Yesterday I had my knee scoped at an outpatient surgery center. This morning as I lay in bed leg elevated, knee throbbing the thought hit me - the church isn't a hospital but an outpatient surgery center. I've heard many say that the church isn't a "museum for saints but a hospital for sinners." But the more I reflect on the story of God and the response that story necessitates the more I see the church as an outpatient surgery center. A hospital can be a place of healing, but more often it is a place of overwhelming pathology where sickness, infection, and, despair hover like a dense fog. Such potential toxicity fosters a sedate, sedentary environment where patients are discharged on the basis of insurance coverage rather than health.
An outpatient surgery center is by its nature a place of movement and targeted healing. Patients come to have conditions repaired, relieved, or removed. Though sore, in pain, and scarred patients are sent back into their lives, into their worlds to complete their rehab and recuperation. Their health is fully restored in and through the circumstances of life.
The gospel isn't an Amish Manifesto or a hospital name "Isolation General." The gospel is the story of engagement where the sick are brought to the physician to be treated and sent to gather the sick. To follow Jesus is to be an "out"-patient who discovers healing and is dis-"charged" to help others do the same. We aren't called to the infirmary but to the community. We are the sent out not the brought in. We are the way and not the destination. We are an "out"-patient surgery center and not a hospital.
