At my first church as a pastor, the session organized an effort to reach out to inactive members of the church. Each elder of the session was tasked with delivering loaves of homemade bread to a list of inactive members. I had a few on my own mental list. On a cold December afternoon, I went to the home of one of these inactive members, delivered the bread made by the loving hands of some congregants, and visited with her. It wasn’t long into my visit that she told me with delight that another church member had just been to visit with her earlier that week. The church member who had visited with her was an elder on the session, and it suddenly dawned on me that she was on the other session member’s list. I had made a mistake!
Despite realizing my mistake, I settled in and tried to be totally present with her during my visit. I actually knew her well, and, to be honest, I think that’s part of the reason I had accidentally put her on my “mental list.” While she and her family weren’t active in the church, about a year before my accidental visit, I had started going to their home to pray with her and her husband during his final months living with cancer. Members of the church had displayed an outpouring of support and care for them during that time. It had been an emotionally fraught time for their family, and the church tried to be present with them during their struggle. When he eventually died, I presided at his funeral.
As I sat in her kitchen and talked with her and her daughter, I learned something important. She was selling her house and moving out of the area to be closer to her son. She had been feeling unsure and perplexed about her relationship to the church, because, even though she didn’t see herself as part of the community of faith anymore, the church had been there for her to help her through a difficult time. The church’s outreach had actually helped her to rediscover her faith after her husband’s passing. She wanted to express her gratitude to the church but was feeling ashamed and embarrassed because she hadn’t “been to church” in so long. She didn’t feel like she could repay the church for its kindness and didn’t feel like she had deserved its care. However, the visit from the elder and from me served as a representation of the church’s belief in unconditional love. The church loved her no matter what she did in return. She felt so accepted and embraced by the church and, I would also say, by God. And, for me, here’s the best part — I was there by accident!
I learned a lot about grace, acceptance, and gratitude that day. God’s grace makes effective all our ministry efforts and fills in all the spaces where our efforts fall short. Not only was God able to take my “mistake” and do something meaningful with it, but God was able to teach me something valuable in the process. I think I was particularly more aware of what God was doing in her life, because I was taken aback by my misstep. I was simply trying to maintain my composure, and, in the process, was witnessing something really beautiful happening right in front of me. I saw her experiencing acceptance and responding with gratitude, and I knew that something sacred was happening. Somewhere between me feeling out of control and her feeling embraced, there was a holy space in which God was active. The gospel was taking root. All I had to do was be present in my mistake and observe God’s grace.
