Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about the Chapel’s core values. Though I try to resist the urge to reduce ministry to management-speak, it can sometimes be helpful to borrow ideas and terminology from that world. Things like mission, vision, and core values can be helpful, provided they are means to discern the Holy Spirit’s leading. As my Lutheran colleague here at UM, Elizabeth Friedman, recently quipped to me, “A ministry that doesn’t have a sense of its particular mission is probably doing a lot of good things, but nothing really well.”
Core values are a way of getting at how we live out our mission, and what kind of culture allows that mission to flourish. Interestingly, as I’ve been thinking about this for the Chapel, something that’s bubbled up is beauty. I think the Chapel holds beauty as a core value.
This really hit home for me a few weeks ago when we hosted our ecumenical partners for a Maundy Thursday Dinner Church service. (The Methodist ministry hosted Good Friday Tenebrae, and the Lutherans took the Saturday night Easter Vigil. The Episcopalians and Presbyterians got the year off.) The service itself was simple, centered, of course, on Jesus’ gathering with his disciples for the Last Supper, which we remembered by sharing Holy Communion. What made this service unique was that our Lord’s Supper was an actual meal. After I said the words of institution and we passed around baskets of bread, we all went through the buffet line and got our bowls of soup. The sacrament extended into the shared meal and conversation of the gathered community.
It was beautiful, primarily because of that fellowship (“By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”), but also because we took the time to make the Chapel’s beautiful sanctuary space even more lovely. I learned from my former colleague Bailey Sarver that a white tablecloth, a few candles, and (of course!) some fresh flowers, can transform a meal into a moment. I loved watching people arrive that Maundy Thursday, because they all responded with a small gasp or a “wow” as they saw that we had lovingly prepared a beautiful space for them.
This is part of our legacy at the Chapel. From Don Postema’s passion for visual arts to the free mid-day organ concerts that used to happen at the Chapel during Art Fair; from Mark Roeda’s creative worship installations to the carefully crafted words of liturgy and song that Rolf Bouma penned, an appreciation for aesthetic beauty in all its forms is a core part of this community’s commitment to gospel renewal and transformation. And nobody was more committed to this than Bailey, who time and time again surprised me with what she could create from the most simple of everyday objects.
Maundy Thursday is a sad but beautiful day in our liturgical calendar, because on it we see the extent of Jesus’ love for us. If Good Friday shows us how he died, Maundy Thursday shows us how he lived. And he lived beautifully, seeking not to be served but to serve and offering himself up for those who would soon betray, desert, and deny him. We could use some beauty in our lives today, something that makes us stop and marvel with awe and wonder. As news cycles and social media posts threaten to drown us, those precious moments of peace and presence are all the more important. May you be blessed by beauty this day, and offer thanks to our beautiful triune God.
– Pastor Matt
Campus Chapel 