Cherished

Did Noah cherish the time he spent building the ark?

It was life as he had always known it. Neighbors around. His culture intact. Barbeques on Friday nights. Hunting on Saturday mornings.

Then the call to build the ark. His neighbors thought it was some weird hobby. Or an interactive piece of modern art. Did he cherish the time he spent building the ark?

He built the ark according to the directions he claimed God gave him. He spent more time with his family. With his three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Did he cherish that time spent together, or was he cranky and just wanted to get through it? Did his sons look back on it with fondness?

Sometimes moments we just go through with our children are the highlights they remember most. I remember helping my mom bleed brakes as a mechanic. When you change the brake fluid, you have to get the air out of the system. I remember spending a lot of time with my mom in the garage pumping the brakes while she worked under the hood. Did we cherish the time together or were we just getting through it?

Sometimes routine takes over. Sometimes all we can see is the task at hand and getting through it. This is how my brain works, and I’m trying to get better in cherishing and showing gratitude and not just moving onto the next thing.

I once knew this guy named Al with whom I didn’t get along. He kept throwing wrenches into my plans. He kept asking questions that interrupted my finishing the task at hand. I initially mistook him as a frustration. An obstacle to be overcome. After a tense encounter, I remembered a quote Kate found. It is a quote that has become a mantra for us: You can’t change people, only how you react to them.

I couldn’t change Al. I had to change how I reacted to him. And do you know what happened? Something that doesn’t always happen. I found respect. I found a mentor. I found someone who held a lot of wisdom and looked at the world much differently than I did.

It turns out Al had great insight. He told me that people support what they create. His job was not to give people his solutions, which they could reject out of hand and blame him. Instead, if he could help people discover solutions on their own, they had more buy-in and engagement with the results.

He said, “The process is what matters. How you do something is key. If the how is right, the results take care of themselves.”

How did Noah build the ark? I’m not talking about the hammer, nails, measure twice-cut once, and putting pitch on the big boat… What was his attitude? Was he kind to his sons? Did he impart life lessons as they built the boat together? Or did he rush and grumble and curse? Did he make everyone miserable in his task?

Our religious life can become a habit. Habit becomes routine, routine becomes a rut and people get stuck. Stuck people often argue about the color of the carpet or whether or not to throw out worn-out things because so-and-so’s grandparent donated it. There is no joy in a rut.

In a rut, change is scary and to be resisted at all costs. We do the task we came to do, we take no joy, we savor nothing, we’re out the door so we can get to brunch or football or whatever is next. All the lessons and wisdom that a faith tradition can offer is lost. I think it’s better not to show up at church at all than to go through it without cherishing and valuing the experience.

From the start, I knew I had to practice cherishing each moment. From the first candidate weekend when you voted on me. We felt at home each step of the way. After the vote, Dorie Christy told me, “It’s a good day for us here in Medina. Well, we’ll be praying for your old church as well, because we know it will be hard for them to let you go.”

Then we had Advent Family Fun Night. We had such a great time, 8-year-old Eve didn’t want to leave. And she started freaking out. I was embarrassed, but to her, y’all voted on me, that means we live here now. Hard to explain how real estate transactions go down to a third grader. Eve was crying and it was Katey French who said, “Nothing like having to bring your family to a job interview.” And that made me feel better. And then to watch Stacie work her magic with children. She took her time and spoke with Eve and promised her all the fun we would have when she came back at Easter. And Stacie has kept her promise.

There are so many things I treasured, but from the get-go… I’ll remember those. From the lunches and dinners from Luke’s Listening Tour. To our first staff retreat where I made the staff play a board game. There was a lot of laughter and fun that morning!

There are a lot of things I miss. I miss a lot of faces I’ll only see on Zoom or from a distance until we get a vaccine. I say that not to guilt you in coming back. Please don’t! If you decide that staying home is the right decision, it’s the right decision. If you feel safe coming back, it’s the right decision. I’m not concerned with an empty sanctuary, I’m concerned about the church feeling empty. And you are the church. And I miss you. I cherish our time and wish I had cherished it more when we were going through it.

But even in this time, we are building something. My vision for our community is for each of us to hear the call to be the church. Not go to church. We often confuse the building, budget, or denomination as the church. But Jesus didn’t bless those things. He taught and hung out at table with people. He commissioned people to go out to preach the good news and baptize in the name of the Trinity. He said the gates of hell won’t prevail against this people. We are that people. The people called church. And we are building something.

We are building a community that welcomes all people. No matter where you are on life’s journey, you are welcomed here. But here’s the paradox of tolerance. Those who are intolerant won’t be tolerated. All people are created in God’s image, yes. Yet not all actions are welcome. It’s a hard boundary to describe but listen… If you believe white people are inherently better than other skin colors, you’re going to have a hard time here. If you dismiss LGBTQ+ folk as a choice or a lifestyle, you’re going to have a hard time here. If you don’t pray well with others, you’re going to have a hard time here. We are trying to be a community that values whom Jesus values: the poor, the oppressed, the marginalized, the hungry, and sick.

We are building a community that serves. We are going to be more hands on with our mission. More demanding that our values are translated into action. That we reflect and respond to God through service.

We are building a community that loves one another. We check in with one another. Call and celebrate one another. We mourn when our church family is hurt or grieving. There are so many folks whom I am still grieving. I miss the sound of their voice, and their presence. I miss having the ability to call and chat with them or run into them around town.

We are building an invitational community. If you have a big scary idea you want to try out, we’re going to invite it. If it’s about welcoming, loving, and serving… we’ll try it out! We’ll try, we’ll fail, we’ll learn. and we’ll try again! There’s nothing greater than turning your dreams into a reality. We are going to dream a new world into being.

We’ll start with ourselves, because you can’t change others, only how you react to them. When we change our reaction, we just might find that the person we thought was an interruption from the task at hand is also a cherished child of God.

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