Dear Friends –
I once described church life as ‘chaotic, deeply flawed and intensely beautiful’. To some that may seem an odd or even disturbing description. I find it sort of liberating. If there is one thing that seems to unite large swaths of the Western world, it is the pursuit of perfection, driven by the false idea that perfection is somehow achievable. I remember visiting a castle once where the floor of the banquet hall seemed sort of ‘off’. Eventually the guide pointed out the misplaced tile and explained that it was intentional. The ethic of the day when it was built was that only God could achieve perfection, and human endeavors should be more humble – thus the misplaced tile.
In the church we don’t deal in perfection. Our currency is things like compassion, kindness, hospitality, faithfulness – in short grace. Church life is chaotic. How can it not be? With all these different people, ideas, stories, histories, hopes, expectations bumping into each other? And from that wonderful chaos the Holy Spirit draws a thread, twisting together our live like yarn off the spinning wheel of a congregation’s life together. Yarn to be woven into a living tapestry of devotion and grace.
Church life is deeply flawed. God roots best in the cracks in our life. That’s true both of individuals and congregations. Where there is a smooth, perfect surface of self-reliance, there’s little room or acknowledged need for God to be at work. It’s in the imperfections where the seeds of grace land and take root to grow. Part of every experience of worship together is to help us see and understand our need. It’s to crack the illusion of the smooth, perfect surface. It’s to help us to grasp that we are not really self-reliant. It is to help us acknowledge that we’re a mess – but a mess that God can work with. These imperfections we are often so afraid of turn out to sometimes be the most interesting thing about us. Interesting because they are where we can see God most clearly at work.
But mostly, Church life is intensely beautiful. This is so true. I don’t mean pretty like we so often seek out the pretty things in the world. Too often ‘pretty’ stands in for ‘perfect’. How often are we asked to aspire to the perfect thing: the perfect face, the perfect shape, the perfect job, the perfect house, the perfect life – all of which seems some version of something pretty. Rather, I mean beautiful. Church life is intensely beautiful. It draws us beyond ourselves. It points to something that lies beyond itself.
Beautiful is the place where the veil between the way things are and as God is making them to be becomes thin. Beautiful elevates us and affirms us and challenges us all at the same time, often with us not even knowing how it why it can do these things in our lives. Beautiful is where God loves us in all our chaotic, deeply flawed wonder. Church life is intensely beautiful. And so are you because God loves you so.
God’s peace,
Pastor Tim Stewart