January Newsletter Article
We’re all familiar with the practice of New Year’s resolutions where we try to identify the habits that could improve our lives: exercise more, eat healthier food, stick to our budget, stay organized, etc. I know many people who make these sorts of resolutions. But the old trope is that it is hard to stick to these resolutions. Maybe we aim our resolutions too high or maybe we lack the willpower. But how often do we joke about our treadmill becoming a clothes rack, our healthy green smoothies giving way to donuts, our budget buckling under retail therapy or clutter reclaiming our space. Setbacks feel like failures and we look for reasons that we never really needed our New Year’s resolutions in the first place.
Recently someone approached me about the invitation to communion I started using here on Sundays. “This is the table of the Lord. It is made ready for those who love him and those who want to love him more. So come, you who have much faith and you who have little; you who have been here often and you who have never been before; you who have tried to follow Jesus and you who have failed. Come, for it is the Lord who invites you. And it is his will to meet you here.” This is not a prayer I wrote but one I first heard when visiting my parents at their church. And that priest found it in the prayer book for the religious community of Iona based out of Scotland. Everyone who’s said anything to me about this prayer has loved it so when this person approached me, I expected more of that praise.
But I didn’t get more of that praise in this conversation. “Can we change it? I don’t like the part about failure. It’s a little harsh.” I felt conflicted. On one hand, I don’t like changing prayers written by people who know better than I do. The Scottish monastics who wrote these prayers were careful and deliberate in their word choice. On the other hand, she wasn’t wrong... it is harsh. Failing is harsh and being reminded of it right before I’m supposed to receive the sustenance for my Christian journey can feel like a bit of a put down.
I forget how exactly I responded in that conversation but I can write here with a little more thought how I want to respond. Let’s keep the prayer as it is. I think God tolerates failure a lot more than our culture does, and keeping the word ‘fail’ in that prayer might help us remember that. I want to keep ‘fail’ in our prayers because failing is a part of our human condition, not a sign that something is wrong with us. Every failure is a sign that we tried and that is what God is calling us to do: try and try again, and hopefully (maybe?) learn a lesson or two along the way. Divorce, bankruptcy, addiction, missed deadlines, diagnosis, etc. None of these lessen God’s embrace of us. God isn’t surprised when we fail; why should we be?
If you made a New Year’s resolution this year, great. If you’ve already broken it, that’s great, too. But I hope throughout all of the year, we hold fast to the promise that there is nothing we could do to make God love us more and nothing we could do to make God love us less.
( I write about this conversation with permission. Never worry that a conversation with your priest will unexpectedly make it into publication.)
