(Each Saturday, a faith leader in Franklin County offers a personal perspective in this space. To become part of this series, email religion@recorder.com)
One of the most amazing thing that some but not all faith communities offer their religious leader is a ministerial sabbatical. I was gifted this year by my congregation to take a three-month sabbatical (in addition to my vacation time) for physical and spiritual rest and renewal. This generous gift had been seeded many years ago by church members who had the foresight and faithfulness to plan for some pastor in the future.
My wife and I used the sabbatical time to travel to Ireland to visit my ancestral homeland. We also traveled to Cape Cod and the West Coast and Alaska so we could reconnect with faraway friends who all happen to live in gorgeous settings. I also had planned alone time for silence.
On coming home, the biggest take-away for me has been a slower and, I hope, more thoughtful pace; less reactive and more reflective. Our sabbatical theme was “feet on the ground,” which taught me about my continued need to be outdoors with my feet on the ground while engaging with family, friends and strangers, as the theologian Kosuke Koyama said, in the manner of our “three-mile-an hour God.” Grounded, focused, and slow enough to talk and listen well!
My congregation continued to walk with each other and our community while I was on sabbatical. Under the care of a wonderful sabbatical pastor, they tended to each other through the thick and thin times. The hard and sweet times. The times of suffering and of joy. I trust that this three-mile-an-hour God was and is still walking, feet on the ground, with us all.
After my sabbatical, I found a reflection by the English vicar, Rev. Samuel Wells. Rev. Wells talked about where we are going when we walk and live within a community of faith. He is speaking here about Christianity in particular, but I believe that much of what he says extends to other religious communities.
“Christianity is fundamentally a story about where we’re going: into the company of God’s grace, in the harmony of the restored creation, through the mercy of God’s incarnate love. Church means giving up the fantasy that we can find fulfillment and righteousness alone. It means doing things at inconvenient times with eccentric people in sometimes clumsy ways — because life is a team game, and on judgment day, God will have nothing to say to us if we think we can come without the others.”
Well, I do not know much about judgment day. I leave that to God. But I do know that now, in these times, God is saying a lot to us about our human need to walk and pray and act and weep and stand with others. Sometimes we need, like I needed this year, a time away. A time out of the busyness of community life. A time, as Jesus invited his disciples, to come rest and renew. But even that time is best lived in service of the greater whole. To come back to doing things at inconvenient times with eccentric people in sometimes clumsy ways.
This is a great definition of religious life: Inconvenient. Eccentric. Clumsy. Congregations and communities walking through thick and thin and into the company of God’s grace. In the hard and sweet times, we stumble and help each other get up again. And on our best days, we give up the fantasy that we can find fulfillment, or shalom, on our own.
I am glad to be home; to be back in the company of my congregation and our interfaith communities. Grace allowed me to go on sabbatical and grace welcomed me home.
Trinity Church is a fully accessible, open and affirming, ecumenical congregation in the village of Shelburne Falls. We are united with the United Church of Christ, American Baptist Church, Episcopal Church and United Methodist Church denominations. We are known for our gracious welcome, our free Friday community dinners, our historic building and garden and the green on Main and Water streets, location of the Farmers Market. We host weekly AA meetings, a community parent/child playgroup, Tai Chi classes and the Wednesday free community clothes closet at the Cowell Gymnasium. 8:30 a.m. Communion every Sunday and 10 a.m. worship with child care. 413-625-2341. trinitychrch@gmail.com.