The Grinders
Yesterday I had both the privilege and the obligation to take a turn serving as one of our Classis representatives to a meeting of the Regional Synod of the Mid-Atlantics. It was an educational experience in that I learned how much I still don't know about the polity of the RCA. And I couldn't help but notice that not many other people knew what was going on.
In RCA Polity ministers tend to spend a lot of time working with the Classis, working with their various committees, and we sort of know what we're doing. We also pay a lot of attention to what goes on at the General Synod and the goings on at the national level of the denomination. But that intermediate level – the regional Synod, which in our case covers Classes here in the northeast and Mid-Atlantic – is something that I'm just not that familiar with, and I got the feeling I wasn't alone in that.
Left to our own devices, we probably wouldn't have gotten much done (I'm not all that convinced we got all that much done anyway). But the bulk of the people in that meeting were people like me. Our names show up on the delegate list, maybe once a decade, we go (or in this case, we log on online), put our day in, and then promptly forget about Regional Synod for another decade until the next time our name comes up. It actually feels a little bit like jury duty in that regard.
But there is a very small handful of people who are deeply involved at the Regional Synod level. Regional Synod isn't a full-time job for anybody, but there are a few who serve on the committee, who know the agenda, the processes, and the work involved. They're the ones who streamline everything and make it possible for the rest of us to have an idea of what's going on. What will church grant funding look like? What judicial appeals will be heard? Which Classes are submitting overtures to the General Synod, and can any of them be consolidated?
Without those few to guide the discussions and lead the agenda, our Synod meeting would have had to last for days instead of hours while the rest of us scratched our heads, just trying to figure out the basics.
We all know people like that. In our jobs, in our families, in every corner of our lives. They're the grinders. The people who make it their business to know something – even something obscure – perhaps especially obscure – backwards and forwards, inside and out. Yesterday, for me, those people were the church polity wonks, in all their wonky glory.
But I'm thinking of my grandmother, who could tell a sparrow from a thrush from a warbler, when all I could hear were birds.
I'm thinking of my college roommate who knows everything there is to know about electric guitars; knows the histories of Fender, Rickenbacker, and Gibson, when to me, all I know is that you plug them in and they all have strings.
None of us are born knowing about guitars. Or birds. Or the order and processes of regional synod meetings. But knowledge about anything is acquired from years of interest and practice. And we don't always know what information and what expertise is going to be useful in our lives. But we all know people who have taken very deep dives into very narrow subject areas, and they just grind away at that one thing for years, in addition to living the rest of their lives.
My grandmother knew about the birds because she loved them. She was a birdwatcher, read books about them, kept birdfeeders and birdbaths all around her backyard. Was there anything inherently useful about that? Perhaps no, except that they made her happy, which is no small thing.
My old roommate knows about guitars because they make him happy. He loves to play and loves trying to recreate the right sound for the right song. He knows which guitar will give him the right vibrato to sound like a 60's surf king, and which can give him the right distortion to sound like a 90's grunge rocker. He's made a little money here and there, playing bar gigs and small venues, but you'd hardly call it a career. He does it because it's a passion for him.
I have to admit, I'm hard-pressed to describe Robert's Rules of Order and church polity as a passion that makes anyone happy. I think I know one or two people who that might describe, but very, very, very few people sit down and learn about the inner workings of a Reformed Church Regional Synod for fun. But there are a few people who've just been at it so long that they know what to expect, what to do, and, perhaps most importantly, how to guide along those of us who have never been there before.
And in that sense, it reminds me of the situation that the Philip the Evangelist is in, when he meets the Ethiopian eunuch on the road from Jerusalem.
This eunuch, the treasurer of royal court of Ethiopia, is on the road, returning from Jerusalem, where he had come to worship. And it wouldn't have been unusual for a foreign emissary to come to worship at Jerusalem. For one, he may have been visiting the Jerusalem court on some sort of diplomacy or trade mission, and gone to the temple while he was there. Or he may have gone specifically to worship, on behalf of the Ethiopian queen, not knowing much about the God he was bowing down to. In the ancient world, it wasn't uncommon for people to worship whatever gods they happened to come across, just in case they happened upon a really good one by accident. Why pick just one God when you can worship them all? It's a bit like going to the roulette wheel and putting a chip down on every number.
We don't really know exactly why he was there, we just know that the eunuch has been to Jerusalem, he has worshiped there, taken some scrolls of the scriptures with him, and is now on the road back to Ethiopia. And that's where Philip is sent to meet him.
Actually, Philip just knows that he's been sent to the road to Gaza. There's no indication that God has told Philip why he's going there, or who he's going to meet. This is far from the first time that God has given instructions to the faithful, but been a bit vague on the details.
But Philip goes. He goes, not knowing why, not knowing who he's to meet, not knowing what purpose he's to serve. He just goes.
And it's not until he sees the Ethiopian retinue and he sees what the treasurer is reading that it seems the lightbulb clicks. Ah-ha! This is what I'm here for. This is who I'm supposed to talk to. God has prepared me for this moment.
Because at that moment, the eunuch, the treasurer, the servant of the Ethiopian queen, is reading the scriptures, from the prophet Isaiah. And he is lost.
The words are perfectly fine. There's no problem with the grammar. He's not caught up on the language. But the Ethiopian is not a Jew. He doesn't know the history of the prophets. He doesn't know the context or the culture. The references that Isaiah makes that a Jew wouldn't have had to think twice about, the Ethiopian has to study and puzzle over.
And Philip sees this. And for this moment, he is prepared. As lost as the Ethiopian is in the labyrinth of the prophets' writings, Philip is more than prepared to guide him through them. He explains not only the significance of Isaiah's writing, but also shares knowledge of the Christ with him. Philip, as a devoted follower of Christ, is ready for this moment.
God sent him with that knowledge, to that place, to meet that man, even as Philip himself had little idea of what he was to do. But when those two came together – Philip the Evangelist, who knew the life and the meaning of the Christ and had spent years preparing for moments such as these – and the Ethiopian treasurer, poring over prophetic scriptures he could not understand – that was a God-moment. That was a point in time that God ordained that Philip and the Ethiopian should meet, that Philip should share what he knew, and it was so providential to the Ethiopian, that he immediately can to believe and asked to be baptized.
Philip did not know that his particular knowledge would be so useful to him on that day. But I'll bet he was glad he had it. I don't know how much joy Philip got out of studying the scriptures. There is a certain joy to it, certainly, but it's a different kind of joy than what I think my grandmother got out of her birds, or my roommate out of his guitars. And for those of us who went through our Bible study of the prophets a little over a year ago, well, you know that joy isn't exactly the first thing that always comes to mind.
But when it came to the knowledge of Christ, Philip knew his stuff. He was prepared. He didn't know when or where it would come in useful, but he kept at it anyway. So that when that moment came to share faith with someone seeking it, he had the words to say and the stories to help it all make sense.
Now, normally, I close my sermons with a proper conclusion, and a summary of the point. But today, I'm going to let the closing prayer do that work for me, in words far better than I could write myself.
There's a well-known prayer, written by the Catholic monk, Thomas Merton, that I keep a copy of on my office wall. It speaks to this idea we see in Philip's story, of not fully understanding God's purpose, but trusting that God will prepare us and give us the words and tools we need when we get there. He wrote it down in his collection of writings called “Thoughts in Solitude,” but it's most often simply called “The Merton Prayer” I'd like to close this sermon with that prayer now. Let us pray:
My Lord God,
I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
nor do I really know myself,
and the fact that I think I am following your will
does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you
does in fact please you.
And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road,
though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore will I trust you always though
I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.
I will not fear, for you are ever with me,
and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.
Amen.
Yesterday I had both the privilege and the obligation to take a turn serving as one of our Classis representatives to a meeting of the Regional Synod of the Mid-Atlantics. It was an educational experience in that I learned how much I still don't know about the polity of the RCA. And I couldn't help but notice that not many other people knew what was going on.
In RCA Polity ministers tend to spend a lot of time working with the Classis, working with their various committees, and we sort of know what we're doing. We also pay a lot of attention to what goes on at the General Synod and the goings on at the national level of the denomination. But that intermediate level – the regional Synod, which in our case covers Classes here in the northeast and Mid-Atlantic – is something that I'm just not that familiar with, and I got the feeling I wasn't alone in that.
Left to our own devices, we probably wouldn't have gotten much done (I'm not all that convinced we got all that much done anyway). But the bulk of the people in that meeting were people like me. Our names show up on the delegate list, maybe once a decade, we go (or in this case, we log on online), put our day in, and then promptly forget about Regional Synod for another decade until the next time our name comes up. It actually feels a little bit like jury duty in that regard.
But there is a very small handful of people who are deeply involved at the Regional Synod level. Regional Synod isn't a full-time job for anybody, but there are a few who serve on the committee, who know the agenda, the processes, and the work involved. They're the ones who streamline everything and make it possible for the rest of us to have an idea of what's going on. What will church grant funding look like? What judicial appeals will be heard? Which Classes are submitting overtures to the General Synod, and can any of them be consolidated?
Without those few to guide the discussions and lead the agenda, our Synod meeting would have had to last for days instead of hours while the rest of us scratched our heads, just trying to figure out the basics.
We all know people like that. In our jobs, in our families, in every corner of our lives. They're the grinders. The people who make it their business to know something – even something obscure – perhaps especially obscure – backwards and forwards, inside and out. Yesterday, for me, those people were the church polity wonks, in all their wonky glory.
But I'm thinking of my grandmother, who could tell a sparrow from a thrush from a warbler, when all I could hear were birds.
I'm thinking of my college roommate who knows everything there is to know about electric guitars; knows the histories of Fender, Rickenbacker, and Gibson, when to me, all I know is that you plug them in and they all have strings.
None of us are born knowing about guitars. Or birds. Or the order and processes of regional synod meetings. But knowledge about anything is acquired from years of interest and practice. And we don't always know what information and what expertise is going to be useful in our lives. But we all know people who have taken very deep dives into very narrow subject areas, and they just grind away at that one thing for years, in addition to living the rest of their lives.
My grandmother knew about the birds because she loved them. She was a birdwatcher, read books about them, kept birdfeeders and birdbaths all around her backyard. Was there anything inherently useful about that? Perhaps no, except that they made her happy, which is no small thing.
My old roommate knows about guitars because they make him happy. He loves to play and loves trying to recreate the right sound for the right song. He knows which guitar will give him the right vibrato to sound like a 60's surf king, and which can give him the right distortion to sound like a 90's grunge rocker. He's made a little money here and there, playing bar gigs and small venues, but you'd hardly call it a career. He does it because it's a passion for him.
I have to admit, I'm hard-pressed to describe Robert's Rules of Order and church polity as a passion that makes anyone happy. I think I know one or two people who that might describe, but very, very, very few people sit down and learn about the inner workings of a Reformed Church Regional Synod for fun. But there are a few people who've just been at it so long that they know what to expect, what to do, and, perhaps most importantly, how to guide along those of us who have never been there before.
And in that sense, it reminds me of the situation that the Philip the Evangelist is in, when he meets the Ethiopian eunuch on the road from Jerusalem.
This eunuch, the treasurer of royal court of Ethiopia, is on the road, returning from Jerusalem, where he had come to worship. And it wouldn't have been unusual for a foreign emissary to come to worship at Jerusalem. For one, he may have been visiting the Jerusalem court on some sort of diplomacy or trade mission, and gone to the temple while he was there. Or he may have gone specifically to worship, on behalf of the Ethiopian queen, not knowing much about the God he was bowing down to. In the ancient world, it wasn't uncommon for people to worship whatever gods they happened to come across, just in case they happened upon a really good one by accident. Why pick just one God when you can worship them all? It's a bit like going to the roulette wheel and putting a chip down on every number.
We don't really know exactly why he was there, we just know that the eunuch has been to Jerusalem, he has worshiped there, taken some scrolls of the scriptures with him, and is now on the road back to Ethiopia. And that's where Philip is sent to meet him.
Actually, Philip just knows that he's been sent to the road to Gaza. There's no indication that God has told Philip why he's going there, or who he's going to meet. This is far from the first time that God has given instructions to the faithful, but been a bit vague on the details.
But Philip goes. He goes, not knowing why, not knowing who he's to meet, not knowing what purpose he's to serve. He just goes.
And it's not until he sees the Ethiopian retinue and he sees what the treasurer is reading that it seems the lightbulb clicks. Ah-ha! This is what I'm here for. This is who I'm supposed to talk to. God has prepared me for this moment.
Because at that moment, the eunuch, the treasurer, the servant of the Ethiopian queen, is reading the scriptures, from the prophet Isaiah. And he is lost.
The words are perfectly fine. There's no problem with the grammar. He's not caught up on the language. But the Ethiopian is not a Jew. He doesn't know the history of the prophets. He doesn't know the context or the culture. The references that Isaiah makes that a Jew wouldn't have had to think twice about, the Ethiopian has to study and puzzle over.
And Philip sees this. And for this moment, he is prepared. As lost as the Ethiopian is in the labyrinth of the prophets' writings, Philip is more than prepared to guide him through them. He explains not only the significance of Isaiah's writing, but also shares knowledge of the Christ with him. Philip, as a devoted follower of Christ, is ready for this moment.
God sent him with that knowledge, to that place, to meet that man, even as Philip himself had little idea of what he was to do. But when those two came together – Philip the Evangelist, who knew the life and the meaning of the Christ and had spent years preparing for moments such as these – and the Ethiopian treasurer, poring over prophetic scriptures he could not understand – that was a God-moment. That was a point in time that God ordained that Philip and the Ethiopian should meet, that Philip should share what he knew, and it was so providential to the Ethiopian, that he immediately can to believe and asked to be baptized.
Philip did not know that his particular knowledge would be so useful to him on that day. But I'll bet he was glad he had it. I don't know how much joy Philip got out of studying the scriptures. There is a certain joy to it, certainly, but it's a different kind of joy than what I think my grandmother got out of her birds, or my roommate out of his guitars. And for those of us who went through our Bible study of the prophets a little over a year ago, well, you know that joy isn't exactly the first thing that always comes to mind.
But when it came to the knowledge of Christ, Philip knew his stuff. He was prepared. He didn't know when or where it would come in useful, but he kept at it anyway. So that when that moment came to share faith with someone seeking it, he had the words to say and the stories to help it all make sense.
Now, normally, I close my sermons with a proper conclusion, and a summary of the point. But today, I'm going to let the closing prayer do that work for me, in words far better than I could write myself.
There's a well-known prayer, written by the Catholic monk, Thomas Merton, that I keep a copy of on my office wall. It speaks to this idea we see in Philip's story, of not fully understanding God's purpose, but trusting that God will prepare us and give us the words and tools we need when we get there. He wrote it down in his collection of writings called “Thoughts in Solitude,” but it's most often simply called “The Merton Prayer” I'd like to close this sermon with that prayer now. Let us pray:
My Lord God,
I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
nor do I really know myself,
and the fact that I think I am following your will
does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you
does in fact please you.
And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road,
though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore will I trust you always though
I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.
I will not fear, for you are ever with me,
and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.
Amen.