The word is out about Lord of Life. Not only are we known in our community for loving God and serving our neighbors, but we are also recognized as a place that allows student drivers to practice maneuverability. Have you seen the orange cones? They are a semi-permanent fixture in our back parking area as an act of hospitality for fifteen-somethings who are looking for some cones to run over as they learn the fine art of parallel parking.
I spent many evenings back there, this summer, while one of our kids was working his way through the final stages of driver’s education. Day after day, we’d cruise the streets of West Chester, Hamilton, and other adjacent communities, looking for every possible driving scenario and then end up weaving in and out of the carefully positioned sentries with hopes of moving toward perfection.
Some occasions were practically flawless, while others were filled with bumps and clunks or completely running over cones. When the latter happened, there was only one thing he could do—stop the car, put it in park, get out, reset the cones, and try it again. You know the drill.
If you’ve navigated the cones or parallel parked, you know that there is a point when it becomes impossible to steer your way out of a bad situation. You simply have to forfeit your position and move the vehicle back to the starting point, set the cones back in their location, and then begin anew.
I see parallels in our moments of confession and forgiveness. In this self-critiquing posture, we declare our failure and take a hard reset. We pause, admit to what doesn’t work, seek forgiveness, reset, and try it again. Rather than trying to maneuver our way out of situations with coercive speech and irrational behavior, we need to stop and return to the place of origin.
Earlier this week, I spent a few days at the Duke Divinity School for the Fall Convocation and Pastors’ School in Durham, NC. This annual event was a whirlwind forty-eight hours that included keynote speakers, worship moments, breakout sessions, and occasions for dwelling in the theme “Cultivating Thriving Communities.”
David Brooks (PBS News Hour & New York Times), Krista Tippett (On Being), Kate Bowler (Duke University & TED Talks), Rev. Ralph West (The Church Without Walls), and others challenged us to assess our individual and collective mistakes in ministry. In their own way, each critiqued the missteps that we’ve taken as the Christian Church in the last several decades and invited us to trust the Spirit of God as we rethink our strategies and align our wheels with where God is steering.
Unfortunately, we’re often reluctant to follow the lead of our Creator. We think that we know how to navigate life better on our own. Rev. West, during his opening sermon at Duke, said that when the prophet Micah asks, “What does the Lord require?”, we’re all too eager to answer with just about anything other than what God asks of us. God asks us to “do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with our God.”
What if, instead of excuses for our miscalculations and faulty vision, we embraced God’s course corrections and listened to the loving instructions for what’s next? Perhaps, we should trust that The Instructor has done this before and has something to teach us.
Looking ahead,
Pastor Lowell