Faith Plays in 10,000 Places
My mother and my wife were talking over kitchen matters. I'm not ungrateful for what goes on there. I'm certainly not ungrateful for the fact that the two most important women in my life connect so consistently and so easily. Since both my hands and my interests have been impacted by disability, I tend to readily turn my attention from such conversations, toward my books, and, eventually, toward the next meal that will come from that kitchen.
The scent of their kitchen conversation wafted into my notice, however. They were talking about oven cleaning, and the sweet scent of faith sanctified the burning chemical odor I would typically associate with that effort. Prompted by talk about her own oven rather than by any desire to draw attention to herself, my mother mentioned nearly climbing in to clean the cavernous communal oven her church uses to serve the homeless. I've already been inspired by my mom's willingness to reach across class, and, typically, color, and venture out to serve others. She undertook this step of faith at a time in life when most people are hardening their habits and narrowing their perspective. That is a display of faith. When she reflects on her ministry, her talk of the man who particularly likes peanut butter and who also happens to be homeless flows from a faith-filled, fascinated heart for people rather than a vague noblesse oblige toward a faceless group in need of somebody's help.
But who cleans the oven? There's no earthly glory in that. Nobody beams back instant, individual gratitude for an oven well scrubbed. Such a chore, which most people put off as long as possible in their own homes, will go on serving so many so well, but in such a subtle way, that the effort never gets a second human thought. The benefits of this act of ministry are divided into such small portions that nobody will notice its absence until it hasn't been undertaken for a while. Nobody will notice oven cleaning by faith until, as my mom said, the smell from a dirty oven starts to distract from the sweetness of God's Word taught and received. Who has cleaned the oven by faith for all these years that I've never noticed? Who has sharpened the ax by faith without me knowing it, although I often quote the Ecclesiastes 10:10 maxim that a dull ax makes weary work? Who has stood by night in the house of the Lord, noticed by Him in Psalm 134, but unnoticed by me?
Ready as I am to point to the ponderously convicting, there is encouragement here also. I started Friday as low on faith fuel as any day in recent memory. I couldn't find any joy in explaining my journey, again, to employers or to another adoption agency. No trumpets sounded in the dawning light as I grudgingly got out of bed, driven as much by physiology as faith. They would in the luster of mid-day. By the time the sun reached its zenith, a braver soul than I would say she was challenged by my faith, the same faith so easy to critique and dismiss hours before. This commendation was ironic, I thought, coming from the proprietor of the adoption agency. She was the one with faith, I thought. She was the one who gave energy toward adoption when she already had a job and a family. She was the one, when God blessed her adoption ministry, who was following Him to expand the ministry in ways that involved overhead and payroll, evidence of a very recent move still all around her. Yet, she was challenged by my faith and that of my wife, challenged and ready to say so.
Could this be part of why God places us in community, then, because we are much better at seeing faith as it is expressed in other people? The high priest, after all, was so bedecked according to God's orders in Exodus 28 that the medallion on his turban proclaiming, "Holiness to the Lord" was visible to other people rather than himself. Watching God move in one another's lives in so many varying ways, are we more likely to detect one of the dialects of faith? As we are most aware of where we LACK faith in our perpetual introspection, does putting ourselves around other complementary people help us to see something beyond our own struggle? Where, perhaps, have we by God's grace been so faithful in an inglorious oven-cleaning chore, so long carrying a particular burden that it takes someone else to point out God's work in this? Seeing the power in this individualized affirmation of our part in the whole, it is, to borrow Churchill, our privilege to give the roar when we see faith at work in big and small ways in the lives of others.
The scent of their kitchen conversation wafted into my notice, however. They were talking about oven cleaning, and the sweet scent of faith sanctified the burning chemical odor I would typically associate with that effort. Prompted by talk about her own oven rather than by any desire to draw attention to herself, my mother mentioned nearly climbing in to clean the cavernous communal oven her church uses to serve the homeless. I've already been inspired by my mom's willingness to reach across class, and, typically, color, and venture out to serve others. She undertook this step of faith at a time in life when most people are hardening their habits and narrowing their perspective. That is a display of faith. When she reflects on her ministry, her talk of the man who particularly likes peanut butter and who also happens to be homeless flows from a faith-filled, fascinated heart for people rather than a vague noblesse oblige toward a faceless group in need of somebody's help.
But who cleans the oven? There's no earthly glory in that. Nobody beams back instant, individual gratitude for an oven well scrubbed. Such a chore, which most people put off as long as possible in their own homes, will go on serving so many so well, but in such a subtle way, that the effort never gets a second human thought. The benefits of this act of ministry are divided into such small portions that nobody will notice its absence until it hasn't been undertaken for a while. Nobody will notice oven cleaning by faith until, as my mom said, the smell from a dirty oven starts to distract from the sweetness of God's Word taught and received. Who has cleaned the oven by faith for all these years that I've never noticed? Who has sharpened the ax by faith without me knowing it, although I often quote the Ecclesiastes 10:10 maxim that a dull ax makes weary work? Who has stood by night in the house of the Lord, noticed by Him in Psalm 134, but unnoticed by me?
Ready as I am to point to the ponderously convicting, there is encouragement here also. I started Friday as low on faith fuel as any day in recent memory. I couldn't find any joy in explaining my journey, again, to employers or to another adoption agency. No trumpets sounded in the dawning light as I grudgingly got out of bed, driven as much by physiology as faith. They would in the luster of mid-day. By the time the sun reached its zenith, a braver soul than I would say she was challenged by my faith, the same faith so easy to critique and dismiss hours before. This commendation was ironic, I thought, coming from the proprietor of the adoption agency. She was the one with faith, I thought. She was the one who gave energy toward adoption when she already had a job and a family. She was the one, when God blessed her adoption ministry, who was following Him to expand the ministry in ways that involved overhead and payroll, evidence of a very recent move still all around her. Yet, she was challenged by my faith and that of my wife, challenged and ready to say so.
Could this be part of why God places us in community, then, because we are much better at seeing faith as it is expressed in other people? The high priest, after all, was so bedecked according to God's orders in Exodus 28 that the medallion on his turban proclaiming, "Holiness to the Lord" was visible to other people rather than himself. Watching God move in one another's lives in so many varying ways, are we more likely to detect one of the dialects of faith? As we are most aware of where we LACK faith in our perpetual introspection, does putting ourselves around other complementary people help us to see something beyond our own struggle? Where, perhaps, have we by God's grace been so faithful in an inglorious oven-cleaning chore, so long carrying a particular burden that it takes someone else to point out God's work in this? Seeing the power in this individualized affirmation of our part in the whole, it is, to borrow Churchill, our privilege to give the roar when we see faith at work in big and small ways in the lives of others.
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