As a veterans' chaplain, I was accustomed to hearing the painful stories that haunted combat veterans. Now, I was hearing the story of a long-time colleague. It was no secret that he hated the church. For 30 years he had not gone near church people, wouldn't hear spiritual things, spoke bitterly about everything to do with church. Today, I was hearing why.
In the terror of an enemy attack on a position that was about to be overrun, a deeply spiritual young man had to do something unspeakable in order to save many lives. He frantically tried to avoid the deaths of people he had never expected to have to kill wasn't psychologically prepared to kill women. The soldiers he faced from behind a machine gun were all female. Even wounded, they kept pressing their attack, even when they could barely crawl. Everyone died killed by my colleague and a handful of other soldiers.
Returning home, he sought healing in the only place he knew the church. Tearfully, he confided the story to his minister. Whether the minister was too shocked to deal with such a horror story or whether it was because of some streak of consummate insensitivity, I don't know. But the minister replied, "What you did was a soldier's duty in the service of his country. There is no sin involved. Don't whine about it. Just get on with your life." That was the moment my colleague turned his back on the church and all it stood for.
Could I succeed where that anonymous minister had failed 30 years before? God gave me the chance. The old soldier didn't expect any magic words of wisdom from me. He didn't expect me to wave a prayer at him and make it all better. That was fortunate, because there are no words that are adequate to face such a soulwound. All I could do was listen closely as the story unfolded. When it was over, all I could say was, "I don't have the words for this. I can't express the agony I hear from you. There's nothing I can do to make it better. But I am your friend, and I'm here for you. Would it be OK if we pray?"
The prayer wasn't much different from what I'd already said. It was short. I sensed this was not the time to quote scripture. It was the time to be brief and in the simplest terms ask God to love and care for my friend. Often, the greater the wound, the shorter and simpler the prayer needs to be. Anything else goes beyond the endurance of a weary soul.
Really, that was all my friend wanted someone who represented Christ, especially a woman who represented Christ, to hear the story of his offense against women without being horrified or rejecting him or pushing him away. He wanted someone to practice simple, honest, low-key caring in the name of Christ. That was all he could bear. That was what he got.
After a few moments of silence, he got up to leave. At the door, he turned and grinned at me. "You know, Chaplain, the longer I know you, the less I hate the church." Now I'm the one who is haunted. Those words won't let me go. There isn't any way to comprehend the horror of what happened between him and God's church. There isn't any way to get my mind around the fact that these bitter words were the highest compliment I ever heard in the ministry God entrusted to me. There is, however, one thing I can get my mind around. In the face of great horror and tragedy, it can be the simplest things simple compassionate listening, simple acceptance, simple words, simple love that make an eternal difference.
