Reflection This Week
PERHAPS IT WAS JUST A GENTLE REMINDER

We have all been admonished over the years, warned even, that we had better be certain that what we ask God in prayer is what we truly want God to grant, else, when our prayer is answered, we find ourselves in a predicament we never anticipated. Perhaps over the years we have either been wise enough to be very attentive to our prayers or blessed that God knew better than we did and saved us from ourselves.

However, God being God, always surprising and never totally predictable, if ever so, God sometimes gives us a gentle nudge just to give us a glimpse of what we might be in for were our wishes to come true. For instance, this weekend there was a bulletin insert about a gathering in Gundrum Parlor this Saturday about how we might become a “Cool Congregation,” cool in the climatic sense not in the cute sense: cool meaning “saving energy” and not cool meaning “with it.”

Come to think of it, being a Cool Congregation means both. It means that as a congregation, individually and collectively, we will look for ways to resolve the problem of global warming by using less energy – turning down our thermostats when it is cold, using energy efficient bulbs, turning off unneeded lights, and so forth. That is also a cool idea, meaning we are with it, we get it, we are doing our part.

But I digress. If I did not know better, and I do not know at all since I do not know the mind of God, I have the sense that perhaps God was reminding us in a very gentle manner what it might be to be a Cool Congregation. We began the 10:30 Eucharist without the organ. A couple of the keys kept sticking because of the lack of humidity in the building. The cold weather obviously wreaked havoc with the heating system. No organ, less electricity used.
Then halfway through the service the main lights suddenly went out, all of them. No organ, no lights, wonderful ambience, lots of energy saved: cool congregation. Halfway through the Lord’s Prayer there was aloud crack on the PA system. It sounded as if it wanted to crash. All I could do at that solemn moment was laugh and think that God has a funny sense of humor.
The icing on the cake would have been if the heating system failed. Thankfully, the humidity is coming back and the lighting glitch was a hidden breaker that was tripped. Of course, we do not know why it was tripped. But that is another issue which I’ll leave to the electricians to resolve.

Yes, there were plausible reasons why all those glitches occurred at the same service, one announcing a meeting to discuss what an energy-efficient worship might be like: for instance, no organ, reduced lighting, no microphones – like it used to be back when the Diocese was organized a century-and-a-half ago. We do not want to go back to those days, of course, nor can we.

Perhaps it was not a random concurrence but God’s deliberate but wry nudge. Perhaps God was simply, gently and deliberately reminding us that progress has its downside. Perhaps God was demonstrating what worship might be like if we truly want to do our part. Probably not, but I would not take it to the bank either. WJP