I've been a mainline (Presbyterian) pastor for nearly 40 years and have searched for the Holy Grail much of the time, finding it here, finding there, only to discover that I hadn't found it yet.
Perhaps it's the Adam and Eve syndrome - "See that tree? Looks good, doesn't it?"
The American consumer mentality sets us up to be "seekers" and never finders.
We come to expect how levels of whatever, but withhold our commitments. We fail to see that we're just as goofy, unexciting, foible-laden and self-serving as everyone else.
For myself, the simple words of Jesus, "Love one another as I have loved you ... and wash a few feet now and then” continue to hold me accountable to the community of faith, “just as it is without one plea … though tossed about with many a conflict, many a doubt; fightings and fears within, without.”
I know that communities of faith differ and it’s good to search, but sooner or later, we have to settle for and settle down. If we’re looking for home, we look for it in the new heaven and the new earth, because “this world [presently] is not my home.” Yet here is where we live, and here is where grace abounds.
