Is There No Balm in Gilead?
NIV
In his book, Jesus the Village Psychiatrist, Donald Capps advocates that Jesus was many things to his followers, but one of the central roles ascribed to him is his role as healer.1 He further illustrates that the idea of Jesus as psychiatrist is a bit far-fetched because the biblical stories of Jesus’ healing seemed to focus on physical disabilities more than the diseases of the mind (i.e. healing the blind, lame, or mute).2 One of the familiar hymns of the church heard on Sunday mornings, and oftentimes in the homes of the old saints throughout the week that reminds us of how Jesus is the Village Psychiatrist is “Come, Ye Disconsolate.” The song in essence is saying that whatever the state of languish, we are to come to the mercy seat and cast our cares upon the Lord — here bring your wounded heart, hear tell your anguish; Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal.
Growing up in a family that went to church and sang together at family gatherings, I heard these songs sung or hummed as solutions to help us in times of trouble — songs that reminded you of the healing power of the Lord like “Take Your Burdens to the Lord and Leave Them There” by Blind Willie Johnson that says:
If your body suffers pain and your health you can’t regain,
And your soul is almost sinking in despair,
Jesus knows the pain you feel, He can save and He can heal —
Take your burden to the Lord and leave it there.
When I think about the struggles, the trials and tribulations African Americans particularly endured as a people, I am encouraged that the ancestors found a song to ease their misery. Many of these songs were led and used by pastors who desired their congregants to understand and embrace the belief that nothing is too hard for God and that we are to call on the name of Jehovah Rapha, the God who heals in our moments of despair and pain.
The gospels are filled with incidences where Jesus touched the affliction and it immediately left, whether blindness, paralysis, leprosy, hemorrhaging, deaf or dumb – the touch or the voice of Jesus sent the sickness packing. Capps states nevertheless, there seems to be a failure to recognize the reality that demonic possession is a factor in the mental and physical afflictions that affect the people in the congregation, in the community3, and I add most importantly in the pulpit. There has been a surge of pastors in the past year alone that have committed suicide, overdosed on drugs, or have chosen a route of self-destruction that have left congregations hurting, confused and probably wondering is there no balm in Gilead for our leaders? It looks as if the very ones who encourage us, who pray for us, who ask us to have faith and believe that God will make a way out of no way take a different route for themselves.
Leading from a Wounded Place
“The most terrible poverty is loneliness, and the feeling of being unloved.”
In Jer. 8:21-22, the prophet Jeremiah cried out to God, “Since my people are crushed, I am crushed; I mourn and horror grips me. Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then is there no healing for the wound of my people?” Although Jeremiah may have been speaking about the suffering and pain his people were experiencing because of their disobedience and rebellion against God, I want to take journalistic liberty to insert pastors and ministry leaders here. I am heartbroken and horror grips me when I hear about the escalation of these self-inflicted wounds by well-known pastors and family members of well-known pastors opting to end it all. It makes me wonder if the expectations placed upon ministry leaders by congregants, by the church, or by society are too high for them to cope with or too vast for them to reach. These expectations translate into depression, frustration, addictions and other destructive behaviors because the outlets for ministry leaders to release these burdens are slim to none. Somewhere in the process of understanding surface questions like ‘who can I trust,’ ‘will they judge me’ ‘are my struggles a sign of weakness’ that pastors and leaders replay in their minds and the questions generally remain locked up within and unanswered. Is there no balm in Gilead? What is the dialectical tension that causes pastors and ministry leaders to negate the very word they proclaim to others week after week that God is a healer, that Jesus heals and cures our diseases? Where does faith go? What happens to standing on the promises of God?
This phenomenon of suicide among pastors is causing great concern both in the Christian community and the secular. According to an article in USA Today, Fred Smoot, executive director of Emory Clergy Care in Duluth, GA which provides pastoral care to 1,200 United Methodist ministers in Georgia, informs us that when pastors fail to live up to demands imposed by themselves or others they often turn their frustration back on themselves leading to self-doubt and to feelings of failure and hopelessness.4 Most counselors and psychologists interviewed for this article agreed depression among clergy is at least as prevalent as in the general population. It has been determined that as many as 12% of men and 26% of women will experience major depression during their lifetime, according to the American Medical Association.5
Steve Scoggin, president of CareNet, a network of 21 pastoral counseling centers in North Carolina stated in the article that the pastorate’s greatest occupational hazard is that it’s a job that breeds isolation and loneliness. He continues, a pastor is like "a 24-hour ER" who is supposed to be available to any congregant at any time. Scoggin, who counsels many Baptist and other ministers says, "These suicides are born out of a lack of those social supports that can intervene in times of personal crisis."6 According to Henri Nouwen, we live in a society in which loneliness has become one of the most painful human wounds and that the loneliness of the minister is especially painful.7 Nouwen explicitly declares that the minister has the task of making liberation for others evident while at the same time binding his/her own wounds carefully. The minister is called to be the wounded healer and the healing minister, who has to not only look after their own wounds, but remain prepared to heal the wounds of others.8
In November 2013, Pastor Teddy Parker of Bibb Mount Zion Baptist Church in Macon, Georgia, committed suicide while his congregation waited for him to arrive on Sunday. The pastor had also reportedly once confessed that sometimes "I don’t feel like God is hearing me". In a sermon titled "Facing Your Storm with Confidence", Parker said,
"You know a lot of times, we feel like when we are going through stuff and it’s a lot that there’s nobody there with us. And guess what? God intends for you to feel that way. I know y’all been saved a long time. I know you super spiritual and you know you real holy but there are times in your life, not y’all but me. There are times in my life when I’m going through some stuff where I can’t feel God there."9
He continued: "I try to pray but I don’t feel like God is hearing me. I try to serve but I don’t feel like God is using me. And there are times in your life when God purposely withdraws from you, he doesn’t withdraw for the sake of leaving you but he withdraws so you can grow and mature."10
In December, 2013 a suburban Illinois pastor has shot and killed himself inside of his Matteson home. Pastor Ed Montgomery’s pleading son and mother begged him not to take his life, but the grief due to the loss of his wife overcame him.11 Again in December, 2013 Isaac Hunter, former senior pastor of Summit Church and son of Northland Church Pastor Joel Hunter, died Tuesday in an apparent suicide, according to Northland Church. The 36-year-old father of three had been in a downward spiral after first admitting to carrying on an affair with a staff member in 2012 and resigning.12 Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? The implications of these actions have such a riveting effect on persons other than the minister. Families, communities, congregations and even municipalities are affected by these actions. With all the psychosis going on in the world now – wars and rumors of wars, abuses, injustices, mass incarcerations, recessions, foreclosures, the rich getting richer and the poor poorer – we need spiritual guidance and leadership. As Christians, the Apostle Paul reminds us that we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but principalities and spiritual wickedness in high places (Eph. 6:12). Is the force of wickedness greater than the power of our God?
Conclusion
What can we do to help our pastors and ministry leaders out of the pit of despair and hopelessness? The church is the body of Christ and has to be the balm, the salve, the rub of deliverance not just for congregants, but for the pastors as well. As a body of believers, we must educate ourselves to be effective to the needs of our leaders who have been grieving and are yet grieving. We cannot say just go pray and it will be okay. We need to educate ourselves and especially our churches on the subject of mental illness and diseases of the mind. The stigma of mental illness does not only reside in the church, but culturally within our families – therapy is not always a welcomed friend or relative.
We must make a conscious effort to encourage congregations to lift up their pastors and not tear them down. Prayer works and changes things, nevertheless just as King David had a Nathan and a Gad (Prophet and Seer) to hold him accountable to God; I pray pastors and ministry leaders are armed with the same relationships. In addition, insist pastors take a break when they need one to replenish themselves. Dr. E. Dewey Smith, Jr. delivering the eulogy for Pastor Parker declared, “You don’t have to be married to the church. The church is Jesus’ bride…step away and takes care of you," he said, while pointing out biblical figures like Moses, David, Elijah, Jeremiah and even Jesus all dealt with deep depression and faced suicidal thoughts.13
Nouwen suggests that hospitality is a source of healing for the minister because when one can make room in their heart for someone else, it diverts the attention to the guest – it does not take the pain or loneliness away, but at least offers the minister a level of opportunity where they can share. His intention or theory on this is that shared pain is no longer paralyzing but mobilizing when understood as a way to liberation.14 Is there no balm in Gilead? I say there is!
We are reminded that we have a Comforter and a Savior who is a very present help in times of trouble; and as the lyrics in one of the old African American Spirituals “There is A Balm in Gilead” denotes, we have a balm in Gilead:
Sometimes I feel discouraged and think my work’s in vain,
But then the Holy Spirit revives my soul again.
[Yes]There is a balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole;
There is a balm in Gilead to heal the sin sick soul.
Notes
1. Donald Capps, Jesus the Village Psychiatrist (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), xi.
2. Ibid., xii.
3. Ibid.
4. http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/religion/2009-10-28-pastor_suicides_N.htm?POE=click-refer. Accessed 2/28/14.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Henri Nouwen, The Wounded Healer (New York: Image Books/Doubleday, 1972), 83.
8. Ibid
9. http://www.christiantoday.com/article/pastor.teddy.parker.commits.suicide. Accessed 2/28/14.
10. Ibid.
11. http://goo.gl/dfgp1p. Accessed 3/1/14.
12. http://goo.gl/cPVuIl. Accessed 3/1/14.
13. http://goo.gl/hyBt2l. Accessed 3/1/14.
14. Nouwen, 93.
15. “There is a Balm in Gilead” African American Heritage Hymnal (Chicago: Gia Publications, 2001) #524.
