Living in Community

I have half an hour listening left on Good Friday’s ‘At the foot of the cross’. I wouldn’t say that I’m fond of choral music and boy soprano solos, but I can put up with it if I can listen to half a dozen performance poets in among the mix. Based on the events surrounding the events of good Friday, there have been perspectives from Peter on his betrayal, Mary Magdelene and the way history has written her and a beautiful poem called ‘What if’ where Jesus’ mother wonders how life might have bee different if Jesus had not followed the path He did – being skilled with wood rather than with words.

There are also testimonies sprinkled throughout on aspects of suffering and how Christians deal with a loving God in a suffering world. They know that faith doesn’t make them immune from suffering, but sometimes the suffering is the far side of the wilderness kind.

One woman spoke of being childless. That is always a sore spot. She talked of the dreams she had of a large family of children. She wasn’t so bothered, I think, of the husband and marriage. Like me, she was in a church of young married couples and babies popping out all over. An illness led to her not being able to have children. It was devastating news. She and her husband went down the prayer-for-healing route, just like we did. It seems as if being barren is contrary to the will of God. It must be defeated at all costs but no one really looks at the damage it all does when there is no baby.

She talked abut the death of her husband and how without sons and daughters it was her lonely task to del with all the things that needed to be dealt with. There was a voice in my head that told me I was heading that way one day, but for me, I hope it will not be such a lonely task at all.

She talked about withdrawing from church life. Her emotions were too close to the surface. I don’t think I ever did withdraw, not with all the misery and the miscarriages. I was there, weeping mostly. It never occurred to me not to be there. Thinking now, I want to tell the woman that I went and so should she have done. But there is a niggle too that maybe I should have grieved more privately rather than in public.

Why did I keep going? Part of it was not about others. It was about God. I wanted to be where I knew God was and church was that place for me. Part of it, too, was about the realisation that we cannot pick our battles but we can pick who we choose to fight alongside of us and church was that for me too. I needed them to surround me with love and support in a difficult time, and they did, for the most part.

I was part of the body of Christ. In a body, when a finger gets injured, it doesn’t disconnect itself from the body and come back later when it’s healed up. The whole body feels the injury. It’s a part of the body. The body suffers together. It’s what bodies do. And yet we live with an untruth that suffering should not be permitted Just like barrenness should not be permitted. I pray that someone would teach us how to live through, flourish even, in these times and not avoid them. That everything has its miracle, or its victory is not always the case. Sometimes living in a fallen world involves shrapnel. That’s not to say that we don’t stop believing in miracles and in victories.

I can’t tell Christians who are hurting to go back to church. Emotions close to the surface are horrible. Tears in public are sometimes horrible. The sympathy people extend is sometimes horrible. I can see the appeal of staying away. But so much of the Christian walk is done in community, bearing one another’s burdens.

There is a robbery that happens when we withdraw to lick our wounds. We rob ourselves of the valuable support people can give. We rob the family of God of the opportunity to show mercy and compassion. We rob the watching world of seeing what loving one another looks like.