Under construction
11/04/14 05:26
I have accepted the fact that the construction project at our church means that we won’t be able to use our front door on Palm Sunday. I’m not happy with that reality, but it is simply the way it is. We had the flagstone removed before 9 am on Monday. The weather has cooperated. The contractor didn’t have any equipment breakdowns. There were enough workers on the project each day. The work we planned simply took more than a week. They will pour the sidewalk today, but the main pad at the center where the doors open is the last bit of concrete to be poured.
I am pretty sure that it won’t affect church attendance. By the time people have made the effort to get to the church, they are unlikely to be deterred by having to use a different door to get into the building. We’ll have some parking lot attendants and guides inside the building to keep the traffic flowing. I’m less anxious about that part of the process after we were able to have a funeral without major problems on Wednesday.
There are plenty of things in life that don’t work out the way you plan. Life is full of setbacks. Some days you have to make a conscious choice about whether to complain about what isn’t working out or celebrate the things that are working just fine.
Chances are in coming years the work will give us a few stories to tell. Sometimes those stories can bind us together as a people and contribute to the formation of the community. I remember the Easter Sunday when we were serving a church in Boise. The street in front of the church was excavated down more than two feet for the installation of new storm sewers and the only way to access the parking lot was through a side street. The problem was that one end of that side street was blocked by the construction so people had to take a round-about trek through a residential neighborhood to get to our church even though it was located on a major urban through street.
We set a record for church attendance that Easter.
I guess we’ll never know if the record was because we had planned and promoted and worked with our people hone their skills at invitation or because people like a challenge and they didn’t want to think that a little construction could keep them from getting to church. It is even possible that the construction helped visitors to find the church. Because traffic was moving so slowly in the construction zones folks who otherwise might not have noticed the church found themselves looking at it while they were waiting for traffic.
I don’t think we can get a “traffic” effect from an entryway under construction. But those who visit our church will surely see the project as a sign of vitality. The fact that we are making improvements and working toward increased accessibility at our building’s main entrance can easily be viewed as a sign of a congregation that is looking toward the future and taking action.
From the descriptions in the Gospels, Jesus entry into Jerusalem was a bit of an impromptu affair. As parades go, it probably wasn’t the most spectacular. The Roman authorities knew how to make an impression with their large war horses and chariots and legions of soldiers in armored uniforms. Jesus’ rag-tag band of disciples escorting a donkey colt and throwing their outer garnets on the street with a few hastily-cut palm branches probably didn’t rank with the biggest of parades.
But it gave us a story that we continue to tell millennia afterwards. Long after the entrances of Roman governors and other official parades have been forgotten we tell the story of Jesus confronting the power and might of the rulers of the world with a quiet spiritual strength. Asked to quiet down his crowd of supporters, Jesus confesses that they are beyond his control: “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.”
The expectation of many at the time, of course, was for a political upheaval. They thought and prayed that the messiah coming to Jerusalem would mean that the Roman governor would be displaced and that Jerusalem would once again become the capitol of a Jewish state that would rise to prominence and even domination in the region. The stories of the time of Solomon, when Jerusalem was a center of power, wealth and learning, were still remembered. Although the monarchy was long gone, there were still those who thought that God’s power was best displayed by intervention in human politics and governmental systems.
If what they expected was an overthrow of the government, they were disappointed. Jesus entry into Jerusalem did spark a bit of controversy among the religious hierarchy in the temple, and he did raise the attention and perhaps the ire of the Roman authorities, but there were no armies. There was no coup.
So if we don’t get everything perfect for this Palm Sunday, it isn’t going to be the end of the world. The story has real staying power among our people. We aren’t going to stop telling the story just because there is a week when it takes a bit more effort to get into the church. We won’t lose the importance of the story to our faith while we are walking down the hall to exit the building through the west door.
Holy Week is, in part, an opportunity for us to practice for much bigger challenges that will enter our lives. The services of the week are carefully crafted to remind us that Jesus is God’s presence with us in the hard times of life as well as the good. God doesn’t come to us in Jesus to remove pain or loss or grief, but rather to share with us the tears and sorrow and loss.
Jesus gave his life for us. We can probably afford to give a few minutes to use a different door to get to church.
I am pretty sure that it won’t affect church attendance. By the time people have made the effort to get to the church, they are unlikely to be deterred by having to use a different door to get into the building. We’ll have some parking lot attendants and guides inside the building to keep the traffic flowing. I’m less anxious about that part of the process after we were able to have a funeral without major problems on Wednesday.
There are plenty of things in life that don’t work out the way you plan. Life is full of setbacks. Some days you have to make a conscious choice about whether to complain about what isn’t working out or celebrate the things that are working just fine.
Chances are in coming years the work will give us a few stories to tell. Sometimes those stories can bind us together as a people and contribute to the formation of the community. I remember the Easter Sunday when we were serving a church in Boise. The street in front of the church was excavated down more than two feet for the installation of new storm sewers and the only way to access the parking lot was through a side street. The problem was that one end of that side street was blocked by the construction so people had to take a round-about trek through a residential neighborhood to get to our church even though it was located on a major urban through street.
We set a record for church attendance that Easter.
I guess we’ll never know if the record was because we had planned and promoted and worked with our people hone their skills at invitation or because people like a challenge and they didn’t want to think that a little construction could keep them from getting to church. It is even possible that the construction helped visitors to find the church. Because traffic was moving so slowly in the construction zones folks who otherwise might not have noticed the church found themselves looking at it while they were waiting for traffic.
I don’t think we can get a “traffic” effect from an entryway under construction. But those who visit our church will surely see the project as a sign of vitality. The fact that we are making improvements and working toward increased accessibility at our building’s main entrance can easily be viewed as a sign of a congregation that is looking toward the future and taking action.
From the descriptions in the Gospels, Jesus entry into Jerusalem was a bit of an impromptu affair. As parades go, it probably wasn’t the most spectacular. The Roman authorities knew how to make an impression with their large war horses and chariots and legions of soldiers in armored uniforms. Jesus’ rag-tag band of disciples escorting a donkey colt and throwing their outer garnets on the street with a few hastily-cut palm branches probably didn’t rank with the biggest of parades.
But it gave us a story that we continue to tell millennia afterwards. Long after the entrances of Roman governors and other official parades have been forgotten we tell the story of Jesus confronting the power and might of the rulers of the world with a quiet spiritual strength. Asked to quiet down his crowd of supporters, Jesus confesses that they are beyond his control: “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.”
The expectation of many at the time, of course, was for a political upheaval. They thought and prayed that the messiah coming to Jerusalem would mean that the Roman governor would be displaced and that Jerusalem would once again become the capitol of a Jewish state that would rise to prominence and even domination in the region. The stories of the time of Solomon, when Jerusalem was a center of power, wealth and learning, were still remembered. Although the monarchy was long gone, there were still those who thought that God’s power was best displayed by intervention in human politics and governmental systems.
If what they expected was an overthrow of the government, they were disappointed. Jesus entry into Jerusalem did spark a bit of controversy among the religious hierarchy in the temple, and he did raise the attention and perhaps the ire of the Roman authorities, but there were no armies. There was no coup.
So if we don’t get everything perfect for this Palm Sunday, it isn’t going to be the end of the world. The story has real staying power among our people. We aren’t going to stop telling the story just because there is a week when it takes a bit more effort to get into the church. We won’t lose the importance of the story to our faith while we are walking down the hall to exit the building through the west door.
Holy Week is, in part, an opportunity for us to practice for much bigger challenges that will enter our lives. The services of the week are carefully crafted to remind us that Jesus is God’s presence with us in the hard times of life as well as the good. God doesn’t come to us in Jesus to remove pain or loss or grief, but rather to share with us the tears and sorrow and loss.
Jesus gave his life for us. We can probably afford to give a few minutes to use a different door to get to church.