There’s a word I’ve heard a lot recently, and maybe you have too. That word is “for.” I don’t know what to do for my mother. She’s in a home that provides everything for her but she sleep for hours a day and she clearly needs more. My children need all sorts of new things for school. You would think the backpack we bought last year would work for them, but they are convinced they need a different one for all their new supplies. We’re really blessed and we’d like to do something nice for those who are less fortunate. Can we give money for the love offering? Maybe we could buy new clothes for some kids from the neighborhood? That word seemingly summarizes what we think it means to be in the world. And isn’t that was the church is for? (See what I did there?) We prepare worship for, we pray for, we offer charity for. And yet, there’s got to be more to life than for. There’s no facility that can fix our relationships. There’s no item for the beginning of the school year that it can fill the feeling of emptiness we may experience despite how full our backpacks may be. And there’s no act of generosity so generous that it can undo the fabric of our culture. Oddly enough, despite all outward appearances, “for” isn’t the word we focus on in the church. In fact, God gives us a very different word, a word that makes all the difference in the world, and that word is “with.” Even at the very beginning of all things, John says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God… All things came into being through the Word, and without the Word, not one thing came into being.” Before there was a for there was a “with.” And at the end of the Gospel, when Jesus commissions the disciples to go and make disciples Jesus says, “Behold, I am with you, always.” And even further in scripture, the book of Revelation proclaims God’s everlasting glory with a voice from heaven saying, “Behold the home of God is with mortals; God will ever dwell with them.” And yet, “for” is often so much easier than “with.” I’ll confess that there are times I would rather hide in the kitchen and cook for certain people than have to sit down with them for hours on end. There’s a certain sense that we can do all sorts of things for others without ever having to really deal with them. With is hard. With requires vulnerability and presence. With strips us of self-righteousness and presence. With, above all, puts us in a position of connectivity, whether we want it or not. And God is God WITH us.
