Sometimes the call is faint, a distant chime across the water. Other times, it rings out a deafening tone. It never stops calling until someone, somewhere, picks up. Shouting across the battlefield…to safety, to hope, to home. Sometimes it comes softly with a palm-covered whisper, lover to lover. Like a whistle from dad’s pursed lips, calling me in for dinner, as loud as a steam train.
The young rabbi heard that call.* Pulling at the seams of everything that people thought was fitting, a fight would soon be on his hands. A desire was born to move away from a tired old model. Keepers of institutions aren’t keen on change. A chord was struck, and the sound echoed his desperate call. Shoulder to shoulder we should be. Safe houses were needed, places where everyone belonged. A great movement was born.
The young couple, Gordon and Mary Cosby, heard that same sound. As a chaplain in the greatest European battles of World War II, Gordon saw in his congregated soldiers, a loss of faith in the time of their greatest need. It wasn’t the soldiers’ fault. The church was to blame. Praying over so many, alive and dead, he bore witness. He resonated with that mournful call. In his letters to Mary, he described what he saw at the edge of his vision: vibrant communities sharing leadership, each given authority at the point of their gifts. Everyone’s role mattered, just like it did on the battlefield. There would be no passengers, only crew members.
The young pastor sat in the back of the seminary classroom, daydreaming. It was thirty years ago this fall. Awakening to the professor introducing The Church of the Saviour, an alternative church model, I turned to my closest friend and said, “That’s me.” I would soon come and sing my life, toll my bell, holding that resonate chord. With the string pulled tight against the can, I could hear the call as loud as a steam train, a distant chime across the water.
Exultant Joy
December 21, 2024
