In seminary, people frequently groused about the fact that no one really teaches you to do the sacraments. (For Presbyterians, the sacraments are baptism and communion. Everything else is really nice, but not a sacrament.) We read about them and talked about them exhaustively, but there's no required class in which you physically stand at the font or table and pour water or break bread. Nine times out of ten, the first time you do these things, these hugely significant moments in the Christian life, you're going to be doing them in front of a congregation who has just hired you and is watching you like a hawk to see how you do.
Jitter-inducing.
Fortunately, this summer I have a wonderfully intelligent and indulgent mentor-friend-boss, whose wisdom and patience and capacity for making me feel brilliant has led me to think of a trillion questions I didn't know I had. Last week, I timidly asked her, "Can you teach me to do the sacraments? Can we practice?" She immediately made me feel that this was the most strikingly original genius suggestion anyone's ever made, that we can actually practice something fundamentally important in our faith, something that lies at the heart of our most sacred worship, and that perhaps might be important to, I don't know, not botch the first time I do it for real. As I mentioned, she is intelligent and indulgent and patient, and a fabulous teacher.
So today, I practiced the sacraments. I took the Book of Common Worship and she took her plate of corn chips (her lunch) and we went to the sanctuary. We didn't turn on the lights because the afternoon light was pretty, and because it made it feel less formal. I needed that reminder, because:
this was one of the biggest moments of my life.
Wasn't really expecting the emotional oomph. Even in the half-light, with my boss-friend dropping chips on the floor when she wasn't chomping on them, me reading straight from the book, and both of us cracking up because I unintentionally sounded like a yenta ("Take! Eat!"), I still had trouble breathing and not crying. Taking the last few steps until I was standing in The Spot behind the table was almost like walking in slow motion. My boss-friend suggested that I might not want to stand with my weight on one leg, hip thrust out, because, you know, the minister is supposed to embody the priestly role of the church and Christ's incarnation and lead the congregation in reverent worship, and my body language was perhaps less reverent and more punk rock, but that's what I needed to do.
You see, for the past six years I've been looking forward to two moments: the first time I preside at the communion table, and the first time I baptize someone. Those images are my constants. I'm grateful grateful grateful to have had today's practice, but it wasn't real. I said the words (my boss-friend was amazed when I said it was the first time I'd ever even read them out loud; hearing them in my own voice was freaky) but held something back. For when it's real.
Those words.
Even when I pretended to baptize a baby, christened with her dog's name, those words still made me shaky. "How did you feel?" boss-friend asked afterward. I had to think about it for a minute. Overwhelmed. Awed. Nostalgic for my childhood pastor. Unworthy. Humbled. Joyful. A little sad -- I really want to talk to my grandparents and my aunt about this. I think they'd be proud.
Next big thing! I'm teaching a Bible study this summer using Walter Wink's approach, which is less about me standing up and lecturing, and more about the participants talking together and understanding a given scriptural passage with their combined experience and wisdom and embodiedness and critical skill and searching for personal and corporate transformation, which trust me when I say that it's a heck of a lot harder to write a lesson plan for this approach than it is for a lecture.
And yet, it works. I stress and fret and lose sleep, and then something beautiful happens, and the conversation actually evinces tiny bud-like transformations. Those shining pops of illumination and reconciliation, seeing the excitement in everyone's faces, hearing them ask at the end of the class "What are we doing next week?" and then go "Oooooh!" when I tell them, and thinking, "Wow, they're this excited about the Bible, some of them for the first time"...well, it's the reason I'm still awake at almost 2 a.m. The adrenaline. Seriously, they should market this stuff. What's amazing is the transition from last night, when I went to bed in a fit of despair over this whole delusion that I could possibly be a teacher in the church, to tonight, when I felt the Spirit kindly take over, and I remembered for the millionth time that it's not about me.
Six days out of seven, I am unconvinced that the payoff is worth the angst. But tonight, as day seven winds down, I say, it's totally worth it.
The final big thing! I've lived here for how long now? Nine weeks? And I just now found where they keep the wine glasses. And smack me down, they've got pretty glasses for beer too!