This week, I got to remember

Thank you

I’m off from preaching this week, so I’m taking a short break from my regular posts (usually essay-fied sermons) to offer a very short reflection.

First, thank you to everyone who reads this newsletter. I have been sharing sermons/posts/pieces weekly since Advent 2023, and I am so grateful to know that some of you take time to regularly read. Many of you have offered some kind of support along the way that keeps me encouraged (and to those who offer your financial support, an extra thank you—it does mean a lot). With preaching, and especially with writing, its asymmetrical nature means it’s often hard to know how others are feeling about what you’re sharing, but both preaching and writing are best when they are living, ongoing conversations that are in tune with what’s going on in people’s lives. So I’m especially grateful when one of you takes the time to like or share a comment (which can be done on the post page or by replying to the email) if something has struck resonance.

All that’s to say: thank you.

---

Earlier this week, I went to my first AA meeting in a very long time to support a friend. By the grace of God, I’ve been alcohol-free for many years and completely sober for several. While the 12-step path had never been mine, I know many for whom it has helped, and I was looking forward to being around the authenticity that such meetings often bring. While I can’t share many details, one thing from my experience stuck to my ribs.

After rushing in from the cold and climbing up the back stairs of the classic New England church, we began in opening silent meditation. In the silence, after my brain briefly panicked about what to do with the twenty minutes ahead, I realized that I had not done one of God's core commands to the Israelites throughout the Hebrew scriptures: remember.

Throughout their walk with God, God’s people often forget how far they’ve come and what God got them through. In the silence, I took time to remember my sobriety in particular. I remembered how much life had happened since that last night of drinking alone in my Los Angeles studio apartment, the capstone of a long and tired road as a struggling artist, struggling especially with myself. All the details of that journey feel too raw and besides the point to share here. But I remember that at the time, I had still barely wanted anything to do with Christ; I had made a game out of spiritual community shopping, resolved not to go to a Christian church, but interested in co-opting Christ’s ideas, instrumentalizing them to fit my plans. He could come into my life on my terms, judged by my standards, if only he would fit into my other preferred stories.

So as I sat there in silence, remembering that I somehow gone from there almost a decade ago to becoming a pastor now, I could not help but laugh. I remembered. I remembered how hard and sad life was. I remembered how nihilistic it was. I remembered the empire of dirt. And I remembered that God had other ideas.

The remembering God asks us to do isn’t about regret—though I still have them—but grace. It’s about remembering how far you’ve come and Who actually got you there. It’s about taking time to bask in God’s goodness, wisdom, and mercy that, in the understatement of the century, far surpass mine. As the psalm and song say,¹ God has done great things for me.

---

I would remember all this and more again yesterday. In the middle of a stupidly long cross-country ski through the backwoods of our Vermont town, where I was less skiing than shuffling my feet in suggestions of forwardness, my love and I came to a pond. We know it well; it’s on land owned by some church friends, and we had just gotten our Christmas tree there a month prior. After some snacks and a little silliness on-brand for our relationship, she looked away long enough that I could fumble the ring box from the security of my snow pants zipper pocket. I can’t remember what I said, but I know I asked her to marry me. After she fell into the snow laughing, which concerned me for a second, I was delighted to hear her say yes.

I remember life before her. I remember how God brought us together and called us to this little slice of his creation in a place we barely knew. I remember how, when I had it my way all those years ago, I was enslaved to the worst master—myself. I remember the freedom Christ bought and paid for. And I’m so happy to keep walking the path of discipleship with the love of my life.

So to the One who is able to keep both you and me,² I can also (and only) say thank you. Today, there really is nothing else I could pray.

1. Psalm 126

2. Jude 24-25