Jesus asked this poignant question of His disciples 2000 years ago in the waning years of His earthly ministry. He asked it not because of His insecurity, but because of the impending insecurity that His followers would face in the days and years to come. Jesus knew that facing the death of their (the disciple’s) Christ on a cross was only the beginning of their tribulation and that there would be lions, gladiators, loneliness, hunger, sickness, death, and much more to face until He could return in the clouds to gather His bride. Jesus understood that how they answered the question above would shape their ministry, it would shape the ekklesia that was about to be born, and determine whether that ekklesia would be founded upon koinoônia or not. Peter’s answer, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God,” was heartily endorsed by Jesus and, therefore, worthy of my consideration in determining who Jesus is and how that answer does, and should, impact my ministry.[1]
Both ‘Christos’ and ‘Son of the living God’ point the defining answer to the question, “’Who is He?” back to the living God, who is the Father. ‘Christos’, meaning anointed and, without taking the time to prove it, could only mean anointed of or by the Father, and ‘Son’ also could only refer to the Father by the natural progression of the word. Therefore, quite simply, what Jesus was indorsing in Peter’s answer was, and remains the same for me today; Jesus and His Father were (are) one.[2] For my purpose in determining its meaning for my ministry today, Jesus and His Father are one in thought, one in purpose, one in intent, and one in ministerial design. Specifically, Jesus was saying that to know who I Am, you have to know who my Father is, and in that day and time the only way to know the father was to consider the Father through the Torah.
While Jesus came to fulfill the Torah and provide Himself as a blood sacrifice that would end all blood sacrifices, one can still know God (the Father) by studying His nature revealed through the Torah. Hillel, a Jewish theologian (who lived prior to Jesus), was asked to summarize the Torah while standing on one foot; his response was simple: “What you hate for yourself, do not do to your neighbor. This is the whole of the Law; the rest is commentary. Go and Learn.’”[3] Jesus Himself endorsed this summary of the Torah when a scribe said, “There is one God; and there is none other but he: And to love him with all the heart and with all the understanding, and with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love his neighbor as himself, is more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.”[4] Jesus also summarized the Torah in the Book of Luke by saying that upon the same two commandments (love God and love neighbor) hangs all the law and the prophets.[5] Paul and James both reaffirmed the nature of the God of the Torah, with Jesus’ demonstration of love on the cross, and by the Christian’s love for his neighbor today.[6] Jesus is the true neighbor, and neighborliness is part of the incarnate nature of God.[7] It would be just as impossible to think of Jesus not being a good neighbor as it would to separate the Father from the Son.
Therefore, the overarching principles of what the disciples knew about God as the Father and Jesus as the Son of the Father, a theme carried throughout the 66 books of the Bible, is to love God and to love your neighbor as you wish to be loved. It is this idea, the very nature of God as both Father and Son, that motivates and guides my ministry. While space would not allow me to develop this further, it is worth noting that I spent 140 pages in my Master’s Thesis developing this definition of my ministry, “When exposed by proximity to need, the command to love one’s neighbor is a commandment that commands the practical demonstration of one’s love for his/her neighbor(s), down to the least of them, loving them as one does him/herself, thus indicating the depth of one’s love for God.”[8]
Keeping this in mind, let me digress almost 20 years ago when I sat down at a computer to write my first academic paper for graduate school and these words spilled from the depth of my soul in the opening paragraph:
“Loneliness! Stark, relentless, loneliness! Empty, pointless, purposeless lives filled with loneliness! Wandering the crowded halls of society, Americans are the loneliest people in the world! From the mega-malls to the high-rise apartment buildings with 10,000 residents, there has never been a time in American history that America has been more crowded, yet at the same time Americans continue to be among the loneliest people in the world. Crowds of 100,000, that used to be a novelty, are now so common that they rarely make the news. Pushing through the crowds are millions of lonely people. Lonely people are spending millions to talk to people that they’ve never seen, on the phone, the radio, and in Internet chat-rooms. In the mental health field, psychiatric medicine has become a multibillion-dollar industry serving millions of lonely Americans. Always searching for something…”[9]
I could not prevent my own story from pouring into the pages that I would write. Little did I know that these words were indeed a cry for someone to fulfill the command and nature of God by being my neighbor. Someone who would persist in tearing down the walls that I had built (tall, thick, and strong) against the pain of the past. If one would have taken the time to listen to my story, they would have heard the painful cry for help. After 20 years of ministry, it seemed as if no one had done anything except give me reasons to build it higher and stronger. My wonderful wife of almost nine years (then) had tried and somehow found a way into my heart through a well-guarded door. But even in her case, I was guarded and careful lest she too bring more pain and darkness.
One thing I didn’t realize at the time was that through the 1000s of pages of writing I was going to do over the next five years, it was going to open a floodgate through which professor after professor could (and most would) hear my story, be my neighbor, and begin a process that would change my life and ministry forever. Wall after wall, pain after pain, and life commandment after life commandment was pulled down, changed, and soothed. In their place I became the man I am today.
It is important that one understands this part of my story, because out of this pain came the defining methodology of my ministry and my present understanding of who Jesus was and is today. While I studied the joint-love commandment (love of God and love of neighbor), I was experiencing the same love of God at the hands of my new neighbors in the form of students, professors, and my wife. People who took the time to do more than care at a distance, but listened to my story and helped me reframe the misconstrued life commandments and plot a new course for my life.
Throughout my units of CPE, I found this to be true over and over again. I am surrounded daily by my neighbors: patients, staff, fellow chaplains, etc. Each one provides a unique opportunity to express the love of God by loving them; sometimes in practical ways, sometimes by hearing their stories, sometimes through prayers, blessings, and Scriptures, and sometimes through simple presence. I am their neighbor.
Whenever I walk into a patient’s room, I remind myself that a principle of the joint-love commandment is to love my neighbor as myself and (said in another way) to remember the Golden Rule, “Do unto others as you would have them to do unto you.” Therefore, I thought it might be good to spell out for myself what I would want if the shoe was on the other foot, and that by doing so, it would provide guidelines for my behavior as my patient’s neighbor:
1. Don’t be pushy! Not only is the patient an American with the right to self-determination and the freedom of religion, she/he is also a human being given free will and the right to choose between right or wrong by God our Creator.
2. The patient has the right to determine the extent of our relationship. If they want to talk, I will listen! If they want to cry, I will give them the space to do so! If they confess their deepest secrets, I will hold such confessions tightly in my heart! If they want to laugh, I will laugh with them. If they want to pray, I will pray with them. If they want to be touched, I will hold their hand. Finally, if they want me to leave, I will leave.
3. If I can teach my patients anything, I will teach them the power of the lament. The privilege to take to God their stories, both good and bad, right and wrong, painful and joyful. That God is willing to hear their anger, fears, doubts, etc., along with their joys and successes. After God has heard their stories and heard their railings, He will still love them. Because of this, regardless of their stories and their railings, they can still posses the ability to trust in God, who loves them regardless.
4. While I will try and embody the love of God to the patient as my neighbor, I will not preach unless they clearly invite me to do so. On the day of Pentecost, Peter spoke extensively about who Jesus was, and wanted to be, in the lives of the crowd; but it was not until the crowd clearly asked, “What must I do to be saved?” that Peter began to give life-changing, salvific instruction that makes up the bulk of preaching today. Let the extent of my persistent message be this, Jesus Loves Me, and/or Jesus Loves You! Let God’s love invite them deeper…
5. It is never beneficial to be judgmental. Many of our patients have horrific stories to tell and a strong need to tell it. The main reason many people don’t tell their story is that they fear the attitude of the listener. I can personally vouch for this. We must remember the multitude of stories in the Bible are not about perfect men, but about imperfect men who found grace in the hands of a perfect God.
6. Let me present healing holistically and understand that the specifics of that healing should be in the hands of God. My job is to trust God, not be a miracle machine. Whether the healing God sends is emotional, mental, eternal, physical, etc., let my job be to trust God and be thankful.
7. Most importantly, a neighbor is one who is there; close by when needed. There is no skill or gift more important that I can impart as a chaplain than the skill of presence. One cannot fully understand this unless they know what it is like be smothered by overwhelming loneliness. Even though surrounded by medical personnel, patients often feel such loneliness. More than patients need words of advice or even a listening ear, they need to know that close by is someone who is willing to be that neighbor. I find God extremely powerful in such times when I am just standing (or sitting), waiting for a patient to die. With every patient I see (even the ones who don’t want a visit), I do what I call, ‘Intro and awareness’ or I/A. I want them to know who I am and that I will be close by if they feel a need. Several times I have had patients reject my neighborliness forthright and then have them ask for me later.
[1] Matthew 16:13-17.
[2] John 10:30.
[3] Daniel J. Harrington, Interpreting the New Testament: A Practical Guide (Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 1973), 135.
[4] John 12:32-34.
[5] Matthew 22:36-40, Mark 12:28-34, Luke10:35-37.
[6] Galatians 5:14, James 2:8.
[7] Elmer G. Homrighausen, “Who is My Neighbor,” 407.
