Rhythms of Grace

By Jim Holland Memorial Day weekend was, perhaps, the greatest weekend for me of this year so far. The weather was great. Saturday, I had my boys out in the yard all day working, and then I cooked large quantities of food for Memorial Day. But Saturday afternoon, after a long day of work, where many tasks finally culminated in a somewhat finished product, I told Teri—as we sat down on the patio looking out over lush strawberry beds (which, for the first time, are producing), an abundant crop of asparagus and the other berry plants laden with fruit—“This is beautiful.” It takes a lot of work to get to that; months of work finally come together. For the past several months, we had been beating back the weeds, fighting moles, and finally, after a month of rain and cold weather, I had the entire garden in the ground, and it was thriving. My boys were finished with exams, which meant my labor force was multiplied. After lots of death, lots of time, lots of sweat, lots of frustration, and lots of planning, it finally culminated in a moment—a magical moment when you see the fruition of many projects partially finished, or staged, or waiting, all came together, and it was beautiful. After a long winter and the earth laying fallow—resting, dormant, deathlike—the spring season signals a change of rhythms for the gardener in a profound way. It also signals a change for all of us who live our lives on a seasonal schedule built around the school year of our children. Memorial Day, for all intents and purposes, kicks off the start of a new rhythm of summer. As a Christian, I believe it is good to think of life in terms of rhythm—rhythms of grace. By that, I mean a grace given to us by a benevolent creator. In fact, you really can’t help it, if you think about it. You can enjoy and embrace it, or try to kick against it, but you can’t overcome the reality that life is meant to be lived in rhythms. Not only do we enjoy seasons that are different and signal different activities, but we all live in the rhythm of day and night, and mark our lives in a rhythm of weekly activities. Just try to overcome sleep as a “waste of time,” and it will only lead you to an early grave. For some reason, God ordained that a third of your time is devoted to doing nothing productive; you are in a deathlike state. If that doesn’t sound very spiritual, well, you can take that up with God. He made us that way. Or, if you think all of life is work and can’t imagine that vacation is just as necessary, go read the Bible again and see how much time ancient Israel was to devote to doing nothing but feasting and giving thanks. We are creatures that need to pause, ponder, evaluate, and in the process of that, take stock in thanksgiving around food, conversation and community. At St. Patrick, we are in a summer rhythm of activities in our community, or lack of activities, I might say. We won’t have Sunday school for the next ten weeks or so. We don’t have official Wednesday night activities for about the next twelve weeks. What does that mean? Does it mean that we are not interested spiritual formation for the next couple of months? Does it mean that we all take a vacation from God? You could say that, I suppose, if the way you measure being a disciple is how many church activities you attend a week. But you can’t read the Bible and come away thinking of that as a Biblical definition of being a disciple. What our leadership at St. Patrick believes is that our church is called to make disciples who, in turn, make disciples. In our programming and ministry, we desire to see the gospel transform us into folks that love God, love people, and love life. Now, no matter what is happening at the church, every believer is always to be about Jesus’ business. And while the summer is a time when the church does not assemble together in a more programmatic manner, it is actually a season when everyone has more time to connect with their community over food and drink, really get involved with their neighbors—who are also not as busy—and generally continue to be about the business of, as we say in our Vision Statement, “Loving God, Loving People and Loving Life.” Is this possible? Can we be intentional about these things? Well, think about it. In the history of the world, especially when there were few time saving devices, hardly any entertainment devices (iPods or cable), and no communication devices (cell phones), people didn’t sit around their houses bored. They entertained themselves, and each other! Or, should I say, their entertainment was each other. It was more face-to-face—it had to be. There were no media rooms in homes to pipe in the night’s conversation, so they had their neighbors over and did what no amount of human innovation can improve upon: they served good food and had engaging conversation with people they knew or were getting to know. So we enter a summer rhythm here in our community of faith along with our larger town and our neighbors. It is staggering to think what kingdom good could come from loving God, loving people and loving life: real change, life change, lives actually transformed, all of which only come through relational power, the power we have in the relationships we nurture in our tasks, in our spheres of influence, and with the people we know. People in the suburbs are starved for something more than a wink and a nod at the fence or in the driveway. In fact, it could be argued that the kingdom of God has grown more in the offering of hospitality—which lead to relationships, which lead to relational power, which lead to gospel conversations—than in any other manner. If you think that sounds too ordinary, well, show me in the Bible where the emphasis of redemption is not that God would pour profound meaning into ordinary life! This is what we all want! Ecclesiastes even says that it is a profound gift from God when we can actually enjoy our life under the sun. So, here’s to summer, here’s to long conversations with friends, old and new, here’s to slower time and here’s to Jesus, who seemed to always be doing kingdom work at ordinary places and in ordinary circumstances like weddings, meals with friends and strangers, and wasting time hanging out with children.