I have preached through grief, sat with the dying, and navigated more than one congregational meeting about the color of the fellowship hall carpet. I consider myself a reasonably seasoned man of faith. And yet, every single Sunday, the church parking lot humbles me completely.
It starts before I even get out of the car. There is always one vehicle — always — parked at an angle so generous that it occupies what can only be described as a philosophical space rather than an actual one. Whoever parks it is a beautiful mystery. I have never caught them. I suspect they attend faithfully, love Jesus sincerely, and simply have no working theory of parallel lines.
Then there is the matter of the exit.
The lot at our church has two exits, one of which everybody uses and one of which nobody uses, for reasons lost to congregational memory sometime around 1987. I have used the second exit. I have encouraged others to use the second exit. I once preached, obliquely, about the second exit — something about the road less traveled, though I did not say that part out loud. Nothing changes. We are creatures of habit wearing our Sunday best.
After the service, a kind of holy gridlock descends. Nobody is in a hurry, exactly, but nobody is moving either. We are all performing patience at each other through our windshields. Someone waves another car through. That car waves back. The first car waves again. It is extraordinarily polite and accomplishes nothing for about four minutes.
I should clarify that I love these people. I love them in the parking lot and in the pew and in the line at the potluck where someone always takes the last of the macaroni just before I get there. The parking lot is not a complaint. It is, I think, a sacrament of ordinary life — the place where our best intentions meet the actual geometry of a Tuesday-paved lot designed for fewer cars and shorter fenders.
We get out eventually. We always do. Grace, like traffic, finds a way.
I’ll see you out there next Sunday. I’ll be the one waving you through.