I don’t know about you, but my head has been spinning these last few days. I am trying to live in the moment of what is happening in our country and to try and bring light and levity to a heavy mood. At the same time, I am preparing myself for 10 days of pilgrimage in England where Ryan and I will see and experience first-hand the rich history of the Methodist denomination that we love and are called to serve. And lastly, I am deeply invested in this Ted Lasso sermon series and trying to faithfully bring to light what the Spirit has laid on my heart.
I say this not for pity but to reassure you that if you feel like you have a lot that you are trying to mentally order and make sense of, you are in good company.
As a pastor I tend to look at what is happening in our country with a particular lens. I see the anger, the sadness, the lack of trust and the complete absence of civility not as a place to point a finger in blame, but for the church to enter in. Where can we, as the church listen more than we speak, or think before we respond on social media, or prayerfully consider what we send out over email or work through our own anger and disappointment before we take it out on someone else? Where can the church bring unity despite our differences of opinions and passions? If ever our country needed the grace of Jesus and the manifestation of that through the church, that time is now! What would it look like to be men and women ready to enter into the conflict and bring peace, rather than avoidance or ignorance?
I think that is one of the reasons I loved the Ted Lasso sermon series. I will share more on Sunday, but one thing I don’t mention in my sermons is just how vulnerable Ted was as a leader and how open he was to learning new things. The fact that he came as a professional football coach to lead a sport he really knew very little about speaks to his willingness to engage in the PROGMESS. Yes, you read that right, Prog-mess, instead of progress because we know that as Wesleyans, going onto perfection or progressing towards acting more like Jesus means that we have to deal with the mess. I have said it before and I will say it again, some days I am a hot mess, and I am going to bet that you have days like that too. There is mess in all of us, there mess in our church, there mess in our relationships and there mess in our culture. It doesn’t mean we will fix it (not that we are even the ones doing the fixing) and it doesn’t mean that it won’t be uncomfortable. But will we choose to enter into it and give it a try.
I think one of the reasons I love being a Wesleyan most of all is how John Wesley quickly realized that Jesus loved the messy people and wasn’t afraid to enter into it. John Wesley could have enjoyed a relatively comfortable life as an Anglican priest in a clean and conventional parish, but he took the message of God’s love in Jesus Christ out into the fields and the coal mines and the streets and the mess and because of that choice, we are here today. I invite you reflect this week on how you, as a representative of God’s abundant grace, are called to enter the mess and not add to it. How can we be people of Prog-MESS?
May God add God’s blessing to the hearing and consuming of these words.
AMEN