From the Pastor’s Study
“Look there she goes, the girl is so peculiar
I wonder if she's feeling well
With a dreamy, far-off look
And her nose stuck in a book
What a puzzle to the rest of us is Belle”
For the last month and a half these have been some of the lines from “Beauty and the Beast” that I have sung over and over again. As fall is whispering of its arrival, I am once again spending lots of time rehearsing with the community theater company that I’ve been a part of for the last dozen years. Each year as I learn the show I can’t help but see all of the ways that nearly every story offers a reflection of our sacred story. Perhaps it’s because most stories include themes of good conquering evil, or people learning to see beyond their preconceived notions, or people growing in their understanding of themselves. Each of these themes that you’ll find in nearly every novel, movie, play, or work of art, have the capacity to offer glimmers of humanity’s journey with the divine.
This year I find myself enthralled in a fairytale that offers the same insights. In this story there once was a prince — or as the gospels would say, “a rich man” — who refused to see a beggar who came looking for aid. His failure to see with eyes of compassion caused him to suffer the curse of turning into a beast externally which may have mirrored the inner ugliness that his wealth had nurtured. The rest of the story emphasizes everyone needing to look beyond the obvious, to look at beauty and value within instead of merely judging a book by its cover. That’s the very journey that Jesus invites us into again and again. We are invited to see the power of love to transform our lives and the world. We are invited to see the world through God's eyes instead of the limits of the world. Mother Teresa said: “Only in heaven will we learn how much we owe the poor for helping us to love God.” That’s not merely a fairytale, that’s a window into the way that God works with us by breaking open our vision of what beauty and love and grace look like.
God keeps calling us to look at the world through new eyes and imagine what is possible. I would be thrilled if the reputation that we had within our community and the world was that we were a little odd, peculiar even, in the ways that we live out our faith and share God's love. I’ve loved the UCC’s use of the word “extravagant” when we talk of how we are to live our faith: extravagant welcome, extravagant love, extravagant grace. There’s something about that which suggests that we should always love a little more, go a little farther, live a little more generously, and to do all of that because that’s how Jesus loved the world and teaches us to do the same. My hope is that as the seasons change and the church year continues to ramp up in its activities, we are inspired to notice all of the wondrous stories around us speaking of God's abundance and our invitation to see and share.
This last Sunday, the children were starting to return to a revamped Sunday School program that holds great promise (though it will also be a work in progress for a bit). During the week I heard the choir returning to practice and lots of workers getting our kitchen closer and closer to being ready to be a renewed tool for mission and hospitality. There are exciting things happening all around us; let’s craft them into stories of great opportunity to be servants of grace.
Shalom,
Pastor Eric