Healing and Being Christian

In John 5, Jesus heals a "Man" after being an invalid for 38 years.  He-"Man"-the unnamed recipient of this miraculous healing-is in what I can only consider as an equivalent in Jesus' time and place of a nursing home.  It is the pool of Bethesda with five porticos where many invalids lay.  The bible defines them as the blind, lame, and paralyzed.  Apparently, miracles happen there from time to time.  "Man" has been there for 38 years, waiting. 


Jesus asks "Man", "Do you want to be made well?"  Man responds out of the depths of his pain and abandonment.


"Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me."


"Man" has a way out of the nursing home.  But two things stop him.  1. No one will help him.  2. When he can muster the strength, somebody else cuts in front of him.  I wonder if "Man" saw Jesus the Miraculous Healer or Jesus the Dumbass Gawker standing in front of him.


When Jesus told "Man" to get up, take up his mat, and walk, he healed "Man" on so many levels.  He healed him physically, mentally (although a little follow up therapy probably wouldn't hurt), emotionally, and spiritually.


Our consideration on Sunday is where we, simple Christians, fit into that healing.  We are going to take up the challenge of being imitators of Christ and daring to call ourselves healers.  There is a lot of things we cannot do.  I am not the miracle worker Jesus is.  But I have come to believe that the most basic thing we can do is foundational to any healing that "Man" received.


Now I am going to be a pain-in-the-#$%^ "advertiser" and stick you with that cliff hanger.  Come to worship at 10am on Sunday, July 12 to the First Presbyterian Church of Perth Amboy, 45 Market Street in Perth Amboy for more.


Because this topic is so near and dear to me, as a pastor and a 'spiritual caregiver', I will post the sermon to the blog next week.

Why…or Maybe When…Would You Give Up Your Life?

Suicide, that is one name for giving up your life.  In previous posts, I have been considering those moments of suicide when someone is so disconnected from purpose, love, and possibility in their lives that they see no way out.  These are the people whose brokenness is so acute that just making it stop dominates their thinking.

But that is certainly not the only time when someone would give up their lives.  Fanatics who strap bombs to their chests and detonate them, we’ve named that committing suicide.  This tactic has come from the impossibility of being able to commit terrorist acts without self-sacrifice.

We also recognize suicide that does not happen by our own hand.  “Suicide by cop” is something I have direct experience with, being there for the family of the boy who did it that way.  It is also in the back of my mind every time I work as a chaplain to our police department.

But there is this whole other realm of giving up your own life that is not ‘suicide’ per se.  It might better be called ‘martyrdom’.  That is the definition given by the Muslim extremism for their suicide bombers.  That is the term for Christians from the earliest days of the church who would rather face death than surrender their beliefs.  One of the victims of the Columbine shooting, a student whose face has appeared in ads in the years after that for holding onto her faith, she is a martyr.

Strip it of its religious implications, and we call it 'heroism', when we praise as heroes those who give up their lives to save others.  The soldier who jumps on the grenade to save his comrades is the basic story-type.  The First Responders who died on 9/11 are such heroes, we speak of them making ‘the Ultimate Sacrifice’.  Even the bible speaks of those willing to give their lives for their friends. 

I, as a parent, would lay down my life for my children.

Jesus himself gave up his own life on our behalf.  His ministry was constructed to push and push and push on the powers that be until they lashed back.  In the Garden of Gethsemane, he prayed that cup of wrath pass from his hands, but only if God permitted it. 

Then there is this one; one I do not see a clear name for.  If someone pulled over in their car and pointed a gun at me and told me to get in, I would risk them shooting me on the side of the street than putting myself in their power.  I’ve told my kids to do the same thing.  I know too much of what could happen if I were fully in their power to let them take me.  I lived in Vancouver, B.C., and I fit the victim profile, when the serial killer Clifford Olson was on the loose.  Do we label that 'personal choice'? 

Heroes and criminals, victims and punished, all fall within the scope of those who would give up their own lives.  Do you know where and when you might give up your own life?  Do you know what circumstances are so important that the ultimate sacrifice would be made to preserve them?

This is not an abstract discussion.  This is about life and death.  This is the thing that faith is supposed to help us answer. 

Catechism and Suicide..."Groan! Catechism? Really??"

So from the depths of personal, emotionally charged anger, I have had the privilege of some distance, some abstraction, some dispassionate consideration.  Some time to prepare my defense before the Almighty. 


According to my colleague, I am going to be put before the throne of heaven and charged with laxity in the governance of the people commended to my care.  So I had one of those moments so amazingly portrayed in the first Avengers movie.  Thor and Iron Man are facing off.  Thor has just drawn on all the lightning powers of his magical hammer and attempted to cook Iron Man to a nice well-done consistency.  The result, a 400% power increase, put this look on Tony's face as he then blasted Thor a good quarter mile off his feet.  I pray for forgiveness for my own arrogance in trying to find that same expression for myself.


When I am challenged, I go back to what I was raised on.  In this case, it is the Heidelberg Catechism, one of the three pillars of the Christian Reformed Church and one of the collected works in the Book of Confessions of the PCUSA.  I went back there after being challenged by a friend of mine to go look at the Roman Catholic Catechism.


Thank you Pam.


Heidelberg Catechism, Question and Answer 115: Q. Since no one in this life can obey the Ten Commandments perfectly, why does God want them preached so pointedly?


A. First, so that the longer we live the more we may come to know our sinfulness and the more eagerly look to Christ for forgiveness of sins and righteousness.

Second, so that we may never stop striving, and never stop praying to God for the grace of the Holy Spirit, to be renewed more and more after God’s image, until after this life we reach our goal:

perfection.

(http://www.crcna.org/welcome/beliefs/confessions/heidelberg-catechism)

Catechism of the Catholic Church; paragraph 2282: "If suicide is committed with the intention of setting an example, especially to the young, it also takes on the gravity of scandal. Voluntary co-operation in suicide is contrary to the moral law.  Grave psychological disturbances, anguish, or grave fear of hardship, suffering, or torture can diminish the responsibility of the one committing suicide."

(http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s2c2a5.htm)

I wonder if John Calvin is doing spin-dizzies in his grave as I bring these together...

"The longer we live, the greater the importance of the 10 Commandments as better for us to recognize our sinfulness and the more eagerly we look to Christ.  But if we cannot eagerly took to Christ, through psychological disturbances, anguish, or grave fear of hardship, suffering, or torture, responsibility can be diminished for one who takes their own life. The Commandments are preached that we may never stop striving and never stop praying to the Lord for the grace of the Holy Spirit.  After this life, we reach our goal: perfection."

The Catholic Catechism is very specific in the condemnation of suicide and I stand with those condemnations.  But when somebody wants the pain to stop and they do not have the line to our Lord, except through us, actively or passively, our job is to strive and to never stop praying.

Standing Before God’s Throne: When I Was Told I Would Be Found Wanting

So a colleague in ministry and I got into it the other day.  We were exchanging views on one of the ‘mortal sins’, one of those things that traditionally sends a person straight to hell, do not pass go, do not collect $200.  He is definitely a black and white, heaven and hell kind of fellow while I tend to see shades of grey.  The discussion was "wrath of God" versus "mercy of God".

Well, at one point, he turns to me and basically tells me I am up the creek when I stand before the throne of grace.  I will have to defend my weak-kneed, lukewarm position, daring to water down what he perceives to be as the express and absolute command of God.  First, he pissed me off, pardon my language.  Then he got me to thinking.

It is one thing for me to defend my own life before the throne of grace.  There is a long string of darkness that will be brought into the light and I pray that the confessions of my soul here on earth will keep those events forgiven and forgotten from heaven.  But now I was being challenged on a whole different level.  He was challenging my standing before God as a shepherd, as someone responsible for the faith and guidance of others.

The issue we were talking about was suicide.  His position, life is gift from God, you take it by your own hand, one way ticket to the permanent fiery vacation.  There was no nuance, there was no consideration of the pain that a person might be in that leads to suicide, there was no consideration of being in one’s right mind, there was no consideration of the mercy of the Lord. 

He spoke with the authority he perceived he had from the bible and I was wrong, and God was going to get me for it.

That was the first time in a very long time that I was so glad to be a mainline Presbyterian pastor.  And not because we ‘don’t believe in hell’.

I was so very glad because I could stand in the Spirit and pray for the day when he stands before the throne of grace and has to explain his condemnation of a person in so much pain that they want life itself to end.  I pray that God has the mercy he is denying to those most in pain in our world. 

I know, it’s not nice to bash a fellow minister.  But do not tell me I am NOT doing God’s work.  It must be nice to have such black and white positions drawn out.  I say the Bible says this, stand on that side of the line and Jesus loves you, stand on the other side of the line and Jesus flushes you to hell.  Do this, you are good, do that, you are condemned.  Makes it simple.

Now don’t get me wrong, I believe that people are responsible for their actions.  I believe that hell exists and that there are people deliberately and flagrantly disobedient to our Lord Jesus that are headed in that direction.  But I also believe that mercy has a much higher place on the divine agenda than many of my fellow pastors seem to.  I think the strength of the mainline is that we have latched on to God’s mercy and question too many of the sacred cows of what people have traditionally thought is condemned in Scripture.    We stand in the middle of society and consider what the bible tells us and struggle with the changing reality around us.  (And that is the closest I have ever come to accepting post-modernism!) 

The great strength of being Presbyterian is that we operate by committee.  We put good people in a room and we listen to the gathered wisdom of the Spirit as filtered through each presence.  Lutherans and Methodists may do that too, but I am not one of them, so I do not know.  I have not come by my ‘loose morals’ on my own, but by the deep and intense communication, debate, and cooperation of my fellow Christians, Presbyterian and otherwise.  But the principle of the shared witness of the Spirit is something I was brought up with in the Reformed and Presbyterian tradition.

I was basically accused of loosening the authority of the Bible with my “mercy-talk”.  I don’t see it that way.  I think I was taking the authority of the Bible far more seriously because I don’t see cookie-cutter divisions between heaven and hell.  Life is far more complicated than that.  God is far more loving than that.

And if I have to stand before God some day and defend why I claimed God’s mercy over God’s punishment, I pray I have the grace to remember my church, my Presbyterian Church USA, that taught me about the extent of God’s mercy.

Peace.

The Lord has a way of Haunting Life with Scripture

So, this week, there are two ministries that I have a connection to that are winding down their work.  God's Army Ministry, which has been worshipping in our church for the last year and is running a Community Kitchen out of our Auditorium, is drawing their work to a close with us at the end of June.


The Middlesex County Long Term Recovery Group, in operation since the weeks after Hurricane Sandy, is also concluding its work this summer. 


And along comes John 3: 22-30, particularly verse 30, the "weight loss" verse.  John the Baptizer says, "He must increase, but I must decrease."  There is a changing of the guard.  John was the voice of one who cried out in the wilderness, "Make straight the path of the Lord."  Now the Lord has come down that path.


The increasing of the Lord Jesus, even when these ministries have completed their work, that is what the bible passage is telling me.  What it is going to end up looking like, I do not know.  But it is tugging at heart strings for me.

1968 and 2015

    
So NPR interviewed a couple of First Responders from the days after the death of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, drawing a parallel between what happened then to what is happening now.  It got me thinking.  Here are a couple of observations.


In 1968, our cities were a warzone.  One of the Responders likened walking through the streets of Baltimore and Washington D.C. after the riots like walking through the cities of Germany that were wiped out in the bombing campaigns of the Second World War.


In 2015, our cities are ‘thug-fests’.  Legitimate, necessary, desirable public protests are hijacked by looters and hooligans, more intent on busting into a CVS than expressing anger and grief to a nation.


1968 gave us riots of anger.  2015 gives us riots of hooliganism.  I see more parallels in 2015 to the soccer hooligans in the United Kingdom who are just out to cause trouble than parallels to 1968.


In 1968, the ‘information age’ put the war in Vietnam into our living rooms.  Every night, we saw the raw, unedited footage of our draftee army fighting a war that no one could explain our presence in to the satisfaction of a nation.


In 2015, the ‘information age’ puts the police actions of our nation into our living rooms.  Every night, we see the raw, unedited footage of our cops fighting a war on the thin blue line that no one can presently explain to the satisfaction of a nation.


In 1968 and 2015, violence sells.  The worst of the worst is what attracts viewers to our media outlets.  In 1968, hundreds and thousands of positive interactions between US soldiers and the Vietnamese went by the way, forgotten and uninteresting to the people at home.  In 2015, hundreds and thousands of positive interactions between US law enforcement and public go by the way, forgotten and uninteresting to us.


In 1968, the My Lai Massacre caught the attention of the nation, American soldiers doing horrible things.  They were caught, they were prosecuted.  Not everybody was.  In 2015, our police are catching the attention of the nation, doing some horrible, some questionable, some hard things, some inexplicable things.  Some were caught, some were prosecuted.  Not everybody was.


At the end of the day, we are the United States.  Sometimes we do it right, a lot of times we don’t.  But we are going to keep trying.






  

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