For Easter Sunday 4/1/18, "Alleluia! Jesus Lives!"

Early one morning the spring of 1987, while in prayer and meditating on the deck behind our house, a moment of vision opened in my mind.  I stood near a mountaintop of high elevation.  Sensing a person ahead and nearby, already at the top of the mountain, I looked up and saw Jesus.  He motioned for me to come closer.  When I reached his side, I saw the entire expanse of the Earth.  I saw oceans, snow-covered mountains, vasts beautiful stretches of land that took my breath away. With a sweeping motion of his arm over everything I saw, Jesus said, "In all these places shall you minister."

As the moment of vision closed and I sensed returning to myself, I felt a peace within me heightened by the warmth of the morning spring sun upon my face that moment in Independence, Missouri.  Drawing my meditation time to a close,  I thought to myself, "That was nice."  However, a few moments later in our kitchen getting breakfast ready for my family, I started trembling as the realization dawned up on me that for the first time in my life, I met Jesus face to face.  A few weeks later, my church denomination at the time asked me to enter full time professional ministry.

In the thirty plus years that have followed, I have indeed ministered in many different places and witnessed some of the most beautiful places on Earth.  Perhaps one flight in a small commuter turbo-prop plane to Valdez, Alaska, as a bishop to assist a young adult family with their estate plan most emulated that moment of vision involving Christ so many years ago.  The Earth's beauty astounded me and I wished I could hang there in the air forever beholding that moment.

Now, all these years later and no longer a part of that church denomination to which I gave over fifty years of my life as a bishop, priest, and member of the church, I today (3/30/18) walked the halls at work of the Catholic Medical Center where I work as a psychotherapist in Eugene, Oregon (where my youngest was born in 1988) and today observed the writing on many different walls of our medical center's mission statement- reflected as well in the emails received today from our Spiritual Care Office and from our CEO -- all of whom offered prayers of remembrance this Good Friday and made offerings of acknowledgement today from our administration for Physicians and Advance Practice Clinicians such as myself.  From all this, I realize I am where Christ intends that I be -- continuing the healing mission of Jesus the Christ. I am offering ministry that has always been my wildest dream but escaped me in so many other places of ministry in the past.  And as I watch the Passion of the Christ in my living room this evening, I can only hope that the 27 people I saw this week for psychotherapy took a step closer toward their own healing -- especially in the divisive times in which we live when some so derangedly think the world belongs only to them. What I have to say to them is this, "For soon comes the Just and Peaceable Reign of God."

To you all, have a blessed Easter and may the Spirit of Christ be with you always! 

Brad Shumate
Free of Encumbrance
Eugene, Oregon USA  

For Sunday, 3/18/18, "Glorify God"

For Sunday, 3/18/18, "Glorify God"

John 12:20-33  NRSV

20 Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks. 21They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, "Sir, we wish to see Jesus." 22 Philip went and told Andrew; then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. 23 Jesus answered them, "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. 24 Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. 25 Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26 Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor. 27 "Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say--"Father, save me from this hour'? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. 28 Father, glorify your name." Then a voice came from heaven, "I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again." 29 The crowd standing there heard it and said that it was thunder. Others said, "An angel has spoken to him." 30 Jesus answered, "This voice has come for your sake, not for mine. 31 Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. 32 And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself." 33 He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die.

Reflection on the Scripture:

For some reason, the Greeks arriving and requesting to see Jesus signaled for him that his mortal ministry would soon draw to a close.  The closing moment would be his death upon the cross, a torturous humiliating way to die.  Rather than that closing moment being one that would cast Jesus into obscurity, it gave birth to a movement that has survived to the present day.  Indeed, Jesus drew all to him.  The same can be said for you and me given our willingness to follow the Spirit of Christ to where we are needed and can best serve the cause for the coming of God's Just and Peaceable Reign here on earth. For me at the age of 19 while receiving an evangelist's blessing in my former faith tradition, the following words were uttered by the minister:  "As you are faithful, so too will God be faithful to you.  There comes now the Spirit speaking directly to you:  My son Bradley, the light of your life shall be a blessing to many.  You shall become a sharp and refined instrument for good.  You shall be lifted up out of the seeming obscurity or your seeming littleness as I dignify your life with my constant daily care.  Seek and you shall find.  Knock and it shall be opened unto. Ask and it shall be given to you."  All these things were said of the Spirit of Christ to me during the course of that precious blessing.  At age 61, I see that all these things have come to be.  As a licensed psychotherapist working in a Catholic healthcare organization, I am blessed every single working day of the week to continue the healing mission of Jesus Christ.  All thanks be to God!

May you be similarly blessed is my prayer for you!

Brad Shumate
Free of Encumbrance
Eugene, Oregon USA