Just Another Sunday (at Renovation)
It was an intense time in church today, for the community and for me. It was a time when the Spirit was very evidently present, and not to me alone. The congregation was more responsive than I've seen—more hands raised, more clapping, more verbal responses. Not just in the singing, but during the sermon. There was spontaneous applause during the sermon, at one point! I thought, with an internal chuckle, "Well, that's not very PC...A."
Today was the first time I've been very aware that the order of service went "off-track," following the leading of the Spirit. It was noticeable not because it was uncomfortable or awkward, but because it was so obvious that we were in communion and the time was of no consequence. I was not able to sing, myself. The experience was too overpowering.
I stood alone, because somehow my teenage son ended up sitting between my husband and me. I say “alone,” because in such a time I might usually have held my husband’s hand. That was not to happen today. But I held the Lord’s hand, I know, because otherwise I really think I would have fallen. I couldn’t even lift my hands, as I most always do at Renovation, because I felt dizzy with all that was happening.
So I stood in silence, eyes closed much of the time, left hand over my heart, right hand extended downward as if holding or propping on something. Someone. It crossed my mind, the expression "slain in the Spirit," as I've heard described, when people simply fall down under the influence of the divine. Quite often I've heard it described as a false manifestation or an emotional excess. I thought today that I very well could have let myself fall, but there were many factors that kept me from doing so. This is fine and good. It was just a bit of understanding of the term. If I'd been in a Pentecostal church, where it was a part of the culture, it would have been acceptable and I would have felt freer to let myself go in that way.
I felt the desire to lift my hands, even though I really could not, and I realized that as analogous to another physical experience. I have previously thought of lifting my hands in worship as reaching toward heaven, straining toward the Lord, or as raising my hands to acknowledge agreement emphatically. Today, it was a desire to feel more of His touch, much as might happen in an intimate physical encounter. Just as bodies move to increase the possibility for pleasant contact, raising hands today seemed to be a similar action, and while I did not trust my body to do so, my spirit was fully extended to receive all He would give.
It was very personal, very much my own, too, which was another factor I had to work with. I was not holding my husband's hand; I was not sharing the experience with a friend. In spite of all the others in the room, it seemed as if only the Lord and I were there. This was more of the standing alone that He is calling me to understand, more of the depending on Him and not on others, even the others I love.
Then, the music was over, after extended reprises, and it was time for the sermon. As I took my seat, Nhadyne read the Scripture, and Pastor Leonce responded with, "The Word of the Lord," and began his prayer. Thanks be to God, indeed. I knew I could not sit in a chair to hear this sermon. I could not be a spectator, with proper posture and poise, legs crossed, hands in lap, consuming a sermon.
I had to kneel. I knew as early as Saturday, maybe even Friday, that this was going to be a challenging sermon for me. Now I realized I had to receive it in a special way. So I knelt in front of my chair. I was seated on the front of a section, with a clear view of Pastor Leonce even from the floor. I stayed there for the whole sermon. When my legs were completely asleep, I did shift posture a bit.
I realized, thinking back over it, why I sit on the floor at Bible study. It is a position of humility and submission. It removes any barriers between me and the speaker, between me and the Lord, and even between me and myself. At least it has that potential, and it is a physical reminder to me to do so. I needed to be humble this morning to receive the message, seated at the feet of the Master.
The Master continues to speak to me about rights and about justice. The sermon series is in the book of Jonah. This was week three, chapter three, when Jonah finally got around to preaching, begrudgingly, to the Ninevites. Leonce gave us some details of the history of Ninevah, to help us understand how justified Jonah was in NOT wanting to preach to them. They were extremely cruel and violent, aggressors and oppressors, and they had been so for hundreds of years and would be for many more years, too. He described how their kings kept diaries of their power, enumerating the numbers of people they had killed and in what gruesome ways. So, understandably, Jonah was not eager that such as they should be spared God's wrath. It was divine justice that they should die, thought Jonah.
My throat began to tighten, as I began to hear the pre-echoes, the foreshadowing of what was coming. "So who do you think is not deserving of God's grace?" And he reminded us, and I remembered, how people rejoiced when Osama bin Laden was killed, and my tears began to flow. I remembered how many people had felt vindicated, justified, victorious, and how few voices asked, "What about his soul?" I wept, not for myself, because I had been one of the few, but for those innumerable others who did celebrate, and I wept for the heart of God that still loves us all in spite of it all.
I did weep for myself, though, in another way, because I knew none of us has the right to say another is not deserving of grace. If we say someone else is undeserving because he or she is sinful, then neither are we deserving, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and no one deserves His salvation. I wept, too, because I realized that I do know some people that I think will not change, even in the face of God’s grace, some people that it seems I am wasting my time to love. Surely He does not want me to keep trying, to keep opening myself to hurt, to keep demonstrating His love to those who refuse to change. I knew the answer; I saw my Savior’s sad eyes as He heard my thoughts, and my tears flowed more quickly. “But, Lord, they are not living for You the way I live for you. Surely I can leave it to them to change, and I can walk away for a while?” I don’t know if Pastor Leonce spoke about this, about the fact that we ourselves do not deserve the grace we would withhold from others. I think for a moment I was not hearing my pastor, but was hearing a private sermon from the Lord.
Pastor Leonce said it's interesting, when we look at the stories of the Bible (and he prefaced this by stating emphatically that this is NOT a political church), that God so often shows up as a bleeding-heart liberal, and His people show up as extreme ultra-conservatives.
Gulp. How true. And how are we, mere finite mortals, with limited understanding, supposed to find the true way?
So, anyway, I went to church this morning. How about you?
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