March 18, 2010
Happy birthday, Erin!

James 5

I thought, when I reread the chapter this evening, I would write about the patience in suffering, but what I want to talk about is actually this:

"Are any among you suffering? They should pray. Are any cheerful? They should sing songs of praise. Are any among you sick? They should call for the elders of the church and have them pray over them with oil in the name of the Lord."

Everything should bring us to God. Suffering is not in the world because it is a way to bring us closer to God. It does that, but so does joy. Suffering is in the world because we fell from paradise, because we live in a Fallen World, a world fallen enough that Hell can reach out and infect it. Because we live a world of choices and harsh truths. But this too can bring us to God.

And the world is sometimes so beautiful, and it can bring out our light to shine like a beacon, and there can be days that make you glow and smile and want to dance around, and this too can bring us to God.

Because everything brings us to God.

It can be surprising, actually, which brings you closer more naturally. Do you turn to God when things get hard or pull away in anger? Do you stand in a small trapezoid of sunlight created by the shadows of the buildings, quiet and just feeling the slight ice of the wind as it wars with the all-over glow of warmth from the sun because you had a terrible day and need a comfort or because the day has been lovely and you saw it there - dancing before you, something you would have overlooked if you weren't so happy?

Questions whose answers are interesting but not important. You should always seek out those glimpses of God, in good times and in bad. That's what it means to be part of the Bride of Christ. Sickness and health, richer or poorer, good times and bad.

When things get bad, what changes, however, is the people who gather around us. When you are sick, of heart and mind or body, the elders of the church, the community, those you love, who have been your connections to Christ when He felt far away or hard to find (because we are the blind creatures of Fallen World who can never fully realize that we are the Children of God until we break free of this earth), then those people gather around you. Because that is what Christians do. They love so much that there is no difference between your pain and mine. They love, which nothing could change, and they try to make it better. And that is what changes when the bad things happen.

And that's not why bad things happen, but that's what makes them more bearable. We live in a Fallen World, but ever since Adam and Eve fell, this has been true: our comfort is each other. God sends the rain, again and again, to renew life on Earth, taking this Fallen World which was barren and without life until Humanity Fell but now thrives as He pours His love continually into it. To make it better, to make it live, to make it grow, to make it beautiful for us. He sends the sun to shine, and though the buildings cast a shadow, His light changes the world. But some days, when things feel so dark, a fellow on our way is the one to point out the patch of sunlight in which we can bask. And that is our job as Christians, in a nutshell, to with our whole lives point out God in the shadows of this dusky wood.

And sometimes we have to go further than comfort and love and support: "My brothers and sisters, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and is brought back by another, you should know that whoever brings back a sinner from wandering will save the sinner's soul from death and cover a multitude of sins." Not their own, the sins of the world which drove its victims so far from the light. We can cover the sins of our world, we can make it better, we can make it rise.

We are forgiven, we are saved. That is done. The Kingdom of God has come. We are responsible for building it, lifting it up, saving each other from the ravages of our Fallen World - the apple, Pandora's box, whatever metaphor fits best when you look all of the things that bring pain up and down. There's no blame attached to bad things, and they don't happen because they are really good things in disguise (sometimes good things DO come in disguise, but there are evils that can never be counterbalanced by the good that they bring about).

We can't stop the world from containing pain, and it doesn't change our relationship with God because He should be part of our sorrow and our joy in equal measure (100%); what does change with joy and trauma is the responsibility of the community to its members. In joy, you are a bringer of light. In trauma, you are a receiver. But you cannot give without receiving or receive without giving. Both roles are the same, the great secret. Both are ways to God.