Episode 573 - Live from SRMC

Welcome back to Voices in My Head podcast. As always, I'm your host, Rick Lee James, and today is a special podcast. It's actually a live service coming to you from the chapel at the hospital where I work at in Springfield, Ohio. So you're going to get to hear the whole service today. So thanks for joining us, and you're going to hear some background music and then it's going to begin. So thanks for being here. Welcome all of you who are viewing us in your rooms today, and we are grateful to have you. I am Chaplain Rick Lee James, and we are here to do our non-denominational weekly weekly service that we do. So if you're joining us from one of the rooms today, we are glad that you're here to worship with us. We're going to begin with a song called His Mercy Is More, and we're going to sing it together now. And those of you who are in the room, we have song sheets for you, so let's sing together. And it starts like this, it says, praise the Lord, his mercy is more.

Longer than darkness, new every morn. Our sins, they are many, his mercy is more. In verse 1, what love could remember? What love could remember no wrongs we have done? Omniscient, all-knowing, he counts not— their song. Known unto us, he would not let them all show. Our sins, they are many, his mercy is more. Praise the Lord! His mercy is more. Stronger than darkness, Through every morn, our sins they are many, His mercy is more. What patience would wait, what patience would wait as we constantly prove, what love so tender, His only thus hope. For he welcomes the weakest, the vilest, the poor. Our sins, they are many, his mercy is more. So praise the Lord, his mercy is more. Stronger than darkness, stood near the dead we could never afford. Our sins, they are many, his mercy is more. Praise the Lord, his mercy is more. Stronger Stronger than darkness, true living one. Our sins, they are many, his mercy is more. Praise the Lord! His mercy is more. Oh, stronger than darkness, true living one. Our sins, they are many, His mercy is more. Our sins, they are many. His mercy is more.

Chaplain Diane is going to come and read a scripture for us as we continue in our service today.

I will read into your hearing Isaiah chapter 60, verses 1 through 11. The word of the Lord. Arise, shine, for your light has come and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. For darkness shall cover the earth and thick darkness the peoples, but the Lord will arise upon you and his glory will appear over you. Nations shall come to your light and kings to the brightness of your dawn. Lift up your eyes and look around. They all gather together, they come to you. Your sons shall come from far away, and your daughters shall be carried in their nurses' arms. Then you shall see and be radiant, your heart shall thrill and rejoice, because the abundance of the sea shall be brought to you, and wealth of the nations shall come to you. A multitude of camels shall cover you, and young camels of Midian and Ephah and all from Sheba shall come. They shall bring gold and frankincense; they shall proclaim the praise of the Lord. All the flocks of Kedar shall be gathered to you; the rams of Nebaioth shall minister to you; they shall be acceptable on your altar. And I will glorify my glorious house. Who are they that fly like a cloud and like doves to their windows? For the coastlands shall wait for me, the ships of Tarshish first, and bring your children from far away, their silver and gold with them, for the name of the Lord your God and the Holy One of Israel, because he has glorified foreigners shall bring up your walls, and their kings shall minister to you. For in my wrath I struck you down, but in my favor I have had mercy on you. Your gates shall always be open, day and night shall they not be shut, so that nations shall bring you their wealth, with their kings led in procession. The word of God for for the people of God.

Blessed be to you, the word of the Lord.

Amen.

Thank you, Chaplain Diane. And even with the difficult words in that passage, I appreciate you reading it for us today. You got through it, so thank you. We had joked a little bit before today about how to pronounce a couple of the cities that were in there, but you did a great job. Thank you. But the passage, it emphasizes in there the Lord's mercy. In his favor. We just sang a song about the mercy of the Lord. As we continue in our service today, I'd like all of us just to take a moment and notice your senses for a moment. Things that you see, things that you can feel, touch with your fingers, maybe sounds maybe that you're hearing, maybe some things that you smell, maybe even a certain taste in your mouth. Asking the question, "What are you experiencing right now?" God is actively engaged in this world, speaking everywhere, using our senses, coming to us in different ways. The question is, are we engaging with God in this moment? You are loved. You are always loved. You are always loving. And you are always beloved. Truths about our relationship with God today. So are we living like that? Are we living as beloved people? Are we willing to receive with all of our senses what God may be speaking to us right now in this moment No matter what I would say in the next few minutes, are you willing to receive from God right now? Have you ever met a legalist before? That's what I want to focus on a little bit today. I've met legalists before. Have you ever been a legalist? I have been a legalist. I'm very good at it, actually. When I was a young Christian especially, I was very concerned with the proper or improper things I saw other people doing. Whether or not they were, you know, the thing we were actually taught when I was younger was, "We don't drink, smoke, or chew, and we don't go with girls that do." Okay? That was kind of the thing. Legalism, it was strong. And for legalists, the world is very black and white. It's about right, it's about wrong. There are no gray areas in between. It's just legalities. This is right. This is wrong. Left, right. Doesn't matter if you break the law for spitting on the sidewalk, which I found out is actually illegal in most places. Most people don't know that. Or if you're an illegal immigrant. Justice should be swift, should be fast, should be blind. But here's the thing about legalism.

Legalism.

As I've matured in my faith in Christ, I hope, I find that thing I've learned about legalism is it is concerned with laws that people break. But I think what the gospel of Christ is teaching us is that Christ is more concerned with the laws that break people. So many times our legalisms keep us broken. They keep us trapped. They keep us in a place where we have difficulty growing because we're so concerned about what our next move is and what law we might break of God's. The more I study Jesus, the more I pray, the more I can see that Jesus, I think, is less concerned about the laws that people follow and break, and he's more concerned with the reason why they follow or don't follow those laws. I'll give you an example. Les Misérables, the book by Victor Hugo. It's one of my favorite stories. There's been several excellent movies. There's been plays that have been made. It's one of the longest books other than the Bible I've ever read all the way through. It's a long one. You feel like, okay, I'm done now. Life is— life, you know, I've achieved it. It's such a big book. But the protagonist in the story, Jean Valjean, He is thrown into prison because he stole bread. It was the law. Thieves go to jail, even if it's just for stealing bread. But the law takes no account that the man's family was starving to death, that he was desperately poor, that he needed help. Didn't matter. At the beginning, Valjean is defined by the law. He's imprisoned for 19 years, originally for stealing that loaf of bread to feed his sister's starving children. The law punishes him harshly, branding him as a criminal for life. Society, bound by legalism, sees him only as a convict, not as a human being. This rigid system of justice doesn't consider the desperation that led to his crime. It only sees the law he broke. But then comes the bishop, a Christ-like figure in the story, who shows Jean Valjean radical mercy. Instead of condemning him when he steals the silver from the bishop, the bishop forgives him and even gives him more. This act of grace, it breaks the cycle of legalism and it transforms Jean Valjean's heart. The law had broken him for 19 years for stealing bread, but in an instant mercy restored him. Well, the police inspector Javert, on the other hand, embodies legalism. He believes justice must be absolute with no room for grace. He hunts Valjean relentlessly, refusing to see that Valjean has become a good man. When Jean Valjean finally has the power to kill Javert, but instead frees him, Javert cannot comprehend this act of grace. The weight of his rigid legalism crushes him. He cannot reconcile mercy with justice, and ultimately it leads to his downfall in the end. This story reflects the difference between the law and the gospel. Legalism is about punishing people for breaking laws no matter what the circumstances. But the good news, which is what gospel means, the gospel of Jesus, is that he came to heal those who have been broken by the law, those crushed under burdens they can't bear, to set the captives free. Just as Jean Valjean was transformed by undeserved grace, we are saved not by our ability to follow rules, —thank God—but by the mercy of Christ, to see beyond the fault to the need. To forgive. And in the Gospel of John, the Pharisees in the story were obsessed with legalism, strictly enforcing the law with no room for grace. Jesus, on the other hand, embodied the Gospel, the good news, showing compassion to those whom the law had broken. One powerful example that I love, it's John chapter 8, verses 1 through 11. And while I won't read the whole story here, it's the story of the woman that's caught in adultery. The Pharisees bring her to Jesus demanding that she be stoned according to the law. They're focused only on what she has done, but Jesus sees the woman herself, her pain, her humiliation, her need for mercy. And by the way, you know what we don't see in the story? The man. It seems to me it takes more than one person to commit adultery. We never see the man in the story. I don't know why that is, but that's for another message. But instead of condemning her, Jesus begins to scribble in the sand. It's the only thing we know for sure Jesus wrote, and we don't even know what that was. But he scribbled in the sand. He didn't let the crowd dictate how he was going to respond. He responded to them in this way, and he said, with all of them standing there with stones in their hands ready to kill her, he said, "Let one of you who is without sin be the first one to throw a stone at her." One by one, Now, beginning with the elders, they drop the stones they held in their hands, and they leave. Jesus says, "Woman, where are they? Has nobody condemned you?" "No one, sir," she said. "Then neither do I condemn you," Jesus declared. "Go now, leave your life of sin." This is exactly what happens with Jean Valjean. The law branded him as a criminal for life, offering no hope of redemption. But the bishop, like Jesus, sees beyond Jean Valjean's crime to the man himself. His act of mercy, giving Jean Valjean the silver, it parallels Jesus' forgiveness of the woman. Both are given a second chance, a new life, not because they deserve it, but But grace is greater than the law. And by the way, the woman in the story is not the only one who is given a new chance. Every person who had stones ready to cast, Jesus gave them the opportunity to change, to drop their stones and begin anew as part of the kingdom of God. This beautifully captures, for me anyway, the essence of the gospel. The law punishes the broken, Jesus heals them. And even uses them to show who God is. The law says you are condemned. Grace says you are redeemed. We are transformed not by fear of punishment, but by the overwhelming mercy of Christ that we just sang about a few minutes ago. In Luke chapter 4, verses 18 through 21, Jesus says, "The Spirit of the Lord is on me because he has anointed me to proclaim the good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind, and to set the oppressed free, and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.' Then he rolled up the scroll, he gave it back to the attendant in the synagogue, and he sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him, and he began saying to them, 'Today Today the scripture is fulfilled in your hearing. That didn't make them too happy. If you read on, you see they tried to kill Jesus then, but he walked right through them. But Romans 6:14 says, for sin shall no longer be your master because you are not under the law but under grace. Again, legalism is concerned with the laws that people break. But Jesus is concerned with the laws that break people. We see this tension all around us. We even see it in the hospital. Patients sometimes are reduced to a diagnosis, a chart, an insurance status. Some are told they don't qualify for care, that the system has done all that it's required to do, But where legalism says, "This is what you deserve," grace says, "But this is what you need." I'm grateful to work at a hospital that says to our patients, "Even if you can't pay, we're still gonna help you." That's one reason we're called Mercy. What we are to God is so much more than what we often realize. God loves us in our weakness just as we we are. God loves the person that we are. The person that he loves so much he gave his only son to die for. One of my friends is a musician. His name is Jason Gray, and he has a line in one of his songs that says, "Take a good look in the mirror and tell me who you see. The one who Jesus died for, or the one you'd like to be?" Fred Rogers used to say, "I think that those who would try to make you feel less than who you are I think that is the greatest evil. I'm reminded of a story as I close today. Tony Campolo, who passed away recently, he was a preacher and a sociologist. He used to tell a story about a young boy at a Christian summer camp. This boy had a severe speech impediment. You could barely understand his words. The other kids often made fun of him. Yes, even at a Christian summer camp. They would mock him behind his back, sometimes in front of his face. They would assume he had nothing valuable to say. But one evening there was a testimony time at the camp. And kids got up and began giving testimonies. And Kampolo said as he listened, some of them were okay, they were kind of doing their best. But some of them were the same kids who were making fun of this kid all week, were getting up to testify about what Jesus had done in their life. You could hear murmurs when the boy stood up in front of the entire camp, but he didn't let that stop him as he struggled for words during testimony time. And with great effort, he said, "I love Jesus, and I love you." Jesus loves me. That was it. 7 simple words. But the room, it was like it was cut through with a knife. The kids who had laughed at him, they suddenly went silent. Some of them began to cry. Kids started coming to the altar to pray. They spent the whole week judging him by what he lacked—his clear speech, his ability to fit in—but in that moment they saw what they had missed all along. His heart belonged to Jesus, and that was what mattered. Jesus loved this boy, and the boy loved him back. This boy and his weakness embodies the truth of 2 Corinthians 12:9, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." And isn't that what the good news is? The gospel. The world looks at our flaws and our failures and our past, says we don't measure up. It says you deserve punishment, but Jesus looks at us and He sees the need and he says, "You are loved." Maybe today some of us in here, or maybe some of us even who might be watching from your rooms today, from your bed, you might feel like that boy. You might feel unseen or unheard or defined by your illness. Your status as a human being is all wrapped up in these things, maybe in your past mistakes, Maybe you are one who has been broken by the law and by legalisms, never able to feel like you measure up. But please hear this: you are not just a case number, you are not just a diagnosis, you are not your illness, you are not just a patient, you are not an outsider, you you are a beloved child of God, and that is the only identity that matters. And if that's how Jesus sees us, shouldn't we see others the same way? Shouldn't we be people who live out grace so much more than judgment, that we could be free of legalism and allow ourselves to simply be loved? Shouldn't we care more about healing people than from keeping them to be healed? And I'll close with this question: are we willing to live as though we have been forgiven? Are we willing to live in such a way that we can engage with the world the way that God has engaged with us? Free of anxiety, free of judgment, coming with the love of of God today? Because as we said at the beginning, you are always loved, loving and being loved. So my question is, are you living like it today? We're gonna close with one more song today. The song is simply an invitation, and it's on the back of your song sheets, and it's called "Come As You Are." And if you're listening today, we just want you to know We're more than happy to come by your rooms. We want to be a part of this journey with you if we can. We believe God is calling all of us to come as we are, not as we should be, because none of us are as we should be, but because Jesus loves us for who we are.

Come out of sadness from wherever you've been. Come brokenhearted, let the rescue begin. Come find your mercy. Oh sinner, come kneel. Earth has no sorrow that heaven can't heal. Earth has no sorrow that heaven can't free. So lay down your burdens. Lay down your shame. All who are broken, lift up your face. Oh wanderer, come home, 'cause you're not too far. So lay down your hurt, lay down Open your heart, come as you are. There's hope for the hopeless and all those who stray. Come sit at the table, come taste of the grace. There's rest for the weary, rest that endures. Earth has no sorrow. So lay down your burden, lay down your shame. All who are broken, lift up your His face. Oh, wanderer, come home. You're not too far. Lay down your hurt. Lay down your heart. Come as you are. Come as you are. Fall in his arms. Come as you are. There's joy for the morning. Oh sinner, be still. Earth has no sorrow that heaven can't heal. Earth has no sorrow All the miracles that heaven can't do. So lay down your burdens, lay down your shame. All the miracles that heaven can't do. Lift up your face. Oh, wanderer, come home. You're not too far. So lay down your load, lay down your heart, come as you are. Come as you are. Come as you are. Come as you are.

We're going to have a closing word from our director, Chaplain Joe Denton.

So Joe, come and close us Thank you very much, Rick, for your message and for music, Joe and Doug, and for our scripture reading from Diane. And your message reminded me of a couple of things, Rick. When back in my junior high youth ministry days, we had grown from 5 kids to 50 kids and I needed help, and I enlisted help from a young man, a volunteer, and he came the first night and it was kind of pandemonium as junior high kids could be. Plus I was giving them pizza and stuff. They're wound up, right? And after, you know, we finished and was cleaning up, the kids left. He said, Joe, how can you be so patient and gracious with these kids? Well, I just think of all the boneheaded things I've done in my life and how good and gracious God has been to me to forgive me, so I must be incumbent to forgive and give grace as freely as I have received. And I think by and large, many of us are more apt and ready to forgive others as we are to forgive ourselves. I think that's harder to forgive ourselves. And I remember a time when I was being hard on myself. I was feeling down and discouraged, depressed. And believe it or not, I watched, uh, The Prince of Egypt, uh, animated, you know, cartoon movie, but it was very true to to, you know, the Book of Exodus in the Bible. And Moses was feeling down and out and depressed and feeling less than, unworthy. And I remember there's one song where Zipporah's father, who was a priest, sings this song, "Look at your life through heaven's eyes." Look at the grand tapestry of your life and every little thread that is in it. God is weaving something in you, in a new— so be gentle with yourself. Receive that grace that God, that Jesus offers so freely, and then freely give what you have received.

Yeah.

With that, let us Oh God of grace, your mercies are new every day. And dear Lord, we get caught up in our own selves and our own comings and goings, the things we've done, the things we've left undone, and we just ask for your mercy and your grace, your forgiveness right right now, so that may— we may receive your peace, your shalom, the peace that goes beyond all understanding. And let us be filled with your love, that change of heart that, uh, the protagonist John received. We become more like you, reflecting your love and grace to all that we encounter, to visit this day. So be with us and bless, bless us and grant us hope and healing, by the power of the Holy Spirit and in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. And if you would like a chaplain to come visit you, just let your nurse know. And as we have no idea who's watching out there, if anyone's ever watching on Channel 58 Even if you don't want to see a chaplain, let the nurse know, hey, could you tell the chaplains I watched the service today and I appreciate it? Or maybe there's constructive criticism as well. Let the nurse know so they can get it, so we can make this better in hopes that it would be an encouragement and a blessing to anyone watching. Shalom.

Thank you, Joe.