Being Christ's body

Heidi Neumark’s article on the state of the church ("Companion to strangers") resonates deeply in my heart. I know what her seminary intern was experiencing as she “limped,” inexperienced and with little confidence, toward the ICU and a young couple who waited there with their dying infant. I also know that years of experience don’t ease the journey. Pastors and chaplains feel terribly inadequate, wondering whether helpful words will come, and at the same time feel incredibly grateful that the vocation allows us into such intimate situations.

In Beyond Belief, Elaine Pagels tells of learning that her two-and-a-half-year-old son had a life-threatening medical condition. Although she hadn’t attended church for a long time, she stepped inside a church vestibule to warm up and was startled by sounds of worship—the soaring harmonies of the choir, the clergyperson’s clear resonant prayer. Pagels said to herself, “Here is a family that knows how to face death.”

As I think about the viability of the church I think of this statement about the church as family. Pastors and laypeople know this—that the church of Jesus Christ is big and deep and resilient, bigger and more resilient than anything I’m thinking or worrying about or doing.