Photo from flickr stream by unschool
“Quiet Please”
This is my church’s reminder that there’s a service in progress in the chapel, with a gentle request for those passing in the hallway to be mindful that some of us are taking a breath during the midweek services of Holy Communion.
It didn’t work this week. I gathered as I was walking in that a funeral had just let out, but I didn’t think much of it as I was running late, as usual. I missed the lighting of the advent candle and the opening hymn, and found myself struggling to focus on the reading of scripture through the laughter and conversation just beyond the doors. I really started to get annoyed as the voices grew louder during the sermon, and I was struggling to follow. (A friend recently described our personality type as ADOS: Attention Deficit – “Oh, Shiny!”) Then I started to laugh at myself.
“From the fig tree, learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near.” Mark 13:28
I had studied over these scriptures for my own sermon the previous week. I talked about how Advent is a call to pay attention to what God is about in the world, and encouraged a struggling congregation to look for those places where the fig tree is pushing forth its leaves, for those places in the life of their community where there is yet life, where God is at work. It occurred to me to take my own advice during the sermon I was listening to today and pay attention for those signs of life in the midst of the distraction from the hallway.
It brought to mind a hymn that I’ve loved by Fred Pratt Green (#592 in the United Methodist Hymnal):
When the church of Jesus
Shuts its outer door
Lest the roar of traffic
Drown the voice of prayer:
May our prayers, Lord, make us
Ten times more aware
That the world we banish
Is our Christian care.
Perhaps what God was calling to my attention were the signs of life in the hallway. Perhaps God was reminding me that our midweek gathering is not just for those in the chapel, but probably more so for those in the hallway.
