Green Means Go

This past Sunday, during the time for children at our worship service, our pastor explained the change of the color of the stole that covers the pulpit. Having not grown up in a Presbyterian church, the whole liturgical calendar thing is new to me, so I'm always appreciative of an explanation for these changes, too.

"What color do you see?" Pastor Howard Dudley asked.
"Green!!" replied the little girls with bows in their hair.

Green, he explained, marks what the Presbyterian Church calls "ordinary time." And for our church, it accompanies a shift from hearing about the life of Christ from the pulpit to the life of the church, as we begin a series of sermons based on the book of Acts. As he talked, one little girl shouted, "GREEN MEANS GO!"

"Yes! Exactly. Green means go. Because we should go with the love of God." His enthusiastic  response was more gracious than anything I could have come up with in that moment. Even as he spoke, I could feel little flutters of anxiety in my chest.

Sometimes I imagine being on-scene in John 16, when Jesus is telling his disciples that it's good for him to go away. I'm 100% certain that if I were there, I would have my arms crossed over my chest and a fully disgruntled look on my face. In my mind, I'd be thinking, "So you just leave us here and it gets better? I don't think so."

Because how does it get better than Jesus? How does it get better than a man who walks on water and calms seas? How does it get better than a Person so unafraid of public opinion that he speaks his mind with total, unadulterated freedom? How does it get better than a human being whose spit heals blindness and whose touch heals lepers? How can it ever get better than someone who intentionally obliterates social and religious walls of separation with a wrecking ball of grace?

When I read about Jesus, no matter what's going on with me or in the world, I am always pierced by an arrow of hope. But I cannot say that the same thing is true when I read about the work of his people.

I want to lean into Jesus in John 16 and whisper from the wisdom of my 2019 vantage point, "You know they're going to mess this up, right?"

Instead of loving one another, they're going to promote themselves. Instead of setting captives free, they're going to enslave. Instead of healing, they're going to wound. Instead of spreading a message of hope, they're going to promote fear. Instead of purity, there will be abuse. Instead of listening, they're going to shout, and email, and, God help us all... tweet. And the world isn't going to know them for their love, they're going to fear them as closed people who are obsessed with their own opinions, policies and moral standards. And the Earth isn't going to be renewed, it's going to be ravaged.

We in the church like to think that sin, and people who do not believe in Jesus are responsible for such atrocities. But, reality and history tell a different story. The people of God are culpable for much of the world's hurt and shame and anxiety today. Thus, my heart's fluttery response at that green color on the pulpit on an otherwise beautiful, sunlit Sunday morning. "Why, Jesus? Why can't you just stay here and show how it's actually done? Make sure it's done right? People just seem to find more and more reasons to argue with one another about who you are and what you would do. Why not just stay here and get things done yourself?"

But how can I argue with a God who stoops from his position above all of the universe and clothes himself in human flesh? Can I even understand the depth of his obsession with mankind?  Isaiah 55: 9 says, "as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts higher than your thoughts." Indeed they are. I would never think of looking to people to continue to express God's perfect love. People are far too inconsistent. Too weak, fickle, selfish and mean. Why in the universe would you entrust a message of grace and love to them?

The only answer I can think of is that we are the objects of that grace and love. We look at the Bible and think of it as God's Word, and indeed it is, but its also so very human. Written by humans and for humans and filled with human stories, about our failures and our victories and our pain and lamentation and rejoicing. The only God we know of is a God intertwines himself with human life, and expresses himself through our flesh and bones and blood. First as One of us, then as One with us.

This makes me think of my work as a teacher. It's no secret that teachers can sometimes get caught up in the act of teaching. We can obsess over mastery over content, presentation style, and meeting certain professional goals. But, um... our entire existence is only justified by the students. And, especially as a science teacher, there needs to come a time when I step away from the lab table and say, "Read the lab manual, and do it yourselves." Because that's what teaching really is about. It isn't selfish, even though I sometimes make it that way. It's not about my performance and how well I can do the experiment. It's about giving the students something that they don't yet have. It's a complete transfer, and that transfer is only legitimized by my stepping completely away and entrusting them to use what I have tried to give them.

I think that's what Jesus did. And, even though my inner cynic doesn't like it, I can't argue that it is best practice. Without people, who would he have saved? We identify Christ as our Savior, but you can't be a Savior if there's nothing there to save. His saving work was meant for people, mean, fickle, disobedient, rebellious people. That grace was fully transferred to us, and then, he left us with the Spirit to help us continue the work that he started. So even though there's a part of me that wants to say, "Don't go,we're not going to handle this well." I can understand why he did go. It's an act of love. An act of trust. And a chance for us to see if we've actually received what's been freely given.

I wonder if only people who have been wounded by other Christian people or who are wary of the animosity they see between different factions of the church would respond the way I did to the green? I tried for a long time to just pin my woundedness and wariness on sin, not sinners. Christians say that all the time. But for me, it doesn't work. I've been told that I should take comfort in the reality that my struggle is not against flesh and blood but against the powers of the dark world and the evil in the heavens above. But just as Love poured out in flesh and blood for my life, so evil corrupts flesh and blood which leads to death. The struggle might be ongoing in the heavens, but it's definitely breaking hearts and bodies and minds down here. I'm not sure that the two can or should be separated. No, woundedness comes from people. Sometimes it comes from Christian people. The same people he was talking about when he said, "It's good for me to go away, because I will send them the Advocate."

I'm beginning to see that if I could go back to John 16, and stand there cross-armed and give Jesus my two cents, that he would look back and me and say, "I know they brought you pain, Meredith. But do you not see? They are also bringing your healing. "

And so, this very idea that caused my anxiety to spring forth- this reality that the church is now the representation of Christ on Earth- how can I deny that this is also the way that he is healing me? Over the past few weeks, I've been more intentional than ever before about sharing what burdens me. As I have emailed or texted people I love and trust, the weight of my thoughts becomes lighter as I type the words. Every day, I am reminded through phone calls, emails, post cards, texts- that I am not alone. I am being prayed for. I am understood. Last night, I went to yoga class. The lady who teaches it goes to my church. When she ends class, she comes around to each person and touches oil to their temples and forehead. That physical touch is another reminder that I am not alone. Even in the care of my physical body, something that seems so private and personal, there is someone there to help. Today, after making slime with kids at VBS all morning, I was momentarily buried under a pile of preschoolers during the closing assembly. Those soft, sticky, sweaty, small arms and legs remind me that I have purpose. There's another generation coming along after me, and surely the people of God will wound them. But maybe, by his grace and power, we will heal them, too.

I can see the beauty in this. And the necessity of it. How can we really be Jesus' people, if we don't have the chance to take all that he has given to us, and put it into action. Are we going to fail? Of course. And sometimes the consequences of that failure are heavier and deeper than I can express in words. Our failure is serious. But, so is our victory. And it's through our victory that we shoot arrows of hope into the world. Hope for ears that listen and hands that serve. Hope for hearts that will break with the wounds of the world, rather than contributing to them. Hope for justice and mercy. Hope for freedom and God's glory, not our own. I need this chance to go. Because I probably carry more personal failures to live up to who Christ really is, than victories. For today, anyway. But green means go.

So, tomorrow, I'll get up and I'll go. I'll go on sharing what is too heavy for me to carry alone. I'll go on receiving help from others who are willing to give it. And I'll go on serving those who are willing to receive what I have to give. I'll go with compassion, the way my Lord did. And, as much as I am able, I'll go without fear. (That's the hardest one for me) And I wonder... Maybe, in the end, "ordinary time" will end up bringing extraordinary change to my life.