EAST CRAFTSBURY – At a recent discussion group, someone told a story about a car their father left when he passed away. It was a Dodge Omni that hadn’t been driven in decades, as it had been sitting in the garage.
When he passed, there was suddenly a passionate fight over who it was supposed to go to. Finally, one grandchild got it. And then as soon as they took it on the road, it died almost immediately because the engine was busted.
In chewing on this, a Quaker friend pointed out something we’ve all seen: when we die, what we leave behind us immediately becomes symbolic. The car or the farm is more than a car or a farm; becoming dad’s car or mom’s farm.
And it’s true, what we leave behind isn’t just the thing, but what that thing points to; in the case of a parent, their love. The most powerful photos that have ever been taken are more than just what they show, but what they represent: how incredibly small we are in the universe, the desperation of poverty, the risks of immigration, the horrors of war or the joy in finally finding peace.
We need images. Not photos, images. Hope takes the shape of an image, for we can only get so far running away from something. We need to find something that draws us, something to aspire to, create a picture of what is possible.
We can’t run forever on an anti-vision, on being against something, even if we are right to be against it; Jesus did not simply denounce the world as it was, he told us about the kingdom of God. He did so through stories, farming parables, analogies of sheep and goats, lost coins, lost brothers. That is, he used images of real things we could touch, not only see, just as his flesh was something we could touch, not only see.
But in the awful predicament that is our sin, false images can draw us almost as captivatingly as true images. Sometimes, we are drawn to a false image of the future: if only everybody would just X-Y-Z, the world would be perfect. Sometimes, the false image is an idealized past: if only we could be as perfect as we imagine things were. We can believe in these images so much that we impose our will to gain them.
Sometimes I feel like what is happening in the country now is like we have all lost whole generations of saints who left us this car. It used to work pretty well, but now when you try to drive it, it breaks down. Sometimes you have to wonder if people are intentionally trying to total it to cash in on the insurance claims, but one thing’s for sure, nobody remembers how it works anymore. So we fight over the car because it’s more than a car that we’re currently stuck together in, it’s an image of a country we all inherited that is neither completely true nor completely false, neither fully good nor fully evil, but surely at least functional.
For Christians, the Church is another car we’ve inherited. In our nostalgia, we sometimes imagine it as something more perfect than it really was, while the New Testament actually preserves just exactly how imperfect it’s always been.
Read the Epistles start to finish and you will not only hear inspiring words, but also the fighting, the false teachers, the unethical behavior, the pride and the confusion. If we are holding onto an image of the Church we grew up with that if we brought it back there would be perfect peace and harmony, we may be forgetting a few things.
The thing about false images is that we eventually get betrayed by them, even as we struggle to let them go. Maybe it is more comforting to pursue a false vision than to realize we can’t see clearly by ourselves. The impossible situation of our sin is that while we can’t see clearly ourselves, we still need images.
The good news of the gospel is we don’t have to see by ourselves. We have the image of the invisible God in the real person of Jesus Christ. He is not nostalgic, but a living memory of a true image. He is a true vision that cannot simply be let go, and he will not let you go.
Despite its issues, we know the Church is worth holding onto because it is Christ’s body; more than an image, it is also real. You can touch it, because it is made of people. Together, we can do many things we can’t do by ourselves.
Many of us Christians can’t fully explain to our friends why Christianity, why Jesus. We often can’t fully explain to ourselves why. And yet there’s something about the image of him that draws us to him, and when we see him, we know we must walk with a different kind of invisible vision: by faith, not by sight (2 Cor 5:7).
Jesus did leave a few visible things for us. We call them sacraments. They are visible signs of invisible grace. He does not only leave us the mysterious Holy Spirit, but some simple, practical elements: bread, wine, water. Because while we need images, we need the substantial, the material, the real.
When Jesus gives us these simple things in his supper, he invites us to eat, saying, “Do this in remembrance of me.” (1 Corinthians 11:24)
What is amazing about this memory of Jesus is that he is not a relic of the past. He is not nostalgia, but a real, living image through his Spirit. He is here, alive, the risen Lord. And he is inviting you to supper.
The Rev. Joe Welker serves the East Craftsbury Presbyterian Church. More of his writing can be found on indwelling.net.
