Get Outside Your Doors

Have you ever felt sick, but not sick enough to go to the doctor? Maybe you’ve waited out an injury for weeks to see if it would go away on its own.

I get it.

Doctors are costly. A trip to the hospital can be insurmountably expensive. Sometimes we have to make hard decisions, and that stinks.

They are also both time-consuming. Your appointment is at 1:00, and even though you were there 15 minutes early to fill out all the paperwork, you’re still sitting in the waiting room at 2:00.

Nobody has time for that!

So, you don’t go.

You try to ignore the pain or sickness all the while hoping it will magically disappear while you try to go about your normal routine.

I know I’ve done this.

What if it were different, though?

What if – and this is a BIG if – the doctors came to us?

There you are – sitting on your couch because your throbbing ankle is keeping you from doing the laundry and the 500 other things that need to be accomplished.

What’s that?

Someone’s knocking? Hmmm. I wonder who that could be.

You hobble to the door and open it to see a man in a white coat. Wait! It’s a doctor! He’s at your house. He was just checking out the neighborhood offering his assistance and wants to know if you have any medical needs.

No, no. He won’t accept payment. His being here is just something his hospital group does. It’s part of who they are.

You can’t believe your luck! You welcome him into your home. He looks at your ankle and gets you all wrapped up and on the road to recovery in short order. Your day, and even your outlook on life, just got ten times happier.

You better believe the next time you need healing you’ll be calling this guy up. Who knows? Maybe he’ll knock on your door again before you even have a chance to call.

Okay, let’s end this fairy tale.

I don’t want to get into a debate with you about the woes of our medical system. But, I think we can all agree there is room for improvement and this particular scenario is one we aren’t likely to experience any time soon.

I’m sure by now you are wondering what on earth this little bit of fiction has to do with Jesus.

Me, too. Man. I was hoping you would take it from here…

Ok, ok. I DO have a connection, I promise.

In many ways, the way we do church (see how we may be getting that wrong in my two posts “Are We Doing Church Wrong?” Part 1 and Part 2) can be a bit like how hospitals do business.

No, we aren’t charging $5,000 for communion or anything like that. Jesus does compare himself to doctors, though, when, in Mark 2, the Pharisees condemn the fact he has chosen to eat dinner amongst sinners. Mark writes, “On hearing this, Jesus said to them, ‘It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners” (Mark 2:17).

In this little analogy, Jesus is the doctor, and he’s come (in this case) to the HOME of a sinner (Levi) where lots of other tax collectors and other ne'er do wells were supping.

Of course Jesus is here! This is where the need is! The doctor goes to where the sick are!

But, do we? Do we GO to where the sick are? The hurting? Are we Jesus’ example of a good doctor, or are we corporate America’s version?

Instead of getting out of our doors, do we congregate inside our beautiful church building and just wait for the “sick” to come to us?

Do we pat ourselves on the back for serving in Sunday School for OUR people to learn, making food for the potluck to keep OUR people fed, and doing repairs on OUR building so OUR services look great?

I think many of our churches have become trapped in a circular service vortex (that sounds cool, doesn’t it? It’s not). We talk about serving and helping in our church buildings but rarely outside of them. We serve and help ourselves. We (for the most part) are healthy; yet we spend much of our focus on doctoring ourselves.

It isn’t bad to look after each other. Please don’t mistake my point. Yes, we absolutely should care for one another. In fact, that’s how Jesus says the world will know we are his disciples (John 13:35).

But that isn’t all we should do.

How do I know this?

Well, Jesus did more. He went to where the people were. Matthew 9:35 says, “Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness.”

Jesus went to where the people were in their towns and villages. When he was there, he preached the good news, yes, but he also met their physical needs.

I’ve been struck by another passage lately, and I think it gives urgency to what we are called to do. In Matthew 25:31-46, Jesus celebrates those who looked after those who were hungry, thirsty, sick, imprisoned, and in need of hospitality. However, he condemns those who did not do these things, telling them, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me” (25:45).

Ouch.

So, what are we to do?

I think the answer is pretty simple.

We open our doors and take the church outside of the church building. We go to where the pain is. We go, feed, and help. If you see a branch blocking the road, literally or metaphorically, you move it! Then, you look for more to move. I think we’ll be amazed at how much good news we can share when we go to where the need is instead of sitting in our cozy seats on Sunday morning waiting to be found.

We aren’t playing hide and seek here! Let’s get outside and do the good work we’ve been called to!