Just Show Up
Transcripts are computer-generated and may not be 100% accurate.
Gino: And thank you, Debbie, for sending me the text. By the way, if you get a text from Debbie about being up here next week, please say yes. I was scared to death and I'm really glad I'm doing this, but I am, it's going to be hard, just want to say that out loud. So I grew up Catholic and landed here 58 years later, but my life journey or my spiritual journey has been a long and winding road. On most of my days, steadfast atheist, okay? On my better days, migrated to agnostic. And on my best days and my most recent days, I’ve felt the presence of God for the first time ever. So how did I get here?
When I first got married, my wife, Lynn, she loved—everybody who knows Lynn knows that she's 100% in and she just, it was important to her that I went to church. And I was very indifferent. I swear I was drifting away and I knew it was important to her, so I went to church and I involved myself in all the peripheral things like drumming, hanging out with the kid program, just an easily distracted during church. My mind would wander. I'd think about if I punted a football, could I hit the ceiling? If I knocked over a statue, how many pieces would it break into? How do they make these stained glass windows? Everything other than the church, I loved everything about church kind of other than the church part. And I thought, what if I could believe in God, how much better would it be?
So I went into the wilderness a variety of times. The first time was about 15 years ago and I was part of a church. Again, I was hanging out on the sidelines, not leaning in. And I saw a poster that said, "Find God on this mission trip," or it was, "Experience God on this mission trip." I'm like, I need to consciously put myself in places where I could see God, okay? Because I couldn't see him. I'm an engineer to the core. I'm a digital guy. I'm like, science rules. And I just, I couldn't get that whole experience God thing. So I went on this mission trip with 25 kids, drove nine hours to wounded Indian reservation. First day we're painting houses and then the kids are talking about how they experience God and every aspect of that. And then I'm like, I felt nothing. Last day we cleaned up all this garbage in the park and the community felt so good about it. The kids at night were saying, "Experience God all day today." I felt nothing.
The last day, I was really just, it was a great experience but I didn't experience God like I wanted to. The last day I noticed on the schedule, I said like, "Open afternoon," or some kind of special activity. I'm like, what's the special activity? Like one of the other leaders was like, "We're going to go climb a mountain with the kids at sunset." I'm like, oh my God, this is it. This is totally it. Really we're taking them to the top of, yes, at sunset. I'm like, oh my gosh, what's up there? A huge hundred foot cross. I'm like, this is it. This is it. And I take these kids up, we went all the way up, got to the top and the kids are taking pictures and they're just like praying and all this stuff. I felt nothing. I was so disappointed. I couldn't just take that step that these kids could so easily take.
I found myself going down the mountain. It's like the transitive of property of math. Remember, I'm an engineer. It's like, if A equals B and B equals C, then A equals C. If I have a relationship with you and you have a relationship to God, I could have a relationship to God through you. But I can't have it for myself. I'm like, you know what? That's as good as it gets. I found myself muttering as I went down the mountain like, I'm good, I'm good, I'm good, I got this. That's no good. I'm good. And I just, anyway, drove back and said, okay, maybe this is as far as it goes for me.
And then fast forward to the part you probably thought I was going to talk about today and that is after Lynn died, I didn't seek out the wilderness. I woke up in it. Okay. Pause there because when I talked to Debbie this week, she's like, you know, you skipped over a huge wilderness chapter. Which one? She said, when Lynn got diagnosed and Lynn had ALS. ALS is a disease that takes your legs away from you, it takes your arms away from you, you can't eat, you can't swallow, you suffocate. It's the most brutal disease ever. And I found myself in the wilderness because I didn't recognize it as wilderness because it's, Stefano will know this because we were in survival zone, buddy. I didn't frame it up as a wilderness. I didn't see it as an opportunity. I'm like, we're just trying to get by.
But you know who shows up in the wilderness? All of you. Okay. And the most unknown people, unknown places, unknown times, we get a letter from this woman, Susan Gallagher, who we knew remotely. We used to do a family camp church thing with her once a year. She wrote us a letter and said, I would like to help you and be at your house for nine to six every Wednesday. If you'll let me. I feel called to do this. We didn't know her that well. We said, sure. She became Wednesday Susan. Then Tuesday Kathy showed up. Monday Ellen showed up. Okay. Sunday, Sunday night, Sarah and Lori showed up. Wednesday night, Steve and Debbie showed up. They formed this care team. 26 people deep. That's the wilderness where people, God put people in front of us. Things came in. We couldn't keep up with it. Okay. So that was a really, really important time. And that woman, her last name is Gallagher. Remember that name. It will come in later.
Okay. So fast forward to the part where Lynn dies and I wake up, as I said, in the wilderness. I didn't put myself there. It just, I just landed at it. My life was different. Everything I was doing for three and a half years no longer needed to be done because the care for Lynn was hard. You guys get her out of bed in the morning. Get her in the bathroom. Clean her up, toileting, all that stuff. Brushing teeth, getting dressed, makeup. I'm looking at Andrea. Sometimes Andrea would come over like, "Thank God, because I suck at makeup." And Andrea is the bomb, right? So that all these people just showed up. Even the nights were hard. And they just showed up in the wilderness.
But fast forward to the new new. I'm like, I think I want to give this God thing one more try. A genuine try. I'm going to do it differently this time. I'm not going to try to cram it into a four-day mission trip. I'm going to take a year. I'm going to be intentional. I'm going to sit in those hard places. You mentioned last week, you don't go around it. You don't go under it. You don't go over it. You sit in it. Guys, last summer I walked two million steps from June to September. Mostly alone. To sit in that and not try to run through it. I'm going to run through things, guys. And I sat in it.
Be intentional. Tell others about it. Hold yourself accountable. So I named it. I named it Gino 2.0. And I said, I want to change who I am. I have another chance. And at the same time, while I'm alone, most of it, I did take people with me. And Lori and Sarah and Debbie and see. And Ellen and most of you, most of our small group here in this church and our families. But I had a group of people. And I even said, I want to make it into something. I called Gino 2.0. The big one was to find God. And the other one was to find someone. To spend this last chapter of my life with. Lynn had said, I want you to find somebody. I want you to make somebody happy. I want them to make you happy. She told our kids. It was like the last thing she kind of said to us.
And so that was the big Tier 1 stuff. The Tier 2 stuff was like a New Year's resolution. Eat better, sleep better, read more, work on drumming. But I literally launched this thing December 31st at your house with you and Steve and Lori with a bottle of Prosecco walking around Lake Harriet at like one in the morning. Because I wanted to market as this thing. And I wanted to be held accountable. First opportunity, and this is the last thing I'm going to talk about, came February. Two months later, I'm at Family Fest again. And I'd always gone to this Family Fest camp and always served on the outside. I played drums. I used to volunteer. And this time I said, I'm going to lean in. And I ran into this woman at breakfast. And we just hit it off. And we're talking. I'm like, hey, while you're here, could we ever get coffee? I'd love to talk to you more about your faith. She goes, I'm your speaker for the weekend. I'm like, oh, this is awesome, right? So she was speaking to me. I found out she was a Young Life leader. It's like that high school message just resonates with this old dog, right? So it was the weirdest thing. And then as the week went on, I found myself like really leaning in hard. But then toward the end of the week
I didn’t have the moment. And I started like, old Gino’s come back—the skeptic, the engineer, the science guy. And I was feeling kind of bad. And what do I do when I feel—I went to the bar. And I ran into some 20-somethings that were coming home from the bar. And at this family camp—these are the kids that grew up at this camp. They’re all believers. They’re all in. And they’re like, oh, the bar is closed. I’m like, really? Like, you want to come back to our cabin? It would have been so easy, you guys, to just say, nope, going to call it. I’m done. I’ve just been given up on this. And I said, yes. I went back to their cabin. And it was like an intervention. They were like, how was the week for you? I’m like, me? I’m like, it was good. And I got really close to believing God, but I don’t think I can get there. Like, what’s holding you back? And I’m like, well, you guys grew up here. This is your life. You love Jesus from day one.
And he goes—I said, I’m an engineer. I’ve watched Lynnie be 100%. And if I’m not 100%, I’m zero. I couldn’t live in that middle. So I just couldn’t—and one of the guys said—his name is Keegan. And he said, on a scale of zero to 100, where are you? I said, I don’t live that way. He said, that’s not the question I asked you. Where are you? And I said, I’m maybe 80% believing in God. And he looked at me. He goes, what’s your problem? He goes, dude, I’m 80% on a good day. Usually, I’m 50%. And I’m like, but Keegan, you believe in God? I thought you believed in God. He goes, I do believe in God. I’m like, well, where’s the extra 20%? How are you claiming 100? Because I’m not claiming 100. That’s where faith comes in. You can only take it so far.
And faith is—and I’ve heard this message, you guys, before. I’ve heard it before, but I needed to be at two in the morning at the most unexpected times, in the unexpected places, at this kid’s house at Grandview, not at my place. Through people I don’t even know. You know what this Keegan’s last name was? Gallagher. He’s the son of the woman who wrote us a letter to say, I want to be part of your care team. When the care team grew to 26 and I needed a chief of staff, who was my chief of staff? Susan Gallagher. So these people just show up. And now, Lori and I, we try to show up for people in their wilderness. We’re in the—we’re in the shit club. Excuse my French. We’re in the club that no one—sorry, ear muffs for you guys. We’re in the club nobody wants to be in. But we’re trying to now help people when they’re in the wilderness have some faith, believe, even if you can’t believe it 100%. So if you’re one of those people like me that couldn’t get to 100%, look for, in the wilderness, unexpected people at the unexpected times at the unexpected places, and they’ll be there for you. You’re not alone. I thought I was alone. I wasn’t alone.
Thank you. (Applause)
Debbie: Part of me just wants to—from the heart, Gino, thank you. Thank you so much for sharing. And the other part wants to go, great, now I’m up. Thanks, Gino. I always appreciate the courage, being brave, to get up here and be that vulnerable. Because we all have our own wilderness stories. But thank you for sharing yours, Gino. Thanks, guys. Yeah. So get ready. Like you said, you never know when I’m coming for you.
We’re in week three of this series that we are calling "Experiencing God in the Wilderness." And what we know is that the wilderness can be both a literal and a metaphorical place. And it’s a season that’s typically a season of uncertainty and difficulty, grief, loss, suffering. And like I just said a minute ago, we’ve all experienced seasons of wilderness, sometimes short, sometimes very long seasons of wilderness. It’s a hard and it’s a holy space. But what we know is in that space, it’s when we meet God in unexpected ways through unexpected people. And we meet God in ways that change us. Because it is the space where God shows up, where God meets us, where we’re at.
Well, this morning we are in the Hebrew scriptures, what we know is the Old Testament. We’re in the book of Job today. It’s considered both wisdom and poetic literature. And the book, in its entirety, is about God’s sovereignty, about true faith. And it asks the question, why did the righteous suffer?
And here’s what we know about Job. He is a faithful, faithful man of God. And by ancient standards, he’s got it all. He’s got the land. He’s got the cattle. He’s got the servants. He’s got the wife and the kids. He has status. He has it all. And Satan comes up to God and says, hey, your man Job, you know why he’s faithful? Because life is so good. It’s easy to be faithful when life is good. And so God allows Satan to take it all. He takes his children. He takes his land, his servants. He loses it all. And to add insult to injury, Satan puts painful sores all over Job.
And suddenly he’s thrust into the spiritual wilderness, seemingly without warning, kind of in a sweeping moment when he loses it all. And in this case, the wilderness is not a place, but it’s an experience of disorientation, of pain and silence, what seems to be silence from God. Yet here’s Job. He doesn’t curse God. He says this, the Lord gave and the Lord has taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord. And for the next 35 chapters in this book, there’s 42 chapters in this book, Job wrestles. He wrestles and it’s not pretty. And the lament begins and throughout it all, Job is desperately trying to solve the mystery of why. Why he’s suffering. He prays, he cries, he pleads, he yells, he challenges God. But in all the despair, in all the disappointment, he’s never walking away from God. It’s not disbelief because faith in the wilderness is about relationship. It’s raw, it’s real, it’s relational.
Now his friends, they show up and they’re uncomfortable with all this discomfort that Job is going through. And they try to give an answer to the why. Doesn’t work out so well. But Job doesn’t try to hide his pain. He doesn’t hide his lamenting. And in his wilderness, he’s full of questions. And he also is experiencing God’s silence in that time. But finally, chapters later, we’re actually in chapter 38, God finally speaks and he speaks out of this whirlwind, out of this storm. He continues on for about two plus chapters to talk but instead of answering Job’s question as to why the righteous suffer, what he does is he tells Job about who he is. He asks rhetorical questions. And he starts with, where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? And the creation language in this story, this part of the story is a reminder that God is creator, God is sustainer, and that God might just be beyond all of our human understanding.
God says, have you commanded the morning since your days began? And God ends up taking Job on this creation tour from dawn to sea and from rain to stars, animals to weather patterns. He reveals his majesty, his power through creation, showing Job that the world operates beyond your human grasp. And then ultimately, it’s not about you and what you understand. But it’s about God and who God is. And while suffering isn’t always explained, it gives us, the story gives us a bigger picture of who God is and our own place in the world. Think we kind of don’t love to hear that part, but it does give us that.
And here’s the beauty of this story. The climax of this story is not that God answers the why as to why Job is suffering. There’s no finding answers here, but it’s the encounter with God that changes Job. And Job says this, my ears had heard of you, but now my eyes are open to you. I’ve seen you. Because in the wilderness, Job doesn’t just hear about God. Job actually meets God. And here’s what Job teaches us. But this whole thing is about how big, how great God is. And after hearing from God, this is what Job says. Surely I spoke of things that I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know. And the whole beauty of this thing is Job’s wilderness, it ends. It ends not because his questions were answered. His wilderness this season ends because he’s encountered God. And in that encounter, which happens by the way before he’s restored, in that encounter, he finds peace.
And for Job, God speaking out of the storm, it became one of those behold moments. He actually, he was able to behold this presence of God in his midst. You know, for Job like us, behold often comes I didn’t have the moment. And I started like, old Genos come back—the skeptic, the engineer, the science guy. And I was feeling kind of bad. And what do I do when I feel—I went to the bar. And I ran into some 20-somethings that were coming home from the bar. And at this family camp—these are the kids that grew up at this camp. They’re all believers. They’re all in. And they’re like, oh, the bar is closed. I’m like, really? Like, you want to come back to our cabin? It would have been so easy, you guys, to just say, nope, going to call it. I’m done. I’ve just been given up on this. And I said, yes. I went back to their cabin. And it was like an intervention. They were like, how was the week for you? I’m like, me? I’m like, it was good. And I got really close to believing God, but I don’t think I can get there. Like, what’s holding you back? And I’m like, well, you guys grew up here. This is your life. You love Jesus from day one.
And he goes—I said, I’m an engineer. I’ve watched Lenny be 100%. And if I’m not 100%, I’m zero. I couldn’t live in that middle. So I just couldn’t—and one of the guys said—his name is Keegan. And he said, on a scale of zero to 100, where are you? I said, I don’t live that way. He said, that’s not the question I asked you. Where are you? And I said, I’m maybe 80% believing in God. And he looked at me. He goes, what’s your problem? He goes, dude, I’m 80% on a good day. Usually, I’m 50%. And I’m like, but Keegan, you believe in God? I thought you believed in God. He goes, I do believe in God. I’m like, well, where’s the extra 20%? How are you claiming 100? Because I’m not claiming 100. That’s where faith comes in. You can only take it so far. And faith is—and I’ve heard this message, you guys, before.
I’ve heard it before, but I needed to be at two in the morning at the most unexpected times, in the unexpected places, at this kid’s house at Grandview, not at my place. Through people I don’t even know. You know what this Keegan’s last name was? Gallagher. He’s the son of the woman who wrote us a letter to say, I want to be part of your care team. When the care team grew to 26 and I needed a chief of staff, who was my chief of staff? Susan Gallagher. So these people just show up. And now, Lori and I, we try to show up for people in their wilderness. We’re in the—we’re in the shit club. Excuse my French. We’re in the club that no one—sorry, ear bumps for you guys. We’re in the club nobody wants to be in. But we’re trying to now help people when they’re in the wilderness have some faith, believe, even if you can’t believe it 100%. So if you’re one of those people like me that couldn’t get to 100%, look for, in the wilderness, unexpected people at the unexpected times at the unexpected places, and they’ll be there for you. You’re not alone. I thought I was alone. I wasn’t alone.
Thank you. (Applause)
Part of me just wants to—from the heart, Gino, thank you. Thank you so much for sharing. And the other part wants to go, great, now I’m up. Thanks, Gino. I always appreciate the courage, being brave, to get up here and be that vulnerable. Because we all have our own wilderness stories. But thank you for sharing yours, Gino. Thanks, guys. Yeah. So get ready. Like you said, you never know when I’m coming for you.
We’re in week three of this series that we are calling "Experiencing God in the Wilderness." And what we know is that the wilderness can be both a literal and a metaphorical place. And it’s a season that’s typically a season of uncertainty and difficulty, grief, loss, suffering. And like I just said a minute ago, we’ve all experienced seasons of wilderness, sometimes short, sometimes very long seasons of wilderness. It’s a hard and it’s a holy space. But what we know is in that space, it’s when we meet God in unexpected ways through unexpected people. And we meet God in ways that change us. Because it is the space where God shows up, where God meets us, where we’re at.
Well, this morning we are in the Hebrew scriptures, what we know is the Old Testament. We’re in the book of Job today. It’s considered both wisdom and poetic literature. And the book, in its entirety, is about God’s sovereignty, about true faith. And it asks the question, why did the righteous suffer?
And here’s what we know about Job. He is a faithful, faithful man of God. And by ancient standards, he’s got it all. He’s got the land. He’s got the cattle. He’s got the servants. He’s got the wife and the kids. He has status. He has it all. And Satan comes up to God and says, hey, your man Job, you know why he’s faithful? Because life is so good. It’s easy to be faithful when life is good. And so God allows Satan to take it all. He takes his children. He takes his land, his servants. He loses it all. And to add insult to injury, Satan puts painful sores all over Job.
And suddenly he’s thrust into the spiritual wilderness, seemingly without warning, kind of in a sweeping moment when he loses it all. And in this case, the wilderness is not a place, but it’s an experience of disorientation, of pain and silence, what seems to be silence from God. Yet here’s Job. He doesn’t curse God. He says this, the Lord gave and the Lord has taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord. And for the next 35 chapters in this book, there’s 42 chapters in this book, Job wrestles. He wrestles and it’s not pretty. And the lament begins and throughout it all, Job is desperately trying to solve the mystery of why. Why he’s suffering. He prays, he cries, he pleads, he yells, he challenges God. But in all the despair, in all the disappointment, he’s never walking away from God. It’s not disbelief because faith in the wilderness is about relationship. It’s raw, it’s real, it’s relational.
Now his friends, they show up and they’re uncomfortable with all this discomfort that Job is going through. And they try to give an answer to the why. Doesn’t work out so well. But Job doesn’t try to hide his pain. He doesn’t hide his lamenting. And in his wilderness, he’s full of questions. And he also is experiencing God’s silence in that time. But finally, chapters later, we’re actually in chapter 38, God finally speaks and he speaks out of this whirlwind, out of this storm. He continues on for about two plus chapters to talk but instead of answering Job’s question as to why the righteous suffer, what he does is he tells Job about who he is. He asks rhetorical questions. And he starts with, where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? And the creation language in this story, this part of the story is a reminder that God is creator, God is sustainer, and that God might just be beyond all of our human understanding.
God says, have you commanded the morning since your days began? And God ends up taking Job on this creation tour from dawn to sea and from rain to stars, animals to weather patterns. He reveals his majesty, his power through creation, showing Job that the world operates beyond your human grasp. And then ultimately, it’s not about you and what you understand. But it’s about God and who God is. And while suffering isn’t always explained, it gives us, the story gives us a bigger picture of who God is and our own place in the world. Think we kind of don’t love to hear that part, but it does give us that.
And here’s the beauty of this story. The climax of this story is not that God answers the why as to why Job is suffering. There’s no finding answers here, but it’s the encounter with God that changes Job. And Job says this, my ears had heard of you, but now my eyes are open to you. I’ve seen you. Because in the wilderness, Job doesn’t just hear about God. Job actually meets God. And here’s what Job teaches us. But this whole thing is about how big, how great God is. And after hearing from God, this is what Job says. Surely I spoke of things that I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know. And the whole beauty of this thing is Job’s wilderness, it ends. It ends not because his questions were answered. His wilderness this season ends because he’s encountered God. And in that encounter, which happens by the way before he’s restored, in that encounter, he finds peace.
And for Job, God speaking out of the storm, it became one of those behold moments. He actually, he was able to behold this presence of God in his midst. You know, for Job like us, behold often comes through those seasons of suffering. And I think it's another thing we don't love to hear. It's part of being human that we will suffer, we all do. But grief and loss and adversity, that's the reality of our world, that's the reality of our lives. And when pain and suffering comes upon us, we finally see that we're actually not in control of our life, and that guess what, we never were. That's kind of scary.
But what it reminds me of, and many of you have heard the story over the years of my sister, but I'm not sure you heard this little piece of it. So back in 2006, my younger sister, almost six years younger than I, she was 40 years old, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She had a one year old at the time. Flash forward to about 2015, and the cancer had come back and it metastasized into her bones and her lungs, and we knew that from now on it would be managing it until she would die.
And in 2015, the year before the year that she died, she spent that year in a season of wilderness like she had never experienced throughout this. She was so angry with God. She actually had a journal, I won't tell you the title of it, but it was a, basically God, I'm so mad at you. And she wrestled and she cried, and she didn't understand, but here is the part I don't know that I've shared. She couldn't understand the why when it came to her son, Riley, because when she was diagnosed with breast cancer, Riley was one years old. They had adopted him as a two month old. He was, his mom, birth mom was a meth addict. And my sister couldn't get her head around, how could God allow this little boy to have his mom taken from him twice? She just couldn't get her head around that.
And for one whole year, she wrestled and she cried, and she just felt disconnected. She felt the silence of God, and then literally she said she woke up one day. And this deep sense of peace came over her, and she felt this deep connection with God. And she said, "I woke up feeling, 'Okay, I am so grateful for the years that I've had with Riley. And I'm gonna live out whatever I have left with gratitude for this gift that God has given. And I don't understand the why. But I feel a sense of peace, even joy in what I have left.'" In her own wilderness, she had one of those behold moments.
But there's more to this story. And you're probably wondering why I haven't even thrown any texts up yet, because really that whole part was just giving you context to what I wanted to talk to about, because God doesn't speak for 37 chapters, but he's always watching and working. And what I want to say is don't mistake divine silence for divine absence, because God's presence, and you know, you alluded to it in your talk, God's presence showed up through those friends of his.
We're in Job chapter 2:11-13:
Now when Job's three friends heard of these troubles that had come upon him, each of them set out from their home, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuaite, and Zophar the Name-Fight. They met together to go and console and comfort him. And when they saw him from a distance, they didn't recognize him. They raised their voices and they wept aloud. They tore the robes, they threw dust in the air upon their heads, they sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him. For they saw that his suffering was very great.
So Job's been thrust into this wilderness. His suffering is so great that even his closest friends don't recognize him, physically or spiritually. And before they spoke words, before they gave any advice, before they got into arguments or long dialogues and speeches, Job's friends did something so profoundly right that they just showed up. Now these three friends had traveled far, come from different places to be with them. And here's what's important for us. They didn't wait for an invitation. They didn't ask for an invite, they just showed up. They responded to Job's suffering. And here's the thing, compassion starts with showing up. Even when we might not know what to say, even when it might be really uncomfortable.
Because the reality is this, you cannot help someone unless you're willing to be near their pain. And that's not always easy to do. They raised their voices and they wept. I can only imagine how overwhelming it was for them to see their friend like this. They wept out, not out of pity though. They wept out of shared pain. Because what they did was they stepped into that pain. They accept, his pain became their pain and they sat with him on the ground for seven days and seven nights and they never spoke a word.
And isn't that crazy to think about sitting in silence for a full week? Why would they do that? Why would they sit in silence like that? And here's the reason, because sometimes the pain is too deep for words. And let's be honest, there aren't any words that's gonna bring your loved one back. There's nothing any of us can do to fix your pain. And I think for us, people who wanna act and move and fix and do, we have to remember that silence is not weakness friends. That it's actually wisdom. And that's hard. Why? It's hard for some of us extroverts especially. It's something I've had to learn along the way. But there's silence, there are presence, what it said is, you know what Job? You said this too, Geno. You're not alone. You are not alone.
Now, go back and read the story and those friends went on to make some big mistakes for a lot of chapters because they tried to explain away. They tried to answer the question Job had been asking God about why did the righteous suffer? And that's unfortunate because they got into some theology that I wouldn't resonate but it's around the idea that you suffer because you've sinned. And we all know that that is not true. As I won't use the word Gino used but S happens and we don't know why. I'm a pastor, I have to say it that way, Gino. I wish I could be you. But we live in this world that does want rush in and we wanna fix it, we wanna explain it. But here's the deal, the ministry of presence is the most Christ-like thing that any of us can do because think about this, Jesus didn't come to send us comfort, he became it. He stepped into our suffering. He stepped into our skin. He stepped into our wilderness with us. From John 1.14, the word became flesh and dwelt among us.
So that's the call friends, we come and we show up because our presence is the way that God shows his love. When we show up, it becomes apparent. There's the aha like in Geno's story that, oh, God has been here all along. There's a rabbi that I love, Maggie, I know you love her too but she wrote this amazing book called The Amen Effect: Ancient Wisdom to Mend Our Broken Hearts and Our World and this is what she says about speaking, about, when speaking about hardship. Patti, you can throw that slide up there:
It's there that I've learned the power of saying amen to one another's grief and joy, sorrow and celebration with our very presence, of bearing witness to profound suffering and protesting injustice with our very presence, of comforting and consoling, surviving and thriving with our very presence.
And I have seen how knowing that we can't do it alone can heighten both our joy and help us endure unimaginable hardship. It's the power, the power of showing up and being present, stepping in and sitting with and though it's hard and uncomfortable, we gotta do it. We gotta do it.
I'm gonna add something to Geno's story of the power of presence because he could tell you literally hundreds of those stories in the three and a half years that Lynn was sick but I'm remembering one from the last week of her life and we have a dear friend that used to be part of this community and at 52 her husband got in a like crazy, random bike riding accident and died suddenly. Her name's Kathy Nielsen. She's a friend of ours. She's walked that walk of wilderness. And I remember hearing from Kath and then later through Lynn as she told me through her eyes and the computer at the very end of her life that Kathy showed up and you know what she did? She laid in bed next to Lynn and she held her. No words. You didn't need anyone, any words. But she laid in bed for hours and she held her and it mattered because what Lynn knew in those moments as she was getting ready to leave her earthly home and head up to heaven was that she was not alone. And I'm telling you friends, that is powerful stuff.
Rabbi Brous goes on to say this. It counters all the normative messaging of our culture to realize that we don't need to save someone who is suffering. We need to just accompany them. Sometimes the holiest work is not to pray them into the light but instead to join them in the darkness. I'm taken by the idea of bearing withness. Our tasks as friends and community is not to repair each other's broken hearts, to heal or save or to distract or God forbid cheer up. We really need to just be. Show up. It's the ministry of presence that reflects God's love, God's witness. And as a community of God, we're called to be near to one another. And in a world that rushes to fix and to speak and to escape pain, this is what Job 2, 11 through 13 teaches us. The sacred power of presence.
Will you pray with me? Holy and gracious God, we gather together in this space and what we know is that we all walk through wilderness. Some of us may be in that season right now. And even when it feels uncertain, even though we can't quite feel your presence with us, what we can trust and know that you are good on your word and that you are faithful, that you are with us and that you show up in unexpected and likely ways through unexpected and unlikely people. Because the truth is God, you've made us a promise that you will never leave us. And that's what we hang on to in all the moments of our life. But in particular, those wilderness seasons. We love you God. And we're so grateful for the way you love us. We pray it in the name of Jesus, amen.