Milk and Church-Hurt

So, this is a breastfeeding story. But it’s about Jesus too.

A few days ago my littlest guy, who is seven months old caught a little bug. Not the insect kind, the viral kind. Hand, foot and mouth. It started out as a minor inconvenience. First, he ran a little fever, turned fussy, became almost inconsolable, and finally broke out in a rash.

So I broke out the Tylenol and the milk.

Tylenol and a little milk are usually the cure-all for whatever ails a fussy infant. Comfort and a pain reliever. So he gagged down the Tylenol, (which I expected) and then he refused the milk (which I did NOT expect).

This is probably a good time to explain that this child is so sweet, but also a little picky.  He will take neither bottle, nor cup. The only three foods that have passed his swallow test are green beans, soft french fries, and pinto beans. This means that I, yes I, am the sole source of his food supply at the moment.

But he just refused his milk.

So I tried again, and again. I waited for the Tylenol to kick in. And tried again. And he snuggled up to me, looked up at me with his sad little sick eyes, and BIT me. His six fledgling teeth latched onto me like an alligator performing the death roll on its innocent victim.

Maimed, but not conquered, I withdrew from the battlefield and decided upon a different strategy. “I’ll wait until he goes to sleep and try again…” I thought to myself. We added a few miles to the worn gray rocking chair until ever so slowly, his little red eyes closed.

But the result was the same. He bit, chomped, gnawed and chewed but did he nurse? Nope. Big, ‘ol, painful, nope.

This is when I became a bit panicked about dehydration.

I pulled out the bottle. He chewed it frantically and hopelessly.

I took out the cup. He rejected it and cried great big crocodile tears.

I knew why he rejected them.

Hand, foot and mouth causes painful mouth sores both inside and outside of your mouth. So every time he reached in to get milk, PAIN. And after several agonizing tries, he decided he didn’t want any more of that ol’ pain, no thank YOU! He probably began to associate nursing with pain, and therefore rejected the nursing as the cause of his pain.

So I tried a different tactic.

I unscrewed the bottle nipple and tried to pour a little milk into his mouth a la cup-style. And it worked! At least, somewhat. Milk ran out the sides of his mouth, swamped his neck, and saturated his shirt, but he got a few swallows. Now, this was a good plan, but it needed refining. Milk from the tap is not an unlimited supply. This wastefulness would not work long term.

So, I tried a small medicine cup, pouring five milliliters at a time down his poor, raw, hungry throat. Better. That worked for a few feedings, but the wastefulness was still an issue, plus, we ran out of bibs. Finally, I decided to try a different cup. A plain, hard plastic cup with a lid that dripped milk instead of a wide-open irrigation system.

He allowed it. At least, he allowed it if the following guidelines were adhered to and maintained throughout the feed:

No sitting. The feeder must stand at all times.

The feeder must only use their left arm to hold the child.

The child prefers to hear a variety of farm animal sounds, but especially chicken sounds.

The feeder must not slosh the milk so that the child coughs or chokes.

The feeder must maintain the perfect 120-degree alignment of the child. The slightest position change will not be accepted.

And as I stood there, one foot balanced on a stool while bouncing and swaying, “mooing”, “quacking”, and praying that he would just EAT SOMETHING, God spoke to me.

He said, “The baby isn’t eating because he’s in pain.”

Then just as if I was watching someone unroll a world map onto the floor, God unrolled some wisdom on something I’ve been struggling to understand lately…namely, church-hurt.

Church-hurt is the hurt that someone experiences, and associates with “church”. I’d like to define it in broad terms by saying church hurt can occur when the church, the body of Christ, does not act like Jesus. That covers a lot of hurt. Abuse. Rejection. Mistrust. Stealing. Deceit. People that misuse their power to make others powerless. All these things are antonyms to who God is.

Now some of us in the church could feel irritated or even prideful in the opinion that we have NEVER been part of hurting people. Maybe that’s true, and maybe it isn’t. I don’t know your story, only my own. And to myself, I have to be honest that sometimes inadvertently, and sometimes on purpose, I have hurt people.  I’ve let people down, didn’t show up, and sometimes I’ve been emotionally unavailable. That’s the truth about me.

I’m so in need of grace. Oh how I need Jesus. He’s my safety and security.

But when you feel hurt at church…well…that’s when we become like Lincoln. Rejecting “milk” because the source became a place of pain instead of a house of comfort.

Now some people might say “Well good riddance to them! Now let us sing another hymn.”

But if you’ve got the heart of Jesus living inside of you, that attitude is as far from Jesus as you could get.

Remember the story of the lost sheep? In Matthew 18:10-14, Jesus tells the story of a man who has a hundred sheep. But one goes astray, and the man, because of the compassion and love he has for ALL of his sheep, cannot leave the poor sheep wandering and lost. Instead he leaves his 99 other sheep and searches until he finds the lost sheep. The shepherd is filled with joy over the finding of the lost sheep. And the passage closes with Jesus’ words:

“So it is not the will of my Father who is in heaven that ONE of these little ones should perish.”

And in Luke 19:10, Jesus says about Himself, “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”

His heart is always for the small, the hurt, the lost, the lonely, and the rejected. What a good, kind, faithful Savior!

But what happens when people reject Jesus? When the milk comes packaged in cartons that look a lot like a gallon of pain?

Then I find myself asking, “How far am I willing to go? If my happy little comfort zone looks like mouth sores and fever to others, am I willing to change to give people a taste of Jesus on their own terms?”

I’m not talking about changing the gospel, oh no.

Jesus said in John 14:6, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”

I’m talking about the way the gospel is packaged.

If I only use the church building, and my special brand of worship songs to reach out, some may come, but others will recoil in disgust, like you’d recoil at a wound pouring blood with the flesh shredded in ribbons. What kinds of traditions are we holding onto that keep people from seeing who Jesus really is?

The Apostle Paul said this,

“I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some.” (1 Corinthians 9:22b)

So what does this, “becoming all things to all people” look like?

Am I willing to go places where I am not comfortable? Am I willing to hold Jesus out to the hurting until my arm shakes from fatigue and my legs tremble? Can I stand in my own discomfort to make another comfortable? Am I willing to look like a fool for the sake of the gospel? If some figurative “mooing” and “quacking” is what it takes to show someone a different side of Jesus, then can I do that? If I give all I have to pour Jesus on the hurting and they cough milk back in my face, am I willing to come humbly back again and again in love?

I ask myself, and I ask you…

Can we be like Jesus?

Jesus is love. Deep, great, powerful, wide, unsearchable yet overwhelming LOVE.

So, what are we offering?

A seat on a worn green pew? A hymnal that flips open to “Amazing Grace” or “I’ll Fly Away”? A handshake once a week? Or are we offering a living hope? A Savior who willingly left his own comfort in heaven to save sinners? Are we offering the same grace that Jesus gave us?

Oh, may we be MORE than willing to be like Jesus.

May God our loving Father rend our hearts and open our eyes to the hurting. May He give us wisdom to know how to offer Jesus in a way that promotes healing instead of more hurt. And may we hear the voice of the marginalized, the disenfranchised, and the alienated, and respond in love instead of Pharisaical pride.

Please. Oh, please Holy Spirit, open our eyes to more of Love, to more of You. Whatever it takes.

God, whatever it takes.

I’d like to leave you with some verses that showcase the heart of God for us, and for all people.

1 John 2:6

“Whoever says he abides in Him ought to walk in the same way in which He walked.”

Ephesians 5:1-2

“Therefore be imitators of God as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

Titus 3:1-2

“Remind them to be submissive to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work, to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, and to show perfect courtesy toward all people.”

John 13:13-17

You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you. Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.

And by the way, after four days of doing what it took to feed my little guy, he’s finally nursing again. Praise Jesus.