Walking Each Other Home

This painting by Greg Olsen hangs in my front hall. There's more than the proverbial thousand words in this one for me - sermon upon sermon of what it is to be God, what it is to follow God, and what it is to be like God.

The other day a friend told me of a loved one she has been praying for for many years. She has been praying her loved one would have cause to consider the safety and refuge of church again. She was frustrated and disappointed that this loved one had seen only the glaring imperfections of the church members when she did in fact attend a church meeting several weeks ago.

My friend was frustrated because she knew how easy it is to find those imperfections. As I glibly like to say, you can't swing a dead cat in this church without hitting a person who is very likely to offend you. My friend was disappointed because she longed for her loved one to see beyond the starkly obvious - oblivious - behavior we all exhibit from time to time. We have to focus on the Savior, not each other, in order to feel help there - hope there.

I've thought it dozens of times before, but I found myself again picturing us all staggering into church in one way or another, getting there by the skin of our teeth, desperate for the living water promised if we come thirsting.

Probably because I staggered in today.

I realized again that churches are meant to be way stations for the wounded. Churches are like MASH units in the army. Though set up to be far more permanent and stationary they are every bit the same in serving as the first line trauma unit for the spiritually and emotionally wounded.

There's just one problem: there are zero professional staff assigned there who are coming from a completely 100% healthy and healed place themselves. Whether you could see it or not, every single person at church today had wounds that needed tending to.

These are the people who may have offended you at church today:

The bishopric member who's been out of work for eight months.

The Relief Society teacher who may not have spoken to one of her children in over a year.

A member of a quorum or auxiliary presidency who may have just learned their spouse is leaving them; another who may have just found out their third invitro attempt failed.

The person assigned to be your minister may be at their aging parent's home around the clock after a full-time job. The person sitting next to you in class may have a young adult child who just announced they no longer believe.

When I look at this painting of Jesus, I see our God, Lord and King of our universe, condescending to have the same gritty, back-breaking, heart-wrenching, soul-stretching experience we are having in mortality. He didn't come to float above it all. He had it, right beside us.

When I look at this painting, I see Him in His perfection, reaching upward to where only He can reach, and yet at the same time, reaching back to those of us with far less steady legs and much shorter strides - helping us over the biggest hurdles towards the vistas waiting out ahead. He calls out encouragement to the whole group, but is entirely and intimately accessible to whisper in each ear, "You can do this. I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere. I'll help you. Keep going."

He patiently waits for the slowest among us - knowing there is no prize for finishing first. It only matters that Someone finished - making it possible for the rest of us to even make the climb at all.

He expects us to reach back and help the next person, and here's the real challenge: He expects us to call out the same kind of encouragement as we do our level best to catch our own breath, grieve our own tragedies, nurse our own wounds.

One of the most sanctifying things we can do to practice being like our great God is to minister to each other out of our own lack. There are seeds of exaltation in doing this the way Jesus Christ does it, as impossible as it sometimes seems.

I believe it is equally sanctifying to forgive when we feel like someone has let us down when we've needed someone - when someone has failed to minister to us with the elegance and grace of our Savior, or in the way we're sure we've needed. In forgiving others' clumsy practice attempts, we remember they have their own boulders to hurdle, their own "sorrows that the eye can't see."

As unpaid MASH workers, we get the very most out of church when we remember we're there to give aid to other broken soldiers as much as we are there to receive our own aid. We mess it up when we mistakenly keep score over how many times we were helped, or called, or how many cards or casseroles we received.

We mess it up when we forget that the one Person we actually came to receive aid from isn't any of these other wounded warriors. We came to worship the Wounded Warrior - the one who was "wounded for our transgressions." He is the only One who can provide the healing and the hope and the help. Any time we decide someone else didn't meet our expectations, we're cutting ourselves off from that source. We aren't in the same kind of covenant relationship with anyone but Jesus Christ - "and with his stripes we are healed." (Isaiah 53:5)

Let's all resolve to give each other a little more room, remembering each battlefield is fierce, and truly, everyone is doing their best. Let's stagger into the way station next week, focusing on the right set of wounds, determined to keep our covenant with Him to help walk each other home.

That gives Him the permission He needs to walk us home.