"Be Present"

Dear WRC,

Over the summer I was lucky enough to have two opportunities to head to the Met and enjoy the exhibit they had of Van Gogh’s Cypresses. Wheat Field with Cypresses is one of my favorite paintings, so I was quite excited to hear they were going to host an entire exhibit all about his fascination with cypress trees and the paintings and drawings they showed up in throughout his career.

I entered the exhibit with pretty high expectations—I will never get to see some of these paintings again and definitely not all in the same room! Within minutes, though, I found myself annoyed. This is where you find out I’m really just a grumpy, old man inside. As I stood before the first few paintings, people kept crowding in front of me, holding up their phones, snapping a picture, and then moving on to the next painting. I stood back and watched a few people step up to priceless painting after priceless painting only to snap a picture on their phone and move along to the next one.

Here we are in the presence of beauty and greatness, a once-in-a-lifetime exhibit of masterpieces and all these people were content to experience it through the lens of their smartphone, “capturing the moment”, and moving on to the next thing. I wanted to yell: “BE PRESENT!” The thing itself is right here! Take a moment to be here and actually look at it! No picture will every capture these pieces--the color, the texture, the light—especially not one hastily taken with your phone. Are you really going to look at all these pictures later? Why not just put your phone away, live in this moment, and experience the real thing!

Boy, do I need to practice what I preach. I may have done well at the Met that day, but my screen time stats tell a different story. Brian Kennedy and I have a long-running joke about how Apple finds it necessary to give us our weekly screen time notification 5-10 minutes before worship starts every Sunday so that we have something to confess. I may be annoyed by my fellow museum-goers, but I do the same thing when I’m sitting with Owen and Hannah or Sam or a friend. Instead  of being present in this moment with these people, I’m somewhere else. I miss what’s right in front of me for the promise that something better could be.

I need to be reminded often to just be here, to receive this moment, even if nothing much is happening in it, as a gift from God. I assume I’m not the only one. It’s easy to take for granted what is right in front of us and miss the holiness of these moments, their goodness and beauty.

It’s good to be reminded every once-in-a-while to take off your shoes, to be told that you’re standing on holy ground. The ground we stand on together is holy. The love and fellowship that we share is the gift of Jesus and his presence among us. This congregation is being shaped into one of Christ’s masterpieces, before which Van Gogh’s pale in comparison. There is immense beauty on display if you are willing to just be present.

I think that many of you know this. It’s why you keep showing up. I’m aware that there are 1,000 other things you could do on a Sunday morning when we gather for worship or a weeknight when there’s a meeting or a class. But you’ve seen something of the beauty Christ means to paint among us, you’ve sensed something of God’s presence here. I see it every Sunday after worship when we’re gathered over baked goods and cold lemonade on the patio, sharing the joys and struggles of life. I hear about it from guests who join us and tell of the warmth of Christ’s welcome they have received. I smell it when a dozen of you are working away in the church kitchen preparing a meal to feed the hungry in Hackensack.

We’re about to launch into the fall and things are about to get really busy, so here’s the reminder that I need to hear—and maybe you need to hear it, too: be present! Show up with eyes and ears wide open to the presence of Jesus. We are standing the midst of beauty and goodness, don’t be content to snap a pic and move on. Don’t take it for granted. Be here. Linger. Watch. Christ has painted something remarkable. 

 In Christ,

Pastor Andy