Anything can happen. It always surprises me how quickly things get messy.
I like to run early in the morning, at around 6:00 AM, especially in the summer. It’s quiet, hardly anyone around. I run around downtown first where it’s mostly just me and the homeless, then I go around AU a couple of times.
This past Wednesday it was before 6:30 in the morning, I was running down the sidewalk along River St, and a man, who was not in complete control, was driving a shiny new lawn tractor down the sidewalk, he wasn’t stopping.
I ended up having to back up real quick, step aside, and reach over and stop the tractor. Then I just kept on running, and he kept on driving. It’s Anderson. Anything can happen. Just a normal day.
I grew up being told that I have to share. “Remember to share, Jack!” It means so much more than I ever imagined. Quickly sharing a sidewalk with an out of control lawn tractor at sunrise. I never saw that one coming.
Life is messy. We get in each other’s way. We sabotage ourselves, each other, our church, our country. We have to share life with a mess, sometimes it is ourselves that are a mess, sometimes we make the mess, sometimes someone else does, sometimes it’s just inevitable.
And that will never change. What do we do with this glorious mess? Bless this mess God, bless this glorious mess.
The parable, the harvest of the wheat and the tares, or the wheat and the weeds. It’s a story of sabotage, messing with someone’s wheat field, and it’s a story of living with the mess, of letting God sort it out.
Living with the mess without passing judgement, calling not for damnation, but blessing. May this mess shine like the sun.
Sharing life with all the surprising messes inside our hearts, and in the crazy stories that fill our days.
It’s messy.
What do we about it? That is the lesson. We can’t root out all the imperfections and evils in ourselves, in our lives, in our world. It will only uproot everything else.
The lawn tractor of life is off track and out of control.
How do we share the sidewalk?
I recently found one of my first Bibles that I had Bible studies with in high school. I found a brief scribble in it. Give your life to God. Live a life of love. Give of yourself to others.
I don’t think I can improve upon that. Give your life to God. Live a life of love. Give of yourself to others.
God can and will sort out the mess.
Living in the mess is where I learn to love, where I learn to give, where I find life in God.
Living in the mess is where faith becomes real.
Jesus lives in the mess. That is where the cross is. That is where the resurrection shines like the sun.
Let us pray:
“God, bless this mess.
Show us how to share the sidewalk.
Save us from gnashing teeth.
May we all shine like the sun with you.”
Amen.