Washing Dishes and Walking the Talk

Tom DiCampli read from an obscure visionary passage in Daniel in worship at Skyline yesterday and ironically claimed (twice) that he was "no theologian". Then, after confessing the unintelligibility of the text for him, he shared an explication of the meaning of the text he had discovered through a process of reflection and meditation: he read to us from a prayer journal in which he had recorded his reflections in a burst of insight he received while washing the dishes.

I thought of Brother Lawrence, a simple spiritual sage of another time who celebrated the practice of the presence of God in all of life experience - particularly while doing mundane tasks such as washing dishes. I wondered at the courage it must have taken Tom not only to read the scriptures for us, but to follow his heart and to share such powerful, intimate testimony - to recognize that we must not merely be hearers (or readers) of scripture, but that all scriptural encounters can become invitations to a living interpretation of the profound truths embedded in the stories and mysteries of scriptures.

I also recalled the first time I witnessed the miracle of speaking in tongues in a Pentecostal worship service, when after the sermon, a member of the congregation spoke in an unknown language for perhaps a minute, followed immediately by an interpretation by another member of the congregation. What struck me was two simultaneous and related insights: first, how utterly mundane the translation of the mysterious language was; and second, the miraculous sense of God's presence among us that we experienced by witnessing the spiritual courage of the two among us who made themselves totally available to God for the sake of us all.

Jesus taught that we know the tree by its fruits. Perhaps no theology can unlock for us the mystery of faith. But all theology must stand or fall on the fruit to which it bears witness and which it inspires. Tom inspired me not necessarily by the content of his epiphany, but by the tremendous courage it must have taken for him to bear witness to it's reality in his life. Jesus also made a great deal of fuss about the absolute necessity of bearing witness to our experience of God's presence and realm - and the consequences of our choosing to bear witness or to extinguish the light under a bushel. Tom's witness set the stage for similar encounters with God among everyone in worship who listened to his powerful testimony.

After Tom read the scripture from Daniel, shared his testimony of spiritual insight, and prayed over Vicki, I listened as Vicki shared the stories and reflections she had experienced in her reading of the text. She also complained about the apparent impenetrability of the text, but (like Tom) ironically went on to explicate the story for our time and experience. Once again, I marveled at the courage and faith Vicki demonstrated by walking a path on which she was ostensibly lost, yet walking with confidence and complete trust that there was a way regardless of her ability to perceive it.

And perhaps the greatest irony of all was the fact that the essential kernel of insight both Vicki and Tom sought to communicate to us was an assurance of God's sovereign, benevolent care of the world regardless of the delusions and pretensions of events and experiences that seemed to contradict our faith in God's loving presence and redeeming power among us. Each of them in their own way bore a living testimony to God's reality and reign even as they could not fully realize those realities. Vicki also shared a collection of stories and testimony from others from within and beyond the Christian tradition reinforcing this message of hope in the reality of God, which gave me a sense of powerful assurance tat something far more powerful was at play in the confluence of these diverse human testimonies of experience than mere wishful thinking.

Then Vicki called Dr. Lee Anderson to join her and to share with us the story of a journey of a calling that the Governor of Delaware recently celebrated with an award for excellence in service to the community. Dr. Anderson bore witness to the power of God to dismantle even the barrier of death that pretended to separate her from her father. And once this barrier had been overcome, she experienced a succession of walls that came tumbling down and made possible the restoration of suffering families, kindled the power of forgotten life legacies, and created a profoundly miraculous community of former prisoners freed from hopelessness for joyful service and love toward one another.

Not surprisingly, the congregation at Skyline celebrated Dr. Anderson's story with a spontaneous standing ovation. It reminded me of the way we recently celebrated the recognition (again, by the Governor) of Joe Masiello as Delaware's Teacher of the Year. He is another of the Skyline saints who dares to believe that his faith can draw out the best in children in a classroom or in a refugee tent in Haiti.

Now, as all of this celebration of the signs of the assurance and power of God's presence in our midst was going on all around me, and as Vicki lifted up a picture of our community of faith as "dangerous" to the powers that pretend to rule this world, I began to experience a healing vision. The vision extended to a place of peace a nightmare I had in seminary over 17 years ago - a nightmare I had not thought of again until this week, when I stood helplessly watching as doctors and nurses tried to determine the nature of a health crisis earlier this week that left our daughter, Joy, in pain and unable to walk for several hours.

In the dream, I led a party of pilgrims into a vast desert wasteland in search of a holy place of refuge. We traveled for days - weeks - in the hope at I could lead the party safely to our destination, an oasis of spiritual and physical refreshment and healing. One night, after everyone else in the party had succumbed to sleep, and I sat alone by the dying embers of a fire under a vast expanse of stars, I came to a startling realization: I was hopelessly lost. Moreover, I was profoundly alone, as this realization came with an acceptance of the fact that I would have to carry this burden alone, in order to preserve a measure of hope among the pilgrims who trusted me.

There was much more, of course, involved in my carrying the burden of despair alone among the pilgrims. In the movie, Das Boot, a senior enlisted man upbraids an officer to whom the task of command has fallen when the captain dies. The inexperienced acting captain has shared his angst with the crew and has admitted to them that he has no idea what to do next. The burden of command, lectures the senior enlisted man, involves bearing the hope, the sense of mission of the crew even when hope is lost or imperiled by circumstance or fate. In a similar way in my dream, I felt a sense of grave responsibility (even trust) for and among the community for rising in the morning and for leading us all with purpose and faith, regardless of my doubts or despair.

Some Gethsemane prayers must be prayed alone - while the rest of the company sleeps.

My sense of helplessness, fear and anger by my daughter's bedside ushered in a fierce remembrance of this long-ago dream on the eve of my ordination as a Methodist pastor. But as I experienced the palpable hope of group of pilgrims at Skyline in worship the following day, I caught a glimpse of the dawning of a resurrection of hope in what I had mistakenly named a nightmare. As we sang, prayed, testified, witnessed, and proclaimed the hope of the world among us Sunday, it dawned on me that another way to think of my lostness in the dream was of a disorientation/reorientation experience of transformation.

In other words, what if, in the morning after the dream takes place, I realize that we have in fact arrived at the place for which we have been looking: and the place is a community of pilgrims, celebrating God's presence on the way. To discover such an epiphany, one (especially one bearing the responsibility of leadership) must necessarily undergo the despair that creates a way for a new understanding of direction and purpose to emerge. And Sunday, as I celebrated a sense of having arrived in a place for which I had long searched, I celebrated the nightmare of failure that made possible that realization.

If I would save my life, I must lose it.

Today is Monday, as it happens, and the realities of what it means to lead a community of faith in the midst of uncertainty and doubt make themselves at home in my life. The financial report does not look promising and bills abound. People struggle with stubborn personal failings and with the pain of the personal failings of others around them - they wrestle with prayers for healing of body, mind and soul seemingly unanswered. Yet on we pray and on we walk in faith.