The Force Is with Us

Dear friends,

This message will be a little brief this morning (lacking Carole's good proofreading) because we are trying to pack the car for our first road trip in more than 13 months. We are headed to Tampa, Florida and a few days of much-needed vacation. Actually, I am desperately in search of some warm weather! Next weekend we will participate in a family retreat for the Forest Hills Presbyterian Church -- a church I served more than 30 years ago. I will speak four times on themes related to our Journey over the past year. After all these years it is very exciting to reconnect with good friends and partners in ministry.

I hope you will pray for us, especially for the unknown factor related to how I will do on a long trip. I don't know why this should be a problem, for the past 13 months I have been stepping out in faith just about every day. Once again, I am sure there will be uncomfortable moments, but I am equally sure that we will have a wonderful time.

One other prayer item -- a couple of weeks ago I asked you to pray for my brother who had open-heart surgery. He is doing fine, but now my mother has had open-heart surgery on Tuesday of this week. She is doing well -- but it age 81 it is a bit more challenging. Her name is Catherine.

On another subject, it is hard to believe, but the very first Star Wars adventure came into our lives in 1997. Our two older children were barely in school at the time. Since then, our son has actually camped on the sidewalk outside a theater in Birmingham, Alabama to get tickets a few years ago. We have not heard if he will do the same this week as Episode 3: the Revenge of the Sith opens in theaters near you!

For those of you who are on another planet and are not familiar with Star Wars, the films are a fascinating combination of the mythological battle between good and evil and the roots of a new way of “doing war.”

In the original “Star Wars” there is a chilling moment when an entire planet is blown up by Darth Vader’s “Death Star.” There is no blood, no screams, no parents and children huddling together in terror. Vader destroys the planet from a safe distance. He is never in danger nor is it acceptable for him to put his armies in danger.

It is ironic that the Strategic Defense Initiative during the Reagan years was called “Star Wars.” Equally frightening is this morning's news that our government is again considering such weapons based in outer space! One does not have to think long before images of refugees and physical destruction in Baghdad, Kabul, or Pyongyang fill our minds.

The timing of the Star Wars release and the celebration of Pentecost in the Christian community could not be better. In both cases there is a surprising presence of a “force” that makes otherwise normal people do extraordinary things. The difference, of course, between Star Wars and Pentecost is that Star Wars is pure fantasy. No matter how many times you see it, you will continue to live a comparatively dull existence that includes paying your mortgage payment, going to work and, increasingly, worrying about staying alive. You may even own a light saber and dream about the excitement of hyperspace, but, after all, it won’t make much difference to homeless refugees, desperate parents, lost children and lost children who turned into lost adults.

On the Day of Pentecost we celebrate a sudden and surprising change of outlook and direction for the followers of Jesus. As St. Luke tells the story, Jesus’ disciples had huddled in one of those famous upper rooms for prayer, reflection and questioning about the future. You may remember that the risen Jesus appeared to them and told them to hold on and get ready for the coming of the Spirit.

At the time, I am sure that no one in the room could fully appreciate the implications Jesus’ words. However, as they gathered in Jerusalem to celebrate the harvest festival with Jews from all over the world, something truly remarkable happened. There was a loud noise and a big wind. Episcopal priest and writer, Barbara Brown Taylor, has commented that on Pentecost Jesus’ disciples were gathered in one place and “got a crash course in power.”

I remind you that this infusion of power is not so the disciples will feel good about themselves and their faith. The “force” was never to be understood as a rush of personal competency, self-gratification or unbridled fantasy. What happened on the day of Pentecost was nothing short of miraculous. This “force” turned average, everyday people into the Spirit’s powerhouses and enabled them to do things that had never entered their wildest dreams.

On Tuesday I completed my latest round of physical therapy. By all standards, it was a great success. I am now in the process of moving from survival to athletic training. I have bought a new professional dual action stationary bicycle and I am getting close to erode the levels of training once again. As I have said many times, the power of God coupled with unstoppable human resolve leads to incredibly great and surprising works of power. I am living proof!

As we move into Ordinary Time, we remember that our ministry and mission as a church follow the power of Pentecost. Every day we engage in the challenging disciplines of life -- prayer, Bible reading, and spiritual direction. As we do so, the Spirit literally blows us places we could never have dreamed and for adventures we would never have chosen!

Brave journey,

Jim

Roofers and Termites

Dear friends,

This has been a pretty stressful week -- so far! As I begin this message on Wednesday afternoon my home is filled with the loud noises of ladders being moved, nail guns, and other sounds that are connected with the roofing business. We are replacing our roof after a hailstorm several weeks ago. If this were not enough, we discovered that we have been actively invaded by termites from below.

I really don't know who has the better work ethic: the roofers above or the termites below. Being attacked from above and below is bad enough. These days one must also be ready for attacks from the left or from the right, politically or ecclesiastically speaking. Of course, we all know that such distractions come pretty frequently. Attacks from the left and from the right; from above and from below -- such are the distractions that often keep us from our main business as citizens in both kingdoms: the kingdom of God and the kingdom of this world.

Therefore, I need to remind you of something very important about both my injury and my recovery. First, my injury is one that at the outset pretty well devastated my entire neuromuscular system. At the beginning, all my functions were pretty well gone and it has been a very difficult and challenging struggle to get them back. Thankfully, through my own persistence and the persistence of God's people in prayer I am doing well and for that I am grateful.

Second, like the termites and the roofers my physical process has been taunted and tempted from all sides. When I was a patient at the Shepherd Center we were constantly warned about the tendency towards depression when one has sustained an injury to the spinal cord. One of the main symptoms of this depression was the desire to stay in bed instead of getting up to face the hard realities of dressing oneself, feeding oneself breakfast, and doing incredibly uncomfortable exercises the rest of the day. I can report to you first hand everything they said about getting out of bed is true. It is incredibly difficult, but I have done it every day without fail. I do this for two reasons: I know it is the right thing to do; and I am afraid of what Carole might do to me if I don't!

Finally, I get out of bed and go to work every day for a very important reason -- it is my calling that gives me both the motivation and the power. It is clear to me that my goal is not merely to "get well." Please do not misunderstand me, I want to get well more than you can possibly know, but my motivation to endure the rigors of physical therapy and days of discomfort is that I might be able to continue doing what God has called me to do. At the moment, I have no clearer calling than to be your General Presbyter and Stated Clerk. This means I need to know how to walk, drive a car, use a computer, and muster the stamina to stand on my feet for an hour at a time. In other words, it is my mission that drives my work. Without that sense of mission (that is, being sent by God in the company of others who are also sent by God to do God's work in the world, which, by the way, is full of attacks and distractions from all sides) merely getting well is not much of a goal.

Parenthetically, I am a little weary of all this news talk about the "Runaway Bride." I really think that there is great disappointment that something terrible had not happened to her, and that a juicy story might unfold, full of lurid twists and turns. The news media have tried to make something of it, but it is just another weird anomaly that is being passed off as "reality." Here is some reality that I have experienced in the past few days

Last Thursday, Carole and I went to the Shepherd Center for a follow-up visit with my doctor. For your information, everything was fine with me, physically speaking. After the doctor's visit, we went back to my old therapy haunts and engaged in some serious hugging. Everyone agreed that all concerned looked great! On the way home we had to stop by a bank branch for a quick signature on a homeowner's insurance check. Quick, you say? Yeah right! It was 4:45 p.m. on a workday -- and we were right in the middle of Buckhead! Need I say more?

As we sat in line, the wait at a traffic light seemed unusually long. It appeared as though there was a car stopped in the right lane, and we were in the left. The bad news is that neither lane was moving. I mused that a fender bender, or a terrorist threat, was about all we needed at this point. A few seconds later, we saw a man get out of a car at the front of the line ahead of us. Maybe I watch too many news broadcasts, but the first thing that entered my mind was that we were about to witness a case of "road rage." To our relief and delight, everything was resolved in the next minute or so. The traffic was stopped for a blind man trying to get across Piedmont Road at rush hour -- and this good fellow stopped traffic and helped him across the street. Where are the choppers when you need them?

Next, on Saturday Carole and I had a wonderful experience with the Mars Hill church family at its first, and I suspect annual, Chocolate Extravaganza. The Mars Hill congregation gathered around one of its baptized members, John Robert Hosfeld (age 14 months) who had recently had a heart transplant. The idea of the Chocolate Extravaganza was to raise money for the considerable medical expenses that would certainly be left to the family.

It appeared that every Mars Hill member was there in a chocolate brown T-shirt with a big pink heart on the front. It also appeared that the Mars Hill members were outnumbered by about 20 to 1. Also, it appeared that every bakery and restaurant within a 25 mile radius of the church was there giving away almost anything you can imagine made of chocolate. For a $10 contribution you could go through the fellowship hall and indulge yourself until you dropped. Beyond this, there was a gift shop, a bake shop, and a significant silent auction.

Bryant Harris, the Mars Hill pastor said he would be preaching soon on the sin of gluttony, to which I responded, "I doubt you will have any credibility!" It was all in good fun, but the result was more than just good fun: the Mars Hill members raised more than $12,000 for Jonathan's medical expenses and had only about $500 in expenses. Beyond this, the community surrounding the church learned a great deal about what it means to be a church -- to go all-out for the healing of just one little member!

Finally, Carole came home from the Cartersville First session meeting Tuesday evening with some very exciting news about the church's After School Program. Over the past three years this program has captured the interest and commitment of the church and of the community at large. This program was originally created to meet the educational needs of "at risk" children, mostly Spanish-speaking, from the Cartersville public schools. At the moment, the church is applying for PCUSA grant funding for a pre-K teacher in the program. This comes at the request of the Cartersville school system itself! The byproduct of all this is that people who come for membership in the church are people who are ready to do mission -- and not simply to "have their needs met."

There is a theme here, my friends. I hear much moaning and complaining that churches want to "grow." I am not sure exactly what this means, but I suspect it might mean that churches would like to have a little more money to maintain the status quo. I hope you will forgive my bluntness, but this is merely institutional survival thinking. Churches only grow when growing is not a goal. Remember my earlier paragraphs: my physical goal is not to get better -- it is to fulfill my calling under God.

This weekend I started reading a new book by Joseph Wheelan, Jefferson's War: America's First War on Terror 1801-1805. President Thomas Jefferson, who, by the way, dreamed of the United States of America as a quiet, peaceful rural nation-state with little or no involvement in world affairs. When he took office, I suspect he did not take into consideration that the infamous Barbary pirates would cause him so much difficulty.

When these pirates captured a merchant ship, they confiscated its cargo and sold its crew members into slavery. Churches in the young United States of America, which was in the midst of economic depression, raised money to free some of the thousands of prisoners -- this is a biblical calling if there ever was one. Wheelan tells the story of the famous Trinity congregation at the corner of Broadway and Wall Street in New York City. They raised more than they needed to free the prisoners -- so they decided to use the remainder to build the church building!

As we celebrate Pentecost on Sunday, let us remember that the young Christian community interacted with the community and with the world day in and day out. In response, we read at the end of Chapter 2 that, "The Lord added daily to the numbers of those who were being saved."

I hope this gives us something to think about. So what if there are roofers above and termites below? We definitely have a higher calling!

Jim

Sympathetic Relationships

Dear friends,

It gives me much pleasure to tell you that this has been a great week for healings. I suppose I should say this every week, because this is what the church is all about -- healing. Many years ago when I was a theological student I took a required course called Clinical Pastoral Education. This was a mind blowing and faith stretching semester in a general hospital as a chaplain. Each day we visited patients on the wards and wrote up our reflections on the visits. Of course, the names were changed to protect patient privacy.

One day I rode up on the elevator with a doctor who, after staring at my name tag, said these chilling words: "You know, Chaplain, when a patient dies, I lose and you win." Rather startled, I said "Pardon me?" The doctor responded, "You know what I mean, you usher him victoriously into the next life, and I have to send a bill!" Thankfully, I have known a good many doctors since that visit who hold healthier views on life and death than that bitter fellow.

While there is always a certain amount of sadness at a so called funeral service, we must always remember that the Book of Common Worship does not use the term "funeral," but rather "A Service of Witness to the Resurrection." Although we put our arms around one another and shed many tears, when all is said and done we Christians are victorious at the grave. We know that all too well as we have been celebrating Easter over the past six Sundays.

Having said this, I want to share with you three stories of crisis and the healing. Of course, there are many more such stories otherwise I could not have begun this message by saying "This has been a great week for healings." I share them for your amazement, your encouragement, and to challenge any of my readers that might be tempted to lose faith and hope in God.

The first story comes from the Mars Hill church. A little over two weeks ago Jonathan Hendrix was in a terrible automobile accident. For nearly 2 weeks Jonathan was in a coma, and it looked like there was little hope that he would emerge from it. With great thanksgiving I am happy to report that Jonathan has come out of the coma, "can sit up, and move both his arms and legs. Additionally, he blinks, looks around, can speak a few words very softly and recognizes his family." I am especially happy that Jonathan has been moved to the Shepherd Center. Speaking as a Shepherd alumnus, I know that he will receive great care and will make good progress. Apparently, Jonathan has progressed well beyond his doctors' expectations. He has a long way to go, but as I have said, "This has been a great week for healings."

Next, on a more personal note, my brother John had open-heart surgery in Bridgeport, Connecticut last Thursday. He and I had talked on the phone several times before the surgery and I assured him that bypass surgery these days was no big deal. Of course, I thought to myself that is easy for me to say, since it is not my chest that was to be cut open. He was to have four bypasses. Again, I expected that he would be in and out of the hospital without incident.

As we all know, life is full of surprises. First, the surgeons were only able to do three of the four bypasses because somewhere in the last few years my brother apparently had a "silent heart attack" that rendered one of the bypasses unnecessary. Second, apparently John's body went the extra mile on his behalf and grew (if this is the right word) a new artery -- a spontaneous bypass, if you please. I had no idea that such things might happen but I suppose that we Choomack's always give a little extra in stressful situations. Finally, if this were not enough excitement, he experienced cardiac arrest and resuscitation in the recovery room. After all this, I am happy to report that I talked with him last evening -- at home! Good news, indeed.

The last story is about my continuing progress in physical therapy. As I have mentioned before, I am going to therapy here in Cartersville three times a week for at least an hour and a half each day. I begin with 10 minutes on a stationary bicycle, one that works the arms as well. From here I move to a variety of kicking exercises in which tight rubber bands are attached to my ankles. Next, I do 30 stepping exercises on a box with both my legs. When I am finished here I walk across the large therapy room to a raised mat for a challenging variety of strengthening exercises for my arms and legs. This comprises the first hour of therapy.

After this, my physical therapist leads me through between 30 and 45 minutes of very challenging exercises for strength and balance on my feet. We begin with a particularly arduous set of exercises in which I stand on one leg and lift the other leg off the floor while resting my hands on top of my therapist's hands. My goal is to maintain balance while standing on one leg -- her goal is for our hands not to touch. What is most fascinating about this exercise is the way the whole body tries to help the weaker member.

For example, my left leg is the stronger, and because it is I can stand on it fairly effectively. My right leg, however, is another story altogether. When I stand on my right leg, and my therapist lets go of my right hand, my whole body wants to twist toward the left. What is supposed to be happening is that my body should almost automatically find its "center" over my right side to support me on that one leg. Not only is this not happening, every muscle in my body is trying to make it happen. Sometimes, my left leg floats up into an almost "ballet-like" position. This is truly amazing, because on the best of days I can't dance!

The human body is a marvelous thing to behold. On the best of days it is hard to imagine how it all works so smoothly and wonderfully. In a crisis, on the other hand, it amazes me even more how one part stimulates another part until healing is the result. In many ways we are all walking miracles. For many of us it is a miracle that we are alive, and for others it is a miracle that we are able to walk around with relative ease.

So, I have to ask you: "what made Jonathan wake up after two weeks in a coma?" Here is another good question: "how did my brother's body spontaneously create a heart bypass without benefit of surgeon?" Finally, "how do all my muscles and nerves know how to come to the aid of a weaker right leg?" These are great questions indeed, and I am sure that I don't know the answer, except that God made our bodies for rich and far-reaching internal inter-relationships. It is "constitutional" that our bodies should behave this way. There is not much we can do to stimulate it -- it just happens because it is the nature of the human body.

And so, we enjoy once again the richness of St. Paul's image of the Church as Christ's body in the world. Listen to 1 Corinthians 12: 25-26 as paraphrased by JB Phillips.

But God has harmonized the whole body by giving importance of function to the parts which lack apparent importance that the body should work together as a whole with all the members in sympathetic relationship with one another. So it happens that if one member suffers all the other members suffer with it, and if one member is honored all the members share a common joy.

The human body works because its members live and operate in sympathetic relationship with one another. Please do not confuse "sympathetic relationship" with pity. This is definitely not a call to feel sorry for our church family in need. Rather, it is not a call to do anything -- it is descriptive not prescriptive. The passage does not say that church members should be in sympathetic relationship with one another, it says that church members are in sympathetic relationship with one another.

For Jonathan, John, Jim, and millions of unnamed sufferers throughout the world, human bodies are constantly renewing themselves in all kinds of situations. We simply have to do that, because we are human bodies. On the other hand, the Church exists in sympathetic relationship only when there is a real church. For us Reformed types, a real church is one that recognizes one Sovereign God, salvation by grace through faith, a life of gratitude and obedience, a life careful about sin and one which is obedient to God in all things. If we call our members to worship, nurture, fellowship and service in this context, we might be amazed at how many more healings there might be in our midst.

I must say one last word lest you get the impression that I am missing the truth that there is chronic pain, paralysis, suffering, and death all around us. Of course, I have no more answer to this than I do about why the healings I have mentioned here have taken place. I do know that in the Body of Christ, our sympathetic relationships enable us to stand with and for all who suffer. Let us never forget that "standing with and for" is a healing gesture in itself. It works!

Rejoice! God's healing is hard-wired into us.

Jim