Dear Friends,
This last week or so, I’ve felt like I’m walking along the edge of a cliff with uncertain footing. Nothing terrible is happening, but my household just doesn’t have any sense of routine right now. Instead, I’m bustling about prepping for my first full program year at my current job, while my wife gets lost on her campus trying to find the horse barn. We’re out of sorts and trying to figure out how each day will go. It’s a reminder of just how valuable the stable foundation of routine can be – and I’m sure a lot of you are feeling similarly as new school year’s start, children head off to school, and you contend with the challenges posed by your own programs.
It takes time for us to create routines out of unfamiliar situations, and the loss of those patterns can be overwhelming, but in reviewing this Sunday’s lectionary, I noticed a set of intersections I’d never seen before.
Fearfully & Wonderfully & Marvelously Made
Psalm 139 – “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made,” or “marvelously made” in other translations – is one of those passages we all know. And it’s one I’ve held dear since my teens. My deeply imperfect, disabled body and mind rest in the knowledge that God made me purposefully, that none of this is an accident or an error. It is a source of strength when (as happened the other day), someone offers unsolicited medical advice and a healing service. I don’t need those things.
The idea that we are made so carefully and intentionally by God sits in an interesting manner beside this week’s Gospel on discipleship. As Jesus preaches about the rending of families and selling off one’s possessions, he offers an analogy with the construction of a building; “For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not first sit down and estimate the cost, to see whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it will begin to ridicule him, saying, `This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.’”
To suggest that we are anything other than perfectly made and complete even in our brokenness is to suggest that God is a careless and incompetent builder who started a job beyond their capacity. That’s not one of those joking conundrums like, “Can God create a rock bigger than God can roll?,” but a sort of heresy to my eyes. More than that, though, I think it undercuts a reassurance we all need, especially when our foundations feel shaky.
Be Loved, Be Kind, Be You
We all need a strong foundation, but one of the times when I remember needing one the most was in later elementary school and in middle school when I stopped being able to escape into the simplicity of childhood, when I became painfully aware of what seemed wrong with me. And I think that’s a not uncommon feeling – but one of the things that always kept me grounded was my church home. In fact, I had coffee on Saturday with a church friend that I grew up with! We’ve known each other for a quarter of a century at this point and that is a thing of joy.
But that church home, it gave me something I needed. It told me I was loved. It was a place where I was treated with kindness and kindness was its own culture, and where I could be fully myself. Which is why, for my congregation’s Blessing of the Backpacks this year, I chose Illustrated Ministry’s “Be Loved, Be Kind, Be You” tags.
These are words of foundation. They are a reminder of how we are created, wonderfully and with the ability to offer that wonder to others through acts of kindness and through authenticity. Really, are these words anything more or less than a distillation of much of our Baptismal Covenant? If we can live into these simple phrases, and especially encourage young people to embody them, imagine the possibilities!
Some days it’s hard to be ourselves and even harder to feel loved. Sometimes, it’s hard to be kind when we’re frustrated or overwhelmed or don’t feel like we’re getting the support we need. Sometimes we can’t be our best selves, or at least it’s really hard to do. More than a few of us could use this same reminder.
We are more than our anxiety and self-doubt and stress. We’re built on a firm foundation. Let us rest in that.
And now, Chelsea Moon and the Franz Brothers can take us out -
More next week. May there be rest amidst it all.
Peace,
Bird