Hospital for the Hurting

band-aids, bludgeoning, and belonging.

There’s a pretty well-known evangelical phrase that declares “The church isn’t supposed to be a country club for the wealthy, but a hospital for the hurting.” But I think many of the people who say that phrase with the best intentions, haven’t spent much time in a hospital. Think about it. What did you need last time you took a loved one to the ER? Stitches? An XRay? Maybe some IV fluids or a quick echo? Was it life or death? Statistically, it likely was not.

The reality is that most hospital visits aren’t extended ICU stays. Many of us go, get a quick fix, get our RX of antibiotics and head back to the country club. Literally. I mean there’s probably a fundraiser or something there later in the week, right? And I’m being a little tongue and cheek here and certainly not intending to minimize.

But I love imaging the church as a hospital not because of the quick fixes that allow us to go back to business as usual, but the slow commitment to the care of others. The faithfulness to come alongside literal strangers and accompany them through life saving transformation. Surgeries. Suicide attempts. Amputations. Overdoses. Chemo. Dialysis. Therapies. All the things.

So, when strangers, showing up to our “hospitals” thinking they just need a quick fix, but they learn of deeper hurt in their heart, what is our response? What is our spiritual triage like for them? How prepared are we? Because truthfully, I think sometimes, we’re so used to band aiding symptoms, we’re unwilling to get to the root cause.

But the purpose of a hospital shouldn’t be to keep people dependent on the emergency room, indebted, but never healed. In a perfect world, the hospital is where we go to receive healing.

Is this a perfect analogy, no.

But I do think sometimes we’re too content counting butts in seats and relying on earthly metrics at the expense of really welcoming strangers into belonging. even when they’re bloody and bruised. Even when we still are too. But instead, we keep others at arm’s length, we maintain control of the Band-Aids like a power tripping charge nurse, deciding who gets which one when…. We can say we showed up for work and pat ourselves on the back… but for what, really? The church differs from the hospital in the way that healing is supposed to take place. We don’t pick and choose who gets healed a particular way and who doesn’t. We are responsible for participating with consistency and quality care. Through belonging, mutuality, through love, strangers become family, and hurting hearts become indwelled by the life-giving Spirit of God, inseparably united to God and God’s family, in Christ.

And I wonder if in an effort to maintain our churches distinctiveness of culture, some have just become concierge doctors, catering to a particular crowd, but failing to offer the healing through community that reaches across socioeconomic and multiethnic lines to declare belonging, and glorifying God through the lifeblood of God’s forgiven family.

I get it ya’ll. the concierge doctor is luxurious. It makes us feel fancy. Caters to us. Gives us exactly what we ask for, no more no less. The music is too our liking. The sermon is just the right length. Everyone looks like me. I feel welcome. But the great physician is offering holistic care that gets us out of our comfort zones, true healing through radical belonging, and using his church to be a beacon of hope in a world of war.

In what ways are we aligning ourselves more with the culture war than the Great Physician, the Prince of Peace?

In what ways are we prioritizing our individual comfort over community care and shared belonging in the family of God?

In what ways are we rejecting the belonging of hurting people that need a level 1 trauma hospital, because truthfully, we’re only comfortable being managers of Band-Aids and emergency room bouncers?

As the family of God, we have a responsibility to know what hospital life is really like outside of the ER, so that we can truly function as the hands and feet of the healer we belong to. As always, our willingness is the difference maker.

Cheering you on always towards healing and wholeness. The family of God is GOOD and how we steward our belonging matters. And as always thank you for reading and supporting my work. Thank you for being here.

Liz