Rev. John Branson's Weekly Encouragement for August 25th

Over time I have drawn much wisdom and inspiration from my favorite novelist, poet and essayist, Wendell Berry. As the author of more than 50 books, he is well-known by farmers in his native Kentucky, as well as conservationists, poets, and those who relish ripping-good stories chock-full of characters who remind us of our glories and our failures.

In his novel, Jayber Crow: The Life Story of Jayber Crow, Barber, of the Port William Membership as Written by Himself, Jayber is a one-time divinity student who wrestles with life’s big questions. Frustrated with seminary, not finding answers to his big questions, Jayber moves to a very small community on the Ohio River where he opens a barber shop in an abandoned building. Through the years and lives of the townspeople, Jayber finds his purpose and ministry as listener, keeper of stories and secrets, and confidant. He speaks of community this way:

My vision of the church…..had been replaced by a vision of the gathered community. What I saw now was the community imperfect and irresolute but held together by the frayed and always fraying, incomplete and yet ever-holding bonds of the various sorts of affection.….It was a community always disappointed in itself, disappointing it members, always trying to contain its divisions and gentle in its meanness, always failing and yet always preserving a sort of will toward goodwill. I knew that, in the midst of all the ignorance and error, this was a membership; ….the community must always be marred by members who are indifferent to it or against it, who are nonetheless its members and maybe nonetheless essential to it. And yet I saw them all as somehow perfected, beyond time, by one another’s love, compassion, and forgiveness as it is said we may be perfected by grace.

Emmanuel approaches its Annual Meeting, a zoom gathering, this Sunday at 7pm.We hope all who call Emmanuel one of their spiritual homes, will attend and participate. Annual church meetings, in my experience, can be a bit raucous, (where did you say you gave away our money!?) and sometimes dull and boring, (we’ve heard all of this for so many years) and also can be meaningful for the keen, the curious, and the hope-full.

This summer has been like no other in Emmanuel’s history (though it would be interesting to learn more about Emmanuel during the pandemic of 1918, WWI, as well as WWII.) Because of technology, we have been able to offer worship and Bible study “on-line” for those interested since we have been discouraged from meeting in person due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

As the only summer chapel in the Diocese of New Hampshire to do “streaming” worship and Bible study in 2020, we have taken a big leap of faith. Blessed by the skills and expertise of Gideon Pollach, your July priest at Emmanuel, as well as the enthusiasm of your Wardens and Managing Committee, as well as others who have produced this “streaming church,” we have tumbled through these summer Sundays and will conclude the Sunday of Labor Day weekend. It has not been easy and smooth, and not everyone who claims Emmanuel as their spiritual home has been happy or even gratified by this effort. It has required considerable patience and persistence, as well as the willingness to “bear all things, hope all things, endure all things” as the Apostle Paul suggests.

I, personally, would like to uphold the effort and laud all who have stuck with it, even with its disappointments (what, we can’t even go in the church!?) (I have to get a zoom thing, what’s that?) (why are we doing all this poetry which I cannot understand), etc. etc.

In the course of my 46 years of ordained ministry, I have been part of many churches. Since first reading Wendell Berry, I have found his work deeply nurturing in the sense that he tells of many different persons and characters all who have a role in their community. For years, I have claimed this passage from Jayber Crow as a great telling of parish ministry, especially the role of the church as a source of hope and promise, and a source of frustration and disappointment to the wider community. I have used it as the cover of the Annual Report for the Annual Parish Meeting believing that Jayber says more about the ups and downs of church and the ins and outs of its members than I ever could by all my preaching, praying and pestering.

We are imperfect, and sometimes quite irresolute; we are disappointed with ourselves and with one another; we know only too well that we are often fraying, and often failing, and that we often can’t contain our meanness towards God especially and sometimes toward one another. And yet. And yet, there is underneath and over us and in us a will towards goodwill; there is a knowing that this is a membership and that everyone—absolutely everyone is welcome and by our presence and prayers, and especially of course by the grace and goodness, the forgiveness and the mercies of God, we are redeemed, restored, perfected and made whole by the mercies and goodness we extend to one another through the love of God poured out for us in Jesus. This is membership. This is Emmanuel. Thanks be to God for all that we are and all that we are becoming in Christ Jesus!