PRAYER: Holy and loving God, remind us today of the sacredness of every moment we spend in your presence. Remind us that You will not let our foot be moved; You who keeps us will not slumber. Remind us that you are our keeper, our shade at our right hand. The sun shall not strike us by day, nor the moon by night. Yes, Lord, even when we don’t recognize it, you keep our going out and coming in from this time on and forevermore. May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable to you, O God, my rock and my redeemer. Amen.
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Many of you have heard me joke about the two years that Anna and I lived outside of New Jersey. I often refer to that time as our two years in hell. And for the most part, it’s meant as a joke, but like many jokes, there’s a twinge of truth in there as well. We moved out of state in the first year we were married. Among the many reasons why we didn’t fit there was the culture shock. I got a bank job there that was the same as the one I left here in New Jersey. At that point, I had been working in banks for 3 or 4 years, and in New Jersey all of my bosses were referred to by their first name. I worked for Nancy, and Dennis, Sally and Jo. In my new job, everyone referred to the boss as “Mr. so-and-so.” One of my new coworkers actually took me aside and said that we address the manager with the respectful title or “Mr….” I actually did check with him. He was OK with being called Tom.
And you know what, it was definitely a two-way street: My New Jersey sense of humor was definitely not welcome, and my New Jersey… bravado was certainly not appreciated.
For the entire two years we lived there, we tried a few different churches, but we never found one that we felt comfortable in. So, we stopped going to church entirely. That decision alone caused our world to shrink. We had no connections to people outside of our jobs, and neither one of us liked our jobs very much. Anna liked her coworkers, but she worked in a place that was not her chosen profession, so she was very unhappy there.
After living there for a couple of years, we planned our vacation back to New Jersey in the spring of 1990. As we drove up route 95, we were talking about all the things that we missed about New Jersey, all the places and people we were planning on visiting. It was somewhere on that drive that we decided that we were moving back where we belonged… and we’ve never looked back from that decision.
There’s a deep truth that for the two years we spent in that other place, we were lost. The subtext of all of our planning on our trip up Route 95 was about how UNhappy we were down there. We had no connections. We had no friends. We had no joy. I have no doubt in my mind that if we had not made the decision to move back home to New Jersey when we did, our marriage would not have survived. We were at an inflection point that required us to either make a course correction, or go deeper into the abyss of being lost.
It’s probably safe to say that we all get lost sometimes. We all get to a point where we find ourselves behind the eight-ball and unsure of the path we should take. We want certainty, solutions, direction – and when we don’t have them, we are sometimes tempted to believe that God is nowhere to be found and maybe even that we are wasting our lives.
Scripture is filled with countless stories of people who find God in moments of waiting and wandering. As I look back on that decision we made all those years ago, I see God’s hand, but only through the lens of hindsight.
Perhaps there are even things we can do in the waiting to pay attention for God, because even when we don’t have the answer to where we are going, even when we feel like we are wandering and “wasting time,” with God, no time is wasted. In our wandering, God offers us an opportunity to explore new possibilities through acts of creativity, wonder, and play.
There are countless examples in scripture of people who become surprised by the movement of God in new ways while in the midst of seasons of being lost or of wandering. In fact, I believe that we should view wandering itself as a spiritual practice.
If you are reading the daily scriptures that come with our On Purpose series, you will read Exodus 16 tomorrow. In it, you’ll see that when the Israelites could no longer rely on their own efforts, they were encountered by a God who provided in a new, creative way. In our reading today from Proverbs 8, the Wisdom or Spirit of God is personified as crying out in the streets, ready to be heard by those who “listen,” “watch,” and “wait” for it. God is present throughout that sense of waiting, anticipating. We do well to recognize the presence of God in those moments.
Now, I can tell you that there are a lot of disputes among theologians about how Wisdom or the Spirit of God should be personified here. Some theologians have portrayed “Wisdom” or the Spirit as a “master-worker” or co-creator, who helps God set the foundations of the world.
When he established the heavens, I was there; when he drew a circle on the face of the deep, when he made firm the skies above, when he established the fountains of the deep, when he assigned to the sea its limit, so that the waters might not transgress his command, when he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him, like a master worker, and I was daily his delight…
God’s Spirit as a master worker, finding joy in the work!
But others say this Wisdom takes on a child-like quality that “plays” and “delights” before God in the wonderful things God has already made. “…and I was daily his delight, playing before him always, playing in his inhabited world and delighting in the human race.”
Two separate views. There is a dichotomy in these interpretations between an “adult-like” image who “works” with God, or a “child-like” image who “plays” before God. In large part, this dichotomy exists because in many cultural traditions, including much contemporary Western thought, “play” is seen as the “unproductive” activity of children, while “work” is the generative act of adults. We tend to believe that working harder leads to greater understanding and progress, while “play” is idle, has little value, or is a waste.
I think we read an “either/or” interpretation into the text that may not actually be there. What if the author is introducing “play” as a biblical and generative act that all humans participate in throughout life, and through which something new may be created? What if, just as God did at the beginning, time spent in the “unknown” is more generative than we realize?
In John 14:26, Jesus tells us about the coming of the Holy Spirit: But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and remind you of all that I have said to you. What if, in our wandering and waiting, the Spirit, which was given to the disciples in a time of great uncertainty, gives us room to play, explore, and create in new, meaningful ways?
Remember that when we don’t have the answer to where we are going, we often feel like we are wandering and “wasting time.” But with God, no time is wasted. In our wandering, God offers us an opportunity to explore new possibilities through acts of creativity, wonder, and play.
We often look at the Israelites’ time in the wilderness as some sort of punishment – as if it were a sentence of some kind… 40 years of wandering, as if God turned God’s back on them. But throughout that time of wandering, God provided manna and gave the Israelites just enough provision for the journey to take the next steps. God prepared them for when they would enter the Promised Land. So often, we want to rush through the “wilderness” and get to the finish line or “promised land” of our lives and our purpose. Or, at least, we want to know and see the path clearly from where we stand.
It would be easy for me to say that if I had to do it all over again, I would have resisted the opportunity for us to move away back when we were first married. But I can also look at those two years of wandering and, in hindsight, see God’s hand giving us what we needed for that next faithful step in our journey. Regardless of how much we disliked living there, regardless of how much I call it two years in hell, there was value in the experience that informed our lives later on. God was present every moment of those two years.
What would it mean for us, as a congregation, to view where we are today and remind ourselves that God gives us what we need to take the next faithful step? What does it say about the value of the time we spend wandering in the wilderness? What if we viewed the church today, not as one that honors God by sticking to what the church has always been, but as a stepping stone to the church that God is calling us to be?
As a church, it might feel as though we are in a wilderness of our own. We look around and we might make unfair comparisons to what the church was like 20, 30, or more years ago. It isn’t fair because the context of today is different than it was, and the church – just like it has over the millennia, must adapt, it must go through its own period of wandering, and perhaps of discovery. I want to invite you to view this period of wandering as one of exploration. This is the time that we can adapt to the Spirit’s playfulness and view the church today through a lens of opportunity. This is the time where we can find joy in what we do as a congregation. In today’s church, we are invited to engage in wonder, creativity, and play that might make new revelations about ourselves, and our direction as a congregation.
And you know what? Perhaps it is okay to not know the way yet, to be wandering. Perhaps we are closer than you think – because these places are God’s specialty for doing something new. We talked last week about living in an economy of abundance instead of an economy of scarcity. It’s about knowing that no matter how much we may feel we are wandering in the wilderness right now, God is still present. God is still working, and God still has work for us to do.
In our waiting and wandering, what if we made more space for slowing down and creativity? Would that change anything? What would it look like to create space in our lives, and in our church for creativity and wonder? Remember that with God, no time is wasted. In our wandering, God offers us an opportunity to explore new possibilities through acts of creativity, wonder, and play. How might we make room for the Spirit to move among us and offer new opportunities for a renewed spirit within us and our ministries? What new ministries might the Spirit inspire us with?
As we think about that this week, let’s consider those ministries of the church that might benefit from some new creative thought. Let’s prayerfully consider where we, as a congregation can be playful, and hopeful. Be in prayer about how God can and will use you for the church’s mission in our community. God meets us where we are; how can we meet our community where it is? How can we offer God’s love and mercy to others through how we re-present Christ in our lives?
When we love one another, when we share God’s love with a broken world, when we proclaim the good news of Jesus’ love with our neighbors, no time is wasted. We may be wandering through the wilderness, but God is present, and with God, no time is wasted.
To God be the glory.
