Outside of the Box

By Sharolyn Browning

During this time of year in the children’s curriculum “Godly Play,” the big story of God and God’s people is unfolding in children’s church school classes around the world. Two bookend stories, the “Great Family” and the “Exile and Return,” have helped me wonder about our ever-changing understanding of God’s presence, particularly inside and outside of “church.” Beyond this child-like wonder, the hard, yet fruitful, conversations in communities such as congregations and seminary circles like Education Beyond the Walls and Pastoral Leadership for Public Life, have helped me better understand my public theology as leader, and, thus, see God anew in a widening community.

The story of the Great Family is the epic path of Abram and Sarai, discovering that God’s presence is revealed to them within the walls of Ur, but also, surprisingly beside the river, in faraway cities, and under the stars in the sand of the desert. The story of the Exile and Return is the inverse of Abraham and Sarah’s discovery. God’s people had come to know God’s presence safe inside the Ark of the Covenant, the walls of the Holy of Holies, the walls of the temple, the walls of Jerusalem … safe inside layers of walls, not easily escaping. And yet, when God’s people are scattered in the Assyrian and Babylonian exiles and the temple razed, God’s people make the slow, surprising, and loving discovery that God is present with them in astonishing places, wherever and whenever people gather to pray and dream for new life.

As church leaders, we thrive on cultivating spaces in which our dreams merge together for new and renewing life. We have felt God’s promised presence show up, around the font at baptism, around the table at communion, and around conversation circles sharing the holy scriptures. We know God shows up … within these walls. Yet, how many times do we hear from well-meaning, faithful people that God needs to stay neat, tidy, and containable right there in that box with the pews and the paraments. God’s presence may stretch to the sacred confines of the New Year’s resolution, but, by all means, keep God out of the public sphere.

I wonder if a persistent location of pastors is standing at the threshold between the inner life of the church and the wider world of the public sphere, beckoning each other to cross in conversation and liturgy?

My experience in the Pastoral Leadership for Public Life cohort (2017), put me in conversation with diverse voices across the whole church and an intimate group of new friends. We are faithful to our call and God’s story when we seek God’s presence at work outside of the church walls … outside of the box in which we try to keep God neatly, and sterilely, contained. We knew this, of course, through the biblical witness, but we always need those continuing conversation partners who challenge us to keep exploring out beyond the safety of our own location to see God’s persistent work anew. We need the practical skills of engaging in the public sphere. We need to remind each other, and ourselves, God is already here — and there—in a broken, suffering, and longing creation. We need that persistent support of one another as we encounter new, adaptive challenges, out beyond the walls of the boxes we make to contain God.

PHOTO: Using public speaking skills honed during her two years in Education home, on a good day, or Beyond the Walls’ Pastoral Leadership for Public Life program, Sharolyn the required Zoom in times Browning addresses the media at the Poor People’s Campaign March for of pandemic, Advent, or Democracy in July. Photograph by Bob Daemmrich Photography, Inc.

The Reverend Sharolyn Browning (MDiv’14) is a Godly Play trainer and serves as transitional pastor for Christ Lutheran Church in Georgetown, Texas. She has been part of a Pastoral Leadership for Public Life cohort through Education Beyond the Walls.