Merle

This week has been tough. Less than five minutes before going in for the worship service on Sunday morning, Jen handed me a note from a phone call she had just taken in the office. Merle had fallen on Saturday, hitting her head on the sidewalk, and resulting in massive injury to her brain.

That afternoon, as Maggie and I stood around her bed in the ICU with those of her family who had been able to get there so far, all of us agreed that if Merle had been able to speak she would have said, “Don’t worry about me; go take care of someone who really needs it.”

As we prayed together, reaching out to touch her, it was clear to me that Merle embodied what we are to be as followers of Jesus. She has been a sign pointing to God’s kindom among us; she has been a foretaste of what it would be to live more fully in the kindom; and she has been an instrument in helping bring God’s kindom more fully into being here and now.

Of course, I know that Merle would have waved off any such hifalutin words—after all, as far as she was concerned, she was just doing what needed to be done for people in need. And that is exactly why Merle is an image of what God has called us to be, people who serve the least, the last, and the lost. In serving them, we are serving Jesus himself.

Philippians 2:5

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus…