Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition
R. S. Underhill
Church of the Good Shepherd
26 June 2005
The Lord be with you
And also with you
Let us pray
May God the Father bless you, God the Son heal you, God the Holy Spirit give you strength. May God the holy and undivided Trinity guard your body, save your soul, and bring you safely to His heavenly country; where he lives and reigns for ever and ever.
The topic today is Christian Healing and one person’s approach and experience.
The phrase, Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition, came into being in WWII in the South Pacific at a time of horrendous chaos, pain and dying. Remember the Bataan death march, Iwo Jima, Wake Island and Okinawa? To me the phrase indicates the possibilities available in times of great turmoil and uncertainty.
I am a cancer victim. Two attempts at a cure have failed. The diagnosis threw my life into turmoil and filled me with uncertainty. As a result Healing has a special significance in my life. I remember telling Larry that there weren’t any modalities left that might lead to a cure. He looked at me, pointed his index finger upward and said very quietly, “Not so!”
We were standing at the altar rail when this exchange took place and several things occurred that have vitally influenced my life. In the midst of my uncertainty I knelt at the rail. Larry placed his hands on my head and began his prayer with “Praise the Lord.”
My uncertainty deepened over why I should praise the Lord at a moment like this. Then a warm glow filled my being. I looked up at the stained glass window over the altar—the picture of the Good Shepherd—and silently repeated the 23rd Psalm. A great quietness descended upon me and ever since I have moved forward with new direction and intensity.
Today I stand before you to share some of the things which have happened to me and brought about this change in me. These are my munitions. In a sense they are the magic bullets which have not only sustained me but brought joy and productivity into my life.
What I will do, today, is leave you with a few concepts on which you may place your own interpretations as they apply to your life and hopefully guide you in your own healing journey toward His Kingdom.
The first is Praise and Thanksgiving! Why, in the midst of what the Prayer book calls “this transitory life” should we who “are in trouble, sorrow, need, sickness or any other adversity” praise the Lord and be thankful? Because, in our inability to comprehend what is happening the Lord said, (Matt. 11:28), “Come unto me all ye that travail and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you.” The Lord is with us even when we do not comprehend what is happening. Giving Him praise and thanks opens the door to a deepening relationship.
All healing begins with praise and thanksgiving and not with petitions and requests. It is praise and thanksgiving that opens our hearts, our minds, our souls and our bodies to the Lord and His healing love.
While we too often look for miracles the Lord looks for relationships. It is praise that opens the door for this relationship precisely because we do not understand. Let us stand in awe of Him, praise Him and abide by His wishes, not our own.
Healing is not curing although the two may go hand in hand. To be healed is to come into a closer relationship with God. To be cured is to be rid of some adversity. Remember the 10 lepers? (Luke 17:12) 10 were cured, one was healed. Ask yourself are you looking for a cure or for healing? If you want healing, start with praise and thanksgiving rather than with a petition.
Second is acknowledgment! I had to acknowledge that I had cancer. As Elizabeth Kubler-Ross has written many of us start with denial. This can’t be happening to me. They move on to anger, why me of all people? Then they start bargaining--with God? Then comes depression followed eventually by acceptance. The last thing they want is to acknowledge the obvious. I have cancer!
Once I acknowledged my situation I could let go of avoiding the obvious. And, with praise and thanksgiving I began to look at my life, to build on my strengths, to accept my weaknesses and started to develop alternatives. I tried surgery. It failed. I tried radiation. It failed. What now? “Now” is the Lord who walks with me and talks with me when I will listen!
During the initial phases of my illness my wife and I talked at length. (We still do!) One of the things she said was that no matter the outcome of my illness I have had a good life with few, if any, causes for regrets. True!
At my next meeting with my doctor I said to him, “Doc, I have chosen quality of life over longevity.” It relieved me of a great burden. I think it also relieved him. I no longer had to keep struggling with the cancer. I could get on with my life. What a difference! It continues to this day! I also used prayer and meditation to listen to the Lord, these two represent a great part of my healing.
Third is Faith. What a wonderful, powerful word. Without Faith nothing is possible in our world of Christian Healing. With Faith everything is possible. But what is Faith?
To me, Faith is Belief in action. Belief is wonderful. It gives us a rock to cling to in the midst of a rushing torrent. It also can immobilize us as we cling rather than act.
We mustn’t give up our Belief or our Faith. Doing so will cause them to waste away and we will sink. Yet, Belief alone is not sufficient. It is when our world is most threatened that our Faith must stand the test and our Belief must remain as a rock for our life.
In my life the torrent began to overwhelm me in 1994. I was diagnosed with prostate cancer. I was in a spiritual desert with a fragmented belief system. I was “self sufficient.” I believed I was responsible for what happened to me and for the response I made to all situations.
Yet, suddenly I was confronted with something totally unexpected. And where was my guidance system?
Fortunately, with help from my wife, I found a calm space in my life and decided to have surgery. During this period, I learned later, my wife spent many hours in quiet prayer for me.
I came to The Order of Saint Luke through the efforts of my wife. She has a deep Faith in God’s love and the power of that love to heal and transform. It was her Faith that reached out to me and gave me Faith much as laying on of hands reaches out during a healing service. And now my Faith increases with each passing day as I grow in grace and His gifts. With that, my supply of ammunition increases and can be used in praising the Lord.
Without Faith it is impossible to give praise and thanksgiving to the Lord and our prayers and petitions ring hollow. Too often we go through the motions, attending church service regularly, reciting the liturgy, even accepting the Eucharist. How much of this is done in Faith and how much is ritual?
When was the last time you sat quietly, recited the 23rd Psalm one line at a time and thought about the meaning in your life of each of the phrases? Doing so can work wonders to expand your Faith. (The Lord Is My Shepherd, by Harold S. Kushner)
By paying attention to our Faith we can nurture it, strengthen it and bring ourselves closer to true healing. The important thing is to get beyond the rituals in our life, find our way deep within our souls and open them to God’s love and the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
Fourth is commitment. A few months ago Dick gave a sermon the essence of which, for me, was, Are you following Jesus or committing to Christ. Following Jesus means to keep His laws, walk in His ways and do as He says. Committing to Christ means, in addition, taking up arms, loading them with whatever ammunition we possess and going off to build His Kingdom here on earth.
In a healing sense, committing to Christ means doing more than “going through the motions.” For healing let us give ourselves over—commit—to Christ and His healing love. Let us raise our voices in praise and thanksgiving for what He has already wrought and what He will bring about in the future. Commitment is tough and demanding. Are you willing?
Commitment can be tough and harsh on those around us unless we also have the fifth concept—Compassion. Henri Nouwen provides us with the finest definition of compassion I have ever read. For me this says it all. “Compassion asks us to go where it hurts, to enter into places of pain, to share in brokenness, fear, confusion, and anguish. Compassion challenges us to cry out with those in misery, to mourn with those who are lonely, to weep with those in tears. Compassion requires us to be weak with the weak, vulnerable with the vulnerable, and powerless with the powerless. Compassion means full immersion in the condition of being human.” To be in need of healing is certainly to be human—authentically human. It should bring with it a true sense of compassion.
As we seek healing let us remember that Jesus came down from heaven and was made man. It is in His humanity that He extends His compassion to us. It is in His compassion that He accepts us and invites us to improve the quality of our relationship with Him and be healed.
Experiencing this as I heal brings tears to my eyes, weakness to my knees and permits me to grow in grace and be healed. What powerful ammunition! Pass it around!
The last word I want to challenge you with is Community. Christian Community is a word that comes from the Greek word koinonia it means contribution, fellowship, participation and sharing.
I came to The Order of saint Luke out of what I perceived to be a personal need. I wanted to be cured, plain and simple. I discovered a much deeper desire, to be healed. My route to healing involves koinonia, contribution, fellowship, participation and sharing. I invite you to look at your membership in Good Shepherd in light of this definition of community. Are you part of the koinonia of Good Shepherd?
Rufus Womble, the chaplain of the Order of Saint Luke, talks about the corporate body of Christ as we pray during the service. Ask yourself whether you feel a member of a corporate body, a community, during the service. Do you give yourself over to what Christ is doing in that koinonia or are you a lone person sitting in a large group and hoping for what you want?
We have a marvelous, awesome opportunity to advance healing, our own and that of others through koinonia. Will you risk? Will you open your heart? Will you give of your gifts? (I Corinthians 12:4-10) “Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.”
And (Romans 12:6) “We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; 8 the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness.”
Will you take the God given gifts you have received and join in koinonia that the power of our community may bring healing to all? Let us recognize that it is not our efforts that heal but God’s. God works in koinonia. At the same time the more deeply we participate in the Good Shepherd’s koinonia the closer we can come to God and the greater the healing.
In closing let me say that my healing has come a long way. I may never be cured of my cancer. I am healed of my cancer in the sense that it no longer dominates my life.
I leave you with these words to contemplate:
Praise and Thanksgiving
Acknowledgment
Faith
Commitment
Compassion
Koinonia
These are the ammunition available as we Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition. Give of your gifts and remember the prayer of the Saxon King Alfred, “To see thee is the end and the beginning. Thou carriest me and goest before. Thou art the journey and the journey’s end.”
May God bless and heal all of you! Praise the Lord! AMEN!