Turning a wrong into a right

A newcomer to worship said the church was unwelcoming.

Ouch. I said, “Say more.”

I’ll call him Tim, and he did share more. “Well, one of your members didn’t welcome me when I was in your church, but that week in the grocery store she came up to me. She said she missed me the Sunday I wasn’t in church. The thing is I had been IN church. Couldn’t she have welcomed me there?”

Yes. This person should have welcomed Tim before or after worship. How warm and inviting this could have been.

But it didn’t happen.

The church is supposed to be a nurturing, healing place. A sanctuary and a soft place to land. Church should certainly be a welcome center.

A greeting and a “missed you” in a grocery store aisle, is that too late? Is it insincere?

For the person speaking to me, the answer is yes.

Arguing, dismantling, or trying to diminish someone’s feelings is not a good move. Tim is truly upset. Not being welcomed is very painful.

We will call it a wrong. Can it be made right?

I say yes.

Here’s a truth. I wrong all the time. I’m not proud of this. But left and right, up and down, on any day of the week that ends in a ‘y’ AND everywhere in between, I screw up. Sometimes I royally screw up. Can these wrongs—can MY wrongs—be made right?

I say yes.

I’m not covering my tail. I’m not rewriting my goofs so I look good. I’m saying there is gift called grace, and grace is a gift because grace allows forgiveness to have the room it needs to make wrongs right, solid, and good again.

Consider Tim. I ran into him in the same grocery store where the member of my church spoke with him. Tim took the opportunity to share what happened with the member and shared how he felt about it.

This is a big deal because Tim spoke peacefully and calmly. He also spoke with love and from love. He allowed me the opportunity to hear him and to extend an apology which he accepted.

This specific story has general and even gentle lessons for all of us. First, the sometimes failing to get-it-right church (which can be every church in our culture today now and then) should be welcoming. With love and from love, here’s the reminder dear church people: we who follow Christ have the gift to extend the love of Christ to others in worship AND the grocery store AND in all places.

Like Elijah who heard God in a still, small voice (1 Kings 19), we, too, can hear God in the still, small voice. This voice directs us not to silence but to care and love. In fact, in this story of Elijah, the prophet is called not to sit in silence, but to share love and grace. The still, small voice directs Elijah to be a peacemaker.

I’d like to think Tim heard the same still, small voice when he met me in the grocery store. Tim may describe why he shared with me what he did in a completely different way, but I think he heard God in God’s still, small voice. I think this because Tim’s goal was not to lash out at me. Instead, he showed me through grace extended how love can and should speak.

I admire Tim. He turned a wrong into a right.

We can all do the same because God’s still, small voice speaks to all of us before and after goofs and guffaws. That same still, small voice also speaks through slights and slip ups because God’s voice speaks to and from love. And love, yes love, is always something all of us can hear from and share not just in sanctuary and cereal aisles, but all the time.