Sacramental Living

I drink a lot of water. Part of it is because of my dry mouth syndrome and part of it is because I believe it makes me live healthier (at least, I’ve bought into the idea and try to do it). So yesterday I walked out of my study at the GCC Training Site down to the kitchen to refresh my glass. At the end of the hallway, through the glass double doors, I saw a massive amount of crows and blackbirds scattered over the grounds. Immediately a line from the movie The Crow popped into my mind: “People once believed that when someone dies, a crow carries their soul to the land of the dead.”

My next thought was, “LORD, is it time for me to go?!” I waited … nothing happened … I got my water, came back to the doors … nothing happened … I inhaled deeply and watched the birds.

Then one of my favorite poems came to mind: “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird” by Wallace Stevens. The world of imagination and the way it relates to different surroundings began to run away with my mind. The poem ends with the blackbird (i.e., imaginatiom) motionless and paralysed.

Finally, Jesus’ parable from Mark 4:1-20 came to mind. The birds ate the seed that fell on the bad soil. These three metaphors converged into a thought more frightening then my impending mortality. The church, this church, GCC, the one I serve as pastor, could be bad soil! Have long-time Christians become so comfortable that they don’t even realize when seed is scattered on them? Do they let the birds eat it up (and simultaneously carry off their souls)? Do they live a paralyzed life?

Immediately, I prayed the prayer of the gardener to the landowner: “let me fertilize this ground a little while longer before you raze it over and count it lost.” I realize the good soil is the not-yet believers we cross paths with everyday. The majority of my energy and time goes to them. I’m also doing some fertilizing. And, as I did yesterday, when I see the crows and blackbirds creeping in I’m running out the door shouting and hollering and scaring them off: “Get out of here! We choose life over death! We will be good soil! I will not let this church’s mission — the Light of the World sown into everyone’s lives — be eaten away!”

I’m sure if some neighbors saw me they thought I was crazy … “What’s that insane pastor doin’ over there?! … I didn’t know they were charismatic! … Hey, is that a rain-dance?” Or maybe they saw the passion of a shepherd who will dutifully tend the 99 but will deliberately leave the 99 to pursue the lost 1.

Related Posts:

• What Is a Minister? – Part 3
• An Un-Truth I Learned From the Church … And What I’ve Un-learned About It
• “If I could just be one . . .”
• Stirring Up the Hornet’s Nest
• Fire Fairytale