Proud Papa

Brother Jorge came to Bible Study on Monday evening, about 15 minutes early. My dad and I had set up the room to have chairs around a big table and a second row behind those chairs since more and more guys have been showing up.

Much to our surprise, Jorge sat in the second row quietly. Strange, since he is typically an easy conversationalist who is proactive about starting up chit-chat.

I quickly realized why he took the back row and chose silence instead of engaging us in conversation. Jorge didn’t come to church the day before and he felt terrible about it. When I asked him what he had done yesterday (not to interrogate him, but to start a conversation!) he quickly began to apologize about his abscence.

Alright…?…. but I was still interested in hearing how his Sunday went. He reluctantly began telling me how he had gone to see his daughter run in a city-wide marathon. He went to stand at the finish line cheering her on.

How cool is that!

He was a bit surprised by my reaction. And yet it fueled him to tell me a bit more about it, and to be open and authentic about how he really felt about the day. He was so very proud of his daughter. He was inspired by her determination, and the effort she put in to complete the 48 kilometer run she had started. And most significantly, he was so glad he got to be there to experience the moment with her, and stand on the other side of the finish line to celebrate the accomplishment.

He’s a good daddy. He loves his girl very much.

Well, Bible Study started and all of Jorge’s brothers began to give him a hard time.

“Where were you?”

“You must have snuck out the back door since I didn’t see you in church.”

“What’s your excuse? Too tired to come?”

I sat back and let the conversation run it’s course, all the while paying close attention to how Jorge’s shoulders began to slump, and how the condemnation he was feeling returned.

All he could manage to do was laugh nervously, looking into his folded hands in his lap. He never defended himself.

So I jumped in. I asked all the guys if they really were looking for answers, and if they really wanted to know where their brother was, or if they really were using the questions as clever rhetorical ways to be passive-aggressive.

I told Jorge to share where he was. I told him to share what he was doing. I told him to share how he felt.

And I asked all the rest of the guys a question. “How COOL is that?!” How cool is it to hear the story of a father who waits at the finish line cheering their child on? How cool to see that father’s face light up when he describes the overwhelming sense of pride in their child?

I told them I wasn’t advocating not gathering as the church or that we should now begin to neglect our assembling together. But I also assured them there would be the moments when days, and events, and milestones conflict with Sunday morning and a choice must be made.

I believe Jorge made the right choice. I believe being there for his daughter, who had spent so much time training, preparing, and visualizing that finish line, was the right thing to do. Because there is something so Gospel about the moment she experienced. There is something so Jesus-inspired about her dad, as the church, cheering her on.

***

We want our community to be active in church, for sure, but not at the expense of living a double-life where we feel we can’t be authentic and share moments or milestones in our personal lives because they happened to take place on the same day the pastor is preaching. We want our community to come because they love to come, not because they’ll be brow beat if they don’t. We want them to hunger for the unity and love they feel when they are with their brothers and sisters, and the joy they have sharing how their days and weeks went.

There is a tension here that we can’t ignore. And I believe empowering people with the New Testament reality that they are the church is what helps us maneuver the tension. Jorge gathers with the rest of his church on Sundays. He does so with frequency. But on this particular Sunday, behind that finish line, he did not stop being the church. In fact, he was the church to his family and represented the rest of our community well as he lifted his excited cheers high that morning.

Like I said, I saw in his daddy’s heart a reflection of the Daddy heart I know our Father has towards us.

He’s waiting at that finish line cheering us all on!