Waiting.
Neighbors is in the swing of new weekly programming and it feels like a welcome, weekly breath of fresh air. We have relished our conversations with students and mentors. We’ve soaked in the new, smiling, faces on our computer screens. We’ve continued to feel that resonance between where we believe God is leading us and who we are. Despite all of that, it’s difficult to not think of this season as a period of waiting. We are all in the same boat when dealing with the global pandemic, or as I heard it put recently, in our individual boats, on the same stormy sea. We don’t have enough fingers in my house to count all the things we wished were different right now. We wish we could be face to face with our new friends. We wish we could hug our old friends. We wish we could open our home, share a meal, laugh without our voices being muted on Zoom. When we envisioned Neighbors we pictured something different. And yet, there’s something about this season that helps us cling to what’s really at the heart of why we made Neighbors in the first place. Something at the heart of the gospel itself. The reality that part of what makes God so good and his love so grand, is that God is mobile. Jesus is Emmanuel. “God with us”. Have we ever really appreciated how few qualifiers God gives for love? “God with us”, not “God with us when…” or “God with us if…” or “God with us unless…” just “God with us”.
At one point in his life, Jesus is talking to a woman from Samaria, a people group largely looked down upon and despised by his own people. The feeling of the conversation is noticeably tense and, in fact, becomes a bit of a theological debate at one point. Jesus and the woman are talking about the appropriate places to worship. Jesus’ people think it's one place and the Samaritans think it's another. Jesus has a strong reply to the disagreement.
“believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem… a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”
“In the spirit and in truth”. I don’t know about you but when I think about spirits, they are the opposite of rigidity. They are the epitome of mobile. They shift and change like the wind. They are not to be contained. Another way that I think of the word “truth” is by using the word “reality”. What’s real? Who are we really? What are we actually feeling? Where are we right now?
For us, we’re in a once in a lifetime, global pandemic. That is our reality. The temptation is to box the spirit into our idea of Neighbors in some hypothetical future, but the spirit cannot be boxed. Each Monday night we are reminded that the spirit is moving now. There is goodness in our world and in Neighbors now. The gospel is always for this moment, even when this moment is the waiting for a new moment. We are always being called to being “with”. No addendums necessary. We look forward to the day we can all be face to face, but we are committed to this meaningful work and grateful for the life it brings us right in the middle of our reality right now.