One of my strongest memories of my time as pastor at St. Luke is standing in the pulpit and preaching on Genesis 12. That passage, along with portions of Exodus, are the Biblical texts that most shaped my time as pastor there. Particularly, the first time I preached Genesis 12 and told the congregation I believed the Spirit was calling us to something new we just didn’t know what it looked like quite yet.
I preached that passage and that message over and over again in my time there. All the while never having a full appreciation for the ways the Spirit was using those words to shape us as a people.
It was years of preaching a sense that the Spirit was calling us forward into unknown lands before the lived experience of the congregation was one of moving into a new season of life together. Before we did the practical work of walking into a new land there were years of Spirit led conversations and worship services and discernment. None of this happened exclusively through the pulpit, but through congregational leaders, and children and youth ministries, and spending time in the community. We didn’t really know what we were doing and there wasn’t really a long-term plan (which, admittedly, made some people nervous). We just kept trying to live into our baptismal identity as the People of God in our community and we held fast to the notion that the Spirit was up to something even if we couldn’t articulate what that was
exactly
.
I have been reflecting on that season of ministry as we live together into another unknown reality. I’ve been wondering about how the Spirit might be using our words and conversations and worship services to shape us into the people we will need to be in the new land we are moving toward. I’ve returned to the prayer of Moses in Exodus 33, “do not let us go where your glory is not.” And I’ve been considering how, in so many ways, this feels like a wilderness journey. It feels as though we are living in the space between Egypt and the Promised Land. The space in which we are formed and shaped and we can’t quite see the end.
It can be a disconcerting space to live in, so I am reassured by the fact that it’s a space the People of God seem to inhabit fairly regularly in Scripture.
I’ve also been wondering about what kind of posturing might leave us most open to the shaping work of the Spirit in this time.
I have been reflecting a lot on fasting. The reality is there is much we are fasting from in this time: some of it by our choosing and some of it not. This period of fasting has led to questions of self-reflection. What am I fasting from and why? What do I miss about that which I fast from? What can my desire to end this fast teach me? Is this longing a veil for another aching I haven’t yet acknowledged? In what ways am I tempted to feed myself with something else instead of allowing myself to feel the hunger of a fast?
I’ve also been thinking about the human desire to avoid suffering at all costs and the truth that God works in the midst of suffering. What kinds of lessons might we be open to if we are willing to sit in the difficult, uncomfortable, painful spaces for a while? What can others, including our global partners, teach us about faithful living in the midst of widespread suffering?
And all of these questions have led me to another: what kinds of learning and formation might this unique time in the life of the church open us up to?
These, of course, are not questions to be answered as much as they are questions to be pondered. And I wonder if that might be one of the important disciplines we are invited to in this wilderness space. I wonder if there is an opportunity for us as pastors, deacons, and leaders…as
people
to linger in this wilderness space and ask questions, open ourselves to possibilities, and allow the Spirit to mold and shape us for the land that is to come.
I realize that your response to this might be:
she clearly doesn’t realize how much we have to do
.
And yet, I am not writing to ask you to
do
anything. I am asking you to pay attention to this time. I am encouraging you to be aware of the discoveries you are making, the questions you are asking, the voices you are hearing. I am encouraging you to allow yourself to live in this wilderness space for just a while without resisting. And I am reminding you that you are not alone: the Spirit is at work among us and we are part of the communion of saints. It is the same God who spoke to Abram, who freed the Israelites, who claimed Jesus and who called you by name, that leads us now.
May the Spirit who was at work in creation and is at work in us today shape us and form us for the new lands to come.
In Christ,
Bishop Regina Hassanally
