Works in Progress

As I mentioned a month or two ago in the Evangelist, one of the most common questions I am asked is, "Are you settled yet?" I realize it’s partly just a way to start a conversation, especially with someone (me) whom you don’t know very well yet. But it is certainly true that after a big move, a lot of time and energy do go into "getting settled." There is so much to do to establish daily life in a new house, a new church, a new community. Although lately I’ve noticed that people phrase their conversation differently. Many of you now say, "Well, you must be settled in now…" After all, it’s been four and a half months…

Some people crave the feeling of being settled more than others, I think. I am one who does. When I go on vacation, I always unpack as soon as I get home. I like to travel, but I am always eager to settle in back home—as quickly as possible. But one of the incidental benefits of a big move like I have just made, at least in a psychological and spiritual sense, is the reminder that really "being settled" is an impossible goal and not necessarily a desirable one. Yes, I have a checklist of things to accomplish—unpack boxes, learn my way around a new grocery store, get insurance, learn everyone in the parish’s name, full life's story and interests, get a driver’s license, find a vet, find a doctor (in that order). And I can now check many, though certainly not all, of those things off my list.

But you know, the list never ends. And that is a healthy reminder. Life, all of our lives, are works in progress. There is no full, perfect, complete, "settled", finished product, at least not this side of the Jordan. Our lives are works in progress. Times of transition are stressful, but creative reminders of this. What we are, at any given moment, is not all that we are called to become.

Even as I gradually learn more and more names of folks who have been at St. John’s thirty years, ten years, two years; I pray that completely new faces will come through the door. New names for me, and you, to learn. Just as I work, bit by bit, to get my house set up—furniture in place, pictures on the wall—I recognize that not all of the pictures that will hang on those walls have been taken yet. You will be in some of them. And, as I explore this new area of greater Chicago, there will always be new restaurants to discover.  For all of us.  No matter how long we’ve lived here. Our lives are works in progress.

You know the quip that the most common phrase heard in any parish has nothing to do with God or faith. The most common phrase spoken in any parish is "We’ve always done it that way." Considering this whole subject of transitions and settling in, when a new minister comes to a congregation, there is inevitably the feeling that the congregation is settled. The new minister obviously is not, and for that people offer kind and sincere sympathy. But everyone hopes that as soon as possible the new minister will get trained and oriented and will join us all in feeling settled where we are. I am not the only one in transition. All of our lives are lives in progress. Individually. As Christians. And most particularly, as a Christian community. What we are is not all we are called to become. Our lives are works in progress.

Believe it or not, it was the Trinity that spawned this line of thought for me (and not just an effort to avoid preaching on the Trinity). Today is Trinity Sunday. The only major feast day in the church named for a doctrine. A theological concept. The concept that God exists as three and one is a doctrine. The doctrine of the Trinity was developed by the church in the fourth and fifth centuries after Christ’s birth. The Bible does not mention the Trinity; Jesus did not speak of it.

The doctrine of the Trinity developed over time. It was built upon the accumulated experiences and evolving common understanding of the people who were the church in the centuries after Christ’s life and death. As they read Scripture, as they experienced God’s presence and action in their lives, as they encountered whole new philosophies and modes of thought through evangelization of the Greek gentiles….  the idea of the Trinity took shape.  It took time. It took faith and a common life built upon Scripture and worship. It took the influence of new ideas in Greek philosophy. These shaped a doctrine that we now hold so important, so crucial, so elemental to who we are that we give it a major feast day in the church calendar.

The church and the Christians who are the church did not appear the day after Christ’s death as a perfect, finished product, "settled" in some full understanding of God and of themselves. The church is, and we are, works in progress. It has always been so. It will always be so. We are not now all we are called to be.

Major transitions are unsettling. I have already said that I don’t particularly like being unsettled. Yet I do not want to be static, to live a life devoid of God’s ongoing creation and inspiration. To remember that we are all Christian works in progress is a very hopeful affirmation. It promises us a future enriched by God’s active presence in our lives, an ongoing relationship with God full of new wonders. Imagine someone who had never seen a rainbow...  Someone who had never even heard of a rainbow or seen a picture. I suppose that person could live a happily "settled" life. Yet what if that person was about to see the most spectacular rainbow imaginable tomorrow. We are that person, and with God in our future, we can barely imagine what rich and wondrous experiences await us.

As the Body of Christ, as children of God, we are works in progress. This is a hope and a promise. Yet it should also serve as a reminder… a warning to beware of complacency. A warning to us to beware of the powerful temptation of assuming that as individual Christians we know all we need to know. Beware of becoming so settled as a Christian community that we cannot respond when God calls us to be more. Beware of shutting out those who offer us new glimpses of God’s presence with us.

We are works in progress. Which presents us with infinite opportunities and the responsibility to seek out and pursue those opportunities. Those opportunities lie in our life together… our ongoing, corporate, communal life as the Body of Christ. One of the most compelling features of this doctrine of the Trinity is that it presents God’s own being as a sort of built in community. God is a community. Three in one.  And it is as a community that we will live into our life in God. It is in studying Scripture together that we hear God anew in our daily lives. It is in our corporate prayers and worship that we are shaped into the Body of Christ to act in our world today. It is in our conversations and our fellowship that we will gain the vision of God’s particular call for who we are to become. It is in listening to new and unexpected prophets… children, newcomers, non-Episcopalians… that we will discover God in new ways and new places in our lives.

Let us all pray that we may never be settled, but may always seek and celebrate the progress of God’s ongoing work in us.

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