My friend died yesterday. He stepped in front of a dump truck and is gone. I hadn't seen or talked with him since college graduation now thirteen years ago, but I still call him friend. And I say that because a thought of him still brings a smile, as rare as thoughts of him might be. When gathered with friends, his name would come up as we laughed together. He was good and kind and beloved. Pictures of him show up any time I look back on college days. Friend is most certainly the right word.
I've been on the internet more than usual today--well, on social media. I've texted more with friends today than I usually do. I've talked on the phone with people I normally don't call. This is the outpouring of grief for our friend. We want to tell stories, to talk about him, to laugh together. For even if we haven't seen each other in years, we are bound by those years in college. We are bound by that version of beloved community.
If I had what I wanted, what would provide rest for my soul, we would gather somewhere together tonight. There would be drinks and food and hours spent laughing and talking and crying and praying. We would share the most holy communion, maybe as sacrament, maybe not. Some of the people missing our friend today might get to do that. I will not. The people I would choose to gather with are in Tennessee and Virginia and Ohio and Indiana, while I am in Arizona. This version of beloved community is in diaspora right now. Who knows if we will get to gather again.
Maybe it doesn't sound that different from what people who love each other do--but this thing for which my wound aches seems far more holy than what I have seen at a bar. This is Church, the Church I am constantly in amazement of--that tells stories of death and life week in and week out. We tell a story of a God who was born, of a God who died, and all the grief wrapped up in those events and the in between. God bless the Church, who knows what to do when someone dies. There's no other institution that manages it quite so well or so readily. It's wrapped up in our own stories of our salvation. Let us sit with death and all that brings, for it is not quite so scary here, together, alongside resurrection people.
As a pastor, I hope I can give people a beloved, wonderful community. I hope I can give them a Church that is more life-giving than a career that might take them elsewhere, and a place to call home in a deep, good way. I hope the church gives roots that reach down more deeply than anything else. It sounds impossible, until the moment we are all longing for that beloved community we once knew. It sounds as countercultural as the Gospel actually is. It sounds dangerous enough to execute a person over. It sounds like salvation.
Even today, I do not grieve as those who have no hope. I'm mostly agnostic about the afterlife. I still believe my friend will receive whatever good may come. God knows, if not him, then who?
And here is the story that I most remember, which is not particularly hilarious or amazing, but is dear. One day, we were standing talking underneath the trees on campus by the parking lot in front of the men's dorms, early in our freshman year. His name was Adam Bisesi, and he often went by his last name. Somehow, in conversation, he spilled his high school nickname, "Bisexy." (Bih-sexy) Immediately after he did, he blushed and began stumbling, "Oh, no. I didn't mean to say that. Please, don't use it." And I laughed. As another friend put it, he was mortified and I found it hilarious. That was so often the case.
For this gift from God I give thanks.
May the peace of Christ carry us all.
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