Editor’s note: August 28, 2024, marked the 13th anniversary of Hurricane Irene, a category 3 hurricane that caused severe and extensive destruction in the Caribbean and Eastern United States. When the hurricane hit, Rev. Becky Town and her family lived in Prattsville, New York, and served Prattsville Reformed Church. This year, she acknowledged the anniversary—and the PTSD it brings—by sharing a sermon she wrote eight years ago, on the fifth anniversary of the storm. She shared, “Much of [this sermon] is still true, especially the parts about being called to something new, always hoping in and knowing the resurrection.” That sermon is posted here with permission.
Scripture: 2 Corinthians 5:16-21
When I woke up on this day five years ago, I looked out the bedroom window. I do that every morning—look out on the town green below. So that was no different. What was different was that there was an awful amount of water on the road down at the Huntersfield Creek bridge. And it was swirling around, and it was still raining. It wasn’t long, and we were in the car leaving our home behind. It never occurred to me when we left that when we returned, it would not be the same.
There are a lot of things I regret about that day (given what I know now). I know that our house structure was fine and wish I had stayed longer to move things. I regret that I didn’t stay and get all the Bibles and books and journals and written work out of our office. Since we had just invested in a new TV, I wish we had moved the thing, and the sound system and the DVD’s, and oh, the music. All the music. Sheet music, piano music, recordings of me singing, recordings of my choir, musicals, etc. The piano that we received as a wedding present from the best group of friends on the planet. I regret that I didn’t go knock on all the neighbors’ doors and tell them about the mess of water by the bridge.
Of course, we did the best thing that we could at the time; we left. We didn’t know what would happen. We made a good decision to leave with dog Zadock, and daughter Karissa, and unborn Emelyn. I’m grateful we were safe.
This year was the first that I didn’t have to think about the mud and the swirling water for months on end. Without Mudfest, I had my husband, Greg, home more evenings than ever—even with his new job! Thinking about Irene for months on end stirs up in me a lot of regret, shame, grief, and sadness. It was, for me, nice to not have Mudfest because on the day, I didn’t have to grit my teeth and smile all day and pretend to be happy that a bunch of people who were not impacted by the flood came to play in the mud and pretend it was nice that politicians were here turning their appearances into votes. In fact, I didn’t think about it at all until a reporter stopped by on Wednesday. I was not stressed out or uber sad, until that reporter came.
So then the sadness came, brought on by the incredulous comment—“You aren’t back in your building?” And I thought to myself, why in the world can’t I just get over this? Why can’t we just move on? Why do other peoples’ expectations of where our church building “ought to be” tick me off so much?
Why isn’t any of this back to the way it’s “supposed to be”? And there you have it. “The way it’s supposed to be.” If I weren’t in the pulpit, I would swear. We and others impose our old way of being on the now. And when we do that, our shame voice enters our way of being.
So, here is freedom: the one who matters is not asking us to go backwards to the way things used to be. Jesus did not suffer and die (and rise) so that we could go back to our old way of being. Instead, Paul tells us that the old life is gone. There is a new creation.
Over and over again, we are called to something new. We are called to the ministry of reconciliation. Not where everything goes back to the way it was—but where everything is a new creation. Where we are equipped to go into our communities, our workplaces, our play places, and be the body of Christ where God calls us to go.
There have been a lot of things that have distracted us as a congregation (local) and as a church (universal) that have held us from moving forward and living as a new creation. I believe that shame is the thing that has held us most hostage from our future. The shame voice holds us hostage—the shame voice in our head, the one we hear, even if it is unintentional, from reporters, and even sister churches.
We have held people hostage; we have held ourselves hostage by trying to live into our old way of being. Holding up the ideal of the perfect self, the ideal church, the successful leader. But here in 2 Corinthians, Paul is talking about the ministry of reconciliation. Reconciliation is the creation of a new relationship between God and between humans. It is NOT the restoration of the old. It is the start of something new, the letting go of the thing that holds us hostage—the shame voice.
Related: Prayers for peace and reconciliation
It is the start of something new. Jesus came to bring God’s people into a new relationship that they had never had before, never imagined before. A relationship with God, with self, with others, with creation that is not a striving for the past but a living into the new.
The thing we have been working on since the flood is being the church instead of being a building. Yes, we would love to have physical space to be a church. And that will come with time, but what we are working on and are doing well is learning to be the church without walls. We are the church without physical space. And yet we are called to provide spiritual space.
What would it look like if we held space for one another? Space in which our faults and failings and vulnerabilities were covered in love instead of shame?
Space in which we made allowances for those in authority to stumble and fall but get up again knowing there was room for mistakes and room for forgiveness and trying again? I see in that space room for the one who is learning to walk in faith to also have moments of doubt and stumbling, but then to get up again and run.
What would it look like if we made room for ourselves to be less than perfect, to know that we lived in a world where forgiveness is an everyday commodity used freely and graciously to heal hurt and disappointment, to soothe pain and regret and to open us to the love of God?
What would it mean to know that love calls us to a new life with God, with one another, with ourselves, with creation? Our old relationships and ways of being have failed, there is no doubt about that. But Jesus came to bring God’s people into a new relationship as they had never experienced before. May we live in this new relationship in such a way that the world may know a different church: the church with no walls but with lots of space for grace and new life.
Rev. Becky Town
Rev. Becky Town is co-pastor of Knox and Thompson’s Lake Reformed Church in upstate New York. She co-pastors with her husband, Greg, and homeschools their three children.
