By: Rachel Ippel-Redman
A written transcript of Rachel’s talk, from our Advent by Candlelight on December 2nd.
I have many identities: daughter, sister, mother, niece, aunt, friend, wife, nurse, teacher, confidante, Christ follower, church volunteer. Each one of us here today could curate a similar list! Every day seems to capture a different order of priority: What’s taking up the most space in my mind today? Where do I need to make room for growth? For forgiveness? For humility? These identities create roles that give me purpose and fulfillment, but also each carry burdens; space where peace is needed, but at times so hard to find.
Peace. The Oxford Dictionary gives us this definition: 1) freedom from disturbance; tranquility. 2) a state or period in which there is no war or a war has ended. 3) a friendly greeting 4) an order to be silent. For my purposes today, I’m going to focus on that first definition – peace as a freedom from disturbance or tranquility and expand it a little, imagining that specific tranquility as an equilibrium, a balance between the outside world and my interior life. For me, that balance has been created by the peace found in my faith, a peace recorded throughout the Bible. John 14:27 says this: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives.”
The story that led to me standing here actually started a long time ago. I was born into a family with deep roots in the Christian Reformed tradition. When I was 10 my family moved to Monrovia, Liberia, West Africa and I began attending a mission school and Oldest Congo Town Road Baptist Church. When we moved back to Grand Rapids when I was almost 16, I carried that experience with me through the rest of high school and college. I later joined the Catholic Church of my husband Mark’s tradition and took on a leadership role of an in depth interdenominational Bible Study when our children were all in school. These experiences all worked together to give me an expansive view of ways to practice faith in community without necessarily holding fast to all of the tenets, practices or traditions of any one particular group. I felt that the essentials we had in common greatly outnumbered and outweighed any disturbing outliers.
Then in the fall of 2015, our middle child came out to us as gay. While we were 100% supportive of Grey in our family, the current practice of our faith was called into question. I could no longer separate myself from pulpit teachings that called my child’s identity sinful. I could no longer just put aside the declarations of belief made with certainty about how God viewed my child and my family. I felt that spaces where my peace had been found instead filled me with doubt, worry, and sadness. With reflection, I decided that I could continue to be a quiet advocate, to use my presence and my voice to keep my faith spaces clear from divisive topics. That with my resources of supportive friends and family, I could be change from within. However, I now had a direct conflict between what I knew to be true about my child’s status as a beloved member of God’s family, and what most of my chosen faith community spoke of as absolute truth. While my experiences as Grey’s mom were part of the catalyst for this disruption in peace, they weren’t the only conflicts. It was almost as if a floodgate opened up and the carefully curated dam holding my peace together revealed huge cracks and flaws. I decided I could no longer keep my leadership role in the Bible Study and we had begun to talk about leaving our church. This was in late 2019, early 2020. I know the pandemic contains multitudes of feelings for all of us, but as a family we found a silver lining in worshiping from home with a variety of churches, including Christ Church Cranbrook.
Why was CCC on our radar? I met Katy Knoer at bible study soon after her family had relocated to Michigan. We recognized something in each other and she became known in my family as ‘secret handshake Katy’. We partnered together as bible study leaders in a way that held my faith and peace together and her friendship was and is a source of strength. We all understand the power of personal invitation and she brought up CCC as a place that would welcome and celebrate our family, repeatedly. Mark and I had spent our lives together with a shared every day faith and regular church attendance, but our equilibrium, our peace found in Christ was pushed to a breaking point. Mark and I began worshiping here in early 2023 and attended Father Chris’ Christ Church 101 that same spring. Our time spent in that small community of searchers gave us a new architecture; their stories repaired those cracks and flaws in ways that I didn’t believe were possible in a church space. No church is perfect as we bring all of our human imperfections along for the ride, but in this community I have found a peace of belonging that represents to me that promise from John. I feel seen and understood in all of my identities, knowing that this is a community created to come alongside each other, to carry me when my peace is tenuous and rejoice with me when my equilibrium is found.
This is just my story, but I have a feeling that many of us gathered here today struggle to remain in connection with that transcendent peace. This beautiful and joyous, yet painful and chaotic world creates many challenges to our tranquility in Christ. But look around you. These pews are filled with generous resources and loving support! We have the privilege to share in our vulnerability, our doubts, and our failings, knowing that our community can return us to the path toward otherworldly peace that only comes from God.