Somewhere I read of a Seminary professor whose last years were spent in and out of hospitals, suffering from a debilitating, incurable disease. As he reflected on his ministry, he said that when he began, he thought of himself as the expert, standing upon the bank of the stream of life, shouting instructions to the swimmers down below.

In the second stage of his ministry, if he saw someone going down for the third time, he would plunge into the water, get the person started in the right direction again, then return to the bank. He was the rescuer.

But during his last years, he saw the human family as fellow strugglers in the water, their arms around each other, trying to reach the shore.

What a marvelous image of the church — fellow strugglers, arms around each other, committed to the s…