It was maybe 10 years ago that I found a treasure trove at my church. It wasn’t King Tut’s grave, but it was important to us. Behind a stack of books in our old and out-of-date library was a stack of newsletters from 1906 to 1917. The early years were when the church as building a massive three-story addition to accommodate its growing Sunday school and community activities; the later years saw great growth in membership. I have the newsletters on a table and have been going through them again gradually. I just read the November 1907 edition, and something caught my eye; it was a message from the pastor chiding the congregation about their lack of commitment to God and the church. He wrote that he had noticed a diminishing of church attendance, and believed it was because people were too focused on the secular aspects of Christmas and were neglecting the spiritual practices of going to church and Sunday school. Too much time and money, he said, was being spent on gifts and decorations, and not enough energy was going towards church.
Well! I have been hearing (and proclaiming) this kind of complaint for my entire life, but it seems that this is nothing new at all. These newsletters were written at a time of great growth and religious fervor – how could it be that people were still not attending to the spirit in ways that satisfied this particular pastor? And this is not a one-time thing; there were yearly warnings in the late spring newsletters that good Christians don’t allow the hot weather to keep them from church. The pastor even wrote in the previous year that he understood that people often vacationed or visited friends in their churches, but they needed to get back into the rhythm of their own church’s spiritual life in the fall. It seems that this kind of thing is endemic to the human condition; our spiritual lives fluctuate over time, and there are a lot of reasons for that.
Has this happened to you? I can think back to the times in my life when I felt adrift as well, and some of those times were when I was pastoring congregations! It is the rare person, in my experience, who is able to keep a steady spiritual life, and I am in awe of them. For you, it might have been a loss of a loved one. Or maybe someone said something unkind in worship – or you didn’t like a decision that was made or the direction the church was taking. The problem is that we are imperfect people in an imperfect community of faith serving a perfect God, and nobody will ever be 100% satisfied. In those times of dissatisfaction, I hope you will breathe deeply, count to ten, and discern where God is in all of this. Don’t let another person’s lapse cause you to give up. Don’t let your personal opinions keep you from seeing other people’s points of view. And please don’t allow loss to turn you away from a God who loves you and a church that is your spiritual family. We all have to live through loss, but God isn’t to blame. God is our refuge.
If you have wandered away from your communal spiritual life, this week is a great time to wander back – to test the waters. Reconnecting with Jesus’s last meal and last days and resurrection can give us a way back to what really matters. And if you can’t find your way back to where you were, search for another community where your spirit is fed. Find a place where the message is that God is loving and inclusive and forgiving. Don’t neglect your spiritual life – we all need to experience the Holy is some way. I hope you find yours.
Prayer – During this week, God, we will have a lot of feelings about You and the world. Give us the grace to walk that journey together. Amen.
Today’s art is “Oh Mother, Do Not Weep for Me” by Steve Knight.