… at a clumsy congregation

Can the kingdom that is not yet already be? Can you give someone a gift that they already have? Can you juggle if you’re clumsy? These three questions speak to 12 signs of the kingdom I have witnessed in this congregation, Chestnut Street Menno­nite Church in Lancaster, Pa.

Number 1. When our son Zachary was no more than 4 years old, we attended a Maundy evening service. He and his brother Dylan watched carefully while we men washed each other’s feet. When we were finished, Nevin Horst, a patriarch of the congregation who has now passed away, came up to Zachary and, without saying anything at all, placed a towel and basin beneath where Zachary sat. Zachary had taken his shoes off when I had and was waiting patiently for his turn despite my having told him that only big people got to do this. Nevin cradled Zachary’s tender feet in his craggy hands and gently dripped water to make them clean.

Number 2. For weeks prior to our departure for graduate school in Chicago, I was not sleeping well. I worried constantly about all that could go wrong before we left. Although at that point I had not publicly discussed my insomnia, John Becker, a member of the older men’s Sunday school class that I had once helped teach, came up to me after church and asked how I was doing. When I responded, “Moves are hard,” John did two things. First, he said, “There is nowhere you can go where God is not there with you.” Then he gently rubbed my shoulder. For perhaps no more than a minute—maybe even only 30 seconds—John was Christ to me. In the back of the church, behind the last pew, enveloped by the fluttering buzz of post-worship conversation, John put on the skin of Jesus and helped me limp my way to wellness.

Number 3. During a Mennonite Youth Fellowship lock-in after kick-the-can in the sanctuary, arm wrestling in the fellowship hall and ingesting large quantities of junk food, one of our wonderfully rowdy youth told me that my widow’s peak looked like a peninsula jutting out into a whalebone sea. He may not have actually said “whalebone sea,” but I do think he called my widow’s peak a peninsula. I count his banter as a sign of the kingdom because it happened at church. Despite a thousand adolescent options, our youth have consistently said this is a place they want to be. Here, church is built of rough-and-tumble four-square games, 3-D Dorito chips and teasing ever more balding advisers.

Number 4. On the day before an open house our congregation held to celebrate the construction of a new narthex, I came inside to find one of the wise men of our congregation cleaning windows. I asked him why he washed. He said, “I want the new addition to look especially nice for our visitors.” In typically unassuming style, he shrugged his shoulders, wished me well and continued carefully cleaning each pane.

Number 5. Every Sunday that our church’s best accordion player shares her gift up front, the music makes me glad, and if you look closely at her face while she plays with a mandolin beside her, you can see her eyes already dancing.

Number 6. For long months we received reports from the hospital about one member’s wound that would not heal. During those many days, our brother held his faith before us. Even when there seemed no rational reason to do so, in the midst of trouble that left him tired, he showed us a way to cling tenaciously to faith.

Number 7. Every Monday night, our family enjoys taking part in the community gatherings where those in need of a meal can join us for dinner. At those gatherings, two teenage members of this church go through the line. Having participated as both meal provider and recipient, I think the more difficult task is going through the line. For those of us who are white and Mennonite, being served is not easy. I always want the servers to know that I don’t really have to be here unlike the “others” in the line. And so when I see these two young men having animated conversation as they sit down to eat, I am humbled and impressed.

Number 8. I also see the kingdom when we pound pew backs in time to the songs. Even though it is one of too few ways we bring our bodies into worship, that we pound on the benches like 100 wooden drums never fails to move me.

Number 9. We don’t mind that the pastor’s wife wears fancy flip-flops in the sanctuary. I even see us moving toward a place where we ever more fully embrace all wearers of flip-flops and three-piece suits and overalls and evening dresses.

Number 10. Several years ago, I approached two other members about their van’s license plate. The plate included an image of the Cleveland baseball team mascot. I asked if they would be open to talking about the image. They said yes. I shared how such images ridiculed Native Americans. I referred to my Native American friends who find the image damaging to their children. They in turn shared of their love of baseball, their long-time support of the Cleveland team and that they did not intend to damage anyone by rooting for their team. Yet, even though they did not agree with my assessment, they wrote in a caring letter that they had decided to remove the license plate.

Number 11. While helping with child care one Saturday evening, one of the youngest members of our church family and I read a colorful book about cars. As I pointed to each vehicle in a crowded traffic scene, this young boy accurately identified the year, make and model of each vehicle. Not long into our conversation, I said to him, “How do you know all these cars?” After a moment of pondering, he replied, “Tobin, I was made to do this.” Silently I nodded and pondered the Divine. How does God craft the meeting of a 6-year-old boy and a 37-year-old man? Did he know I desperately needed to hear that God gives purpose to us all? Had God whispered in his ear? Days later, I continued resting easy because my young brother, through his gift of bedrock knowing what he was created to do, convinced me God will also show me my purpose in good time.

I began with three questions. First, can the kingdom that is not yet already be? Yes and no. Theologian William Stringfellow reminded us that we will never find the kingdom fully present. Just when we think we have found a way to make it happen, it will disappear. His point, I think, is that we cannot, by our efforts in the midst of a fallen world, create perfection. All we can do is look for the signs, celebrate them as gifts and remain open to the many forms they can take when we place ourselves outside predictable, rational space. In these 11 signs with one yet to come, I see evidence of the kingdom that is not yet already here.

Can you give someone a gift they already have? Yes, I believe you can. Every one of these signs are already present. I hope I have given them afresh so that they may be remembered anew.

Can you juggle if you’re clumsy? Yes because flawed people marked these signs. The kingdom breaks through in acts as improbable and unstable as juggling by clumsy people, people who have simply allowed themselves to be shaped by the Spirit in that moment, at that time. No more. No less. Born of the members of a clumsy congregation.

Number 12. On the first day of Lent, Joanne Belcher played the part of Jesus. With dramatic flair she turned away the tempter in the wilderness and called us all to worship. In the memory of Joanne’s portrayal of Jesus, I see a sign of the kingdom because this congregation did not make a fuss that Joanne was a woman bringing the person of Jesus to us in worship. At the time we had no way of knowing that Joanne would die so suddenly. All we knew is that she gave us a gift that day by showing Jesus’ power in the face of human temptation. We accepted her gift without asking her not to be a woman at the moment of the portrayal. Of all these many signs, the image I will take with me more than any other is Joanne Belcher turning away from temptation, calling us all to do the same.

For all these gifts, for all these clumsy jugglers and signs of the kingdom that is not yet, I am grateful.

Tobin Miller Shearer lives in Missoula, Mont., where he teaches history at the University of Montana. He continues to hold membership at Community Mennonite Church in Markham, Ill., and is grateful for the nine years he was a member of East Chestnut St. Mennonite Church in Lancaster, Pa. This is based on a reflection first given in June 2002, a few weeks before leaving East Chestnut Street to attend graduate school in Chicago.