Excuses, excuses

(c) 2013 C. B. Park, all rights reserved

I was about to despair of having anything to say this morning when the phone rang.  “It’s your gym,” Steve said, handing me the receiver.  I knew what this was about.  I’d just left a less than pleasant note in the door of the gym.  For the second time that week, no one was there to open at the published business hours.  The place is closing and it’s been a hot mess for the last 3 months. 

The first thing the owner did was pronounce my name wrong. Strike one. 
Then, she prefaced her “apology” with “you have no idea what I’ve been going through.” Strike two. 
“Yes, I do, actually.  I owned my own business and I shut it down,” I said.  Well, that set her off on a tirade.  “I guess I’m not perfect like you.  I guess you do everything right.  blah….blah….blah…”  All the while I was thinking – all you should have done was apologize and assure me that my refund would be ready on Monday morning.  That’s it.  That’s all.  I’m the customer. I’m the one paying for you to provide these services.  I don’t want to hear your excuses. Strike three – I’m out.

I don’t want to hear your excuses.

“I’m only a boy,” Jeremiah said.  “I’m slow of speech,” Moses opined.  “I don’t want to go to Ninevah,” pouted Jonah. “She gave me the fruit,” whined Adam. “You’re not following the rules,” beseeched the leader of the synagogue.

Excuses, excuses.  The only thing as old as humankind has been our ability to make excuses. The fact that we can manufacture these annoying things does not give us permission to employ them.  They’re called excuses for a good reason: we want to be excused from our behavior or failing or lack of compassion.  We want to be comfortable in our mischief or mistake.  We want to push the blame off to the other. Unfortunately, that won’t work with God. Just ask Jeremiah, or Moses, or the leader of the synagogue.  God doesn’t work that way.

We, the people of God, forget that we are not the customer here.  We are not the ones who are paying for things. God is the customer in this world of faith.  God has paid the price for us.  Jesus – the incarnation of God’s love – suffered and died in witness to the incredible love God has for us.  The Hebrew scripture is bursting with stories and psalms that remind us that our gift of free will costs God on a daily basis. 
God’s people spurn the one who loves them into being, who treats them like a bridegroom treats his bride.  God laments over Israel. Jesus cries for Jerusalem. We have all of this and we disregard it.  Then we make our excuses.  Jesus continues to weep.

There was a link circulating a while back on Facebook about the phenomenon called “church shopping.”  Some people acknowledge the phenomenon as a given, a sign of the times.  People go place to place deciding whether or not they can ‘buy in’ to the services offered by the institution. Others, myself included, felt very uncomfortable with this notion.  Why?  Because when it comes to faith, we can’t approach decisions like a consumer.  We have to approach them by discernment.

Discernment isn’t about buying in.  It isn’t about getting what you pay for.  Discernment is about where God wants you to be and trusting God to provide the ways and means to live into it.  It’s true for individuals.  It’s true for faith communities like churches. 
Frankly, the consumer avenue is a lot easier and cheaper in the short run.  There’s also that whole instant-gratification-thing for consumers that discerners just don’t have.  That’s what makes it so much more appealing than discernment. 

The Facebook article’s author wrote, “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if people joined a congregation because they discerned that God was leading them there.”  What a difference that is from ‘I think I’ll attend here because they have a great choir’.  It doesn’t make the choir less great, but it shifts our perspective from what we get out of a community to what God wants us to be as a community.

Discernment’s other difficulty is that God might just ask you to go where you don’t particularly feel qualified or just flat out don’t want to go.  Actually, you can pretty much guarantee that.  Just look at the prophets, the apostles, the martyrs.  When I think about it, the one person who threw caution to the wind and just accepted God’s call without hesitation was an unmarried teenager in backwater Galilee.  Becoming the mother of Jesus certainly was not a smooth road, but where would we be if Mary had said to the angel Gabriel, “Honey, you can’t pay me enough to do that.” 

Discernment requires trusting your relationship with God with every fiber of your being, knowing that it’s not always going to be pleasant.  No relationship is sunshine and rainbows all the time.  Sometimes, as prophet and singer Pink would say, you’re gonna get burned…but you gotta get up and try, try, try.

I ask you to think about why you are here.  The reason may be intensely personal or it may be that you liked what you saw.  Regardless of why you came, God had a hand in it.  So, now it is time to discern what God may be calling you to be and do here.  As you chew on that over the next few days, take note of those ideas that you might be shying away from because you don’t feel qualified.  Remember, Jeremiah was only a boy.  Moses was slow of speech. The leader of the synagogue was trapped in what had always been.  God makes God’s self known in weakness. That’s what Christmas is all about! It’s why Jesus healed the bent-over woman. God also provides what is needed to fulfill God’s purposes.

Our job is to listen, trust, and take leaps of faith.  Remember – God is the customer here.  Excuses should be left at the door.      Amen.

(c) 2013 C. B. Park, all rights reserved

What I did this Summer.

School is beginning this week in several central Ohio school districts.  Everyone else starts next week.  Parents are happy, for the most part. Kids are sad, for the most part.  I was one of those kids who was happy.  I loved school.  Summer for me was an awful boring time when Mom and Dad made me play outside when I just wanted to stay in and read my books.

Summer now looks a lot like the rest of the year.  I tend to take time off in the spring and fall in order to avoid peak travel costs.  The parish begins to ramp up for Vacation Bible School just as the program year is ending.  We exhale for a little while in late July and early August.  So, mostly, I worked.

There have been some bright spots.  Some of the programming that was born previous to this summer actually took root and started to grow.  "St. Arbucks," the coffee house ministry I've been attending to for a little over 2 years now, has a core faithful.  We've begun to do a book study along with fellowship time.  Those who gather are getting closer and more trusting of each other.  "Divine + Wine" has gone from a sure 4 people to "at least 6 and sometimes more."  From the outside it may look like people having dinner together. At the table, we check in with each other and support each other in our faith journey.

The Celtic Evening Prayer service has been the most surprising of all.  Based in parishioners homes, those attending offer prayer, study scripture and other spiritual texts, chant a little, and spend time in quiet contemplation.  The group has become quite close and we may expand it out this fall. 

It's been a good summer.  Just think - fall and a new program year are just around the corner.  How exciting is that!