Revelations from the Sanctuary Floor

by Casey Thompson

Held Up

A  month after my ordination last year, I was lying on the stone floor of my church, splayed out like a frog on a biology lab table. It was a few minutes before worship and people were streaming by me into the sanctuary. I could hear their voices, muffled in the background, "Who is that? Is that Casey? Is he okay?"

Three medical professionals hovered over me, wondering aloud if I was going to pass out. They instructed me to take off my collar, lie back. I had dressed for the occasion, you see. No slouch here. Robe, collar, stole: the whole regalia.

It all had begun a moment before as I descended the nearby staircase. 'Descended' is probably an inadequate word for what I did. Tumbled, perhaps? No, plummeted is better. My ankle turned under me and popped. I screamed and a crowd gathered around me.

Though my recollection of the affair is hazy, I remember thinking, "This is humiliating. Perhaps next week, I can drop the chalice or baptize the wrong baby. That's better, I suppose, then using the wrong chalice and dropping the baby, but still..." Another voice in me interrupted, "No, this is good. It's good to be laid out on the floor while everyone passes by. There's humility in this - not humiliation. God's strength is made perfect in my weakness. This is good."

The mind ruminates on awe-inspired things when the adrenaline kicks in.

A couple of saints take my daughters into their care and then a cardiologist named Ray lifts me into a wheelchair. He drives my wife and me to the hospital. As we wait for an x-ray, we start to talk about our families. I discover he's the son of a Methodist pastor, Ray Sr. I confess to him I'm a little worried about my kids growing up with the expectations of being the pastor's kid, but there's a spirit about Ray, a humility, that offers me some tranquility on that question. He's inherited some of his father's gifts for attending to people, for making them feel safe. He stays with us three hours, gently turning down invitations to head off, and after my x-rays demonstrate that my greatest wound is to my pride rather than my ankle, he drives us home.

I learned a great deal about being held up by the church that day, about the mutuality of care between a pastor and a congregation, about the extraordinary gifts of patience, love and kindness that Christ bestows upon his disciples. Often the best thing we can do for each other, I learned, is just to be there to hold each other up.

Last week, I was near those stairs again. I had just attended the funeral of Ray Sr., a man whose life was spent holding up people, a man who was defined by his promises to do so.

Out in the hallway, I lingered to talk to my friend Anne. Abruptly, she shifted her focus beyond me, nearly shouting, "Go help that man."

An older gentleman had slumped upon the stairs, as if his body had just deflated and he couldn't go any further. He was teetering, about to fall. A crowd gathered around him but I was able to slip in behind him and hold him under his arms. The weight was substantial, but I could bear it. Together, we made a slow, deliberate trip down the stairs. His son was there, leading him from the front and encouraging him, "Come on, dad, just a few more steps." When we finally reached the bottom, we lowered the father into a wheelchair, the same one Ray had put me in the year before.

The gentleman I helped, it turns out, was a Methodist pastor, an old colleague of Ray Sr's - another man who has spent his life holding up the church, and another son who loved his father.

People I meet outside of the church are often a bit intimidated by my vocation. They often say things like, "You do important things." "You work for God." "You interpret scripture." "You're a moral compass." In the end, it surprises them that it's the most humble of chores that really define my vocation. I sit and talk to people when they're sick. I make sure there are enough chairs in my classroom. I try to convey the glimpses of truth that I see when I read scripture to others. I try to hold people up. This is what I do. In the end, holding up that child of God as he wended his way down the stairs may be among the most important things I do this year, just as learning to be held up was among the most important things I could learn as I started my ministry. I've gratitude in being held and, in turn, holding.

Casey Thompson is an Associate Pastor at Idlewild Presbyterian Church in Memphis, TN.