Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand, and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our afflictions, knowing that affliction produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.
Romans 5:1-5
[I carry your heart with me(I carry it in)]
- e. e. cummings
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)
US Air Force aircraft development and construction takes place in large production facilities usually located near USAF bases so that test flights could easily be done. As with any large scale production, problems arise from time to time. But one of the issues that complicates solutions being found is found between the mechanics on the production line and the design engineers located in cages above that line. The mechanics thought the engineers could design a light bulb but they didn’t know how to screw one into the socket. The engineers thought that the mechanics didn’t even know what a light bulb was. So solving any real problems with the engine being installed proved to be a bit of a problem in itself. That’s where my Dad came in. He was a problem solver who understood both the mindset of the mechanics and the mindset of the engineers. And in my heart, he holds the honored place and title of “Saint JJ.”
When an issue arose, my Dad would get his orders to go to the air base nearest the plant and solve the problem. Depending on the complexity, that usually took somewhere between six months to a year. So until I entered the third grace, we moved every six months to a year. No place exotic. There are no massive aircraft plants in Hawaii. So we tended to move to a small town near the base and settle into the community.
Dad would get his orders and leave. Mom was left to pack up the house, wait for a good time for us kids to move schools and then move to wherever Dad had arranged for us to live. My Dad considered finding a spiritual home of equal importance to these details. When we arrived, we had a new home, a new school and a new church family. And somehow, my Dad was also leading that church’s Sunday School. So when I was young, I thought that was my Dad’s job…Sunday School Superintendent.
I eventually figured out that my conclusion was incorrect. But then I began to wonder what process did he follow in choosing a new church. My interest in the answer to that question peaked when I myself entered the Methodist ministry. So I asked him.
He told me that there were only two criterium. First, that it NOT be Roman Catholic. The second was that he had “feel the Spirit” when he entered that church and interacted with its congregation.
I didn’t really know what he meant by that until years later when I had retired from church ministry and was a member of a congregation. I joined a small, suburban church and had been there about a year when a friend from seminary asked me to fill the pulpit of her church while she had needed surgery on both her feet and would essentially be bedridden for eight months. After she fully recovered, I returned to my church. When I showed up that first Sunday back, I felt a sudden sadness when I entered the sanctuary. It was overwhelming and distressing. I saw a good friend and asked what had happened. He was amazed that I had felt the change rather than having been told by someone. But in my absence, there had been an issue with the pastor and he had been suddenly replaced by a retired seminary professor and UMC clergyman that I knew from Candler School of Theology. The trouble had divided the congregation and ripped the heart out of the place. I was heartbroken.
I learned several lessons that day. First, that the presence of the Holy Spirit within a congregation is something valuable, tangible and fragile. Not because the Spirit is tenuous but because human hearts are unreliable. The Holy Spirit didn’t leave, it was pushed out and denied access. The people of that congregation could feel it, but didn’t realize that it could be felt by someone just walking cold in the door. Despair, like joy, is contagious.
When I go each November and December to do my Santa work, I follow a regiment of dietary supplements, vaccinations, sleep patterns, healthy eating and exercise that all contribute to maintaining an immune system that fights off colds and flu. But it does more than that. It also keeps me awake, focused and strong.
What I learned from my Dad, “St JJ” for the purposes of the devotionals, was a regiment of spiritual actions and attitudes that help me maintain my connection to God’s Holy Spirit. I cannot claim that it is perfect in practice, but it does seem to help.
My Dad made sure we had daily scripture readings meditations as a family and individually. There was an after dinner scripture reading and then a Bible story at bedtime. So my heroes weren’t Batman and Spiderman, they were David and Elijah. My Dad committed us to be present in the work and activities of whatever community of faith he had chosen for us. Denomination did not matter. Status did not matter. Details did not matter. What mattered was a strong spiritual heart, individually and collectively. It was putting those commitments into action that maintained our spiritual strength and enabled us therefore to help the faith communities of which we were a part to maintain the commitments to Christ we had made together to Christ and His Church.
Paul tells the Roman Christians that it is our “… access to this grace…” that keeps the Church fully engaged with the Holy Spirit and therefore with God’s Will and Work. That Grace is at the heart of who God is and is also at the heart of who we are as individual Christians and collectively as a congregation of Christians.
My prayer for all of you, my fellow laborers in the field of Christ’s Church, is that we claim that Strength and Grace as our own Gift from God’s Holy Spirit. That we hold one another in each of our hearts demonstrating to the world the very nature of the Heart of God for the community and world in which we live.
Blessings,
Rev Dr Jim McGrath
