Episode 556: sustaining, healing, reconciling, guiding

Welcome back to Voices in My Head. As always, I'm your host, Rick Lee James, and I am so grateful for all of you who are here today. This week it's just me again. I wish I had some guests to share with you, but there's a little bit of personal news to share. I don't know how often I'm going to be able to do guests or even the podcast anymore. I know I keep talking about this, but I have just accepted a full-time position as chaplain at Springfield Regional Medical Center here in Springfield, Ohio. So my time is even more limited in some ways, but I'm really excited about it. I'm so grateful for the opportunity to do this. What I wanted to share today on the podcast is an assignment for a class that I'm in right now through Loyola University. It's a good class. It's, it's really good. It's, uh, it's a class on pastoral care and It's compassionate accompanying regardless of ethnicity. And we were asked to do a reflection on Romans chapter 8, verses 18 through 30, and we're supposed to reflect on how we see ourselves in our work in this passage. And I really enjoyed the writing project. I don't always enjoy my writing project, but this one I did. And I thought it might be something that was worth sharing with listeners today. So hopefully it is, and if you'll bear with me, I'm gonna share it today. And I'm gonna start by reading Romans 8:18-30. It says, I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning, as in the pains of childbirth, right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, We who have the firstfruits of the Spirit groan inwardly as we eagerly— as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God's people in accordance with God's will. And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified. And now this is my reflection on Romans 8:18-30 and how I see myself and my work as a hospital chaplain through sustaining, healing, reconciling, and guiding. Sustaining. This passage emphasizes our present suffering as a part of the greater redemptive process leading to future glory. I struggle with this in my work as a chaplain because I don't necessarily see suffering as something that is preparing us for glory. Too often I see what appears to be senseless suffering without a purpose. What else can I call it but senseless when a toddler is run over by a car twice when a 20-year-old wife is killed in an ATV accident, when a 7-year-old loses his young father due to a work accident. My task as a chaplain, as a minister of presence, is rarely about asking how a person's future helps them to cope, but what resources they have relied on in the past that have helped or not helped them in suffering. It is often a work of looking back to find out what has worked before, rather than a look to future glory. To be present to a person in suffering is to ask, "What sustains you?" This passage makes it seem like our suffering is not in vain, but a lot of suffering I see in hospitals seems to be done in vain, without cause, purpose, or meaning. The glory that is written about in Romans 8, which I find sustaining for myself, and my work as a chaplain is in having faith that suffering is not the final word. As a chaplain, I offer through a sustaining presence of ministry, using words like, "Tell me more about that," and "Has anything like this ever happened to you? And if so, how did you get through it?" In my experience, the work of chaplaincy is not about the hope of future glory, but rather about the sustaining presence. Perhaps my sustaining task is to wrestle alongside the patients as they wrestle with God. Healing. Romans 8:22 talks about creation groaning and waiting for redemption as in the pain of childbirth. One of the units in the hospital where I work is the maternity mother-baby unit. The image of collective yearning and anticipation is very much something I can see in that unit. Creation is groaning like a mother in labor, and I am like a midwife saying, "Push!" I journey with individuals in their groaning, acknowledging their pain and telling them, "Don't give up. A new thing is being born from this suffering." Healing can feel like breaking. In the book of Matthew, when Jesus cleanses the temple and drives out those who were buying and selling, the narrative ends with the blind and the lame coming to him for healing. In offering a compassionate presence, chaplains don't always get to see the healing, but we are the ones who journey with those who seek healing, peace, and hope. Chaplains are agents of hope. Agents of the hope described in this passage, as are patients. The chaplain has to see the hope in them too. The most challenging encounters are where hope cannot be found and where there is no option for healing. Patients have told me that even decades after losing a child, healing never takes place. The breaking may The wound may not remain, but the aching will last forever. Healing may take the rest of a person's life, as does the grieving process, and it may take even longer. Just as we must never tell a person that they have grieved enough, we would also never tell them that they should heal faster. It takes as long as it takes. Reconciling. Verses 29-30 talk about being conformed to the image of Christ. We are called, justified, and glorified. Perhaps this speaks to the reconciliation process. What if broken relationships and individual struggles can be transformed into a unified, restored state in and through Christ? As a chaplain, I am often in the room with people who have broken and highly dysfunctional relationships with loved ones. Sometimes a person has a broken relationship with their own self. And is unable to reconcile who they are with the sick person inside of them who is lying in the hospital bed. Sometimes I am in the room as a reconciliation representative, but unlike Christ, I cannot bring order from the chaos. I enter the chaos with the patient, offering a non-anxious, non-judgmental presence. I facilitate a sense of peace for individuals helping them to see meaning, value, purpose, connection, and transcendence. I do the work of reframing with patients, helping them to see the pain of their present moment and the purposeful narrative of their lives as living human documents. If they are willing, they may be reconciled to themselves, to God, and to others, conformed to a new image, When this happens, I know it is not my work but the work of the Great Reconciler that has taken place. And finally, guiding. I'm not sure that guiding is the work of chaplaincy. As spiritual caregivers, we are being guided. The patient guides us to things they find meaningful, to places where they find connection, to things that they value, to places where they find purpose, and to their sense of transcendence. Chaplains offer presence more than guidance, in my opinion. Verse 28 is probably one of the most badly mistranslated and misinterpreted verses in the whole Bible. It makes it seem like God is guiding everything, even the senseless tragedies in our lives, because they are a part of some grand plan. And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him and who have been called according to his purpose. I have been frustrated by this verse for years and unable to accept it. Then one day I heard N.T. Wright explain the nuances of the passage and what English translators so often miss. He helped me see that the scripture should be read as: And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him through those who have been called according to his purpose. The passage doesn't say that God controls everything like a great puppet master. It tells us that in all of life, God is working through those who love him to bring goodness into the world. If chaplains do any guiding at all, it is guidance through compassionate accompanying. Like Christ on the Emmaus Road, chaplains accompany our fellow travelers who have have lost hope. It is important to say that as a chaplain, I am not the guide, but I am traveling with one who is the guide, and he has chosen to walk the road with us. I believe the Holy Spirit sometimes guides the chaplains through the wordless groans of the patients. I often pray for guidance, asking God, "Please let some word that is heard be yours." This guidance through prayer and the support of the Holy Spirit underscores the importance of being a guided presence by others as much or more than being a guide— did I say that right? As much or more than being a guiding presen— I'm sorry, let me read this sentence again! This guidance through prayer and the support of the Holy Spirit underscores the importance of being a guided presence by others as much as or more than being a guided presence for others. I think this is an important distinction. Pastoral care is a type of care that involves listening and receiving direction from God and the patients as often or more than it involves being a guide. Romans 8:18-30 supports the idea of compassionate accompanying regardless of ethnicity because the passage affirms that suffering and the hope of redemption are universal experiences. The work of the Spirit sustains, heals, reconciles, and guides with empathy and respect for each person's distinct background and experiences, affirming their inherent value and dignity. I walk the halls of the hospital with great hope that God is making all things new. Thank you for listening to Voices in My Head. As always, I'm Rick Lee James. Thanks for being here with me on this journey in whatever form this podcast podcast takes in the coming days. I hope that you'll stick with me. Still trying to sort it out and figure out what it means to do my work as a song leader at church in worship services and being a full-time chaplain and a dad and a student, but we'll work it out. Still trying to figure it all out. As we see from the passage, we aren't fully formed yet. We have things ahead and we're being formed into that place. So God bless you. Thank you for listening to Voices in My Head. Share this podcast with somebody if you found it And my website is rickleejames.com. God bless.