Religion in Daily Life

By the Rev. Edward Chinn, D.Min.

http://www.allsaintstorresdale.org

Nearly fifty years ago, when I was in the seminary, I went each week to the Philadelphia General Hospital. I visited an old man named Levi Coleman. He was a black man who could not walk. I sat with him each week as part of a seminary course called Pastoral Theology. One week, when I made my visit, the wheelchair in which Levi usually sat was empty. Levi was in bed. I chose to sit in his wheelchair. As I sat where he usually sat, I had a glimpse of his world and his feelings.

Six centuries before Jesus of Nazareth was born, there was a man named Ezekiel. The Heavenly Father gave Ezekiel the job of visiting the Jewish prisoners of war in Babylon. Ezekiel went to these captives from Judah, who lived by the Kebar River at Tel Abib. The record says, “And I sat where they sat and remained there astonished among them seven days” (Ezekiel 3:15). It was after Ezekiel had sat among his fellow-Jews for a week that he learned the secret of sympathy. Ezekiel is imitating the Heavenly Father’s ways. In Judaism, God saw his people’s situation in the 13th century BC and says, “I have come down to rescue them from the Egyptians.” Likewise, the first followers of Jesus saw him as Immanuel – “God is with us.” In each case, God came to sit where we have sat.

In the last few weeks I have learned I have an illness. For decades I have visited members of All Saints’ Church who have been ill. For eighteen years I have served as a volunteer at the Fox Chase Cancer Center in its Palliative Care Team. Now I have come to sit where persons to whom I ministered have sat. We certainly can learn the secret of sympathy as we learn to identify with people and their problems. The prerequisite for all effective work for God and with human beings is to learn to sit mentally and spiritually beside them.

Having been a patient at Frankford Torresdale Hospital, I want to pay tribute to the folks who have sat by me there. Thanks to Mr. Eugene Johnson, Senior Vice President of Frankford Hospital. Thanks, also, to Mrs. Carol Medoff, Vice President; to Mrs. Beverly Dilacqua, Nurse Care Manager; and to Ms. Cathy Curran in Care Management. As we enter in sympathy into the everyday lives of our fellow-humans, we are walking the way of Jesus, who turned aside from his times of retreat to sit where human needs sat heavy on people (Mark 6:30-44; Mark 9:14-29).