How well have you all been handling
all those potholes out there? The harsh
winter sure has left its mark on our roads.
Driving around in my little silver Sentra feels like I’m in a lunar
rover navigating craters! After being
unpleasantly surprised once or twice along our regular driving routes, we do come
to know where the biggest potholes are. Then
we try to avoid them or fly over them safely, all the while anxiously hoping
they’ll somehow be properly filled in soon.
If they are unattended long enough we complain to whoever will listen. Perhaps we take a further step and make a
formal request with local government or whoever owns a particular public
parking lot. Those parking lot ones might just be the
worst. They’re sneaky. You successfully
dodge shopping carts and other vehicles backing out of parking spaces. Then all of
sudden your vehicle chassis unexpectedly kisses fresh pitch. Potholes are unsightly. Potholes are scary. Potholes really can’t be ignored. If they are, they only deepen, widen, become
far worse.
Some folks in my wonderful wife
Stef’s hometown of Scranton, PA have a unique way of addressing their community
pothole crisis. I was quite inspired
when I read about it online earlier this week.
It falls into the category of optimistically seeing the glass, or, in
this case, the pothole as at least half-full.
I invite you to open your minds and picture
potholes that have been transformed in the following ways – small ones turned
into a bird’s nest, a Barbie doll pool, and a place to chill oysters on the
half-shell; a large parking lot one turned into a place to do the dishes, and
another into a morning cereal bowl; there’s the one that turned into a hot spot
to make popcorn, as well as the one with a toilet seat placed over it. These are all incredibly creative and fun
photos submitted by Scranton residents.
They did so as part of a community-spirit project called “Pothole:
Positively Filling Negative Space.” One
of the project leaders summed up its point by saying, “This event keeps the
community spirit [of loving to hate potholes] but loses the complaining. Potholes become something to wonder at.”[i]
All this get me wondering. What other kinds of “potholes” do we all
deal with on a daily basis? As we
travel along both the straight and winding roads of our faith journeys, what
are the negative spaces we need filled with positivity? And what exactly is our hope about how they
will be filled?
We all have our emotional potholes
-- those parts of our being that have been slowly eroded by life’s damaging storms
and the constant heavy traffic patterns of anxiety, insecurity, shame,
sin. The more healthily aware we are of
these, the better able we are to receive the love, peace, and joy that fill
them so nicely. But if we ignore them,
they just sink us deeper into subterranean strife.
Churches need to be conscious of
these same potholes. Anxiety,
insecurity, shame and sin seem to always be going about their wearing down
work. This opens up “negative spaces”
that anyone can fall into. In the Spirit, these need to be prayerfully, constructively
and collectively attended to in order to help create safe journeys for all who
pass through following Jesus Christ.
The news headlines about pockets of
humanity all across the country and this world also reveal treacherous
potholes. These potholes are much more
than annoyances to complain about. They
can be massive, extremely dangerous and are much too often deadly. They are caused by grave human injustices
and atrocities. These ought never to
be navigated around or blindly ignored.
May we praise the Lord for every single faithful heart and mind and body
extending Christ’s voice and powerful presence to all such pockmarks plaguing
this planet.
Thankfully, the apostle Paul wisely
addressed all this. And long before
him, a great many a prophet such as Ezekiel, who called out hearts of stone in order
to pave the way for the new hearts God mercifully promises.
In Romans 12, Paul speaks about not
allowing ourselves to conform to the ways of this world. We are strongly exhorted to travel through
life with sober judgment, to not ever hit the road greatly impaired by sin and
intoxicated with ourselves. But as we
can never completely hit this mark, Paul reminds us that God fills every
pothole by giving each of us measures of faith.
Every measure has a specific,
positive purpose for repairing the road to living together uprightly in the
Lord. Some of us exhibit our measure of
faith by teaching, others of us do so being generous compassionate, cheerful,
and demonstrating diligent leadership (to name just a few). In
this way we individually and collectively offer spiritual worship that is holy
and acceptable to God in all we do.
Reading Paul’s words here makes it clear that we are all in the same car
and responsible for driving the church and all humanity toward greater unity
and glory in Christ!
Pastor N.T. Wright sums up this
Roman’s passage nicely with these words – “The key to it all is the
transforming of the mind. Many Christians in today’s world never come to terms
with this. They hope they will be able to live up to something like Christian
standards while still thinking the way the rest of the world thinks. It can’t
be done. Having the mind renewed by the
persuasion of the spirit is the vital start of that true human living which is
God’s loving will for all his children.”[ii]
Being open to Spirit-driven mind
transformation just doesn’t come naturally to any of us. It takes a lot of faithful discipline and
shared community support. Shortly after
Stef and I spent time discussing Scranton potholes and this whole metaphoric
theme, she emailed me an Upper Room daily devotion found on Facebook that
offers a great example. Being married
two years as of tomorrow and being a clergy couple is pretty terrific!
The devotion was right on
topic. The author had complained about
how her car had “rattled” and “rocked” after hitting yet another pothole. Then “angry after another jolting journey
home,” she prepared to vent her fury via a letter to the local newspaper. But a holy stirring within her mind and
heart caused her to pause. In those
moments she was lifted up by her faith out of the damaged, negative space within
her. It’s not that she suddenly felt
the issue shouldn’t be properly addressed.
It’s that she knew she had to wait until her agitation subsided. As it did, she gained greater acceptance
about how “knowing Christ doesn’t guarantee a completely smooth ride, but with
Him we can endure life’s uneven road.”
She put Jesus’ life journey front and center, realizing afresh that “He
endured a much harder road to the cross” and “because of that great love, He
will guide us through our journey and provide us with what we need to reach our
destination.”[iii]
What potholes are you experiencing
today that are in need of prayerful pause?
That are in need of good personal and relational discernment? Of being filled with measures of faith and
spiritual gifts through our community of faith? What spiritual gifts have you been blessed
with to glorify God and to help our Lord repair all the sinful erosion in this
world?
God’s promised power of restoration
through Jesus Christ fills all of our negative spaces, all the potholes in our lives,
our communities, and across the globe. How amazing that the Lord works through the
single-sized layers of human macadam to eventually construct great pathways of
divine deliverance for all God’s children!
This is yet another discipleship
lesson I learned firsthand during my college days as a counselor at Camp
Johnsonburg. I mean this
metaphorically, as when we built up faith person to person and through small
groups. And I mean this literally. Full counselors were assigned to be out of
camper unit for two weeks of the summer camp season. Each of the three seasons I ministered
there, one of the out of unit weeks was spent offering music sessions each day. The other was spent working maintenance. And one of the ongoing things that had to
be done was driving around in the back of a beat-up pick-up truck with shovels
and stone to fill in the potholes all around the natural ground camp
roads. This was for both safety and
aesthetics.
All these years later, I continue to
cherish the value of participating in this crucial repair work on every road of
ministry I’m blessed to travel upon. Especially
since I don’t travel any of them alone, but with our Lord and in the blessed
company of good and faithful folks like yourselves who journey here, there and
everywhere at the ready to be prayerful, creative and constructive
to the glory of God alone. Amen!
[i] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/13/pothole-art-pop-up-studio-pennsylvania_n_5317354.html
[ii] N.T.
Wright: Paul for Everyone, Romans Part Two: Chapters 6-16 (New Testament for
Everyone) (p. 68). Westminster John Knox Press. Kindle Edition.
[iii] https://www.facebook.com/BlessedChristianStayAtHomeMoms/posts/66718874663439
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