A CHURCH, A HOSPITAL

Diametrically opposed, yes???

Soaring ceilings, magnificent music, inspiring tomes and messages, the presence of God and His Spirit, ideas to consider, prayers to offer and receive, a kind and comforting atmosphere, no judgments (?), potlucks???

Or...Emergency Rooms, pain, being poked and prodded, liquids being pumped into you, noises from clattering and clicking machines, people, lots of people coming and going over your body and the room you sit in, the possible current dismay of your own fragile physical personage, muttering over what is happening to my OWN physical self... serious overwhelm factor, not to mention surgery or an individual room with scratchy sheets and zero privacy and your body on the block in between nurses, Doctors, financial people (plenty scary) and administrators wanting this or that, "sign here."

Not remotely on the same path, yes?

Well, no.

So few of us in the material realm have any understanding of the realm of the Spirit. We blunder and stumble on through this physical life with only a haze of comprehension of what we are aiming for or heading for. We bounce off one another and hope for the best.  Not too often do we reach that greatly desired location.

Church seems to drive some away, either due to mistaken attempts to judge others by a line of behavior or because the behavior itself is cemented to the person and the nuts and bolts of changing the behavior that troubles us is much harder than  it looks. All the good intentions and goals and admonitions and lectures and scolding's are pretty much worthless in the long haul of things. I am one who has been a wanderer for over 40 years, fleeing from the safety of my childhood church after terrible grief in my teens (sudden deaths of my Mom and my brother within two years of each other.)  I was cut off from a protection, even a flawed one and literally stumbled my way through nearly 40 years, finally in desperation,crying out to Christ, “HELP ME, Jesus” when I called him from my invisible phone in the depth of despair and at rock bottom.  He gathered me like the one lost sheep and I came Home....but still had the repercussions of the mess I had made for myself over those years of wandering. The mess does not disappear overnight, just as a toddler does not become an adult for many years and the learning continues on long past adulthood. God accompanites you on the journey back, even as the journey is difficult.

Hence, the Church (not a denomination but a place of people who believe in Jesus Christ as the Son of God, His ministry to the earth, His sacrificial death on Calvary, His resurrection three days later and His place next to the Father, interceding for all of us) , brings forth the Triage factor of what I personally have experienced in a hospital setting. I, being the wandering and rebellious type, have avoided Doctors and medical arenas for most of my nearly 70 years of life. I do not do well in being told what to do, have paid a very steep price for this bluntness and have now at nearly age 70, seen that I just may have some periodic need for such places as hospitals and physicians.  In the last nearly one year of Sept. 2021 to current late July 2022, I have had two experiences with Emergency Rooms, that included one brief stay in a hospital. I still look at Western medicine as expert in mostly Triage.

A church is also a hospital.

Every person I know, every one I come across in my humble and scrappy, street-smart life, is a work in progress. All are also a piece of broken pottery, in desperate need of the skilled hands of the Surgeon General, God, the One Who made us from clay and Who knows what troubles and torments us. A good church should be a place that welcomes you no matter your current condition, but also tells truthfully of the need to allow God in to clean up your body, mind, soul and spirit.  Not one person I have ever met in all my nearly 70 years, is a perfected being.  As Jesus said, "All have sinned and come short of the glory of God." He also spoke of the fact that He came to minister to sinners, as they are the ones who are in need of a Doctor! God does not stand over us with a stick, scolding us! He calls us to repentance, as a "broken heart and a contrite spirit" is His doorway to help us. This is what repentance is, to turn away from troubling behavior and turn to Him!

A good church is both a safe place to fall apart and a place to also rebuild in a loving atmosphere.  We all rebel against the parameters God gave to human beings, hence the awful condition of the world. Apostle Paul spoke of himself being the "chief among sinners", although I would be a good competitor with him in that realm.  The very rough-hewn journey I made through a youthful decade of promiscuous sex, drugs and rowdy and contentous music, brought disasters that have had repercussions for the rest of my life. This is not a scold to myself, this is reality bluntly knocking at my battered door, saying " 'Scuse me, your sins and the results of them are calling and as you let the love of God in, those troubles and the compending results will be helped and healed step by baby step." This is not a magic wand, this is a difficult slog through the mud, although you are loved and helped and ministered to all the way, day by day, not only by God, Lord Jesus and Holy Spirit, but from the good and solid humble church you hopefully find. I have many good and humble and fellow-flawed people on the same journey beside me. God treats us all as ones He created and loves.

Triage, indeed. The best churches I have attended in later life, have  been humble, rough around the edges but real and loving and an amazing conduit for the love and transforming power of God and His Son. No mental state or pill or hipster solution comes close. Only the healing touch of the Great Physician can heal the wounds I have suffered, whether self-induced or administered by fellow humans.

Only God is the Hospital we all need... and yes, at some point, God will call you Home and you will be discharged from the hospital and head Home to the place you no longer need the current hospital. You will join the Mighty Cloud of Witnesses (Hebrews 11), to praise God and to spend Eternity learning, worshiping, building and managing the universe with God and all the heavenly gang.

I look forward to that day.

WW   7-25-2022

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