suffering. Let me be employed by thee or laid aside for thee, exalted for thee or brought low for thee. Let me be full, let me be empty. Let me have all things, let me have nothing. I freely and heartily yield all things to thy pleasure and disposal. And now, O glorious and blessed God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, thou art mine, and I am thine. So be it. And the covenant which I have made on earth, let it be ratified in heaven. Amen.
I am so grateful for the prayers of the church in times that we don't know how to pray, or can't quite muster the words for ourselves. And not just the church through the ages — the John Wesleys and Dietrich Bonhoeffers — but also our little here-and-now church. Our prayers and presence carry one another through uncertain times.
Church can sometimes feel like such a weak and weird antidote to the world's evils. We give up a weekend morning to get up early, unload a van, prepare children's spaces, sit under fluorescent lights for prayer, scripture, communion, and 90s worship bangers (thank you, Russell) while antsy toddlers twirl around. And we make the audacious claim that this is holy ground, that God is with us, that we are being spiritually nourished through it all, that this community of faith is an outpost of the kingdom of God.
When the world around us is swirling with uncertainty, simply showing up to church can be an act of defiant hope. Our lives bear witness that the Word really has become flesh and come to dwell among us, right here in the mess of it all.
A friend recently shared an article by another priest named Amy on "Why Go to Church, Anyway?" The whole thing is great, but I particularly loved these reasons she shared for why she goes to church, so much that I'm just quoting them at length:
"Because it’s what people who want to follow Jesus have been doing since the beginning, and because of that line in Hebrews: Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.
To be drawn out of chronos — chronological time, ordered by watches and the sun and the academic calendar and the regimes of the world — and moved into kairos, a deeper time, time spiraling ever more profoundly into the really real, the eternal, the life of Christ that we’re all called into. Sabbath rest is a way of resisting the punch-clock of the marketplace, that system that says time is money and my value lies in my efficiency and productivity. I’m not made to be a cog in a machine. I’m made for rest and worship. Church helps me believe that.
Not unrelatedly, I come to church to be bored. In most of my life, a million things vie for my attention, and my itchy fingers open one app and close it and open it again, my mind unable to quiet. Church is one of the only places in my life where I can be formed in ways that remind me that I’m more than a consumer in an attention economy. Church is one of the only places where I learn to let go of my own preferences and my need for constant entertainment.
I come to church to be formed by prayers. When I was in seminary, we gathered every morning for the liturgy of morning prayer in the BCP. The prayers are basically the same every day. Long Scripture passages are read, usually without comment. Part of me loved it, and part of me could barely attend to it at all. Praying, I am being made into a person who says things like
Let not the needy, O Lord, be forgotten;
R. Nor the hope of the poor be taken away.
I am being made into a person who cares about those prayers being answered – and maybe who learns to be part of the answer.
I come to church to be in community with people who are unlike me ( or, as Donna Haraway says, “to make kin in lines of inventive connection”). There is no other place in my life where I come together with so many different kinds of people: people of all ages, backgrounds, political affiliations, socio-economic statuses, neighborhoods, etc etc etc. It’s not a perfect diversity, but it’s still a rare diversity. . . .
To find stabilizing rituals for my week, and for the beginning and the middle and the end of life. Relatedly, to be around people who are newly born and people who will soon die, and people who are already dead but still join us in prayer.
To be reminded that reality is more than material, that the world is enchanted.
To be carried by the faith of others when my faith fails; to be given words to say when my words fail. To look around and see other people who I know from long years of relationship have endured through worse, and to be encouraged by their faith.
To become friends with God. Lauren [Winner] writes about this strange notion in Wearing God, and quotes the 4th century preacher John Chrysostom, who says one way to pursue our own friendship with God is to pursue friendship with the people who are already God’s friends. And those people are especially the saints and the poor. When we pray with the saints — that is, in part, when we come to church and pray with each other — and when we practice hospitality and generosity and share meals with the poor, we are practicing becoming friends of God."
I'm so grateful for each one of you: that you keep coming to church. That we belong to God together, come what may.
See you Sunday,
Amy
p.s. Want a behind-the-scenes look at the weird and wonderful tasks that make up a Sunday morning at church? We'd love more volunteers to help with ushering and teardown (and anything else!). Sign up here, or just let Emily know you'd like to help.
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