The Perfect Church (January, 2003 POL)
Topic: Church, Installation Sunday
Text:
John 2:1-11
One of the most engaging movies I have seen in a long time is "The Perfect Storm". It is about a 72 foot swordfish boat, The Andrea Gail, that set out from Gloucester, Massachusetts on the morning of October 23, 1991 in search of big fish. Five days later three massive storm systems collide in the North Atlantic, Hurricane Grace coming from Bermuda, a Great Lakes storm system moving East, and a Canadian cold front moving South, creating waves of up to 100 feet, and turning a powerful storm into a disastrous storm, into what meteorologists call "a perfect storm." The Andrea Gail is caught in the middle of it. The last words from the ship are those of Captain Billy Tyne, "She's coming on boys, and she's coming on strong."
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I had a similar though much reduced experience many years ago when I was still a college student. I went to Hawaii with my parents where my dad was attending a printing and office supplies convention. While there we took a tour boat out to see the Pearl Harbor Memorial, a very moving experience. Down in the water we saw the sunken battle ship U.S.S. Arizona which became a watery tomb for the men caught onboard that infamous day of December 7, 1941.
As we were returning on the boat the waves of the Pacific began to rise. Rain showered down upon us. We were seated in rows out on the bow of the boat, and nearly everyone naturally rushed for cover in the cabin. But, bold venturous explorer that I was in my youth, I went all the way up to the tip of the bow and "Titanic" style, stood grasping the sides of the rail as the boat lurched up and down crashing through the rolling waves. It was a particularly vivid moment as I sensed I was fully alive, fully experiencing all the journey across the waters had to offer.
I felt a bit in common with the famed 19th century naturalist John Muir, who explored much of the Pacific Northwest. Once in 1874 Muir was caught in a fierce storm in the Sierra Mountains. He had just gone to visit a friend in a cabin, snugly set in a valley of those mountains. When the storm moved in Muir was not to be found in the safe tightly caulked cabin. He had instead gone out of the cabin into the storm, climbed a high ridge, and scaled a giant Douglas fir tree from which he could best experience the kaleidoscopic sound, scent and motion of the storm.1
Why raise such storm-tossed images when thinking today of the church? Well because like the perfect storm, the perfect church is not all neatly fixed, flawlessly decorated magnificently complemented by the perfect choir and perfect ushers, perfect ministers and perfect officers. You already realize in one sense, there is no perfect church because there are no perfect people. Whatever perfection a church approaches comes as we learn to rock and reel and navigate through the ups and downs of our imperfect lives learning upon our perfect Lord.