Pastor in the Tub

As a pastor, one of the things I am supposed to do is study. I'm supposed to study theology, the Bible, read devotions, and have an active spiritual life. I attempt to do this, though, admittedly, I'm more successful some times than others. Most people assume that these activities are a morning discipline, when the pious people of the world wake up at the crack of dawn and go to their prayer closet for an hour of silent reflection, or sit at the table with a bible, a book, and a cup of coffee. Pastors are probably supposed to do this in our offices or studies. But those aren't places or times for me. I would prefer, if I could, to wake up at the crack of noon, which makes devotions early in the morning a struggle, and I can't seem to get into my spiritual zone in my office. So I study theology and Scripture in coffee shops, and do prayer and meditation in my bathtub with a book by Anne Lamott. As odd as it sounds, those are places where I engage best with God.

And that is fine with me, because God is there, too. I see one of my main roles as a pastor to be helping the people around me to recognize the presence of God. I imagine myself standing among the people, periodically pointing around me, saying eagerly, "Look! Do you see it? It's God, right over there!" In the mundane, extraordinary, hectic, calm, joyful, tragic, broken, healing, sinful, redeeming, cacophonous, quiet, love-filled, lonely, difficult, ugly, and beautiful moments of our lives, I want to be announcing, "Look! Right here! It's the Spirit at work!" In the midst of sales pitches, funeral dirges, news reports, and music of our everyday lives, I want to be whispering, "Did you hear that? The voice of Christ?" I believe that as I point toward God, everyone around me will start pointing, too, but in different directions, seeing God all around us, showing God's presence to even more people.

I'm re-reading The Little Prince, and I'm amazed at how I feel myself resonating with the title character. He finds himself suddenly on earth, trying to explain to a grown-up, that in a picture of a box, there is a sheep going to sleep. He sees things that others can't, and doesn't allow others' skepticism to diminish his confidence that those things are real and present. He's pointing to the reality that the grown-ups miss. But The Little Prince is not alone. The author, despite his age, also sees what the prince sees, and carries on the prince's legacy by sharing his story with readers. And so understanding grows. Perhaps that's what evangelism should be.

The Evangelism committee at my church sees it, too. Before I arrived, they ordered the creation of signs that ask, "Where have you seen God today?" The signs are in random locations in the church, stuck on the tops of doorframes with magnets. So as we pass through the church, we are reminded to look around us for the presence of God and to cry out, "Look! There! It's God with us!"

My very wise preaching professor emphasized this sort of observation, too. He taught me that one of the main roles of the preacher is to be on the lookout for things in the world that connect the words of Scripture to the world in which we live. He encouraged us to write down things that caught our eyes, ears, and hearts, and to keep a box of these observations, which we could sift through when writing sermons. I don't have a box, but I have a space, right here, where I can write things down.

- You cannot spill water in a bathtub. It's not possible. Sure, the water can run over the rim of your glass, it can pour on you or into the water around you, but it can't spill. It doesn't stain, dye surfaces, or leave a water mark. The moisture isn't a nuisance, and there are absolutely no consequences if it dribbles down your chin. It's beautiful. But sometime you have to get out of the tub, and you cannot live on just water, you have to consume messier things. I'm sure there's a metaphor here, or some sort of connection to something, but I'm not there yet.

- As I was enjoying my burrito in the airport the other day, I was watching two small children, probably ages three-ish and two-ish, playing nearby. They were playing as children do, testing to see how far they could wander from their mother before she called them back, gazing at the faces of strangers and trying to decide what their meaning might be, when their father returned with lunch. The family unpacked their food, and the kids settled on the floor to eat. Before the three-ish boy would eat his lunch, he chanted what was clearly the family meal prayer. It was a simple, four line grace, with a gentle rhyming pattern, and he said it in a singsong way, as though it were a limerick or a stadium chant. He didn't stop there, either. He repeated it several times, all the while with his food sitting before him, until his mother finally told him he needed to stop talking and eat. Were the words heartfelt or habit? Did he repeat it out of excitement, or just to get his mother's acknowledgement of his devotion? I'm still pondering.

-On airplanes humans are at our most sheep-like. We are herded by the announcements of airline employees and the instructions of flight attendants. If our flight is moved to another gate, we move obediently in a flock across the airport, guided by our airline shepherds. We are, for the most part, docile and quiet. We go where we are told, do what we are told, and move together, even though we usually don't know one another. In a way, it's beautiful. On the other hand, we are a mass of humanity, with at least our shared travel in common, and yet we usually don't engage in any sort of community. We sit together, but don't converse. We go the same place, but with our own reasons and with little to no interest in the reasons of others. In that way we are a terrible example of community; we don't support one another, we simply gather for an event and leave again, without ever really connecting. I feel like there's an ecclesiology metaphor in this somewhere, but I can't quite nail it down.