The door to the hospital room cracks open after a gentle knock. I am sitting beside Alice’s hospital bed while her husband George leans against the windowsill. Alice is dozing in the afternoon sun. I watch as the door opens wide and a young woman in scrubs breezes into the cozy room with a sunny smile.
“Here’s our nurse, Emma,” George says to me, beginning the introductions. He turns to Emma, motions in my general direction, and says, “This is our minister, Laura.”1
I hold my breath. An introduction like this can veer in several different directions, and alas, many of these detours are less than pleasant.
Sometimes, an Emma - meaning any young professional in a non-religious setting - takes exception to my very obvious femaleness and says something along the lines of, “Oh, I’ve never met one of you before.” The disdain in these situations drips from the words and leaves a puddle of discomfort for anyone to slip on.
Sometimes, an Emma in a situation such as this might happen to be a very religious person, and usually, such an Emma assumes that I ascribe to her particular brand of church or theology, so she’ll launch into a diatribe about God’s will or her deep concern for our once-religious nation or her hopes that this or that political figure will save us from our demise. I rarely agree with the Emmas of this variety, and have to remind myself that I’m not here to debate, I’m here to visit my parishioner. It gets fairly awkward, fairly quickly.
Sometimes, an Emma in this type of situation will end up being hostile to religion at large, and her cold aloofness will frost up the room like a walk-in refrigerator. This kind of Emma quickly fulfills her medical duties and hightails it out of the room with a shiver, as if she’ll get frostbite by staying one moment longer.
So when George introduces me as his minister, I brace myself and watch for Emma’s reaction. But she only smiles her radiant smile at me - a good sign, I tell myself. Still, I don’t relax just yet, not even as she logs into the computer in the room and starts typing whatever nursing knowledge needs to be recorded.
It’s a good thing I don’t let my guard down completely, for soon her eyes dart to mine, and she looks at me with what appears to be genuine curiosity as she asks, “And, what religion are you?”
This is a new one. Granted, I am in street clothes. United Methodist clergy rarely wear the clerical collars that our Episcopal, AME, Catholic, and Lutheran colleagues sport. I am wearing the stereotypical millennial mom outfit of skinny jeans and a floral tunic, so the kind of religion I claim is not obvious.
“I’m a United Methodist pastor,” I explain.
“Oh,” she says, nodding. Then she pauses and stumbles a bit asking the next question, “And what kind of religion is that?”
This is a new one, too. Being so immersed in the Church world, I sometimes forget that we mainline denominations are not the center of most people’s worlds, especially young people. It’s a good reminder for me, and one I try to take in stride, even as my heart twinges a bit with grief at the Church’s irrelevancy.
“It’s Christian,” I explain.
Her eyes light up. “Oh!” Emma takes Alice’s blood pressure and fiddles with one of the machines Alice is hooked up to for a minute before she says, “I’m reading the Bible, you know.”
Yep, definitely a new one.
“Oh?” I ask, using that very pastor-like tone I’ve perfected over the years, the one that invites people to say more without actually revealing my thoughts or feelings on the matter.
“Yeah. I grew up Pentecostal but…I drifted away from it years ago.” She shrugs, and I can tell there’s a story there, one that left some still-healing wounds. “But in the last couple of months,” she tells me, “I thought, why can’t I just read this thing for myself? So I started reading.”
I nod, giving her an encouraging smile, trying to be respectful of the ecclesial pain I glimpsed in her eyes, careful not to push past her comfort zone, allowing her to lead the conversation.
“Someone told me to start with the Gospel of John,” she continues, “and I just got so confused.”
“Yeah, John can be a bit confusing,” I assure her.
This is when George, who had been silently observing the conversation, pipes in. “I always liked Luke,” he says, “it’s my favorite.”
Suddenly the feel in the room starts to shift. It’s becoming spiritually charged, vibrant with possibility, attuned to the swirling, mysterious, grace-filled presence of God. This isn’t just a normal hospital visit, I say to myself, to God. What are you up to here, Lord?
Maybe all Emma needs is a bit of encouragement, I think. Maybe I can pastor Emma while I pastor Alice and George in one fell swoop.
So, nodding to George’s comment, I add, “Me too. Luke’s a really good one to start with.”
“Well,” Emma continues, brushing off our commentary, “I decided to start at the beginning.”
There is a beat of silence as George and I take in this information.
“Like at Genesis?” he asks.
“Oh yeah,” she nods. I inwardly cringe. When people start at the beginning, they usually make it through Genesis and Exodus and then call it quits at Leviticus with its cumbersome record of laws. Better to start at the Gospels, I think, and am about to say so when Emma keeps talking. “It’s interesting, Genesis is. Like I’m seeing where all the bad in the world comes from, you know?”
George and I nod. Yeah, we know. Ticking her fingers off one by one, she names aloud the evil found in the dramatic stories of Genesis: murder, incest, rape, theft, betrayal…
“It’s all there, isn’t it?” I ask rhetorically, while inwardly praying, God, what in the world are you expecting from me here?
But in the next moment, I realize God isn’t expecting much from me at all. I am just an accessory and George is about to be the real hero of this encounter.
Emma’s brows furrow and she huffs a big sigh, shoulders slumping as she says, “But you know, I don’t get a lot of it. So much doesn’t make sense. I get confused. It’s maddening.”
I am about to commiserate, about to encourage her to not give up, but before I can say a word George speaks.
“You know,” he says, with so much conviction that I give him my full attention. “I used to feel the same way. But at our church, we have this Bible study class that takes you through the whole Bible, and you read little snippets of each book and talk about it with each other.” He shrugs. “It helped me get it. The group of people in that class - they helped me get it.”
Rarely do I have a front-row seat to this kind of encounter, when a parishioner describes to a non-churchgoer why the church matters to them. Rarely do I hear someone explain so readily why the community of believers called “Church” matters. I listen with rapt attention as George talks about this small group of ordinary (non-pastor) people who read and discuss and research and question and learn to understand the sacred, maddening, beautiful Bible together. That community is what makes all the difference to him. That body of believers, that subset of the Body of Christ in our particular church - they are what keeps him going. The Church doing what the Church does best is what helps him “get” it.
Later that afternoon I will drive home from the hospital and be awestruck at the beauty of the Church, despite its cultural irrelevance to my generation and younger. I will marvel at George’s simple testimony of why the Church matters. I will give thanks for that group of thoughtful, compassionate people who help one another understand life in light of Scripture. Who wrestle with Scripture’s maddening, confusing, and life-giving words to uncover the truth about a God whose ways of love are mysterious and grand and ever-present to those with eyes of faith.
But for now, I watch in fascination as George subtly invites Emma to re-imagine the Church, to see it as a safe space to bring her questions and doubts and longing to understand the Bible. Where she can find a community of people who don’t claim to know all the answers, but who will walk with her on the journey of “getting it”, no matter what mountains, hills, or valleys lay ahead. Because when the Church is at its best, it doesn’t matter if you arrive at the same conclusion or the same interpretation as the person next to you. It’s not about the knowing, it’s about the seeking. It’s not about the arriving, it’s about the journey - together.
There is a sudden seriousness on Emma’s face as she pauses to consider George’s words, as if they strike an unexpected chord in her heart. I can see the thoughtfulness in her gentle nod, the wistfulness in her eyes as she considers the possibility that such a community might exist. She finishes her work and I silently pray: Jesus, lead this gentle, questing soul to a church home. To the community she so clearly longs for, where she can seek and ask, discuss and share. Where she can find the truth, where she can find herself, where she can belong in your love.
She packs her things and readies to leave, but I realize I have a burning need to impart one last word of wisdom so she will not despair in her quest to read the Bible, to seek God…alone.
“Emma,” I say, as she reaches for the door handle. She turns to look at me, that sunny smile back on her face, and I say, “When you get to Leviticus, skim it. Nobody needs to read Leviticus alone.”
She gives me a puzzled look and agrees to do so, slipping out into the hallway and onto her next patient. She clearly has no idea what Leviticus holds for her. Maybe she’ll skim it, or maybe reading it will send her to a church, to find a Bible study, a community, like the one George described.
Maybe this is what God had in mind for this visit all along, for Emma to glimpse the beauty of what the Church can be, to give her the courage to try Church again, one day. And maybe God intended for George, Alice, and me to remember this wondrous gift we get to behold, this gift we get to offer the world: the gift of seeking and finding the Lord…together.
You see, with all its scandals, failures, and political schemes, it is still a beautiful Church. Be hopeful. God is still here.
All the names used in this essay are fictitious (except mine, of course), in order to protect the privacy of the wonderful people involved in this encounter.
I've been reading your essays for a while and they are so lovely and meaningful. I hope you and all your family are well. Peace to you.
I loved reading this. And the reminder to seek and how we can be the church. Thank you!