I love our Preschool Chapel curriculum. And it’s rare that I love any curriculum. But the artwork that goes along with it has lots of details. Some I hope the preschoolers notice, like how all the Bible characters are depicted (rightly) as non-White. But there are some details which I know they won’t notice, for instance this week in our Good Samaritan story how the priest is wearing an ephod and breastplate.
I would bet many of you couldn’t say offhand what exactly an ephod is. And I only can because I once wrote a sermon on 1 Samuel 2:18-20, 26 and Colossians 3:12-17 which I was almost brave enough to title “Holy Ephod, Batman.” The ephod was a garment for the priests used in worship, particularly for times of trying to discern the will of God. Its inclusion in this image (which was created for pretty young believers), reminds me that no matter how long we live, no matter how long we walk with God, no matter how closely we study the scriptures… there will always be more detail, more depth, more questions, and more answers, from the God who meets us where we are, and continues to reveal himself to us.
My sister-in-law is never ready when my brother pulls the car up to a drive-through. She has to look at the menu for a while and think. So the interaction at the drive-through speaker typically goes like this.
Employee: Good afternoon, may I take your order? My brother: We’ll need just a moment. Employee: Ok, order when you’re ready. (after a minute Caitlin figures out what she wants) My brother: Ok, I’m ready. (everybody finally proceeds)
My nephew is nearly four, and he has heard this series of phrases many, many times. He has learned that the process of getting. his. food. doesn’t really start until someone says “I’m ready.” This has started to cause a problem for my brother. He has to keep Quentin in the far back on the passenger side of the car and make sure all the windows are rolled up, because upon pulling up to the speaker, Quentin now just starts yelling “I”m ready! I’m ready!” My brother just smiles and rolls his eyes a little bit. And I have to think that sometimes, when I forget that God’s time is just a little bit different than ours, when I think “I’m tired, I want things to move a little faster, I’M READY!!!!” that God smiles and rolls his eyes at me a little bit, and continues to love me even when I just don’t quite get the process.
“Do you have any frankincense?” Sharon asked me a couple weeks ago. And as I responded “Yes,” as if that were a a totally normal thing to ask (and as if that were a totally normal response to give), I thought about just what a weird person I have to be to have frankincense just sitting around my office all the time. But I’m also reminded that Jesus was just a little bit weird. He paid a tax by having a fish basically spit out a coin. He cursed a fig tree. And weirdest of all was the company he kept. Jesus didn’t mind being a little bit weird, or hanging out with others who were. So go be weird for Jesus. And love all the weird people around you.
This post is dated November 5, which is when it will be published, and I expect a lot of people to actually read it on November 6. But I am actually sitting here writing this week’s thought on Monday, November 2. Election day hasn’t happened yet. None of the results have started coming in. I’m still completely unaware of what may be decided (or not) by the time anyone reads this. And I decided to write it early because I may just not have the motivation to write by Thursday. Maybe I will. But I expect this week to be rough for everyone in the country. A season of famine, so to speak, as our candidates use a last few days to take swipes at each other. We have different seasons as a people, as a Church, as individuals. So I’ll tell you a familiar story of feast and famine the way it’s explained by our Preschool Bible.
Joseph had 12 sons. But he had only one colorful robe. He gave it to Joseph. Joseph showed off his father’s gift. His older brothers grumbled. They felt angry and jealous. They didn’t want Joseph around. They found a way to get rid of him. But God was with Joseph and kept him safe. Many years later, the brothers did not have enough to eat. They traveled far away to find food. They didn’t recognize the man who had food to share. “It’s me!” Joseph told his brothers. I forgive you for being angry. I want to help you.”
Joseph experienced a feast of gifts from his father and a famine of brotherly love. But when his family experienced a literal famine later on, he offered them not just food, but the feast of forgiveness. No matter what season you’re in right now, the best way to experience the feast of God’s love is to offer it to someone around you. Amen.
Image and Bible Story Credit: Frolic Preschool Bible, published by SparkHouse.
For a big chunk of this morning, the we lost electricity all over the building. The only lights around most of the preschool were the glowing exit signs (I think the Fire Marshal would be very happy to see them all working). So you know what the preschool did? They just kept doing their thing. They played and learned and had fun together all by phone flashlights and near windows, and sometimes, yeah, just in the dark. They didn’t stop being who they were because of something outside their control.
Ephesians 1 reminds us that we are God’s children. It says that in him we have redemption, forgiveness, grace, inheritance, salvation, and a mark of the seal of his promise. We’re given all this so that we might live for the praise of his glory. I’m grateful to serve a God who is the same when everything else is different, and thankful that we find our own identity not from any external force, but from the God of the universe who chooses to dwell within us.
As a staff at Soapstone, we have been reading Liturgy of the Ordinary by Tish Harrison Warren. From the first chapter, it has sparked a lot of conversations both about how we are mindful of our faith in everyday activities, but also about having intentionality in all aspects of worship.
I have used many of her examples about Baptism in the last few weeks as I have taught Confirmation and UMYF, and led discussions on missions. The call to Remember our Baptism keeps bringing me back to living in Gaujaló and working at Emaús. At Emaús, the Baptismal font lives right next to the door so it’s easy to touch the water and be mindful of it upon entering for work or worship. When Lourdes was the priest in charge here, she would end every single service by sending water flying with a metal “flinger.” I’m sure there’s some ecclesiastical term* for it, but “flinger” really gives you a picture of what happened. Because Lourdes has an arm. I think she missed her calling as a softball pitcher. When that water was flung at the face, it hurt. You couldn’t help but remember your Baptism.
Lourdes used to use the same flinger, or sometimes a branch, to send water all over the place when she would bless a house for someone who had just moved in (including when her own family and I moved into the house above the tienda). The blessing of the household was a reminder that God is present with us not just in the church building, but all throughout his creation, even what we consider the mundane. My friend (and star youth ministry volunteer) Sylvia remarked recently that her biggest monthly expense is rent, so in being mindful of how she uses her resources, she tries to find ways to use her home as a place of fellowship to glorify God, and I’ve appreciated that reminder as well.
There have been two Baptisms of small children since I’ve been at Soapstone. The first was of an infant who looked over his mothers shoulder the whole time trying to see the font. He wiggled and squirmed quietly, not trying to escape, but trying to get in the water. He just wanted to dive right into the water if Baptism. The second was an elementary-aged girl who seemed very skeptical as Pastor Laura began drenching her, but began to smile as the words of blessing were spoken over her. You could see in the change of her expression the way she was beginning to give in to what God was already doing.
At different times in my own life, I would describe both of those reactions as “mood.”
There’s nothing special about the water in the font, or on the flinger, or on my face or the wall of a home. But there’s a reminder in seeing and touching and hearing it splash of the fellowship and the Grace that we get to live into every day. And writing this post four feet from the font and ten feet from my team members, I’m excited I get to live into that with a new group at one of my favorite places for another week.
*Turns out when I looked this up, even the Catholic supply stores refer to the “flinger” as a “Holy Water Sprinkler.”
I have variously described day one of a team’s schedule as Tourist Day, Question Day, and Forest Gump Day (“So I went to the Basilica… again”). This time around it has been more like Reminiscing Day. Caroline and I started talking early this morning on our walk to the hostel about all the Sewanee teams we have hosted together. We ate breakfast at El Descanso and I remembered all the people who have run this place over the years. I stood in the balcony of the Basilica sanctuary and thought of all the groups whose photos I’ve taken in front of the strained glass window. A woman there with her family even saw me taking pictures and said out loud “that guy looks like he knows what he’s doing,” and asked me to photograph them (which brought me back 11 years to Sarah Miller telling me how we’d all end up professional photographers by the end of that summer). As we gazed out over the city from the walkway under the tower I remembered how I felt the first time up that ladder (and how much out of my depth I felt most of my first summer as a host).
I’ve taken this photo several times over the years, but this time I got to do it repping Soapstone UMC.
As we walked down the Via de Siete Cruces, Roberto and I were talking about the streets that are now closed to vehicle traffic. That happened sometime last year, either before I was here in March or before I was here over the summer. And as I tried to sort those out in my mind, I remarked to him how strange it was that I was just here eight months ago.
There have been plenty of moments over the last twelve years when I have been sad about all the people who used to be here that have gone back to live in the US or elsewhere. Or when I miss how things used to be when you didn’t have to wear seatbelts and could cram 19 people in a Chevy Suburban and didn’t have to stop at red lights after dark. Or I think about a restaurant that used to be somewhere, or the good old days when the Strawberry Soda had real sugar in it and they still made the spicy Doritos in the black bag.
But then I walk into the youth world office and run into a group of people I mostly met and got to know within the last twelve months and they’re so excited to see me that we wind up with this:
A large contingent of our summer staff reunited. Apparently they liked me.
really And thinking through the changes I’ve seen I have to remind myself that so much here really I s the same. And so much of the change has been for the better. But either way, I’ve gotten to experience it with so many people. I can’t possibly tell my teams about all the different times I’ve been to the Basilica and Plaza San Francisco anymore. There’s not enough time to give them every bit of history and experience that I’ve gotten at each of those places. But I get to think about parejas who I’ve learned from, and students I’ve brought to share my beloved country with, and teams who have asked me questions, and leaders who many times had no idea of how much their personality would make or break a team. I smile thinking about Sarah and Amalia and Deborah and Jóse Luís and Kelsey and Dana and Darío and Emma and Gavriella and Joe and Julie and Marina all being with me at each of these places. But now I get to introduce a people and a place and an experience and a philosophy of mission to another new group of friends, who will go in twelve different directions nine days from now, into whatever and wherever God calls them in the post-field. And hopefully by then all of us will be changed.
Lauren, Ezechias, Emma, Gracie, Maria, Jennifer, Ginnie, Olivia, Melanie, and Victoria (not in that order) climbing to the tower atop the Basilica.
People have joked around with me for years that they can’t keep track of what country I’m in. But it seems like I can hardly keep track of where I’ve been lately myself.
In February I left my job at First UMC in Elizabeth City. I came back to Ecuador to host two short-term teams and hang out with a bunch of people I love. And those people convinced me I should come back to Ecuador this summer as the Maestro for the Education=Hope program. So I’ve been doing just that, helping to train and supervise both the E=H interns and the Quito Quest interns who are serving with E=H sites and teams.
But in the midst of my preparations for Ecuador, God dropped another crazy opportunity in my path, and after weeks of calls and texts and emails and Skype calls and plane rides, I accepted the position of Director of Family Ministries at Soapstone UMC in Raleigh, which I will be starting in August.
It’s been a crazy few months. It has been hard sometimes telling people what’s next for me, especially because since January, I quite often haven’t known beyond about the next two weeks what was really next for me. It’s about to be a crazy few months as well, because I need to finish well here with Quito Quest and Education=Hope, and dive immediately back into Conference Youth Events, moving to Raleigh, and starting a new job. I won’t be back home in Elizabeth City until about twelve days after I return to the United States, and “home” won’t really be home after that anyway.
I’m excited. I’m terrified. I’m actively trusting God to give me the ability to do all the things that He’s called me to do. And I can’t wait to tell everybody about this whole new adventure.
