"The Credo Workshop where I met Charlie was a Navy drug and rehabilitation program designed by a Navy chaplain. It was a special program unique to San Diego, and an experimental outreach to the loneliness and alienation of the many young sailors who found their only way out of oppressive structures in drugs and alcohol. I went there as an observer; halfway through the weekend, I discovered that one does not observe group process. I began to be overwhelmed by the stories being told; I began to touch on my own pain and struggles." (Brad Hall, 1980)
One April day some twenty years ago, about halfway through my Navy career, I sat in a hospital bed staring out the window, which, I might add, overlooked the garbage collection area. I'd been there two days and by now I was quite confused, tired and depressed. I heard a voice from the doorway call out, "Hi, how are you doing?" It came from the chaplain who stood in the hallway outside my room looking in. "Oh, I'm just fine," I responded with a wave. He said, "Great," and continued on his rounds, and I never saw him again. But, of course, I wasn't so fine. I was scared, confused and, for the very first time in my life, I felt defenseless. I looked back out the window overlooking the garbage cans and wondered, "Why am I here? What in the world has happened to me?"
Two weeks later I returned home. It was a happy time in our family life. We had just moved to beautiful San Diego; our baby daughter, Susan, entered our lives and I was flying some exciting aircraft. My body was healed, but my soul was now exposed. For the first time in my life I was vulnerably open, sensitively aware and, like Jacob wrestling with an angel of God one dark night, I came away from my encounter with illness "touched," spiritually wounded in a way which would change my whole life.
Up to that time I was a satisfied person, happily existing behind some well-designed armor and a fortified soul. But now I was feeling defenseless and vulnerable and, for the first time in my life, I was open to God's invasion of grace, mercy and guidance--and I wasn't so sure I really wanted it. But the door was open and the opportunity waited for me. Amazing things began to happen!
I found a church home and a pastor who understood my struggle and challenged me to grow. I wound up leading the senior high youth group for three years. (I think I grew up more than they did.) My family relationships grew deeper and I discovered what true friends were as I learned to share at a level I never thought possible before. And then Charlie came into my life.
I was asked by my commanding officer to attend and evaluate a weekend drug rehabilitation workshop designed for troubled young man and women in the Navy. I went into that workshop cavalierly thinking of it as an interesting break in my routine. I came away a changed person.
For the first two days of that long weekend, I listened to stories of life which I could hardly believe--told by young men (boys, really) who struggled with drug abuse and terrible family situations. On the third and last day, during a fateful lull, one of the sailors, named Charlie, turned to me and asked, "Okay, Brad. What about you? Why are you here? What's your problem?"
It was one of those questions which pierces the heart, if that heart be vulnerably open. I squirmed and sputtered and said, "I don't know. There's nothing wrong!" All my life I'd been happy and satisfied. How could anything be wrong, I thought. But the question was asked and I was caught in the open.
Adam and Eve were caught by that question in Paradise, and every one of us--their children--who live East of Eden, is asked the same: What's wrong? What's wrong?
I don't know how long I carried that question around and within, but it followed me like the "Hound of Heaven," usually emerging at the most inappropriate times.
I just couldn't shake it loose until one afternoon as I was reading through the New Testament (something I had never done before). Indeed, as I have shared with you previously, I couldn't even get the zipper open; it was frozen shut after twenty years of disuse. I came to the story of the meeting of Jesus and John the Baptist at the Jordan River. (It's strange how one remembers little details like that.) I read John's response to the coming of Jesus into his life: "I am not worthy to stoop down and untie his sandals. I baptize with water. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and Fire." I stopped reading, looked out my widow and said, "yes." That's all. "Yes."
It was as if a light had been turned on way deep inside and there came within and all around me a response to my yes which I cannot put in words, but which felt like I had come home. "Welcome," it said. "It's good to have you."
Now I knew what was wrong! I had been living alone without God and Jesus Christ in my heart and in my life. All I had to do was open that well-defended heart, with a little help, of course, from illness, Charlie and my loving family who stood by me through all this. Suddenly I was no longer alone.
Needless to say, I did a lot of spiritual growing up from that time on and I learned very quickly that "Finding Faith"--the title of this week's sermon--has to do with accepting ourselves as wounded souls in need of God's salvation in Jesus Christ.
I also discovered that finding God often involves struggle and darkness. Our Psalmist was "right on" when he penned his affirmation of faith: "Those who go through the desolate valley will find (in) it a place of springs."
I don't know why so many of us must do this. Why is finding faith such a struggle for so many of us when it is so freely offered and given by God? But I do know it is part of the human condition, as nearly all our scriptural heroes attest.
Jacob had to wrestle with his angel in the dark of night before he accepted God. Moses fought mightily with God on the Mount of Sinai before he gave in and said, "Yes, I'll do your will and lead your people." Mighty King David lay in his bed sick and depressed for many days until his "Charlie," named Nathan, confronted him with the "big question." What's wrong, David, what's wrong? Tradition has it that when David arose and accepted God's grace in his heart he wrote those powerful words of Psalm 51, words of repentance and forgiveness:
Create in me a clean heart, oh God...
and take not thy Holy Spirit from me...
Give me again the joy that comes from your salvation
and sustain me with your bountiful spirit.
I suspect that David learned about salvation from his great-grandmother, Ruth, for she, too, found her spring of faith in a desolate valley. Widowed at an early age, she returned to live with her mother-in-law, Naomi, in a foreign country, Israel. There she was reduced to poverty, having to glean the wheat fields, gathering grain-by-grain what was left by the harvesters to feed them. But her heart was open and accepting, and through God's grace and her own generosity, she was blessed with a new husband and new life. Indeed, their son, Obed, would become the grandfather of David.
Well, there are as many stories of finding faith as there are heroes and heroines of our Bible, because that's what Scripture is all about. And I suspect each of us here has our own story to tell, of a wounded soul in search of God.
As we close, let's remember that desolate valleys and hospital beds may indeed be sources of faith. For the truth is that God has sent His Son into this world to be the spring which saves our lives. Jesus Christ was the answer to my question, "What's wrong?" He is the water we all search for; living water which quenches our inner thirst and heals our broken lives.
Say "yes" to Him and receive his amazing grace and love.
"Amazing Grace how Sweet the Sound
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost but now am found
Was blind but now I see."
Amen.
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