The Meaning of Family

      We had a awful fright at our house a week ago.  Rosie woke me at 3:00 AM with terrible chest pains.  She was gasping for breath and was afraid that she was having a heart attack.  I gave her an aspirin and called 911.  A cop came a few minutes later, followed by an ambulance that transported her to Allegheny General Hospital.  I followed along, got her registered and we waited until the doctors did a diagnosis and she was admitted to the hospital so that they could do tests.  After all of the medical people did their work, we discovered that it wasn’t a heart attack at all, but a gastro-intestinal problem that caused the terrible pain.  We thought ourselves very fortunate.

A day or so after this happened, our kids were visiting and my oldest asked me why I didn’t call her at 3 AM to tell her what had happened.  She told me that she wants to take care of both of us when we need her and we need to share times like this.  All of our daughters agreed that this was so.  I apologized to them for not calling, but they really hit the nail on the head with their criticism.   Rosie and I are aging.  That isn’t something that we always want to acknowledge, but it is certainly true.  I also know that as a family, we need to include everyone in our experiences, good and bad.  They really want to be a part of our lives.  I am not doing them or us any favor by neglecting to tell them what is going on.  They need very much to share our experiences.   Our kids taught us something by their comments.  I won’t neglect to tell them ever again, even at three in the morning when something is going on.  They need to know.

So what does this thing “family” mean and how far does it extend?  You and I, gathered here before the altar ready to receive the body and blood of our Lord are all family.  We need each other in all that goes on in our lives.  We have an obligation to share our experiences with each other so that we can both help others and be helped ourselves.  Like Rosie and I with our daughters, sometimes we neglect to do this.  That doesn’t mean that it isn’t necessary.  One of the things that binds us together most tightly is the common sharing of experience.  Our prayer lists are more than opportunities for gossip, they are the asking of our compassion and our prayer to our God for what we need as individuals in this congregation.  In any moment in our lives, we are more than individuals, we are part of a family, part of a common tribe, part of a congregation that worships our God and cares for each other.  That is what was being built by the followers of Jesus in creating the church.

In those earliest days, immediately after the resurrection, the apostles were befuddled.  When Jesus came and appeared to them in the upper room when they thought that they were the next ones on the list to be arrested and killed, they didn’t know what to make of this appearance by their leader.  In John’s Gospel, in the sixth chapter, Jesus has a long dissertation on what he calls his body and blood.  He tells his followers than unless you eat of my body and drink of my blood you have no life in you.  When he says this, the gospel records that a number of his disciples were disgusted by this and stopped going about with him.  He asked the twelve if they wanted to desert him also, but they said: Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God."

So here are Jesus’ closest disciples, his twelve, who have just heard him talk about requiring them to eat  his flesh and drink his blood, who don’t quite understand what he is talking about, but they are stopped from deserting him because they don’t know where else they could go.  He has the words of eternal life.  That is the bottom line for them.   The crucifixion and the resurrection have not yet happened.  When all of this comes about, Jesus meaning for them becomes much clearer.  It has persisted through the ages and shortly, we will participate in this by receiving the body and blood of Jesus here at this altar in recognition not only of our faith, but of our commitment to each other as the family of God in this place.  This sacrament binds us together as Christians who love each other and promise to share our lives together in common.  That is what is means to be a church and what it means to be a part of a congregation.

One year at Christ Church, I had twenty-seven funerals.  Most of them were pillars of the church, people whom we couldn’t afford to lose, but lose them we did.  I grieved throughout that year for each of them and for the loss that these deaths meant to our common life.  I preached at each funeral, but I never cried.  After one of these services, late in the year, I was leaving the church and one of the altar guild members met me on the stairs.  She put her arm on my shoulder and said, “And how are you doing?”  I broke into tears at that moment and cried for all of those beautiful people whom we had lost.  That wonderful altar guild woman was expressing to me the whole concept of family, how we share our joy and our grief with each other as members of the Body of Christ.  I have never forgotten that moment.  It is a constant reminder to me of the need that we all have for each other all of the time.  In most of the moments of my life, I am like those apostles of Jesus.  I don’t understand much of it either, but I know my need for other people.  We are family.  We are Christians.  We are together.  Thank God for all of that.