More Than We Can Handle

Christ Church Charlotte

More Than We Can Handle

January 10, 2024 • The Reverend Allen Pruitt

When I was in college, I worked at the Etowah Skate and Tennis Center in Rome, Georgia. “Skate and tennis?” you might ask. How on earth did those two things go together? How did teenagers on skateboards coexist with adults of all ages playing tennis? It was just as chaotic as it sounds.

A favorite story happened when a 14-year-old skateboarder went to grab an errant tennis ball. He had every intention of throwing it back over the fence, but only after asking the 50-year-old judge’s wife for a cigarette. Contradictions abounded. Conflicts ensued. My goal was simply to keep tensions from boiling over.

This is the time of year when many of us are trying to identify and eliminate conflicts in our lives. I need to get healthy – start an exercise routine. We need to manage our money better – let’s work out a new family budget. We fail at a great many of those attempts, not because they are too difficult: we see people accomplishing them all the time. We ourselves accomplish difficult things all the time. We fail at a great many of those attempts because we prioritize something else, because there is some secret value we hold more dear. And that doesn’t always have to be something evil. I may proclaim a well-worn desire to be physically healthy, but really I value leisure and rest and quiet.

Our values are in conflict. Sometimes those really are conflicts between good and evil, but often they are conflicts between fine and good, between good and better, or between two perfectly reasonable alternatives. You might sit down to read the Bible, only to wake up from an accidental nap 43 minutes later. Thanks Be to God!

This time of year (or perhaps all year long), wisdom might consist of realizing that we will never eliminate those conflicts. It’s not that we are making bad choices or that we aren’t working hard enough – it’s that life is not a problem to be solved. We really do have more than we can handle.

But then, so did Jesus.

I recently read a poetic essay by local Charlotte musician Andy Squyres. He asked us to imagine Jesus carrying his cross to Calvary. Can you imagine Christ on the Via Dolorosa, feeling all the despair and pain of betrayal and then looking up and seeing one of his disciples holding up a Hobby Lobby sign that says “God will never give you more than you can handle?”

God gives us all more than we can handle. If you don’t have a handle on your life, it may not be a matter of failure, it’s likely a matter of being alive. And Thanks Be to God for that! What God gives us is not simple idioms or easy answers, but endless grace. God gives us more grace than we can handle, enough grace for our broken lives and for all the inner turmoil and all the conflicts we can’t resolve with a new routine or a better budget for our money or our time.

You will never eliminate every conflict in your life – no matter how hard you try. You will also never eliminate the grace of God from your life – no matter how many times you try to save yourself, give up on yourself, or serve only yourself.

We may run out of steam on our resolutions. We may run out of energy. We may run out of time. We may run out of life – the cross proves that even God can die. What will never run out is the grace of God. And Thanks Be to God for that!

Hope in the Face of Despair

May 1, 2024 • The Reverend Connor Gwin

When I was in seminary, I stumbled on poetry. I had read poetry in school, of course, when I was forced to dissect poems in my English classes like an embalmed frog, certain that there was a meaning hidden somewhere between the words. I really met poetry, or fell into poetry, when my life fell apart. I was following the call of God to ordained ministry in seminary when the pilings that kept me afloat started to wobble. In quick succession, I recognized my powerlessness over alcohol, got sober in a twelve-step group, and my father was diagnosed with Stage IV cancer that killed him within a year. Suddenly I had no place in my life (or soul) for prose – for long-winded theories of theology or well-meaning but empty platitudes stitched onto greeting cards or pillows. In the rubble, I met Christian Wiman. I didn’t start with his poetry, but his poetic memoir called My Bright Abyss. In beautiful prose he recounts growing up in a fundamentalist Christian family in West Texas, becoming an “ambivalent atheist” at Washington and Lee University, and deciding to become a poet. His story turned when he met his wife (great love) and was diagnosed with an incurable form of blood cancer (great suffering). Suddenly, the waves of his life thrust him upon the rocks of his Christian faith. A different faith than he was raised with, to be sure, but a durable faith that held him while his world fell apart. Wiman has survived his incurable cancer for almost twenty-years. He has found himself in his death bed three times and yet now is in remission. He has written many books of poetry that I have come to love, and a new book about hope in the face of despair called Zero at the Bone: Fifty Entries Against Despair. His is not a platitude-filled faith. He lives with gritty hope and faith amid despair and the shadow of death. He writes this, “Faith steals upon you like dew: some days you wake and it is there. And like dew, it gets burned off in the rising sun of anxieties, ambitions, distractions.”

Celebrate the Knowing

April 24, 2024

Throughout the year, each member of the Christ Church staff begins our weekly staff meeting with a devotion. It is my honor to share this recent devotion written by Financial Assistant Sandy Dyer. May your knowing guide you in faith, strengthen you in hope, and fill you with boundless love for God and neighbor. Have you ever been haunted by a Bible verse? I thought a lot about using a different word. Maybe “pursued.” It did not seem right to use the word “haunted,” but a few months ago The Reverend Connor Gwin used it in reference to someone’s commentary on the Bible, so I thought, “oh I’m good.” Many of us are familiar with the first half of 1 Corinthians 13 that explains what love is. It’s long been associated with marriage ceremonies: “Love is patient, love is kind, it is not easily angered…” When I read it, I tend to associate it with how Jesus loves me. Mainly because my love fails all the time. The love mentioned here never fails. Jesus’ love is complete. As I’ve meditated on these verses over the years to encourage myself, I’ve tended to gloss over the second half of 1 Corinthians 13. Here’s where the haunting comes in. The second half of 1 Corinthians 13 has come to mind many times over the past nine months. (I’m a slow learner.) I know what it says. I remember the words, but I’ve only sat down and read them twice because when I do, they seem to overwhelm my spirit to the point where tears start streaming from my eyes. It’s weird – I’m not crying. It’s not emotional, but it’s doing something to my heart, mind, and soul. When it started, I would resist it. But I’ve learned to let the waterworks flow and rest in them letting the Word do its work. Even thinking about taking the time to think about these verses overwhelms me. It’s healing and painful in a unique way that I cannot understand or explain. So, if you’ve seen me with red eyes looking distraught the past few months, I’ve probably been thinking about these words (or trying not to think about them): “For we know in part, and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears… For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.” What is hitting hard is the idea that when completeness comes, I will be fully known. I will see fully and know fully. Currently I see myself as in a mirror. It’s a reflection. Not a true representation of myself. It’s close, but not all there is. I’m not sure if the completeness it speaks of is Jesus returning and then we can fully know all the mysteries of love, or if this is an invitation to be open to being fully known by God. I do know the process isn’t enjoyable. It’s uncomfortable. It’s painful love, not warm fuzzy love. Recently, I traveled to Michigan to be with and help my mom recover from spine surgery. She had an overgrowth of bone removed and two screws put in her spine to alleviate constant nerve pain. After the surgery, the doctor reported the surgery could not have gone better and told us something strange. “Your mom has had a spinal birthmark all her life.” Nobody knew. She had no idea; we had no idea. The doctor had no idea until he performed the surgery. But God knew. God knows us fully. Healing can be scary and painful because sometimes it requires surgery. I’m not 100% sure what surgery the Holy Spirit is performing on me through 1 Corinthians 13, but He knows. As far as I can tell I’m working through a longing to fully see God and be seen by him, to fully know God and to be fully known by him. To know his full love for me and to fully love him right back. I think what draws people to Christ Church is that here they feel fully seen, fully known, and fully loved. Whether it’s our neighbors visiting during Room in the Inn, the kids in CCK, people making a purchase in the GoodNews Shop, attending one of the many services, listening to the amazing music, or even visiting while attending a funeral: people feel fully loved here. I am grateful to be part of a church that is transforming hearts.

Practice Looking for the Miracle

April 10, 2024 • The Reverend Allen Pruitt

“This mornin’ a miracle happened as promised: the rising of the world’s closest star.” - Willi Carlisle We always have a choice: embrace life as a gift, a miracle, a wondrous cacophony of things that could have gone differently but instead brought us to this moment – OR – start checking emails in the middle of an eclipse. I went home Monday afternoon just in time to pass a pair of eclipse glasses back and forth with my wife. We didn’t make the trek a few hundred miles north and west to see the totality. Perhaps that will come in 20 years or maybe we’ll make our way to Australia in 2028. People tell me that being in the path of totality is a spiritual experience, but I’ve got to say that 82% was pretty remarkable. It’s a strange thing to realize just how far the light of the sun reaches and the warmth it provides from such a distance. Looking up through those black shades, nothing is visible, only darkness, until your gaze turns to the sun. It’s then that I began to understand how light from our nearest star appears in shady glens, even when the sunset has taken it just below the horizon. That the underside of every leaf is visible sometime during the day because of a burning ball of gas some 93 million miles away. Miraculous. We always have a choice: take all of that warmth and light for granted or soak it in and give thanks. Now is a particularly good time to give thanks for the light and the warmth. Not only has winter passed and the heat of summer not yet come, but we are also in the midst of the Easter season. It’s just a little more than a week since we proclaimed a man rising from the dead! How many times have I thought about that miracle since standing up in church and saying, “Alleluia, Christ is Risen!”??? Christ is risen, whether I think about it or not. Christ is risen and God goes on creating whether we celebrate it or not, whether we acknowledge it or not. We have new life because of who God is, not because of how keenly we keep watch. I don’t have to contemplate the miracle of new life to make it happen. The underside of every leaf is lit by our star whether I look at them or not, but I’m likely to miss it all unless I open my eyes. Which brings me back to checking my emails during an eclipse. After passing the glasses to my wife, I reflexively pulled my phone out of my pocket. After all, it was 3:03 on a Monday afternoon – work needed doing. As I looked down to swipe open the Outlook app, I noticed the shadows from my favorite tree. I put my phone back in my pocket and I watched the dappled light dance across the grass I try to keep alive, and the oakleaf hydrangeas that we planted so the place would feel more like home and the chartreuse anise plants we put alongside them to keep the deer away. I saw a dozen familiar things, but I saw them all in a new light – literally a unique light – a light that will never come across that back yard again. I eventually got to those emails. A few were timely, most were junk. Our work demands our attention, and I am grateful for meaningful work in a good place. What a shame it would have been if I’d spent even a few minutes of that particular afternoon miracle entranced by my email instead of entranced by the dappled light. We always have a choice. Practice looking for the miracle. Now, if I can just start to remember that sending an instantaneous message across any distance and reading it on my phone is also a wonder, then my eyes will be open to every miracle! I’ll let you know if I get there.