The Way Forward: Courage

The Way Forward:  Courage

John 16:33

John McCain had a pretty undistinguished early life.  He was the    son and the grandson of Admirals in the United States Navy so he did what everyone expected him to do:  he went to the United States Naval Academy.  While there, he absolutely failed to distinguish himself.  He graduated near the very bottom of his class.  The word was that he could not have cared any less about academics and military discipline, which, if you think about it, is pretty much the heart of the United States Naval Academy.

McCain became a fighter pilot in Vietnam.  One day, early in 1967, McCain nearly died when there was a severe fire on board the aircraft carrier on which he was serving.  Having survived that ordeal, just a few months later, McCain’s plane was shot down over Hanoi.  John McCain was a prisoner of war for the next 5 1/2 years, enduring terrible medical problems, suffering through torture and interrogation, and spending two years in solitary confinement in a cell that was 10 X 10 which had two small ventilation holes.  Imagine how hot that cell was in the Vietnamese heat, a cell with only two small ventilation holes for fresh air.  McCain was allowed 5 minutes outside at Christmas time.

Of all the dignity and privilege that was stripped away from John McCain, the thing that went with him was the legacy that had sent him to the Naval Academy in the first place:  the fact that he was the son of admirals.  The Vietnamese learned this quickly.  They wanted to take advantage of that fact.  They recorded videos of McCain, their prized prisoner.  They wanted to exploit his status.  

Within the first year of his captivity, the Vietnamese authorities tried to relase McCain as a propaganda ploy.  Imagine that prospect if you’re John McCain.  The chance to be free.  The chance to never be tortured again.  The chance to return to the people that he loved.  And yet, in what became a defining moment, John McCain refused that release.  He said that he would not agree to the release unless every prisoner who had been captured before him was released first. Just ponder that…  This young man who could have cared less about discipline while at the academy, this guy who just seemed like a priviliged “blow off,” had the discipline and the courage to say no to cashing in his privilige.  How brave was that young man—to choose to endure the unimaginable rather than compromise himself and be used?  He would be a prisoner for another 4 1/2 years.  He did the right thing and suffered mightily as a result.

In his book, “Faith of My Fathers,” McCain tells a story from those awful years, a story that has always stuck with me. “On Christmas Day, we were always treated to a better-than-usual dinner. We were also allowed to stand outside our cells for five minutes to exercise or to just look at the trees in the sky. One Christmas, a few months after the gun guard had inexplicably come to my assistance during my long night in the interrogation room, I was standing in the dirt courtyard when I saw him approach me. He walked up and stood silently next to me. Again he didn’t smile or look at me. He just stared at the ground in front of us. After a few moments had passed he rather nonchalantly used his sandaled foot to draw a cross in the dirt. We both stood wordlessly looking at the cross until, after a minute or two, he rubbed it out and walked away. I saw my good Samaritan often after the Christmas when we venerated the cross together. But he never said a word to me nor gave the slightest signal that he acknowledged my humanity.”

John McCain found the courage to do the right thing.  He suffered mightily as a result.  And…in the midst of that sufferering, someone else was brave enough—undoubtedly at considerable risk to himself—to remind John McCain that God was present, even in the midst of such a terrible time of trial.  In the midst of his suffering, McCain was reminded of the God who suffers with us.  That unnamed guard literally put courage in John Mcain.  He “en-couraged” him.  

Eventually, John McCain returned to a hero’s welcome from Vietnam.  He was a hero, not “sucker,” not a “loser” but a hero.  Later, he was a United States Senator and a candidate for president.   When he was running for president, a woman in the crowd at a town hall meeting went on a rant about how Barack Obama was a “secret Muslim.” It should not have surprised anyone when McCain had the courage to silence her and assure her that Barack Obama was a good man.  John McCain was a person of character and integrity.

In our life together in the church, sooner or later, we will be the one who needs to find the courage, the courage to do the right thing, or to say what needs to be said, or to offer someone simple acts of encouragement.  Most often, the arena in which such courage is lived in this church is during worship in our shared joys and concerns.

I want to say a couple of things about this time.  First, there is no time in the service that I’m more comfortable with than the “joys and concerns” prayer—now—after years and years of leading those prayers.  It sort of feels like there is nothing that could happen that hasn’t happened already.  It also feels like there is nothing that could happen that we couldn’t deal with.  If we need to laugh, we’ll have a good laugh.  If the moment calls for tears, we’re going to cry together.  So much trust has been built for such a long time that the only thing that throws me is when no one shares any “joys and concerns:”  “Really,” I’ll taunt you all, “Everything is fine?”

Here’s the thing.  Even if the next pastor has done “joys and concerns” in another church, they are going to be totally intimidated to do this in a new church with people they don’t yet know and they are going to be entirely unprepared for the “fire hose” of “joys and concerns” that may come their way.  It will take real courage for them to ask the question and then lean into that moment.  It will take real courage for you to share your “joys and concerns” with someone new.  How do I know this?  I remember how much courage it took me to ask that question early on. I remember how honored I felt that people trusted me.  Honest to God…being honest before God and honest with each other is a big deal!  I hope you will honor your next pastor with the same trust you offered me from the start. I hope they will bravely stand before you and ask, “What joys and concerns have you brought with you?” If you do this, like McCain and his guard, you will encourage one another, even in the toughest times.

When we are honest with each other about our lives we become, as I like to say, “a church family.”  Of course, it would be easier to play it safe, to show up and hide what’s really going on.  However, if we are not willing to be “real” with one another then we shouldn’t be surprised when real connections aren’t built between us.  The better we are at hiding from one another the more likely it is that we are never going to feel all that close to one another.  If life with a community of people leaves you feeling like you could “take-it-or-leave-it,” then the first question we should ask is whether we took the risk to really enter that community?.  Did I just “stick a toe in” or did I really take the plunge.  “Was I willing to be who I am with them?”

There are incredibly brave moments during “joys and concerns” when people take that plunge.  “Something is happening to someone I love. My heart is breaking. I don’t know what to do.”  “My grown child is in the thralls of an addiction and I can’t save them but I want you to pray with me for them.” “I ran into someone who was hungry this week and I had no idea how to really help them in any lasting way. I wonder though if anyone here would like to join me in trying?” On a regular basis, people come as they are and reveal what they’re struggling with—during worship, of all places!  Imagine that!

Here’s the kicker for me.  I don’t know how long it took but eventually it dawned on me that I, too, was going to have to take the same plunge.  “Joys and concerns” is not a spectator sport. The pastor has to be a real, sometimes struggling, sometimes heartbroken, person, too:  “Hold it,” the pastor thinks to him or herself, that’s not why I went to seminary.”  There have, in fact, been “come as you are” moments for me to “be real” over the years, maybe more than you’d like.  I remember one of the earliest ones.  I announced that I had quit smoking—which I actually was a few days into doing.  I felt so exposed and so ashamed of that addiction.  Bottom line… I wanted my church family to hold me accountable and call me out if I failed.  No one shamed me.  People supported me.  I never smoked again.  

The “no shame” and “support” piece is the key.  When we get real with one another we need to figure out how to be there for one another.  People follow up before they’ve even left the pews.  People stand and talk in coffee hour.  People write notes that encourage each another.  Someone might think that the key part of “joys and concerns” is when all those different things are woven together and lifted up to God in prayer.  The thing is though that God’s already heard all those prayers. In reality, when we quit pretending everything is fine, the sharing and the prayers make room for us to turn prayers into action.  Having heard those “joys and concerns,” each of us is then fully licensed to find our own ways to “draw a cross in the dirt” and remind each other that should we suffer, we will suffer together and that should we suffer, God will suffer with us.

“In the world, you will have troubles.” We don’t get to skip the hard stuff.  When we love others, when we listen to their struggles, when we struggle ourselves, we guarantee that our hearts will break.   This is not our fault.  This is not God’s fault or God’s punishment. This is what happens to loving, caring people:  “In the world, you will have troubles…but I have overcome the world.”  The good news is that we will never have to face the hard stuff alone.

Mark Hindman