Some very material urgencies are imposing themselves upon us these days. The rising costs of fuel and the consequent increases in costs of other tangible goods are affecting some of our most basic decisions. Travel plans come into question, major purchases may need to be put on hold. Simply buying a gallon of milk or a half-gallon is a new and unfamiliar choice that more people are having to make. In addition, the arrival of summer reminds us that the dog days are but a pleasant myth. Chores around the house keep us busy: changing HVAC filters, hanging new curtains, replacing light bulbs, putting in new trim molding, cleaning out the attic, straightening the garage. Chores around the church keep us busy, too: straightening pew racks, fixing steps, catching mice, repairing air-conditioners, replacing bulbs, to name some finite examples from the infinite list.
In this environment of urgency and busyness we can easily lose our sense of what matters most, both to God and to ourselves. Anthropologist and theologian Pierre Teilhard de Chardin once wrote that, "We are not physical beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a physical experience." That about ourselves which is less tangible, less quantifiable, less obvious, and thus even less accomplishable, is, in Teilhards’s view, that which is most distinctively human. For Teilhard, what makes us human is our connection with God and eternity, not our connection with our immediate circumstance in time and space.
Our basic needs for fuel, sustenance, and shelter are immediately present to us. Sometimes we can find ourselves tending to certain matters because they are the most urgent. The busy tasks to which we set ourselves, and to which God sets us, also are easily discernible. Sometimes we tend to them because their completion reliably provides us with a satisfying sense of accomplishment. In any case, our efforts and labor can become their own reward. And this is a blessing from God. Our faith can relieve our efforts to economize of any sense of desperation and instead sanctify them in our compassion for others in similar need. Our labors can be lifted from mere drudgery to something inherently dignified. Furthermore, God grants us meaning for our labors that is more than solely the gratification we ourselves receive. When we understand that eternity includes ‘now,’ we understand that our attention to eternal values and spiritual vitality is consequential for the tangible world around us and for those who lives we visibly share. Especially when you and I are intentional about the spiritual motivation for what we’re doing, our efforts take on an importance that approaches the eternal in reach and in duration.
ECR has some challenging tasks ahead that will provide us great satisfaction on the other side of their completion. God has in store for us a wonderful sense of accomplishment when, for instance, we have finished putting in the new parking lots and when we have finished the erection of a new building for program and parish hall. We’ll rejoice in the fulfillment of these tasks. We’ll have a renewed sense and a new sense of pride in our campus. Thanks be to God for the wonderful feelings we’ll all have when these improvements have been made.
But I’ll remind us all then, as I do now, that these are tasks whose significance will not be found in the building, in the parking spaces, or anywhere else on the campus itself. The importance of these tasks and their accomplishment will be found in the living additions to our ECR community. In the people of all sorts and conditions who will see and experience a tangible new welcome to this community, you and I will witness that deeper, higher, spiritual embrace which is their welcome to God’s Love for them. What will become most meaningful for them will be not the physical experience of having a place for them to enjoy classes, meetings, and events; or the fact that there is space for them to park their cars and come on in. These will matter, but will be outshined quickly by the spiritual experience of this community: our warmth, our love, our welcome, our celebration of God’s Love for us, for them, and for all.
I want us to enjoy the challenges and satisfactions of the makeover that we’re bringing to ECR’s campus. The improvements that we’ll make are important for ECR’s physical, visible, tangible witness to the wider community around us. A more accessible campus will be more invitational and will speak of Christ’s invitation to the accessibility of God’s Love. Having experienced the satisfactions that rightly will be ours upon the completion of the physical improvements, you and I will then, by God’s grace, be granted the deeper and higher experience of welcoming the new relationships and the growing community of Christ’s people who will make their home with us here at ECR. We face challenges, even urgencies. But we face them together, with one another and with Christ Jesus. And so, soon the spiritual value of our physical efforts will bless us, both here and now, and into eternity.
God’s Peace,
Jim +
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