From time to time, we all experience BIG
events in our lives that change things - that change everything. We might call
them “Before-and-After” moments, such as: before the illness, after graduation,
after Mom died or before we had children. These moments are game changers that
make us reevaluate everything we have known up to this point through the lens
of this one, new, big life event.
One of my own most significant Before/After
life events is what my family simply calls “the fire.” We had a defective dryer
that sparked a fire in our home and in the blink of an eye we found ourselves
in a hotel room at 3AM, two days before Christmas, smelling of smoke without a
change of clothes, a toothbrush or a single wrapped gift for our girls - at the
time ages 8, 5, & 1 years old. We left our soot-covered, flooded house in
such haste that our eldest daughter had only one boot on her feet.
Like a mighty rushing wind our church family
blew in at this time of crisis and gave us hope. The Christmas gifts for the
kids poured in. Endless bags of clothes. All the cards, emails, prayers and
kind words were an outpouring of the Holy Spirit that genuinely healed us. Within
24 hours we had a decorated tree and a hotel room full of wrapped presents for
the girls to open on Christmas morning.
Our church community (made up of many people I
didn’t even know personally) did for us what no one person, no one family,
could have ever done. What no insurance company could ever provide. Every word,
every gift, every hug embodied God for us. Embodied love for us. For me, this
experience is not only Before/After “the fire” but also Before/After I realized
the significance of “being church” - a great moment of clarity of the
tremendous power that we – as a collective – hold and wield as the body of
Christ incarnate; the generous, restorative presence of God (as the song goes,
♫ Christ has no body now but yours ♫). My kids may not know the creed quite
yet, but they will never forget that experience of church, and for that I am
deeply grateful.
My Dad always used to say “Hang your hat
somewhere, daughter!” And I think it’s because, through his own experience of
church, he had learned that our togetherness
is the greatest remedy for our suffering. The early church did as a
collective what no one person or one family could do. They understood that a
non-negotiable, essential aspect of the gospel was insuring that everyone had their
most basic needs met, that church wasn’t a building or the magisterium (leaders,
bishops, etc.) or even a set of beliefs that you talked AT people - but rather church
is a community of believers who share a way of life rooted in the hope and
vision of Jesus. The church is simply people who believe that compassion can
change the world and who know that our togetherness, our kinship, is the best
medicine for all that fills us with fear.
So when Jesus said that he would be present
when 2 or 3 gathered, it was not because he was some kind of diva who needed a
minimum audience to show up (Bolz-Weber) Rather when 2 or 3 are gathered together in genuine
care for one another, Jesus is discovered in what happens among us. Jesus said others
will know we are his disciples not by how we love God but rather by the way we
love one another. God is not the object of love. God IS the love that exists among
us; “the stuff” that holds us together. Emmanuel. God with us. Incarnate.
Send your Crazy Catholic Question to Lisa
Brown at dre@ctredeemer.org or read past columns
at www.crazycatholicquestions.blogspot.com.
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