What It Means To Be The Hands And Feet

I have for a long time believed that the mess this country is in right now is due mainly to the American culture. The American culture I am speaking of is the one that states that I deserve something, and someone else has to give it to me, or I want others to do things that I myself should be doing. Much to my dismay, this attitude has made its way into the Church (by Church, I mean the collection of all believers, not a denomination, not a building, but the people itself). I was recently part of a conversation where it was believed that the pastor of a congregation should be doing most of the work of the church (this time I mean the congregation). One of the tasks that was unofficially assigned to the pastor was to visit those who are in the hospital. I would like to take you through the events of January 27th and 28th, 2004, as well a few months after that.

For those of you that don't know, my brother was in a car accident on January 27th, 2004. He died about 24 hours later. You can read more about that in one of my previous blog posts. The point of the blog post is what I have learned about God since then. Well in the past few days I have reflected on this and have learned some more. I remember starting my lunch break at work in the evening when I got the call from my mother who was crying and telling me Brad had been in an accident and I needed to come home. I told my boss what had happened and I hurried home. When I got there, I say my mother, and two of her friends from her church at the dinner table, who were going to give us a ride to the hospital. When we got there, we were met by some more people from her church. It was not until about half an hour until the pastors arrived. They met with the doctor, and then gave us the news that Brad would most likely not live, and if he did he would be a vegetable. Two hours later my father arrived. When all this was happening, he was in the air returning from a business trip. When he landed in Saint Louis, he was me at the airport by some of his friends from church, who drove him to the hospital.

We stayed the night in the hospital, as did some friends from church, as well as family who had made emergency flights and drives from Indiana and Michigan. The next morning I called my wife (at the time my fiancee) who was not familiar with the area around the hospital, and to be honest neither was I. Another friend of from church who was going to come to the hospital to visit volunteered to give her a ride. One or two pastors came back around 4:30 that afternoon. At this point, there were about 40 or so people, a combination of people from church and various family members. This was the time when all the paperwork had been taken care of and Brad could become an organ donor, and he could be taken off of life support. There was a quick prayer around my brother, everyone came in to say goodbye, and we were asked to leave. Shortly before 6:00, the doctor and one pastor came into our waiting room and said that Brad had passed. We then made our way to the hospital's chapel, where we said a prayer, and then we went back to our house. Almost all of us. (Side note: A friend from church had stayed behind and cleaned our house knowing that everyone would soon descend on it).

We got home, and we were not alone for about two weeks. There was always someone with us, whether it was people from church, or family. We did not cook, all meals were provided by people from church. I should also note that it was this outpouring of love that made my die-hard athiest uncle feel the presence of God. In the weeks that followed, my parents both sought the help of Steven Ministers. For those that don't know what Steven Ministers are, they are lay people (meaning not pastors) who have been trained to help people in difficult situations.

Reading all of this begs the questions: How much different would this story be if everything was placed onto the three pastors involved? How much time would we have spent alone? Who would have driven my grief-stricken father, mother, and myself to the hospital? Would my wife had ever made it to the hospital? Would my parents ever have received counseling? Would my uncle have ever found God?

I don't know the answers to these questions. But what I do know is that there was an immeasurable amount of good that came from normal people during the darkest part of our lives. For crying out loud, people I have never met and have not seen since were bringing me breakfast, lunch, dinner, dessert, and toilet paper (I want to personally thank the person who brought us toilet paper, so if someone familiar to this situation could let me know who that was, I would greatly appreciate it).

We are called to be the body of Christ, to be the hands and feet. At the end of an Anglican worship service, we are dismissed with the words: Go in peace to love and serve the Lord. Countless people did the on those two days and the months that followed. While I still grieve at my brother's passing, and found it hard to hold back the tears while writing this, I take some comfort in having this lesson learned in what it means to be the hands and feet.

Amen.