Church as community, community as church

Pastor Jim and I went to the Schuyler County Relay for Life last night.  Saw a wonderful community gather together, to remember, to work, and to hope.......which sounds a little like church to me (of course it does- I'm a pastor....;)  ) 

I saw people there for their own reasons- to raise money, to fight a disease, to remember those they loved who were fighting, and give tribute to those who had died....kids were playing football, and just running around in the beautiful chaos that is small children.  People were walking, dancing, laughing, talking, sitting, watching, cooking, eating, singing.

What struck me is that even though each person had their own personal set of memories/hopes/worries/fears...they were also all there, together, for a mutual thing, and a thing that is bigger than any of them individually.

And that is like church. Every Sunday (if we go to church on Sundays) we bring our own personal story, our own personal anxieties, memories, hopes, fears...and we join them, together with both the Holy Story, and the stories of others.  Others we might not know well, and others we have lived our whole lives with.  We might know everyone's story--and we might not know what personal struggles they are having.

But we gather together because, it is important and helpful to hear the larger story, the Holy Story, with others.  To see what they have gone through, to cry with them in sorrow, to rejoice with them in gladness, and always, always, to give thanks.

For we are held in a larger story, a story of love and hope.  And we need to hear that in community.  For in community, it takes flesh, it takes shape, it becomes real for us.

Even if it is hot and sticky and past bedtime and the bugs are out and your feet are hurting.  Amen.