“The many long walks home”

H,

It may seem like we are always walking home. This is the thrust of our faith: falling and rising and then rising to fall no more. It is not easy to stand in the light or even to crawl or lie down in it. There is something intrinsically heroic about this business of light and dark. All our stories and conversations and politics and ideology are wrapped around this idea of the wrong way and the right way. We are constantly in celebration of our rightness and there lies the great delusion.

There is not even a right and a wrong in the sense in which we see it. The light is not simply the opposite of the dark. That would suggest equality. The dark is the absence of the light. It is everything outside the light. We are not in a war between two well matched foes. We are on a journey from dark to light, from foolish to wise and from ignorance to the knowledge of all things. What might seem like a war is just a long walk home. In fact, due to our imperfections “being made perfect”, it is many long walks home.

In light of recent events, the idea of church has been thrown into further derision. The abuse of power, the criminal exploitation of innocents and the brazen show of darkness is not unknown but the volume is now up. It is not enough to say it has always been. There is a light to reveal that the darkness is empty. The truth, the honest one you know right now, is the thing that will set us free. That there is abuse in church is clear. That we have not acted in the best way towards the victims is tragic and true. That we must do better is the challenge ahead.

The pastor is not the church, though. And I suspect those old structures are crumbling and will crumble under the coming weight of glory. The church is the holy communion of saints who believe in the atonement of Christ and the Deity of the Trinity in human affairs. It is you and I. That we reach out in love, look at our own conduct and pray healing toward each other is the call of the moment. One misplaced pastor, who should face at the very least criminal inquiry for his conduct, does not end the calling of the light. It reminds us that the temple is not a place or a particular person. The temple of God is now only in men and women who welcome the trinity in.