by David Schilling
WOODBURY — Last month, the Montpelier Community Gospel Choir filled the Old Meeting House with music, carrying a history of holding up the light in the darkest of times. Music of praising God in times of oppression, over and over again. Their voices sang “I’ve come too far from where I started from. Nobody told me that the road would be easy, I don’t believe God brought me this far to leave me.”
During that time in the Christian liturgical calendar, just before Pentecost, we found the disciples finding their way through the dark, with their faith holding strong. “Stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high,” they were told. They had no road map nor precisely spelled-out calendar. They didn’t see the spirit-filled exuberance of Pentecost just around the door, but they were promised it, and so they stayed close to God in the temple, offering praise, until it was time to go out and spread the good news. Despite being trapped in bad times, they needed time to pause, pray and worship. God didn’t bring them that far to simply leave them.
In my minister preparation class the next day, someone made the statement that a good leader knows how to read the room. The comment was originally misunderstood as “a good leader knows how to leave the room,” and while everyone laughed, Jesus did exactly that. He had to leave, so that the movement he sparked within all the disciples and within all of us would have the room to rise up, in stark contrast to the authoritarian rule of Jerusalem.
Authoritarian leaders do one thing really well, they are excellent authors. They are the very best storytellers of the most awful stories imaginable, and those stories have one objective: to take away the power of the people. Jesus, in comparison, is the modest author of the greatest story that is, and he gains his power by giving that story back to us, helping us to see our own power. He brought us this far not to abandon us, but to empower us to rise up.
A couple thousand years later, it might feel eerily similar; finding ourselves in a land that feels occupied by a rapidly emerging empire built on human greed. Finding ourselves in a situation where it might feel dangerous to speak the truth: that we must love our neighbors as ourselves, that we must stand up for and elevate those on society’s margins, that love is more important than status, doing the right thing is more important than placing golden eagles within our sacred spaces. The landscape has changed, but the mission is the same. Wait and pray, until spirit calls us to rise up. I don’t believe God brought us this far to leave us.
Later that week, I found myself in a group of aspiring and practicing ministers being asked where we found holy ground. Answers included in the outdoors, with family, sunshine, water, in unanswered questions and unbridled possibility, on tops of mountains, deep in green valleys. Interestingly, nobody’s answer was “in church”. God seems to call us close in many different ways, the physical temple just being one of many. We are called to embrace the beauty that surrounds us, in community with each other, and in community with our planet.
We are waiting in the city, but the instructions are clear. Instead of doom-scrolling, and feeling stuck, we are called to watch, wait and above all, praise. We are called to stay close to God in whatever way feeds our soul and spirit, because in waiting, we are building the energy we need to go forth and speak truth to power once again in turbulent and hostile times. This story has played out again and again, and the biggest mistake we can make is missing all the beauty that has surrounded humanity, helping to bring us up out of darkness.
Now is the time to find your own holy ground and embrace it exhaustively. Don’t feel guilty about finding passion and loving life amidst darkness, and stay close to God, because God knows we’ll need all the energy we have to spread the good news to all nations once again. We were not, after all, brought this far just to be left behind.
David Schilling recently made the transition from school leadership to ministry and serves as the pastor of the Old Meeting House in East Montpelier. He lives in Woodbury with his wife, Marilla and dog Porter.
