Dearly Beloved,
Sometimes the best-laid plans get waylaid. Thank you so much to our Music Minister Nikki and our worship team for Sunday's worship. I missed you all so much, and my body just needed to stop and pause. I am on the mend from the flu, but it's slow going.
As I've been sick in bed, I've been reflecting some on rest. One of the things that I've been feeling in this socio-political season in our country is that there is no rest from the bad news. No rest from the erosion of rights and some new violence that is happening. Part of what is happening is that we are all on high alert all the time -- finding ourselves either numbed and tuned out or overwhelmed and constantly on edge. Our nervous systems cannot keep this up.
Cameron Trimble suggests that what is needful is what we have always done as church community -- to keep our gaze close. To notice our neighbors, our children, our elders. To tend to the needful thing right here at hand -- in our neighborhoods, workplaces, homes, schools, and in our lived community. It's not that the big picture doesn't matter, it's that the big picture consists of all the little pictures together. It's what Rev. Erin Gilmore spoke of when she came and preached for us: the refugia, those small places were life continues, where it is sheltered and stays healthy and whole. Trimble writes: "Attention is not neutral. It feeds what it rests upon." On what are we focusing our attention? To what are we giving ourselves and our care?
This week's scriptures invite us to consider what we are paying attention to. The first scripture tells the story of the woman who pours ointment on Jesus' feet (Luke 7:36-50). The scripture describes the woman as sinful and yet, she acts as Christ to Jesus -- she sees something in him and ministers to him. She pours herself out -- a gift, with no agenda, no transaction, asking nothing in return. Our second scriptures draw from Matthew 25 in which Jesus tells his followers in true parable style: "When you did it unto the least of these, you did it to me."
Whether we are called to see differently because of being sick and needing to slow down, because of transition (we are certainly in the messy middle of liminal space as I step back into 1/3 time leadership at the church), because of all that is happening in our world, or simply because God invites us to do so. God invites us to be mindful about how and where we direct our attention.
May it be to those places where the good news of God's presence, God's grace, God's mercy and love and justice can awaken in us hope and trust.
You are beloved and we belong to one another in Christ,
Thandiwe
