If we come upon someone stuck at the bottom of a pit and we care enough to help them (like we should) how are we most helpful? If we throw them down a rope it is very likely they won’t be able to use it to climb out themselves. They may be injured. They may be not physically capable of hauling themselves up by a rope. They may be in too much distress. We need a different strategy. 

What fire and rescue crews do is, first of all, bring a crew. It’s not a job for one person if you can help it. You need a trusted crew, along with some good rope and harnesses.

Then, you need to have someone go down into the pit.

You need someone to join with the person who is stuck there. 

They can tend to any injuries. They can help to calm panic and distress. And then they can get the person into a harness and, with the help of their friends up top, get them up and out of the pit. 

If we are to minister to each other and to the world as followers of Jesus, in this world full of pitfalls, we need to be able to join others in whatever pit they may have fallen in. And we need to do that with enough help so that we don’t get stuck there too. 

The good news is that this is exactly what God does for us through Jesus. Jesus joins us in our condition, joins all of humanity in our condition, and sits with us there for a while until it’s like “Okay, you ready to get up and get out of here? Hold my hand.” 

The kinds of pits where Jesus found people and came to them were the kinds of pits that most people want to pass by, and don’t want to even look in, let alone help someone out of. Jesus went to the places of greatest neglect. They are the pits of dehumanization and pits of suffering, the pits of poverty, the pits of violence, the pits of mental illness, pits of scapegoating, what have you – the places in a sin-sick society where people can become alone in their suffering. Jesus in his life and ministry joined people there. He joined people there to such an extent he told his disciples that “what you do to the least of these you do to me: that how we treat the prisoner, how we treat the foreigner, how we treat the homeless poor is how we treat Jesus himself. 

Jesus even joined humanity at our lowest to the extent of himself becoming the target of the unholy marriage of mob violence and state violence. 

All this was so that we would know that God is with us, even at our lowest, and that we would accept God’s help in getting pulled up and out. 

So also are we called to help each other, with the help of the resurrected Christ and the Holy Spirit and our communities of kindred spirits. 

Another way to put this is the Way of Jesus is the way of the wounded healer. Jesus joins us in our woundedness, he joins us in our weakness, he joins us in the places of neglect and secrecy and shame, and thereby he helps us become whole, healed, at one with our merciful Creator. 

This message is such a reversal of our expectations. Our Christian faith has been so dominant for so long that it can be easy to lose touch with the scandal at the heart of its radical message. Gods are not supposed to be servants. Messiahs are not supposed to be executed as criminals. Weaknesses are not supposed to be strengths. Wounds are not supposed to be sources of healing. The least, the last, and the lost are not supposed to be anything but the losers of history, let alone at center stage.

Yet this is exactly what we actually need for our salvation. 

And this is the model by which we are to minister to each other and to our world. To be wounded healers, however that looks for you and however that may change over time in your life. 

“A wise sufferer will look not inward, but outward,” as Christian author Philip Yancey writes, “There is no more effective healer than a wounded healer, and in the process the wounded healer’s own scars may fade away.”

If someone is suffering, it’s most helpful if we are willing to just be with them where they are. Rather than tossing out some advice or platitude and trying to drag them to a different place, we need to go down and join them where they are and take it slow. That is, of course, if they’re okay with your companionship. 

Our instincts are to avoid this, because it means having our own hurts be touched. We may rather just hurry by and not have to feel uncomfortable things. 

In the words of Adam Bucko, in his new book “Let Heartbreak be your Guide: Lessons in Engaged Contemplation”:

“The kind of spirituality Jesus calls us to is less about withdrawal, protection, safety, and preserving our lives as we know them, and more about risk, vulnerability, and even mutual dependence. On this path, we make progress not by practicing ‘shelter in place’ but by being able to touch what frightens us in the world. We make progress by removing the protective walls, the clear boundaries dividing the world into good and bad, and engaging with it, struggling with it, and in the process, discovering new levels of God’s expansiveness.”

Now, it also doesn’t help if you join someone in the pit and get stuck there yourself. This is about using our wounds and healing journeys as a resource for others, not making it about ourselves or about ourselves becoming another casualty. That’s why it takes a good team, and a good rope. A healthy community of faith supports each other as helpers and healers. And Jesus is there to help us, and God, and the Holy Spirit, however you best stay tied to that relationship with the Higher Power in Whom we have our strength.

I know that in this very room (and across zoom) there is so much wisdom and experience, there is woundedness and healing, there is great knowledge of how God works in our lives through our struggles and our joys. And I know there are so many in our wider communities who need some of the compassionate companionship this community can offer, who need to know how God joins us in our brokenness and in our beauty through the great wounded healer we call Jesus. 

For you all and for our shared ministry, I give thanks to God. 

Thanks be to God.