Noisy Gongs and Clanging Cymbals
There are only a few bible verses that you can say a few words of and even nominal Christians know where it comes from, and Paul’s reflections on love from Corinthians is definitely in that canon. I am also sure that I am not the only parent for whom the pandemic has been a constant stream of noisy gongs and clanging cymbals from children spending far too much time at home. And what I can tell you, over my intensive research over these noises in the last two years is that they are…annoying!
Yet, when it is your child performing their umpteenth Interpretive dance or rock concert no matter how terrible the cacophony all you feel is love. Well. Mostly.
The difference between joy and misery is often as simple as connection. Relationship. The same thing you find endearing in one person is positively odious in another not because of how they do it but because of your relationship to them. There are a lot of definitions of love but the power to make the obnoxious beautiful may be up there.
Or better said - to love something is to love its beautiful and ugly parts in equal measure.
God loves your beautiful and ugly parts in equal measure.
This is very good news, though it is hard to believe in our instagram centered, image focused 21st century world. We convince ourselves that the things we love have to be perfect - be they sports teams, or churches, or politicians, movie stars, we ask them for perfection, demand it sometimes.
Have you ever considered that demanding perfection is the opposite of love?
If there is one part of our work on reparations and truth telling that I think has been critical to our success it is that we love this church. We don’t need it to be perfect, but we do want it to be better. Whatever we might say about racism, white supremacy, segregation or any of the other sins of division that continue to plague this city — we say it from a place of love.
We proclaim it out of a desire to be better as a church, a community, and a world. And in so doing, we recognize we are the first ones that need to change.
Loving our ugly parts doesn’t mean we want or need to keep them! But we do acknowledge they are part of us, and that we can only change the outcome if love ourselves enough to tell the truth, acknowledge what it is we desire to change, and then work together to wake up tomorrow a little bit better than today.
As our Deacon said last week, ‘No one said it was going to be easy!’ It will require us to be patient and kind, neither envious, boastful or rude. (Sound familiar) We will need to seek out new paths, we will not be swept up in our mistakes but we will take time to stop and celebrate our victories.
Please join us this Sunday at our annual meeting as we celebrate some of those victories at 10:30 am.