Reflections

 

Reflections On a Friday Morning

On January 14, 2012 my wife Linda and I began talking about making a trip to Israel.  We have a dear friend who lives here, whom I had met years ago when she was serving as a volunteer at the Heifer International ranch in Arkansas.  She extended the invitation for us to come to Israel for a month and “house-sit” for some members of a small monastic community who would be away for a few months during the summer.  Knowing what a rare opportunity this would be, Linda and I started praying about it and working on putting the trip together.

On August 1 we boarded a plane bound for Chicago, London, and eventually, the Holy Land.  Before we left I made a promise to my church leadership – a promise that I intended to keep.

Now most people in ministry would not promise to do things for their church while away for four weeks.  But this is something we had all been working on, and I felt the trip would be an opportunity for me to let thoughts germinate without being pushed to emerge before their time.  While away in Israel I would have some daily duties as house-sitter and sacristan, would try to do some sightseeing, and would be blessed with a mini-sabbatical that I have not had in nearly twenty-five years of ministry.  But I also felt and hoped that, being disengaged from the daily activity of parish ministry and situated in a new environment, I might have the time and the space for renewal and sustained reflection on life in general and ministry in particular.

On January 24, 2011, the Rev. Zan Holmes was in our district and a number of us were invited to hear him speak and sit down for an informal lunch with him.  Zan Holmes is Pastor Emeritus of St. Luke Community United Methodist Church in Dallas where he served for twenty-eight years.  He has had a remarkable career as a pastor and is very well-respected among United Methodists and others.  In the course of our meeting, Zan said something that the whole Church needs to hear.  He said, “In order to do church, we must first learn how to be church.” 

As I write on this particular morning we have lived in Israel already for three weeks.  Soon we will start preparing for our departure back to the States, but first there is some time for reflection.  I stop to look out my window at the Judean hills west of Jerusalem.  A welcome breeze whispers in through the screen.  It is a good place to be.

Linda and I are here for a sojourn of pilgrimage, rest and renewal and to visit a very good friend who calls Israel her home.  We have been blessed to have visited all the “must see” places that most people come to the Holy Land to see, and since we can come and go as we please we have also seen some very important things well off the beaten tourist-path.  We have also been blessed to have time to rest, reflect, and just experience what life is like in the land. 

It is a time and a place to be, and to reflect on how “we must first learn how to be church,” and how to be faithful Christians engaged in the process of being conformed to the image of Christ, to the glory of God.

Even Sapir, Israel, August 24, 2012