THE GIFT OF DISRUPTION [Sa, 7-25-20]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter

THE GIFT OF DISRUPTION    [Sa, 7-25-20]

Almost time for worship again from St. Mark’s on the Live Stream. Reminds me that several weeks ago, Suzanne said after live stream that it was the best kids’ sermon at St. Mark’s in a long time, because of the gift of disruption.

Like many churches in this pandemic time, St. Mark’s on the Bypass is doing livestream worship. It’s very well done, in great part because it’s exactly like Sunday morning worship has always been, except there is no congregation. But our pastors and musicians do the service just like always, even an offering time, complete with offertory and doxology and dedication prayer, even though there is no one to pass the plates to, and a children’s time, even though there are no children.

While our pastors, Jimmy and Mary Beth, have been doing kids’ times without any kids in the sanctuary, everything has gone so smoothly. That’s not what we want. The only reason we older people go to church is to see James and his ilk get Jimmy discombobulated. When it comes to kids’ time, we don’t want smooth. [Mary Beth is less discombobulateable, and also the kids are nicer to her because she’s short, and they think she’s one of them.]

But a couple of weeks ago, Jimmy himself made a comment that disrupted the flow, and got him to laughing. He was trying not to--because the accidental comment was ever-so-slightly off color--so that his face turned red, which made it even funnier. It was almost like having James and the rest of the jolly ranchers there to disrupt the flow. The disruption of the smooth was why Suzanne, and the rest of us, thought it was so great.

That’s a great gift, the gift of disruption. When everything goes smoothly, we don’t even have to think about it. When the flow is disrupted, we’re irritated, yes, sometimes, and frustrated, and unhappy, but we have to think, have to find different ways of getting things going right again.

As our grandson says, “It’s not an adventure unless something goes wrong.”

Sometimes we don’t want an adventure. That’s okay. But when one comes, embrace the moment, for that’s when we might learn something new, something we would never have seen otherwise, something important. Or at least get a laugh, and we can always use one of those.

John Robert McFarland