The Sauntering Pilgrim

What is the best part of you—the part that feels most like who you really are? What is the truest, strongest, most alive part of you? When life falls apart, what is the part of you that keeps going—the part you and others can count on?

Eugene Peterson paraphrased one of today’s readings this way: “Don’t become so well adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You will be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what [God] wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you” (Rom. 12:2 The Message). When life gets hard, that’s worth remembering: God brings the best out of you.

Where I’m vacationing, one of my favorite old houses is gone. A huge tree fell on it during a windstorm and crushed it. Now there is a strong new foundation where the house used to be. One day, a new house will stand there. I wonder what the owners will save from the old house and carry into the new one. After a storm has torn things apart, what is still worth keeping? What treasure can help us build again?

Near the end of Israel’s exile in Babylon, people began to dream about going home. Their best and brightest leaders had been held captive for a whole generation. Now they were thinking about rebuilding their nation and their way of life. I imagine they asked the same kind of question: What from the old life is worth saving? What should become part of the new life we are about to build?

Isaiah gave them this word: “Listen to me, all you who are serious about right living and committed to seeking God. Ponder the rock from which you were cut, the quarry from which you were dug” (Isa. 51:1 The Message). In other words, before you decide where you are going, remember where you came from. Before you build something new, pay attention to the foundation that is already there.

Nearly two years ago, some key leaders in our congregation began working on a Why Statement. We wanted a simple way to say why we are here and why we do what we do. We needed that clarity because the world around us is changing, and that means our ministry needs to change, too. We need to find new ways to respond to the new thing God is doing. Through  the team’s work, and through conversations with the congregation, we looked carefully at our history, our values, our faith, and the things that have mattered most to us. The statement we came to is this: “We are here to nourish relationships here, near, and far so everyone may live abundantly.”

Eighteen months later, we are still testing that Why Statement. So far, it has held up well. It gives us energy. It helps guide our decisions. It points us toward the future. We are here to nourish relationships here and around us so all of us may live abundantly.

There is an old myth about a giant named Antaeus. He could not be defeated as long as he stayed in touch with his mother, the earth. Hercules finally beat him by lifting him off the ground and breaking his contact with the source of his strength. Antaeus reminds us to stay connected to where we come from, with our roots. It’s the source of our strength. For us at Holy Trinity, that means remembering that relationships are why we are here and have been since our beginning.

Brother David Steindl-Rast, a Benedictine monk and author who has lived for more than a century, once said that “the one thing that ultimately matters is human relationships.” Relationships are where the best and truest part of us is born, and they are the source of our strength. They are where the best part of us is cared for, shaped, protected, and celebrated as it grows.

We are all in this life together. We fail or succeed together. We struggle together, suffer together, and we rejoice together. The best part of who we are is the part that’s connected to others in a community of relationships. That’s how abundant life grows, and that’s why we are here: to nourish relationships here, near, and far so everyone may live abundantly.

The world around us often feels like it is being pulled apart by greed, competition, alienation, loneliness, and the worship of power and privilege. In that kind of world, we need to remember that we have holy work to do. We are called to the work of reconciliation, to the work of building community. And as we prepare for that work, the first thing we need to do is remember the rock from which we were cut, the quarry from which we were dug, and the Christ whose living body we are.

We might also remember the words of an old hymn:

When darkness veils his lovely face,
I rest on his unchanging grace;
in every high and stormy gale,
my anchor holds within the veil.

On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand:
all other ground is sinking sand;
all other ground is sinking sand.