Scattered Church...Still...
Author: Fr. John Borrego
July 06, 2020
Dear Parish Family,
These days, I drive back and forth from my home in Guthrie to St. John’s about once a week or so. I know this stretch of Interstate 35 very well. I pull onto the highway, and soon I am passing the Edmond exits. Then the Kilpatrick and Turner Turnpikes. The northwest Oklahoma City suburbs, downtown, I-44 and I-40, south OKC, I-240, Moore, the first road signs for Norman, and finally, Main Street, where I leave the highway to head for St. John’s. Then, a few hours later, the same thing in reverse.
Especially if I am tired headed home, I tick off the waypoints. NW 23rd. Wilshire. Memorial Road. Waterloo. Not much further.This is how we, living in the world of thought we have inherited from European civilization, think of time. We move forward into the future, as on a highway. The past is behind us, like all of those numbered exits we have passed.
The Hebrew thought world was very different. The past was in front of you.You could see it. You could examine it and learn from it. You could know and understand it. It was the future that was behind you. It was invisible, unknowable. You could only guess at what might be waiting in that dark and unseen region. There were no maps, no guides. You could only wait until it came into view.
So—here we are as a parish community. We cannot know, at least in any detail, what future lies “behind” us. We had hoped to begin gathering for worship next Sunday. That is not to be. We move forward, as best we know how, in a search for a new rector, but the detailed plans of a few months ago are derailed.
Yet we move into this mysterious darkness in the faith of “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). We hold each other up, even as we are apart. We unite in the bonds of Christ’s overwhelmingly love that we share.
Back to the Future. We’ll get there.
The Rev. John Borrego
Priest at St. John’s
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