Chasing Wisdom by Daniel GrotheMuestra

The moment we find ourselves in is a moment of cheap connections. We may have 1,500 friends on Facebook, but we haven’t had a meaningful conversation in quite some time. Many of us have grown fat with connections, but we are anemic in relationships. Even our communities of faith are feeling the loss. Statisticians and pollsters everywhere will tell you as much. People who used to regularly attend church have stopped. Instead of attending worship services in the flesh, many watch online. Something that was meant to be a last resort for deployed soldiers and hospitalized saints has become the first option for many. Some people no longer require their pastors to be present, as long as there’s an HD big screen in their place. The societal move toward the virtual has gotten into the bloodstream of the church, who is herself at risk of becoming the church of the disembodied.

The church, though, has always been of the body. We lift up our holy hands and sing at full volume. We bow our knees at the altar and anoint the sick with oil. Worship is physical. Embodied. When Jesus called his disciples to remember him, he didn’t mean in happy, transcendental thoughts on which to meditate. He gave them bread and wine, a meal. And he gave them each other. With his last breath on the cross, he said to his mother Mary and his best friend John, “Woman, here is your son” (John 19:26). He meant: There’s a new family for you. Stay together, because you are going to need each other.

With our social dislocation and cheap connections, we are at risk of losing the gift of physical proximity. We are at risk of losing the gift of the laying on of hands. But the church has always been the body of embodiment; the church is the means by which Jesus continues to lay his hands on us. This touch is felt as another saint stands in his place and lays their hands on us.