This week our staff spent time at Mallard’s Croft in Byhalia, living into the vision of St. Patrick and dreaming of what’s next. We stayed in the 100-year-old manor house, laughing, praying, cooking, pondering, and feasting together. This retreat is a tradition we started several years ago as a way of celebrating the past year and strategically looking ahead at how to best accomplish our goals. It can be easy for anyone to forget how rare and special their situation is, so these opportunities to stop and savor together are a precious remembering that leads to greater unity and hunger for more and better. I have to say, we are having a blast saturating our neighborhoods with feasting families who tell a better story by setting tables of God’s grace for the lonely.
In light of both the previous and coming sermon series, we began our time together considering the first verse of Habakkuk. No one knows much about Habakkuk the prophet outside of the “oracle” he saw. Sounds a bit like science fiction, right? Actually, “oracle” is a weird translation: “burden” is how King James puts it, and that’s closer to how the word was used. Habakkuk was deeply concerned about the lack of justice he saw and even more upset by the means God was using to bring it about. And he was letting the Lord hear about it!
I think we all know what it’s like to carry a burden. Rarely do we have the option to lay it down, and the weight of it begins to shape the way we see the whole world. Moses was burdened when he saw the Hebrews enslaved to the point that it completely defined the rest of his life. The plight of the poor in India pressed down upon Mother Teresa till she had to leave Albania forever and live among them instead. Habakkuk brought his own burden, the one he shared with and for the people of Israel, to the Lord in prayer. In fact, it was only in laying it before the Almighty God that Habakkuk found the strength to carry his burden at all.
So, I hope we’ll see you this weekend, and if you don’t mind, please consider parking on the far east side of the lot this weekend so we can intentionally leave spots for those seeking a seat at the table!
- js