Perchance God has let me live to do this one thing more!

It was the last patient of the day, and I almost didn’t go and see Ricardo because he was in such agony. They had been unable to contain his pain that was secondary to back surgery, which was palliative for his metastasized cancer. He had been unable to be moved without screaming, due to his pain, and wanted to just be left alone by everyone. Ricardo’s prognosis was extremely poor, and death was imminent. I decided to see him, against his spoken request to the nurse to be left alone, in hope that prayers might work where medication had not.

I entered the room, and Ricardo was lying very still and taking very short, gasping-type breaths. His pain was obvious! I introduced myself and acknowledged his pain and sickness. He was obviously not an American, and I asked him his nationality (this is not something I have ever asked before, and I am not sure why I asked it this time). He told me he was from South America. I asked Ricardo what brought him to America, and he told me he had worked his whole life as an international salesman, and they had moved him to America to be closer to their corporate headquarters.

I was about to offer prayer when Ricardo asked me what faith I was. When I told him I was Pentecostal, he responded that he too was Pentecostal.  He told me that he had bought a lot of books, Bibles and literature to mission works that he had helped start in South America, while traveling there for for his company. Ricardo stated that he had helped start several missions with the literature, books, and materials. He began to talk about the wonder of his work and the importance of the changing power of Pentecost in people’s lives. While he did not consider himself a preacher, his money and contacts were able to start countless missions in the jungles. It was his most rewarding legacy. He seemed to light up as he talked about this work.

It is important that you remember that through all of this Ricardo is making small, gasping breaths to try and control his pain. Each Spanish-accented and whispered word jarred Ricardo’s body and heightened his pain, making him difficult to understand. I wanted to stop him, but there was something therapeutic in his talking about his love for the work of God in South America. There was something pure and holy in this dying, old man, who had taken over the entire conversation while I sat and listened.

At some point in Ricardo’s talk about his love for the work of God, a change began to take place, and if I might be so bold, it seemed as if angels began to lift up this man and gave him strength. Ricardo’s whispered words of pain became stronger, and it was as if he had become free from the bonds of the world. He began to speak as a prophet and began to speak into my life words of life, hope, and strength. He began to speak out about my ministry as a chaplain and to confirm God’s call and anointing in the path that I am walking. Ricardo identified my fears, doubts, and obstacles that would have been impossible for him to know. He assured me that God would go with me, provide for me, and that God had a great work for me to do that would include a harvest of many souls.

After about ten minutes of speaking into my life and story, Ricardo reached out his thin, frail arms and laid his hands upon me. He spent another five minutes praying for me while speaking in tongues, asking God for His anointing and blessing upon my life and ministry. God’s presence seemed to flood into the place as Ricardo prayed. Surely we had found a holy place together in the presence of God. As the patient prayed loudly and boldly, I began to speak quietly in tongues as a physical anointing poured over me, warming me from head to toe. The one ministered to had become the minister for the one who had come to minister.

Spent, Ricardo collapsed back in the bed, once again gasping small breaths of pain. We sat there together silently for a while, and then he said, “Maybe God has let me live to this point that I might do this one thing more before I die!” Ricardo would die feeling that he had lived to accomplish a great task, and indeed he had. His words would impact my ministry for the rest of my life, and therefore many shall be blessed by the words of this dear South American brother. These words seem inadequate to describe this experience, but if I live another fifty years, I will not forget this experience.

A Living Sermon

I paused outside of the room to gather my thoughts and breathe a prayer for the job that was ahead. The nurse had called and informed me of a new patient that had a fast-growing cancer on her face, neck, and head. She was not expected to live very long. A month ago she had been healthy, living independently, and had no visible symptoms. The nurse had tried to prepare me for a rather unsightly situation and the considerable difficulty in controlling the pain.

On entering the room, darkened because of the closed drapes and dimmed lights, my eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness. Withering in pain on the bed was a terribly disfigured woman with multiple, open, weeping tumors on her head, of which some were as large as a football; dozens of other tumors ranged in size from a marble to a golf ball. Significant amounts of morphine had been administered sublingually, but had little effect on her pain. Her chart said that she was not a practicing Christian, but had expressed a desire to see the chaplain on admission (some days prior). She is elderly, but her body seems to be rather healthy compared to her head. She has a decreased level of consciousness (due to medication and disease) and is alert only to herself, her pain, her end-of-life concerns…

What do I do for this lady? What can I offer her? What does the ecclesia have to offer her? How can the gospel be presented to her this late in the situation? What form would the kerygma take, and what should it look like? In this context I do not stand at a podium, take a text, and pontificate about some aspect of the scripture, a format that anticipates an allotment of time in which to reflect, incorporate, and by which to become empowered. On the other hand, my actions become the kerygma for the patient, and therefore this lived sermon must also be governed by some form of an outline. Therefore, I will now offer a brief sermon outline that I attempted to live for this patient:

Title – The Hand that Touched

Text - (Mark 1:40-42) (The Message)

“A leper came to him, begging on his knees, "If you want to, you can cleanse me." Deeply moved, Jesus put out his hand, touched him, and said, "I want to. Be clean." Then and there the leprosy was gone, his skin smooth and healthy.”

Point#1

The beggar’s situation seemed hopeless. Set apart in a dark place, alone, and certainly he was afraid. His hand reached out… (This will attempt to meet the patient where she/he is at this time – I see you! I hear you!).

Point#2

Jesus recognized that the leper was after more than physical healing. If that were all there was to this story, then Jesus could have spoken the word from a distance and accomplished the same. No, Jesus recognized the outreached hand that said, “Can anybody love me just the way I am! I am so all alone in my pain, my disability, and my hopelessness!” So Jesus did what was important first – He touched the leper, He accepted the stigma of becoming a leper, and bridged the gap between heaven and hell! The healing of his body was secondary to the healing of his self image. (This will attempt to provide the patient with validation of life, faith, and meaning – I feel/touch you!)

Point#3

How long had it been since he had been touched by anyone? Can you imagine with me for a moment how it must feel to not know the touch of man (or God)? Even a hand of hatred is better than total seclusion (an Eskimo proverb)! The gift of touch, regardless of the physical healing, created a feeling of wellness and wholeness in the man’s life. (This will hopefully infuse the patient with a sense of worth and accomplishment – I value you!)

Conclusion – The lived moment!

* (Matthew 28:20b) “And remember, I am with you each and every day until the end of [your life]." (my paraphrase)

* It is my desire in the lived sermon to join the diseased body of humanity and the divine hand of God together!

Pastoral Prayer

Dear God we stand here in our weakness in need of your hand. We don’t pretend to understand the ‘why’ or any other of the deep questions of life. We do recognize the need of community… the need for someone to be here. Let my hands, the hands of the nurses and aides, and the hands of all who visit here be the hands of God. Let her community bring blessings, peace, and contentment in these hours of pain and passing. We ask all these things with our faith firmly in the mystery of your Son, Jesus Christ. As Jesus provided mediation between God and humanity – Let Kim’s community now mediate to her the endless love of the Master’s touch. Amen!

The Lived Sermon...
Kim was every bit as bad as can be imagined. She tossed and turned on her bed, her skin was moist and clammy, the sores on her head were… (well, some things can’t be described), and the smell… I pushed up the chair as close to the bed as it would go and sat down. When I took her hand, I could feel the grip tighten around mine (somewhere inside she was still reaching out for community). She whispered a word (one of two words she said while I was there) to me before I could say anything, “Scared!” I told her who I was and did not receive any response other than her hand gripping mine. Her collar-length hair was matted, wet, and hanging in her face. I reached out my other hand and began moving the hair out of her face and running my fingers through her hair and over the tumors that were claiming her life. Her response was almost immediate as she calmed down and began to more comfortably fall asleep. The nurse came in and said, “Thank God you’re here. We haven’t been able to do anything for her.” Amazing what a hand can do when time is given and the effort is made! Over the next few hours I said my prayer, even told the story of how Jesus touching the leper, played some hymns on my iPod, but mostly just held her hand and touched her head and hair. One old hymn written by Charlotte Elliott, in 1835, seemed especially fitting.

Just as I am, without one plea,

But that Thy blood was shed for me,

And that Thou bidst me come to Thee,

O Lamb of God, I come, I come.

"Ah, this famine of love..."

“Ah, this famine of love! How it saddens my soul!” These were words written by Toyohiko Kagawa, a great Japanese Christian, in 1931, shortly before the onset of the Second World War. “…everywhere this dreadful drought of love! Not a drop of love anywhere: the loveless land is dreary… When the last drop of love has dried away, all men will go mad and begin to massacre all who ever thought of love…” This cry for love was a precursor to the Japanese invasion of the world and remains a cry today in a world tormented with war and terrorism. Not only is the world tormented, but the smallest unit of society, the family, is fighting, dysfunctional, and bifurcated. Nothing amazes me more than families tormented and fighting in life and continuing to do so, even in the face of sickness, pain, and death.

The church is daily exposed to the needs of the world around it, and chaplains, filled with the same Spirit as Christ and the Apostles, are given the opportunity to be living demonstrations of God’s love to those they encounter in their journeys of pain, sickness, and death. Only when chaplains love even the sickest of modern society, people who are much like they are, in the same manner in which they love themselves, will they fulfill the commandment to love God with all of their heart, mind, and strength. “The [chaplain as a] Christian… salt for society, becomes a vehicle for God to reach out to a misguided, oblivious world that so desperately needs His touch.” For now, until that completeness, the chaplain has three responsibilities, which will lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love (1 Corinthians 13:13).

I wrote these words last week after I had been called to a series of particularly difficult deathbed scenes. The first one was the most horrible death as can be imagined. The lady had a bedsore so bad that her bowels had come through the sore in her buttocks area and burst. The smells were indescribable and the death was excruciating for the client, the family, and the staff. The second was to a death of the most dysfunctional family one could encounter, with physical fighting, cursing, and blaming going on all around the staff. It is the job of the chaplain, as the emissary of God, filled with God’s Holy Spirit, to walk into these situations and, like Jesus did to the natural elements, speak peace and hope into the lives of the grieving families. For me, it would not be a job I could do unless I was convinced that God goes both with me and before me. Furthermore, it is my sincere hope that when I leave, I leave some of God with those that stay.

Not the Baker, Just The Bread Man!

Luke 11:3 “Give us day by day our daily bread.”

John 6:48 [Jesus said], “I am that bread of life.”

Acts 2:46 “And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart.”


A Parable About the Bread Man
A small lad rolls over from a night of fitfull sleep and melodramaticly streches out his arms and legs as boys are prone to do. His hand knocks over an empty bottle and pushes away yesterday’s newspaper. His leg kicks the dumpster and is pulled back in pain as he sits up and holds his leg. Tears run down his dirty cheeks, and it is then he hears his stomach rumble. Hunger pangs are a familiar feeling. There is no place to wash up, and he had slept in his clothes. He peers around the side of the dumpster and slowly creeps out into the alley. Dirty hands are run through his hair as he walks out onto the street. The sun is shining while business people and store clerks are bustling about preparing for another day.

The lad is mostly ignored as he squints through the morning rays. The grocery is open on the corner, the smell of coffee wafts through the air from the café, and the bank is rolling out the awnings to protect their afluent customers. Ahh… he sighs as someone opens the door of the bakery. Bread… fresh, baked this morning, and still warm. All of this you could tell from just one whiff when the door was opened by the steady line of customers.

The lad makes his way nonchalantly down the busy street until he is just across the street from the bakery. He waits for a time and then… Yes, there she came down the street. Walking with a purpose towards the bakery as if the smell were drawing her like a magnet. As she walked through the door of the bakery, the lad made his dash across the street to lean against the hydrant on the corner. As if orchestrated in a theater, each player knew his role and place. The lad waited, pretending to ignore the drama that was about to play out on this street corner. Without looking he could hear the door creak open several times. He knew the number of customers and he knew which creak was hers. This was not the first time – this was a morning routine.

The lad had his pride, and it forced him to pretend to ignore the approaching steps of the lady as she returned home to prepare breakfast for her family. He heard her pause and ask, “Johnnie, you want a roll this morning?”

As on the previous morning, and for that matter on many previous mornings, the lad turned and was quick to reply as his belly did flip flops at the smell of the bread, “No, thank you, Ma’am. I’m not hungry this morning!”

“Well, Johnnie,” she replied with a knowing smile, “How about your sister? Maybe you could take a few rolls to her for me!”

“I suppose I could do that. She is very hungry and not likely to get much to eat today!” Johnnie reached out his hand and took two rolls from the lady’s basket and moved on down the street. He continued to walk slowly until the lady was out of sight. He ravenously ate the rolls. He has no sister – at least none that he knows of – he just needed bread, but didn’t know how to ask. Bread…

I heard a minister speak at a missionary conference from the title, “The World Needs Bread.” I presume that this is where I first started thinking about being the bread man. My world involves death rooms that stretch across South St. Louis and around Washington, and it includes hospital and emergency rooms in St. Charles. In each of these rooms are hungry people, people that are hungry for the Bread of Life. Many, if not most, don’t realize they are hungry for that Bread, some are too proud to ask for that Bread, and others don’t even know that this Bread exsists. Nevertheless, one thing is certain, they all need the Bread.

That’s where I come in; I’m the Bread man. I’m not the baker, just the delivery boy. Many years ago I met someone who gave me some of that Bread. Almost 40 years have come and gone since that day, and still I am giving away that same Bread. As a child they told me a story about how all this got started. A small child had 5 small loaves of bread and two fishes. A man who called himself the Bread of Life took that bread, blessed it, and began to divide it up among the multitude. Amazingly enough, those 5 small loaves fed 5000 with leftovers, and another time it fed 4000 with leftovers to share.

Throughout the centuries, women and men continue to bless and pass out that Bread of Life. After 2000 years that Bread has not diminished in either size or power. That Bread is just waiting for the Bread man to bless it, break it, and give it out. Again, that is who I am, the Bread man. Each day I step into the lives of sick, afflicted, diseased, and dying. Each without exception need Bread. All are hungry, and some are even starving; each are praying, “Give us this day our daily Bread!” Sometimes I have to explain what this Bread is because they have never seen it before. Other times they know about the Bread, but have never tasted it, and so my job is to entice them by saying, “Taste and see that the Bread is Good.” Some are like the lad above and too proud to admit they need the Bread, and so I have to present the Bread in such a manner that they can save their pride and still eat the Bread.

Finally, there is the good ground; they spent their life eating Bread, and while they may have eaten Bread earlier that same day, there is rejoicing at the arrival of the Bread man. Like little birds, their mouths are open, waiting for more Bread I’ve held their heads and frail bodies in my arms and fed them the Bread, one small broken piece at a time. I held their hands and fed them Bread as I watched their life here on earth slip away and am assured that the Bread of Life takes over on the other side.

Yes, I am the Bread man, breaking Bread from house to house! It’s not uncommon for the phone or pager to ring, and when answered, a nurse that recognizes the need for Bread is calling for the Bread man to come. I have a hungry patient… she is sick… he is dying… a family is greiving… would the Bread man come and feed them Bread? Often the door is shut, and my children are in bed; I don’t want to rise and give them Bread. Not because of friendship do I rise, but because of the importunity of a hungry world crying out for Bread, I rise and give the needed as he needeth. Why, because I am the Bread man.

Joining the Hand of God to the Hand of the Murderer

It was a cool mid-winter afternoon when the pager went off and dispatch let me know that a code was in process on a 6-month-old baby that was coming into the emergency room via ambulance. I responded quickly and beat the ambulance to the hospital. When the ambulance arrived, I was waiting with the code team on the curb. The baby was taken quickly to room 2 in the emergency room, and it was left to me to handle the father of the baby, who also arrived in the ambulance.


The father, Ted, was about 23 years old, was wearing pajamas, his hair uncombed, his face unshaved, and was obviously upset over the situation. I took Ted to the private family room and initially I just sat and held Ted while he cursed and raged, striking the wall, the couch, and his leg. After about 10 minutes, Ted made several phone calls to his ‘girlfriend’ (who was at work) and other relatives. One of the doctors came in then and asked Ted for his story.

Ted explained that he had just fed the baby (a boy) and the baby was sleeping and he noticed that he was not breathing. Ted then called for his girlfriend’s mother, who also lived there, to come and help. The family started CPR, 911 was called, and the ambulance arrived. The story seemed simple enough and plausible to me. The doctor left, and I prayed with Ted for God to guide the hands of the doctors and the recovery of his baby. We then discussed Ted’s spiritual journey. Ted was raised Lutheran, but had not been to a Lutheran church in about a decade. During the years away from the Lutheran church, Ted ran away and lived with friends in Louisiana. There he joined and attended a large Pentecostal church with his friends for several years. After a few years in Louisiana, at about 20 years of age, Ted ‘ran away’ again and moved to a large mid-western city. There he had not attended church, but he had fathered two children by two different women. He had been living with the family of the second woman. Ted works at the same restaurant as his girlfriend, on opposite shifts (this is where he met her).

After Ted shared his story, he went through another raging spell that seemed more like a 2-year-old throwing a fit than an adult grieving. I used the analogy that Ted looked like a deer caught in the headlights of a truck on a dark, Maine night. Ted’s wife’s family began arriving, and they provided support with hugs and prayers. Especially present was his girlfriend's mother, who had been in the house during the situation. About this time (I had been with Ted about 45 minutes) I found it convenient to take a break and go see what was going on with the child.

Immediately I knew something was up; there were two uniformed police officers and a hospital security guard posted outside the family room door, two more uniformed police officers were outside the emergency room, and another two posted by room 2, where they still worked on the baby. At least a ½ dozen hospital (it was obvious they had called in the on-call) security guards were mingling around the emergency room. Two plain-clothes detectives were talking to doctors in the center of the emergency room.

When the detectives saw me, they asked me exactly what was said during my time in the family room. After telling them what little I knew, the doctor filled me in on the condition of the child. The child had bruises on his back and legs, signs of old and new injuries, old fractures on x-ray, and evidence that the baby had been raped. The doctors and detectives then asked me to return to the family and continue to provide spiritual care, but to keep my eyes and ears open.

This was a very difficult situation for me. On one hand I was expected (by hospital staff and by myself) to continue to provide good pastoral care, and on the other hand to keep my eyes open for the perpetrator. It seemed to be obvious that the father was guilty, due to the fact that he was alone with the baby at the time he stopped breathing. However, I knew that to provide good pastoral care I would have to hold my feelings in check, even though I knew one member of the family had brutally injured and raped this six-month-old child. I returned to the family and gave them a brief update on the baby (only that the doctors had resuscitated the baby and that the baby was still in grave danger) and then prayed with the family, which by this time numbered more than a dozen people, including the father, mother, and grandparents of the child. After a short time the detectives came and informed the family that they would be doing some routine questioning of the family. One-by-one the family was questioned by the detectives in a separate room.

About an hour later the doctor informed me I could bring the parents and grandparents in to see the baby. This was very traumatic for the family and myself (I knew by this time that the baby would not likely live). The baby lay there so very quiet (on a respirator and with several IVs), a blanket covered all but his face to cover his injuries. We gathered around the baby, and at the request of the family I laid my hands upon his red hair and prayed for God to provide a miracle of healing for the child. I also prayed for God to bring healing to a family that would be devastated by this situation (thinking that I knew more than most of them). Shortly thereafter life-flight from Children’s Hospital arrived and flew the baby downtown. The family and police officers quickly followed in automobiles.

This was a very traumatic case in which good pastoral care was so desperately needed. After everyone had left, I sat in the chaplain’s office for about an hour and cried for a child whose life had been cut short before it had hardly begun. I went home and debriefed with my wife and cried again. The next morning I went and saw my supervisor to talk through some more of the lingering emotion. I have long since learned the value of talking out the pain and death that is encountered in the life of the chaplain. All of this helped, and I was able to continue with my busy schedule that day. At this point I did not know the status of the baby or the results of their investigation.

I wish that I could say that the situation ended there and the horrible memory faded slowly into the background of my mind. However, later that day I heard the breaking news, first on the radio and then from a phone call, that the baby had died and the father had confessed to the assault and murder of his son. Further, the family had admitted that they had witnessed the ongoing abuse of the little baby from his birth. They claimed to be afraid of the perpetrator, and he had kept promising that it would not happen again.

For some reason (probably because the facts of the case could no longer be denied or explained away and the reality of it being in the headlines) this hit me even harder than being there at the time. I called several of the chaplains that I work with each day and told them I needed them now. We met around 6 PM in the conference room, and they allowed me to debrief and have another good cry. Their support and hugs were very helpful. Each one expressed a willingness to accept a phone call day or night if needed. I have had a few more times of tears and grief for the situation since then, but each time I have sought out help from my fellow chaplains and my wife.

For the family and the father of the child, I was able to provide quality pastoral care, even though it was obvious that a very tragic crime had been committed by one of them and witnessed and tolerated by others. I did not let personal feelings and/or an abhorrence to what they had done prevent me from being present for them. My desire is to always be Godly presence for my patients, extending to them the benefit of God’s grace and the offer of Calvary’s mercy.