Superintendent's Corner |
|
04:14:09 Laundry and Resurrection Folding the family’s clean laundry was one of my weekly chores growing up. When Greg and I set up house on our own, I continued to fold the laundry. I even taught my children how to fold underwear and towels. I prided myself on folding a fitted sheet so it looked like a flat sheet. I loved the piles of tri-folded towels (isn’t that the right way to fold them?) in the linen closet.
When the kids left home, and I began working more than full-time as a pastor, Greg took on the responsibility of the laundry. Clothes got washed and dried, brought upstairs from the laundry room and left in the laundry basket by the side of the bed. We pulled out what we needed from the clean laundry basket as we needed it. When we needed the basket for dirty clothes, we just stuffed the clean clothes in the appropriate drawer or closet. I had lost control; chaos had won. But I didn’t seem to have the time to care.
Today I folded laundry. Why? Not because it was the right thing to do; not because I had to. I simply needed the order.
When God raised Jesus from the dead, he didn’t leave the grave clothes that had enshrouded Jesus in a jumble in the tomb; instead he took the time to neatly fold them (John 20:7). Why? Because resurrection wasn’t hurried; it wasn’t an accident; instead, resurrection was a premeditated restoration of God’s order to our chaotic world. Folded grave clothes indicate that God is in control.
There have been times
when after long on my knees in a cold chancel, a stone has rolled from my mind, and I have looked in and seen the old questions lie folded and in a place by themselves, like the piled grave clothes of love's risen body. from "The Promise" by R.S. Thomas |
Rev. Lucia Delamarter recent entries: + Laundry and Resurrection + archives |
Lucia Delamarter served the local church in a variety of lay leader capacities. Then the Lord called her to the ordained ministry. For 11 years she served as pastor of the Everett Free Methodist Church in the Pacific Northwest. Lucia was installed as Superintendent of the Gateway Conference of the Free Methodist Church on February 9, 2006.