Fleeting life and the unseen church

Volunteers serving at St. Paul's Chapel following 911 attacks

 
Ecclesiastes makes us mindful of the rapid passage of life.  I was tangibly reminded of this yesterday when I visited ground zero where the World Trade Center once stood.  Even now nearly 8 years later, the sound of bulldozers and dust fill the air as the ground is prepared for a memorial site.  Visitors continue to flock by the dozens.  There is hushed grief as people relive the memory of that day and viscerally feel the loss of life in the many quotes captured on picture boards lining the inside of St. Paul’s Chapel, an episcopal church immediately adjacent to ground zero.  Five high school girls kneel in prayer at a rail near the front of the church.  They kneel together but are lost in separate thoughts and prayers.  Slowly each peels away in their own time wiping away tears as they reverently leave the others to finish their prayers.  You can over hear visitors recalling where they were when they heard the news as they quietly shuffle with friends and family past haunting memorabilia.
 
Two thoughts emerge as I pass picture upon picture of aid to relief workers and read timelines of the events of that day.  First, life IS very fleeting.  I think of the thousands who died that day thinking the day would be like any other day.  I think of the families who said goodbyes in the morning, clueless that they were voicing a final farewell.  I think about how today truly could be our last day for anyone one of us and we have absolutely no control over that undeniable reality.  With those thoughts comes an urgency to live life very well.  To honor God in all things.  To walk with great care and kindness.  Tinges of regret for wasted moments tug at the edge of my mind and then I realize what a waste it would be to wallow in something that cannot be changed only to miss what is now.  The words have become nearly cliche yet still ring with truth…”Your life is God’s gift to you.  What you do with it is your gift back to God.”
 
A second thought fills my mind as a read quote after quote of relief workers voicing gratitude for the ministry to by volunteers in St. Paul’s Chapel.  As a pastor I try to imagine dealing with the logistics of managing thousands of volunteers providing relief to the hundreds of firemen, police officers, and other relief workers for 8 continuous months.  I think of the thousands of hours and dollars spent by the church unconditionally loving whomever crossed their threshold.  One fire fighter expressed it this way,

When I come in that door, I’m covered with blood, sometimes, and they hug me.  They love me, they take care of me, they treat me as a real human being.  And then they feed me, and they massage me, and they give me adjustments.  These are my people.  This is my place.  This where I come to be with God.

 
As my mind is numbed by the enormity of love laid out, I realize that everyday Christians are pouring themselves out to help the least of these and they go unnoticed or persecuted.  As I leave the grounds I talk with my pastor friends who are there and express my frustration that so many people are opposed to being a part of the body of Christ citing, ‘organized religion has been the cause of more wars than anything else.’
 
I realize in their rationalization they are clueless to the reality of the daily life of Christians holding chaos at bay in communities.  I have come to realize that many unbeliever’s have no clue or concept about the massive hours spent by churches, feeding, clothing, sheltering, counseling, and caring for hundreds of thousands of needed people.  Not to mention the countless schools and hospital founded, funded, and/or operated by Christians.  Nor to mention how often Christians are the dedicated core restoring order in places like New Orleans, Haiti and New York.  A petty side of me secretly wants to say, “Fine.  Every Christian is going to take the next month off and you deal with the needs of the world. And lets see how it goes.”  I am not sure that many people grasp the tsunami of need that would engulf us and the chaos that would likely ensue.
 
I can hardly fault my unbelieving friend’s who are lost in their grasp of the functional reality of the average church or christian.  I realized as I spoke with one atheist friend that by and large the only real grasp he has of the church is from the media.  Unfortunately, the media only reports about scandal or outrageous extremists that hold little resemblance to normative Christianity.  It is no wonder that he sees the church as a collection of hypocrites and nuts.
 
I am not sure how we go about shifting this other than to visibly demonstrate over and over again Christ’s gracious love to a broken and dying world.  We also, must be less overly modest in sharing the great news of the many ministries and missions of local churches. Christians laboring in love are perhaps one of the best kept secrets of our modern culture.  The keeping of that secret veils the great news of God’s love for us in Christ.  So, let us be bold in love and sharing each day, for today truly could be our last chance to honor God and others may never do so if we do not.
 
Blessings from New York from The Practical Disciple
  

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