Rector's Blog: Nourished by Community

More often than not, when Jesus healed people, he asked nothing of them at all. He just healed them. There was nothing transactional about it. People asked for his help, and he gave it to them for free, and with no expectations. No strings attached. We have a really difficult time grasping this. It goes against our whole understanding of how the world works.

What if God wants nothing in return for healing you? Absolutely nothing? Can you feel the resistance rise up within you when you read/hear that? I feel it in my chest. You?

Well, have no fear: There are in fact times when Jesus tells the people he heals to do something. He tells them to go. Not come, not follow, but Go. Jesus told people to go all the time. Go where? Go out into the world and work for him? Nope. Jesus told the people he healed to go back to their communities. To return to their lives and live them alongside their loved ones. He commanded this explicitly and with stunning consistency. Sometimes he even told them not to tell anyone who healed them or why. Imagine that: “Jesus, you healed me! I’m going to tell everyone I know about you!” and Jesus says, “Oh, please don’t though!” On a marketing level, Jesus needed some work.

The illnesses Jesus healed caused disconnection and isolation. To have leprosy, for instance, meant you were perpetually quarantined. To be blind or unable to walk meant your only livelihood was in begging – which became your identity. In one story, a woman had been menstruating for 12 years straight, and in her cultural context, this meant she was ritually unclean and could not be touched. Not touched. For 12 years. The best part of that story is that her healing comes when she reaches out and touches Jesus. That human contact heals her. Does Jesus tell her then to follow him? To get to work? Grace isn’t cheap, after all. No. He tells her to go in peace and be free.

Community is at the heart of the healed life of Jesus. There is no getting around it. Jesus didn’t command people to be better, he commanded them to live shared lives – lives in communities made up across disparate culture and life experience, communities with no margins, communities founded in the unconditional undying love of God. God knows that our greatest need is love, that we are nourished by love. That love is the singular point and fundamental reality of all life. And God knows that love is nourished in community.

Disconnection, isolation is not something that’s been relegated to the ancient past. Neither is it confined to specific illnesses. We are living in the midst of a great plague of loneliness and every one of us sees it. No one is immune.

A few weeks ago, a woman from out of state was visiting her daughter here in Cincinnati and they both came to church. It was very obviously the mom’s idea, but the daughter was game. I was talking with them after the service and the local daughter just asked me point blank, “So why should I come to your church?” I just laughed. Why can’t everyone be this direct? “Oh, wow,” I said, “I don’t know if you should. I can’t pretend it’s for everyone.” She appreciated that, and I asked her if she knew about The Episcopal Church and she said yes, and that she’d even checked out our website before showing up and that she liked what she saw. But she had still asked the question.

Well, I said, because we humans are built for community. We are literally made for one another. We are not meant to be alone. And we’re lonely. And we need community. And this place, I said, this place is a community that is founded on unconditional love. You can find a community that is founded on all sorts of things, on your wealth or status, on the color of your skin or your last name. You can find communities based on shared interests or neighborhoods, and all these things can combat loneliness in one way or another. But what your community is based on matters. And this place, this community is founded on the premise that you are completely and fully loved and that you belong in community just as you are.

I said something like that. She might (hear) read this and say I made it sound better in the remembering. But that was the gist of it. In last week’s (podcast) blog I said that love is something that nourishes us, and that, like all nourishment, we need it regularly and consistently. It should not be a challenge or a game of hide and seek. Our lives should be structured in such a way that the nourishing love for which God has made us is readily accessible. Jesus’ healing was born out of unconditional love, and Jesus healed in order to liberate: to free us to more fully love and be loved.

I do believe, by the way, that the Christian life draws us into seeking to promote justice and peace in this world, that there is such a thing as picking up your cross and following Jesus, that sacrifice is a part of the life of love. We cannot do these things on an empty stomach. We must be fed, nourished by love. Our churches are meant to be sources of that nourishment.

In the short term anyway, I should probably tell you you’re supposed to be following Jesus, and the best way to do that is to come to my church. But I am thinking about your life over the long haul. My prayer is that your soul is fed by the love of others who are willing to bear your burdens, and whose presence in your life comforts and challenges and pushes and heals and transforms you. You may find that with us. You may find that elsewhere. I believe in the God of love. And my hope for you is that your life is nourished by community.