Log Removal

We jog through the nearly empty sanctuary between services, and an older gentleman I've never met stops them just in front of me with a chiding glance.
"This is a church. Be respectful."

Walk. He means. Don't run. Don't jog. Don't disturb the peace.

And, I bite back the theological snark that wants to spring to my lips.

'No, sir.' I want to pull the boys beside me and quietly explain. 'This is a building. These are the church. You are the church.'

'Seven days a week, the church that is in these boys runs and jumps and shouts, the way that you did when you were ten and thirteen. These are the church. Honor them the way that they are trying too honor you.'

Because, I know these boys. See them differently than a stranger ever would. I know the speed that they could be moving and the screams that could be coming from their throats. I hear their silence and see the smooth jog through empty spaces where there is no one to be disturbed. And, I see the way that they are making decisions right now. Decisions about you and the Jesus that you represent.

Because, I am hoping and praying that, even as we slow to a walk, they understand.

Understand that these halls are theirs as much as they are yours. That they have a place here and a right to be seen. A right to be honored just as they have a right to honor.

Hoping for an understanding and a response that is beyond their years.

That they will be humble and responsive, and all of the things that children are meant to be to adults, but that their hearts will whisper truth despite it. That they have seen church done, been a part of community enough times, to know what to do.

Hoping that I will know what to do.

"But wisdom that comes from above is first of all peaceable, gentle, willing to yield."

One of the verses that I sent home with my fifth graders echoes through my head as we slip through a shortcut, grab what we came for, and head back.

And, I can't judge him too much, this gentleman who probably came to church this morning planning to love Jesus Style but didn't quite get it right.

Didn't get it quite right, like my boys who walk halfway through the sanctuary on the way back and then burst into a jog that is part respect for my time and part defiant snark.

Like me, when the boys leave something out of place, and, rather than pick it up for them or with them, I call them out and back up the request with a threat that I never intend to keep. Or, when one of them complies, and I respond to the other with biting sarcasm.

Because, there is this log in my own eye that I need to clear before I can begin to complain about the speck in his. This lie that says that I can will them into acting "right." Bully them into being less afraid. Shame them into living like they know they are loved.

"If you can't be responsible," my words press down on all of the vulnerable spots of this kid who is only trying to use me as a safety net, "then we won't be able to do this again."

And, it sounds like a natural consequence, but it isn't. I'm not retracting a privilege. I'm retracting my presence.

Doing this so not like Jesus that it is nonsense. Absolute nonsense.

They are thirteen. Not thirty. Learning. Not perfect. Messy. Anxious. Swamped in the uncertainty of middle school. Fighting to trust.

We're here because something feels off kilter in their worlds. Because, since they were tiny little kindergarteners, we have operated under the assumption that their behaviors meant something. That they didn't just wake up this morning with a devious plan to drag me along as they gave a random stranger conniption fits.

We're here because they woke up this morning needing five extra minutes of my time.

Here because I needed Light to shine into my own soul and expose the dark, messy spaces. Needed to walk down these quiet steps, reach into my own eye, and yank.

 "The eye is the lamp of the body. You draw light into your body through your eyes, and light shines out to the world through your eyes. So if your eye is well and shows you what is true, then your whole body will be filled with light."
Matthew 6:22