In recent weeks, Anne, my wife, and I have met with our pastor, the Rev. Ron Drury, and another member of our parish to discuss adapting the model constitution for congregations in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America to our congregation, Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran Church, Hickman, Nebraska. This project will update the current constitution to match the model, while adapting the model to serve as a tool to guide the congregation in its mission. Completing this project will meet one of Anne’s goals as president of the congregation.

Once I get into the mode of thinking in terms of bylaws and continuing resolutions, of envisioning possible eventualities and drafting codified responses, of looking for gaps and filling them, of tying down loose ends, of tweaking and honing the language, and of formatting the presentation, I find that way of thinking has a power that goes beyond the project. It is difficult to turn this method on and off.

That’s why I am finding today’s reading from The Rule of Benedict such a calm and persuasive counterpoint to the constitution project. Writing about “The Quantity of Drink,” St. Benedict begins by echoing 1 Corinthians 7:7, recognizing that “‘each person is endowed by God with a special gift, some this, some that.’ Therefore it is with some uneasiness that we lay down rules for the consumption of others” (RB 40:1-2). Then, of course, he overcomes that uneasiness and lays down some rules.

But the spirit in which he works is typical of the Rule. He holds simultaneously to some large-scale principles while applying them in ways that call individuals to high standards, to support the common good, and to view even the smallest parts of life as places where God is at work. He recognizes that individuals have varying needs for fluids, that some have “the strength to abstain,” and that availability, workload, and heat can all influence consumption.

It’s this spirit, this way, that holds up a vision rooted in God and his gifts, his trustworthiness in sending community leaders and inspiring wisdom in them, that I find so refreshing and beguiling. St. Benedict does not try to anticipate and to pre-legislate a response to every circumstance that could conceivably arise. That’s why his Rule—not his Constitution—has endured for fifteen centuries. He could not have anticipated the details of twenty-first-century monastic or oblatory life. But he could point faithfully to the grace and gifts of God and lead a community to follow a path of obedience to God’s will.

And so I am left wondering. What would a parish look like, how would it feel to be a participant in its communal life of faith, if we could hear God’s call to gather around him, to make an offering, an oblation of our lives, and to submit ourselves to a pastor-abbot who would guide us in wise obedience to a rule that embraces both the grace of God and the glorious diversity of our “special gifts?”

Ut in Omnibus Glorificetur Deus.