Well, here we are again. It’s good to see your faces and to be back with you after five weeks away. I hope that these weeks have been as good for you as they have been for me. It was a true Sabbath time for me, and I return with a renewed sense of self, my ministry and the presence of the Holy in my life.
It was an interesting time for me. My granddaughters were with me for the first two weeks, and having time to be with them without other obligations was a great gift for me. The three weeks since they left has been another kind of gift, filled with space, reflection, a lot of walking, and quite a few surprises. My plan for this sabbatical time was to enjoy the freedom of space and time, to be in the moment as much as possible and to pay attention to what happened as I moved through the days. Some wonderful things did happen, and most of them were surprises to me.
One of the biggest surprises was how much there is to be learned from certain reality TV shows. Really. As you may know, I don’t watch much TV. When I was with my daughter and her family at Christmas, they introduced me to Top Chef, a competition for people who want to make their mark in cuisine, and the people on the show fascinated me so much that I continued to watch it when I got back home. Then I branched out to Design Star—a competition for interior designers—and Shear Genius—all about hair stylists. The time expenditure for these shows isn’t much—about three hours a week—unless you happen to be on sabbatical and hit a couple of full-season all-day marathons. As I knitted my way through those shows, I wondered why I was so fascinated by watching strangers move through these pressure-packed situations, developing relationships—productive or not—within the groups, responding to the experience of being eliminated from the competition or moving on to the possibility of winning.
As I reflected, I realized that these people are living the stories of their lives and that their stories touch all of our stories. We may never find ourselves in a similar situation, but all of us have similar moments of fear and hope, anxiety and elation, anger and gratitude. The fabric of human experience is made of common threads. The only difference between us and the people on the reality shows is the context of our stories.
Last week, I happened on a new show: Tim Gunn’s Guide to Style. The focus of the show is not a competition but a style make-over for a person who has requested it. Tim and a former super-model spend a week working with a woman who wants to change her appearance. They find out what she hopes for, sort through her closet—and her underwear drawer!—give feedback on what they find, send her on a shopping trip to find specific items, arrange for a hair and make-up consultation, and encourage her as she pulls it all together in a new look that reflects who she is and how she lives.
The show I saw centered on a 41 year old wife and mother who asked for help because her husband and daughter were embarrassed by the way she looked. Tim and the model were appalled when they met the woman. Their jaws literally hung down, and I’d rather not tell you the words they used to describe her look. I’ll just share that the outfit she had worn to a recent PTA meeting was cut to the waist in front and back and had some bugle bead action going on here and there. I’ll leave you to imagine what she might have worn for a more casual occasion like grocery-shopping.
The week was very difficult for the woman, and the turning point for her was when she gave up the cute little dress that she had worn as a late teen, working in a cafe at her first job. She was tearful, but giving it away allowed her to move forward. The make-over process continued, and at the end of the week’s experience, she was transformed. I don’t have words to describe the glow she had as her true self was finally visible. After she showed off her light and attractive new look to her family and friends, Tim gave her back the dress, sealed in a memory box.
Memories are an important part of our lives. The past holds our roots, our challenges, our successes, our mistakes. The past holds the days that have been precious to us, and we humans tend to cling to the tangible things that represent the good times of our lives. The past holds our journeys and all the people, places and events that have made us each what we are today. We need to cherish those journeys. It’s important to honor where we have been, to acknowledge those who have been dear to us and to learn from our experience along the way. The past is an important part of our lives. Where we get into trouble is when we try to live there.
Make no mistake, where we focus is where we live. If we choose to live in the past—if we choose to cling to the glory of a former age or to the pain of old wounds—we choose to live in death.
If we choose to live in the past, we choose to live in death.
What happened to the woman on Tim Gunn’s show is not a new story.
As the Israelites look out into the Promised Land, Moses tells them that God has set before them two choices: life and death, blessing and curse, and he urges them to choose life. As they hesitate, clinging to the past and fearful of the future, Moses tells them that life lies in their obedience to God and in moving forward to meet their future.
Then, as Jesus speaks with his followers, he sets before them two choices: to live in the dead past, embodied in the traditions and institutions of their lives, or to take the difficult path forward into new life. He is clear that there is a cost to following him, to being his disciple. The cost is the loss of the way things used to be—the loss of the familiar, the predictable, the boundaries that give us a feeling of safety, the comfort of imagining that we are in charge. The cost is the dangerous journey into the unknown—the place where anything might happen, the place where we have no illusion that we are in charge.
In these last weeks, I’ve had time and space to reflect on the journey—on my personal journey and our journey together. I’ve had time to reflect on the choices I’ve made and the choices I wish I had made. I’ve had time to wonder and dream about the onward journey. This journey we are on is not an easy one. It’s not easy or comfortable to be a Christian. I’ve said that before, and I’m sure I’ll say it again. It’s not easy to seek the path of reconciliation. It’s not easy to speak the truth in love. It’s not easy to live into the promises of our baptismal covenant. None of it is easy—so why in the world would we want to go there?
The answer is simple: we want to go there because of the blessings we have been given and because of what happens to us on the journey.
The good news is that when we choose to be Jesus’ followers, we are choosing to be freed from the bonds of our histories, we are choosing to be released from the pain of the wounds we all bear, we are choosing to be reprieved from looking over our shoulder at all the might-have-beens and should-have-dones that litter the road behind us. The good news is that when we choose to be Jesus’ followers, we are choosing to live in this moment, we are choosing to be the people we are today, we are choosing to let go of regret for the past and fear for the future.
The woman on Tim Gunn’s show yearned so much for the woman she had been that she couldn’t see the beauty of the woman she is today. It took great courage for her to turn her face to the future. When she did, she was transformed beyond her dreams.
We have been a community of courage. We have turned our faces to the future even as we’ve continued to learn from our past, and we are being transformed. We have made a choice for life, and the God who gives us life has been with us every step of the way.
Thanks be to God.