Hanging out

Luke 9:57-58 ESV

As they were going along the road, someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”

The green grass freshly mowed looked like a carpet in places with the telling sign of worn bare spots where the dirt and rock showed through. We stood inside an old shell of a church building. The adobe had been replastered to some extent, I deducted because the roof had burned off in the 1970s sometime, and the fire that took the roof, stained glass, and floor would likely take a significant amount of plaster as well. The plaque outside told the story of the penitente a group of lay ministers willing to spread the faith of Christ to barren lonely places where the Catholic clergy where unwilling to go. Deep into the inland frontier of the New World, the San Luis Valley at 7500 feet of elevation in this case, is a testament to their faithfulness and sacrifice, a short ten miles from this spot stands the oldest church in Colorado.

As Christ set himself for his last journey to Jerusalem, he was rejected and cast off by those he would welcome into his church later. His disciples could not fathom a king that would take such rejection and offered to destroy the town. Christ rebuked them and moved on. At this moment we are told of a person who would like to follow Jesus. No promises of glory await this individual. He is not told of future glory, of the crown that awaits him, of the streets of gold. Instead, Christ wishes to make sure he is fully aware of all he will lose by following Christ. He is admonished to count the cost. Christ does not seek to entice him to his service with tales of white robes and white horses. If you follow Christ there will be times you don’t even have a place to sleep at night as your home may be taken from you. Continuing Christ warns others of being denied the ability to mourn for loved ones who have died and even ministries so pressing you will be denied time to say goodbye, moments when you must leave before you are ready.

This is what you sign up for when you follow Christ. The hermanos, or brothers, is what the lay ministers were called in this region of Colorado/New Mexico. It is not insignificant to note that they were a group. Even as the plaque speaks of the “extreme isolation of the Hispano frontier” these men leaned on each other to maintain their faith and their mission. Christ calls us to hard things, and to make disciples, not by holding carrots in front of people but by helping all to understand the cost of what following him is. To many of us have been won by promises of good times ahead rather than promises of trials and work. The American Church is weaker for it.

Like many churches, San Isidro Catholic Church, was already abandoned by 1973. The fellowship simply unable to survive the ability to drive somewhere else. Boarded up and unkept it burned to what my children played in and I observed, walls with no roof or floor, such is the fate of a church that has lost its heart. To have heart, guts, or grit, which ever term you prefer, you have to have trials to endure and survive, isolation is one of them. The church has often failed to meet the trials of ministering to an isolated people. People who don’t want to gather together with those not their family. People to busy with work or school to invite and spend an evening together around a meal and fun. I said it wasn’t insignificant that the hermanos was a plural noun, they survive where they stayed plural, the church failed where they didn’t.

“We must, indeed, all hang together or, assuredly, we shall all hang separately.” – Benjamin Franklin

Coram deo