Rev. Brewer-Calvert preached this sermon entitled “Finding, Following, and Forwarding My Joy” on Joy Sunday, December 13, 2015, during the Season of Advent.
Gratitude, George, and God
Day of Thanksgiving, 2015
Dear Friends,
Greetings! I do hope this finds you well. Today is a REAL Thanksgiving.
Gratitude
Allow me to share how grateful my family and I are for your notes, cards, texts, emails, phone calls, and personal visits with best wishes and prayers of support, encouragement, and healing. These past six months of spiritual and physical upheaval (diagnosis of cancer, immediate surgery to remove the tumor in my colon, the cumulative effect of chemo-treatments every other week for 24 weeks) would have been immensely more difficult without your love, patience, and grace. You, my friends, have made all the difference, and I am grateful in ways that words cannot express.
George
God and a Heavenly Host may have had a say in this healing activity as well. This past Monday evening I had a dream. It was the night of my last chemo-treatment for a disease that took the blessed life of my father 10 years ago, back in the summer of 2005. In my dream George E. Calvert (his middle name is Edward, but he always believed the “E” stood for Energy) came to me in the form of a spirit-filled angel. He hovered nearby and said, “I have been keeping watch over you and Betty and our family and the congregation for these past six months. And I want you to know James that you are going to be alright!” And then he laughed his great George joy-filled laughter and danced away.
God
“The Lord works in mysterious ways.” I know from experience and trust that this is a known commodity in my life journey. The mystery, the magic, the might of the One who created and creates is present in our lives every day, often in miraculous ways we may not imagine yet are so real. For example, the tender mercies of my (note the possessive!) medical team of surgeons, nurses, administrators, and receptionists at our local hospital and cancer treatment center have worked a miracle of healing. As our good friend Becky Kidd said to me recently after worship, “There is a difference between healing and a cure. God is active in our healing, even if there is no known cure.”
A significant part of God’s healing activity is the gift of hope. We hope for being made well, better, whole, a return to what was once normal. This applies to our bodies and our selves, our relationships and our physical realities. Regardless of whether we attain such a degree of wellness, God’s offering of wholeness is mysterious yet ever-present. I shared with one of my nurses in the Cancer Ward–as I call it– an idea to get a tattoo that says, “Survivor.” She said, “Why don’t you get a tattoo that says, ‘I survived cancer and then got this tattoo which gave me an infection and killed me’.” Another nurse walked by and said, “Why don’t you just get a t-shirt?” No mystery there; just good ‘ole plain advice. Skip the tat; trust in God.
As always, First Christian Church of Decatur, I am delighted to be your pastor. Shalom, James