My Journey From Jew To Christ Follower - Part 2

My Story: Jew to Christian

September 19, 2021

Have you ever watched a movie and it seems to abruptly end? Usually that’s the sign of a sequel. I think the most famous, and maybe this dates me, has to be the “Who shot JR?” episode on the program Dallas.

You wait for the ending, and it’s not fun. I don’t like it when speakers seem to just stop. It can be really annoying when they say, ‘oops, my time’s up, so I need to be done.’ Well, I did that last week. I noticed the time and said, “oops, my time’s up.” So, I rushed to be done. There were quite a few folks who told me I didn’t need to stop like that. They felt I had them hanging on for more.

So, today is part 2 of my story. One of my concerns is that I really don’t want this to be about me, but about Christ. So, I’m going to try to weave that in and out of part 2. And I’m telling you right now, there is no part 3.

Some of my beliefs in what preaching entails comes from a couple of experiences. They’re not crazy experiences, but I still remember them. When I was in college I was at one of the high holiday, Rosh Hashonah, worships with my dad. At the time I was dating a non-Jew. NOT GOOD! During the rabbi’s message, he spoke about Jews dating non-Jews. UGH! I kind of shrunk in my chair.

Another time I was dating a Catholic and we went to Easter mass and the priest said, “well, you really don’t want to hear me, so I’ll make this short.”

Both of those experiences led me to see the importance in preaching Jesus. They had the biggest crowds on the most important days, and that’s what they chose to say? Even as a young Jewish adult, who was pretty agnostic, I thought this is a waste. Help me to know why this is important and why worshiping on this holiday is so important for our heart and soul.

It’s part of the reason why I believe in preaching the Word and using the word is so important. Now last week and this week, isn’t scripture filled because of the style of the message. But generally, we use lots of scripture.

So, those experiences helped shape my approach subconsciously to preaching.

While I was in my last year of seminary, my mom had cancer and ultimately died during the last quarter. She needed more care at home, so I dropped my classes and helped more at home and graduated a year later. During that last year, I began to work as a chaplain at an acute care hospital, like a Community hospital. I worked mostly in the oncology and cardiology, and occasionally in the ER. I saw lots of life and death. The 2 years of working in the hospital helped me grow and gain a better understanding of myself and life in general.

I then applied for a job I didn’t have the qualifications for, but got the job. I became a chaplain at a physical rehab hospital. In the rehab hospital I worked mainly with brain injured and orthopaedic patients. Some were there for up to 3 months, so you got to know the more acute rehab patients. I also worked with people who had spinal cord injuries, amputations, strokes, transplants as well as pediatrics. For awhile I was the team leader in the brain injury wing and helped write the manual for families.

It was fascinating working there. You met people at their worst. Really, they were. They were leaving the hospital and the reality of what happened to them was just sinking in. The beauty is that this was a Catholic (Franciscan) hospital and every patient was scheduled for a pastoral consult the day after they arrived. We met with families and patients and I saw so many different, good and bad coping mechanisms. Again, this helped me formulate more and more of my theology, which is really more of a practical theology.

I often saw the fallacy of neuropsychologists, as so many of them couldn’t understand how someone going through a difficult time in their lives, could still have hope and joy. They didn’t understand how some of the people, and I remember many of them, how they could smile, even in the midst of loss, pain and suffering. It’s easy to have a woe is me attitude, but we need to remember, the sun will come up tomorrow . . . and in the words of Jeremiah in the book of Lamentations 3:23-24 - -

22 The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; His mercies never come to an end;