Talk About Theology and Spirituality ...

Theology and talk of spirituality have always seemed to stand aside from where my Christian walk takes me. I kind of look at it as the difference between studying God, and "Doing God." Perhaps I should be more specific and call it "Doing Christ."

In my Senior year of Seminary, I had the deep joy and privilege of being a Sunday Chaplain at the Methodist Medical Center in South Bend, IN. There, as in my CPE in the summer just preceding, and following that year I found thought of deep theological study to be un-meaningful. The sick and dying to whom I ministered didn't need to know what I "knew." They needed to feel my love and concern. They needed me to be Christ in their moments of  need.

After my CPE came to a close and there was no work for me at the time in the church, I took the opportunity to learn carpentry from a company owned by Amish Mennonite men. Toward the end of my first year in that field, I met a local retired pastor's wife who was running the local "Mother to Mother" ministry; who had tried to start a housing rehab agency with little success. When she learned that I had the M Div and carpentry experience, she said, "You are an answer to prayer. Here, take this (housing rehab) and make it go."

I had never done anything like that before, and I felt a bit out of my league, but I have always believed that God doesn’t bring things to our attention without expecting us to take action. So, I did what I was accustomed to do.

I stepped up, recruited people to join me, and then I did what I had to do.

I went to work finding a way to serve God’s children at the crisis points of their lives.

Like my earlier hospital unit patients, my clients didn’t need to know my theology; not even my church. They didn’t’ need esoteric terms to explain why I was doing it. They just needed me to do what they desperately needed. They didn’t need to even be “Christian” themselves. They just needed me to do what I could to care for their needs. Christian or not, they were cross-cultural children of God in abject poverty of some sort or another.

I remember one house in terrible disrepair. We had been called to “fix a hole” by a window in the bathroom. When I opened the wall before I could get my people focused in on this dwelling, I started taking out the window and ended up totally demolishing that room bare-handed; literally without tools. Inside the house, I remember a nice-looking “table cloth” that seemed to be in motion. On second look it turned out to be a table top so covered with cockroaches that there was hardly one square inch without a roach on it. 

That aged African-American couple didn’t need to know that this white man loved God. They just needed me to “DO Christ,” whether or not they believed in Christ.

That was just one of many in the following few years before I left the company (which is still in existence and growing 25 years later); including a house that was so bad that welfare authorities had taken a 14-year-old daughter away pending fixing the house. The man I had hired in and helped to promote into the presidency of that organization (so that I could concentrate on the people) once saw me sitting on a pile of materials next to the parents and commented to others how I was there engaged in “Pastoral Counseling” (my specialty with my MDiv.).

Excuse me! I was just being their friend. I was using my talents and skills to do what I had to do for them.

I was DOING CHRIST.

Now, at age 72, I have taken on co-leadership with a mental healthcare consumer for leading a local affiliate of NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness – www.nami.com). My co-leader, John, is a 43-year-old paranoid schizophrenia patent in abject poverty; poverty so deep and so exacerbated by his smoking habit that by the end of each month he is down to a loaf of white bread and cold-cuts for at least a week.

John doesn’t need me to be involved in teaching and praying, although I am a strong on including those in my work with all who need me. He doesn’t need high-sounding theology or spirituality.

He just needs me to DO CHRIST.

I do what I can; that is, I step up and do what I have to do.

Last Thursday to combat his severe malnutrition, I brought a gallon of whole milk, some cheese and a pound of hamburger to him early in the afternoon. I couldn’t believe the mood difference from then to 6:30 PM when I picked him up for a NAMI meeting. Again, he didn’t need theology or preaching about the things hindering his financial well-being.

He just needed someone who would DO CHRIST for him.

Well, I suppose that is enough for now. Thank you for your patience, and please pray for me as I continue to find ways to DO CHRIST.

In closing, I want to share the most beautiful word picture I know.

A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling.
God sets the lonely in families.
(PS 68:5-6a NIV)