The day I said that I was sad
I told my church that I was sad.
Right in the middle of my sermon.
The “why,” matters (a botched murder by the state, a bus crash, and a livestreamed murder by the state as well) and I think you might be feeling that way as well.
But I shared with my congregation that I had been big sad not just because I wanted them to know who I am and how I feel. I didn’t even share about my sadness to get some sympathy.
I shared my big sad because of the way that I initially responded to those big feelings. Normally I respond with a Great Big Donut™️ or a bad attitude. This time I definitely dabbled in a bad attitude, but I also decided to try something that I knew would work a little bit better, even better than a donut.
I decided to use a means of grace.
In the United Methodist tradition we often talk about means of grace. When we talk about means of grace, we are talking about spiritual practices that ground us in our faith but also practices that pull us into a connection with other people in our community. Means of grace (even when done on our own) make it impossible for us to isolate and fester in our pain. They require us to connect with other people and they allow us to commune with a God who loves us.
Some means of grace are the sacraments. For us as United Methodists that’s Communion and Baptism. At church we baptized three friends and all of us who have already been baptized remembered our baptism. And then, like every other Sunday, we celebrated communion.
Sacraments are a great means of grace because we literally do an impression of Jesus. We pantomime the things Jesus did while he was on earth and in that way, we remember and emulate him in this life. Sacraments are a great means of grace.
But there are other means of grace as well:
Reading Scripture
Silence
Prayer
Fasting
Confession
Service to others
Basically anything that allows you to address your pain without running from it and pushes you into either community with someone else or communion with God can be a great means of grace.
I was sad and I didn’t know what to do. I was sad at a world that felt out of control and off the rails and I felt overcome with the feeling that it was up to me to put everything back together and that just made me more sad and what in the world could I do?
And so I practiced confession.
I reached out to some friends and confessed that I was sad (don’t get distracted, I confessed here… not like I did something wrong, but rather to get something off of my chest) and asked them to pray for me. This is what confession can be. “Hey, I can’t do this on my own. Would you please help me?” and then trusting someone else to follow through.
And my friends followed through. Nothing changed right away. I stayed sad. I am still pretty sad. But I am less sad than I was.
But I told my church I was sad. I told them that I needed help. And I hope that they heard me.
Because I think the church has outsourced solution and imported blame.
I think the church has convinced people that when they need help it is up to the individual and when there is no solution to be found… once again the culprit is also the individual.
But what would it look like for the church to instead offer means of grace to help us move through this life less afraid and less alone. What would it look like for the church to prescribe these mystical (and not magical) means of grace to solve the pains of our lives. Now to be clear: mental health counselors and other health care providers are vital (if you can make the chemicals your brain needs then store bought is fine) but what if our spiritual lives stopped being performative and started being about solutions?
I’m glad I told my church that I was sad. I am glad I told some friends. I am glad that none of us need to feel like we are doing this on our own.
