I like the rhythm of Sundays. I arrive at our building an hour before anyone else. It’s still dark outside and the sun is just beginning to peek over the horizon of the Black Warrior. I park adjacent to our church cemetery and stroll past a hundred graves before the side door is in sight. It occurs to me this is probably a holy exercise for me as I learn to live well. My first stop is the fellowship hall. It’s musty. Strangely, I like the smell. It feels sacred. It smells like 500 potlucks and a great cloud of Baptist witnesses cheering me on as I make my morning coffee. I flip on the old coffee maker. I suspect it was here before I was born. I heap mounds of grocery-store brand coffee into a filter and wait for the geriatric cough and gasp knowing it will eventually give me what I need. Mornings in which I’m hurried make me think I deserve a new coffee maker—a faster, more expedient brand. But I can’t bear to buy one. Something about half a dozen pastors before me using it makes me feel romantic.
After turning on the lights and making sure the buildings are in working order, I wander up to my office. I read a Psalm or two. I often sit quietly in my reading chair and begin to imagine what the morning will look like, feel like. More than ever, I am aware of the tactile experience of the gathering of God’s people. The singing and praying and even the sound of hundreds of people opening up the pre-packaged communion have me grateful for what is taking place. And almost as if we had rehearsed this before, the gathering moves from a place of predictability and rhythm into the realm of faith. That is, there is a supernatural experience when we make our way over the threshold into God’s presence—things happen to us. The Apostle John knew this. “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life.” (1 John 1:1)
Most Sundays I live in this tension—waiting for heaven to meet earth. Like a priest preparing sacrifices. Elijah waiting for fire. Israel standing before the Red Sea. Unless the Lord works . . . right?
WAITING FOR FIRE
A few weeks ago, at the end of our worship gathering, I made my way to the back of our auditorium as the service was about to end. A woman who has been attending our church for a while was in the doorway crying, a pile of Kleenex in both hands, mascara running down both cheeks. She said she couldn’t stop crying during worship and then into the sermon. She went to her car to compose herself and the tears kept flowing. She said, “Something is happening here.” I didn’t know what to say. How do you give commentary on something so holy? Admittedly, I was surprised by her emotion. Not because I don’t value emotions or tears or the way God gracefully dismantles us when we need it. I was surprised, mostly, because I didn’t feel anything that day. I wasn’t moved. No tears. No ecstasy on my part. However, I was reminded that we did sing along with the host of heaven. We did invite the very presence of the Creator to be near us. We did open up the living words of the Son of God and ask him to shake us and to demolish our little kingdoms. We did ask for his rule over our lives. Should we then be surprised by his presence?
I only recount this to remind myself that God is not corralled by our rhythm or drawn near by our particular liturgy. That is, he’s not moved by new songs or old songs. He doesn’t prefer bands or choirs. He is indifferent, I think, to smoke machines or stained glass windows. Not even old or new coffee makers move the needle of his heart. I believe he loves it when we just show up with a little bit of faith in hand. When we stand at the shores of the Red Sea desperate for its parting. Waiting for water to flow from a rock. Longing for a voice from Moriah. Upended at a mound of wet wood and waiting for fire.
He comes because we are there.
