A Place to be Fully Human
Shortly after All Souls went public, we spent several years meeting in the Eunoia ministry building on Grounds at UVA. During that time, I had two young children. One Sunday, I stood up in front of the church (wearing our youngest on my back) with the intention of leading us through a creative exercise of engagement with the Scriptures. Let’s just say, I was pretty tired at that moment in my life. The plan was to read Ephesians 3:14-20, to invite the community to listen for a word or phrase that stood out to them from the text, and then to write down an image or phrase that came to mind in connection with whatever they heard. I was going to collect all these images and sentences, and attempt to turn them into a song.
I stood up, opened my Bible…and couldn’t find Ephesians 3:14-20. I’m not saying simply that I couldn’t locate the book of Ephesians. It was there! But for the life of me, I couldn’t find the text. It was hidden. Maybe like when Jesus was with the disciples on the road to Emmaus, and they couldn’t recognize him. I started reading something. Pretty soon I stopped. I wasn’t in the right place. I started somewhere else. It didn’t take long before Winn, our senior pastor, spoke up gently, “That’s not it either.” Thankfully, the third time was the charm. Scales fell from my eyes, and I could finally, actually, locate the text I was trying to read. I read it.
In the end, we did collect images and phrases from the community, and they did become a song: “Rooted,” on an album Corporate Worship Vol. 1.
For years people would tell me how much they loved that moment - me, fumbling and bumbling in my attempt to be a pastor, doing my best in the fog of raising young children. And let’s be honest, who tries to read a clearly defined passage of Scripture and gets it wrong TWICE before getting it right? Well, me. I suspect Jesus hid that text from me for a while on purpose. I think the purpose was to create a space for people to encounter us being the Church in a way that gave permission for us all to be truly human.
Father Bliss mentioned it this past Sunday: the Church is a place for us to be fully human, from top to bottom. That note resonated with me, which is why I told the story above. What also reverberated was this: the aim of a Christ-centered life is holiness. Father Bliss said it plainly: Saints aren’t people who escape the confines of being human for something “higher.” And holiness is not something set against “human,” as if they were mutually exclusive. Our aim is to follow Jesus in the company of his people in such a way that the life of Jesus becomes visible in us, and we become good for the world in a way that is truly good. Holiness, Father Bliss said, is our humanity being opened more and more fully to the life of God. And in so doing, we become most truly ourselves.
Dear friends, may these twin fruits mark us as we follow Jesus: human-ness and holiness.
In Christ,
Brendan