Today I just want to encourage someone to stick around.

21 years ago tonight, on the first Tuesday in August, I went to an evening service at a church I had never attended because a music group I liked was singing there. And I didn’t even know they were going to be there. My Mom found out, worked sneakily behind the scenes, and came down from Vermont to orchestrate a surprise. They were visitors from Tennessee. And they went back to Tennessee.

I didn’t know much about the church. I didn’t come for the teaching. I didn’t come for the worship. I came for an appointed event.

And in doing so I walked into a Divine appointment.

I walked into a Divine assignment.

And this morning, I had the privilege of praying with 800 people on a call I hosted at this church where I have snow erved for 20 years, and worked on the clergy staff for 12. It’s where I met my wife, and some of my most prized mentors and faithful friends.

I get to team with gifted, committed people I’ve done life with. We have prayed and worshipped together. We have learned and served together. We have rejoiced and mourned together.

And all of that happened because I chose to show up. And I choose to keep showing up when facing discomfort, alienation, hostility or betrayal.

It also happened because I chose to care about someone other than myself, which is one definition of perfect love – the desire to benefit the other at the expense of self. Love is sacrificial. It’s not self-destructive, but it isn’t self serving.

The place where churches, marriages, friendships, organizations, and even nations fail is where we start asking “what’s in it for me?” We fail when we are more concerned with asserting our rights than being righteous. We fail when we fall on the wrong side of John Kennedy’s challenge “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.” We fail when we insist on policing someone else’s identity rather than hearing and learning from their story, and, if necessary, asking God for the grace to love them. When I prioritize my comfort over your survival, I have failed. When I assert that The Way Things Used to Be is how they should be now, because I remember them fondly, I have failed.

The past may have been good for you but terrible for someone else. Your Glory Days might be someone else’s trauma. Your disappointing present may be someone else’s life.

You don’t get to vote your little sister out of the family just because you were happier before she was born.

Community demands concession and compromise. It requires arbitration and reconciliation. The idea that we can continue splitting off from everyone else until we create one small group where everyone agrees is a destructive fantasy.

Community obligates us to seek the greater good, even when it’s scary – even when it hurts. I have chosen to stick my neck out for people I loved. I have chosen to work for someone else’s benefit at my own expense, and work on myself to become a better friend and greater asset to those in need.

And I am still a Holy mess. And I am still working on me. And I am still showing up.

I didn’t join the perfect community. I joined the Beloved Community, Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.’s concept of “a society where ‘caring and compassion drive policies that support the worldwide elimination of poverty and hunger, and all forms of bigotry and violence.”[1]

It’s an ideal, a standard we fail constantly but nonetheless relentlessly pursue.

I didn’t find perfect people, and they didn’t find perfection in me. We never do.

It’s true in church and a workplace.

It’s true in a marriage and among friends.

On social media, I see a lot of airing of grievance. We present our arguments and justifications for bailing on people who have mistreated us. This is why we are justified in leaving a church, or a job, or a marriage. This is why we are right, and everyone else is wrong. We are the heroes, or the victims, but never the villains. Psychologists describe this as a symptom of Narcissism. For most of us, it’s just a Tuesday.[2]

And the mistreatment we experience is often real.

And we are often justified in moving.

And sometimes you should. No titles excuse abuse.

I just pray that in every moment you are inclined to bail, you hear God. Not guilt. Not manipulation. I pray you hear God. And I pray you do what He says.

(Photo Credit: Luis Quintero)

[1] “Beloved Community Teach-In,” The King Center, November 28, 2023, https://thekingcenter.org/what....

[2] “Narcissism and the Hero and Victim Complex,” Psychology Today, accessed August 6, 2024, https://www.psychologytoday.co....