A lady walked up to me while I was eating in Taco Bell a few weeks ago and said she heard I was to be ordained a priest. I greeted her and said yes, that is true. With a look of concern, she followed up with, “you still believe in Jesus for salvation, right?“ I chuckled and said yes. Relief melted over her face.
It’s difficult to tell people this story. I’ve sat down to write it out over and again. But never really found the right words. Couldn’t find the hook. I still can’t, really. I end up just trying to affirm what people thought about me is still true.
You’re still a Christian, right? Yes.
You’re still licensed Southern Baptist, right? Yes.
You’re still a praying-in-tongues charismatic, right? Yes.
You were confirmed in the Episcopal Church of USA, right? Yes.
You’ve helped pastor a large evangelical church in a large city? Yep.
But also a small rural church in a corn field? Yes.
And now you’re an Anglican priest?
Listen, I know what this looks like. You’d almost expect at any given moment for me to yell bingo at the top of my lungs and collect my ecumenical prize. But there is no prize. I don’t think. (Wait…is there a prize?)
So I could just say, “I’m on a journey with Jesus.” But here’s the deal, I can’t stomach the journey metaphor anymore.
However, things that are hard to explain need metaphors. And so as I spin the metaphor wheel, the one that the arrow keeps settling on is this: a tree.
I like it.
You can’t just look at a tree square in the eyes and ask it, “Where are you at in your journey.” That doesn’t make sense. The tree is just there; planted in soil, drinking ground water, soaking up nutrients from the surrounding dirt. It didn’t even know it was supposed to be on a journey and wouldn’t know how to take a step if it wanted. So don’t go giving maple trees an insecurity complex by asking them about journeys. They’re not going anywhere.
But the stories they can tell are not of journeys, but of the seasons of abundance and seasons of poverty, cold winters and lush summers, broken branches and oozing wounds.
This story is written within a tree’s concentric inner rings that witness and testify to its life.
The wood and heart from it’s early life as a sapling is still there, embraced by the long and nurturing years that follow. Its story is held within. Not a journey. But a broadening and deepening. A rooting and expanding. Each year’s growth, whether abundant or impoverished, becomes the wooden frame for the next season.
The tree’s story isn’t of it’s journey, it’s of it’s substance.
I don’t want to be too presumptuous to say, “Look at me, I’m a beautiful tree, look how my leaves wave in the wind.” There are already too many ostentatious oaks. Forests of them.
We don’t need another. But I do have a story.
And my story doesn’t tell well as a journey. It doesn’t fit. Because if it’s a journey, I’m afraid that every step I take is one of betrayal to the last step and that isn’t true. Or if it’s a journey, then my life would be judged at how far I have come and I couldn’t bear the shame of looking at a map and seeing that I’ve not gone far. Or if a journey is only a series of destinations, then I have already stamped my passport with places of breathless beauty and renown and never found a land or home to call my own.
The tree says I don’t have to leave any of it.
All the story is there, rigid heartwood, rooting me deep into the soil and stretching my branches skywards.
I’m here. All of me, my substance, here. Rooting deep into the love and grace of Jesus Christ.
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There’s a good chance that you aren’t interested in tree metaphors. If you are anything like me, you want to hear about specific flash points where decisions were made and why it seems I abandoned ABC and started believing XYZ. That’s what I’ve kept sitting down to write and having my words fall flat.
They will come, though. Stories have a way of worming themselves out of solid wood. There are stories of how I started longing for a historic expression of the Christian faith. There are stories of why I began hungering for formative and mystical spiritual practices, especially sacraments. There are stories of my heart coming alive at the thought of the Church living in unity as it works towards the reconciliation of all things.
But, today, you’ll have to be ok with just knowing that I’ve been ordained an Anglican priest with the Communion of Evangelical Episcopal Churches. And that at this moment, that is what faithfulness looks like for me.
But we can’t completely get rid of the journey metaphor can we? It’s especially helpful to describe a common path. So let me extend an invitation to you to join me in whatever metaphor you may find helpful. A tree? Then come root next to me in Christ’s garden. A journey? Then come be a companion with me as we walk this well-worn path with Christ. And if you are local to Hannibal, you are under a standing invitation to join us for formation and worship every Sunday morning @10AM at The Table.
Grace and peace,
Jared+