A reflection written for St. Simon’s Episcopal Church, Arlington Heights, IL
How do you feel about surprises? Do you welcome them? Or maybe, like many of us, you welcome the “good” ones but not the “bad” ones. The thing with surprises, though, is that we don’t really get to choose which ones we want and which ones we don’t. Surprises just happen.
Twenty-three years ago, I traveled to Valparaiso, Indiana for a weekend event related to a scholarship I had received. While I was there, I took the opportunity to meet in-person a man named Steve whom I had met online via Yahoo Personals. We went on our first date, had dinner, and talked for hours. The connection we made online and through phone calls became much deeper when we met in-person. Imagine my surprise when, as I was traveling home a few days later, we talked on the phone, and he told me he loved me and asked me to marry him. I was only 17! What a surprise it was to be asked this question! It turned out to be a wonderful surprise, though, as I said yes, and we are still, with God’s help, together all these years later. And I still find myself surprised to be married, because I never expected as a young gay man in the early 2000s that marriage would ever be in my future.
Maybe the point of this story is this: when you open yourself to relationship, expect to be surprised.
In the psychoanalytic traditions of psychology there has emerged a concept called the “analytic third.” Highly simplified, this concept refers to how, in the relationship between a therapist and their client, a sort of third presence can emerge, and that presence can be a source of healing for the client. I can’t imagine that anyone goes into therapy expecting this or even seeking it out – it is often a surprise when healing comes about through something that seems to be “other” than the conversation that the two people have at their therapy sessions. This mysterious and surprising “analytic third” only comes about, though, in the deepening of the relationship, the connection between the two people present in the therapy sessions.
A important part of the new ministry we are embarking on together at St. Simon’s involves building connections and relationship with those in our community- those “outside the walls” of our congregation. When we think about the people in the community surrounding the church, we often think in terms of outreach, asking questions like “what can we do for those people?” As we begin to open ourselves to new ways of being in ministry with our community, I invite us to ask this question:
“How can we be in relationship with the community around us?”
Because when we open ourselves, our congregation, to relationship, we should expect to be surprised. When we begin with relationship, we are already creating open space for something new and surprising to emerge, something mutual, something life-giving to both our neighbors and our congregation. What surprising new partnerships might emerge as we begin to be in deeper relationship with our community?
The meal that we share together each Sunday- the Eucharist- invites into new and surprising ways of being with our community, recognizing that God is already present there. As we pray in Eucharistic Prayer C from the Book of Common Prayer, "...open our eyes to see your hand at work in the world about us." And as we will sing in a hymn in a couple of Sundays:
“Bring your joy and bring your sadness, and prepare to be surprised by the host whose hands are wounded, who will open wide your eyes when he blesses bread and breaks it—truth and manna from above!— and then passes wine that wakens in your heart the taste of love.” (Thomas H. Troeger, b. 1945 © 2002 Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. Used by permission.)