Coming up for air...

Ezra Reads the Law

When the seventh month came and the Israelites had settled in their towns,

all the people came together as one in the square before the Water Gate. They told Ezra the teacher of the Law to bring out the Book of the Law of Moses, which the Lord had commanded for Israel. So, on the first day of the seventh month Ezra the priest brought the Law before the assembly, which was made up of men and women and all who were able to understand. He read it aloud from daybreak till noon as he faced the square before the Water Gate in the presence of the men, women and others who could understand. And all the people listened attentively to the Book of the Law.

Nehemiah 7:74-8:3

 Rev. Daniel J. Bradley

December 22, 2024

There is a video of a great athlete and swimmer who had two holes drilled in an icy lake. He got into the frigid water and went under the ice to swim to the other hole. As he swam in the cold water, he became disoriented. Those with him on top of the ice tried to direct him in which way to go. He regained his composure and could swim to the other hole by miracle. When his companions pulled him out of the water, they had to conduct CPR and shock his heart with a defibrillator. He was fortunate to be alive. After his recovery in the hospital, he was asked, "How did you find your way out?" He replied, "I just kept swimming…If I had stopped and given up, it would have been over. I could see my crew above the ice; I just knew I wouldn’t die because I wasn’t alone.”

In my last article, I said repeatedly, "I need to come up for air." This illustration was exactly what I was thinking about. Sometimes, we get trapped under the ice because of situations and circumstances that happen to us or because we are just stupid enough to jump into the freezing water and attempt to swim to the next hole.

I quote Maxie Dunham, the former president, and chancellor of Asbury Theological Seminary because his wisdom spans a lifetime of ministry. He preached to a packed house of students at Asbury Theological Seminary on the dangers of entering into sin. He says, "Sin will always take you where you never expected to go and keep you there longer than you intended to stay." Or, as my sponsor in my recovery program says, "Drinking is like dancing with a 900lb gorilla; you may like it, you may not, but until that gorilla stops, you are along for the ride."

Coming up for air is like being able to grasp the reality that you have survived something horrific, and you are on the other side. Getting to the other side isn't easy. You have to keep swimming. You can't stop your feet from moving, or you will die under the ice. You and your body must continue fighting when your lungs give out. You have to look up through the ice and see the feet of your crew leading you to the next hole and then pulling you out and giving you the medical attention that you need to save your life. You have to trust not only in yourself—but also in something greater than what you think you know.

I have spent a lifetime with the 900lb gorilla. In some cases, I am still along for the ride. I don't need to be drinking to have alcoholic thinking. Only my immediate family knew about my alcohol addiction. They begged me to stop many times, and I assured them that I had it under control. Control is an illusion perpetuated by stupidity, like jumping into the freezing water. My abuse of alcohol was my secret. I was like Gollum in the Lord of the Rings, "It's my precious." As he holds the ring between his goblin fingers, it draws him into a darkness that has destroyed him for over a lifetime. Remember, he used to be one of the river people named Smeigel. But Gollum has a part to play in this story of a faithful hobbit's journey to destroy the ring of power, Frodo. Frodo's story takes him to Mordor, where Frodo is supposed to cast the ring into the fire, where the ring was formed to destroy the ring. Frodo isn't strong enough. He places it on his finger and disappears. In his desire to possess the ring, Gollum bites off Frodo's finger and falls into the fire only to be destroyed, but he finally gets the ring of power. We are all like Gollum. We see the ring of power before us, and we must have it at all costs, even if that cost is our life.

My journey with alcohol took me to places that I never thought I would go and left me there in despair longer than I intended to stay. It was everything to me and, in the morning, left me with nothing but sadness and hopelessness. Yet, night after night, I would sit in my office pouring glass after glass of expensive liquor, thinking that I had good reasons for getting drunk, but in the end, it was all about self and selfishness. I kept jumping in that icy water; as Albert Einstein said regarding his theory of relativity, "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result." I didn't want to make it to the other hole but to see how long I could hold my breath under the ice.

When I started my journey to recovery, I was faithless and didn't know which end was up. I couldn't see the feet above me directing me to the hole or forcing myself to swim. I was in so much pain that I wanted to give up and end it all. Sometimes, I still can't tell you which end is up or where I am going, but I have learned to keep swimming, even though I am in "nine kinds of pain and don't even know it."

There were times I could only force myself to attend meetings, and let me tell you, 'Gratitude' meetings were the worst. I heard people talk about what they were grateful for, and it made me want to puke my guts out. I wanted that self-pity and pain; it defined my existence. Just Like Gollum, I wanted my ring, 'my precious.' I didn't want to feel anything but the icy cold water and the lack of oxygen in my lungs. I would hope that I wouldn't find that hole on the other side and that the pain would end.

At the beginning of my recovery, I couldn't trust God as a higher power, even though that was the advice I gave my parishioners. My higher power had to be something I could see, feel, and touch. I learned that my higher power was a 'Group of Drunks.' I could count on them to be at a daily meeting with smiles of gratitude and thanksgiving, something that I had yet to discover. They were the only stable things in my life. It was almost as if I had to be nursed from the breast again.

When John Wesley went running for his life from the militia of the Georgia Colony after denying Holy Communion to the Governor's daughter, who had broken the engagement and showed up to his service with her new suitor, he ended up on a ship with his tail between his legs on his way back to England. He was swimming in that icy water of defeat and a lack of faith in the God he claimed to have possessed. Peter Bohler. was a Moravian; Bohler's famous quote, John Wesley, was as follows: "preach faith until you have faith, and then when you have faith, you'll preach faith." In other words, fake it till you make it. Keep swimming even when your lungs give out and the icy water feels like knives in your body. I wonder what other advice he gave Wesley. We will never know, but I imagine it was profound words that laid the framework for Wesley's conversion.

On May 5, 1738, Wesley said he was "very unwillingly" to attend a meeting on Martin Luther's preface to the Epistle to the Romans. Still, through the words of Martin Luter, something happened to him—something almost too challenging to put into words.

These are his full comments from his journal that night:

In the evening, I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.I began to pray with all my might for those who had in a more especial manner despitefully used me and persecuted me. I then testified openly to all there what I now first felt in my heart. But it was not long before the enemy suggested, “This cannot be faith; for where is thy joy?” Then was I taught that peace and victory over sin are essential to faith in the Captain of our salvation; but that, as to the transports of joy that usually attend the beginning of it, especially in those who have mourned deeply, God sometimes giveth, sometimes withholdeth, them according to the counsels of His own will. After my return home, I was much buffeted with temptations, but I cried out, and they fled away. They returned again and again. I as often lifted up my eyes, and He “sent me help from his holy place.” And herein I found the difference between this and my former state chiefly consisted. I was striving, yea, fighting with all my might under the law, as well as under grace. But then I was sometimes, if not often, conquered; now, I was always conqueror.

Wesley's conversion was not an accident but the result of years of preparation. His mother, Susanna, nurtured him, his brother Charles, and his seven sisters in the faith. John and Charles, unlike his sisters, who lived unfortunate lives, never experienced grace the way that John and Charles did. His formation would come full circle as he experienced a new life in Christ.

There is a picture of John being snatched from a fire at Epworth parsonage as a boy. He was marked for something greater than himself. Just like Gollum, we all chase after our 'precious' but have the opportunity to live our lives differently if we stop chasing after the ring of power. I am not even going to surmise what that is for you.; It's not my business. However, as we chase after something unattainable, and in the end, we fall into the fire with it in our hands or perhaps the icy water of a frozen lake. There is only one way out, and that is to keep swimming.

When one wishes to quit cigarettes, they do not do it without help from a nicotine patch. It starts at the highest levels of nicotine and then slowly tapers off. For some, this works. Others still need to go cold turkey, and some can't give up their precious. It's the same with any addiction. If you focus solely on the vice, you will fail every time. No matter how much willpower you have, you won't be able to stop until that 900lb gorilla is done with you. Maybe you'll like it and hate it, but the bottom line is you have to dance until that gorilla is done with you. As Maxie said, "Sin will always take you where you never intended to go and keep you there longer than you intended to stay."

There are times when the concept of a loving God is too much for me and I need a Group of Drunks who understand addiction. I need a group of drums who can share gratitude stories even when I don't want to hear them. I need a gratitude meeting even when I don't want it to remind me of God's goodness so that I can appreciate the goodness of God in my own life. We need to puke our guts out of the yuck that we have been putting in and leave us in despair, ultimately destroying us.

I need community, or whatever you call it. I don't need fortune cookie clichés or platitudes. I must stop saying I'm fine when others ask. I must reply, "I am having an awful day and don’t know how to get to the other hole." Sometimes, it takes not hitting our bottom but being under icy water to realize that I will die if I stop swimming. My experience tells me that I need to let go of all I fear to lose and keep swimming.

No matter how evil Gollum appears in the Lord of The Rings, he still has a part to play, as Gandolf reminds Frodo. Had Gollum not bitten off the finger of Frodo, it would have never been destroyed, and Sauron would have ruled all of Middle Earth for eternity. After facing goblins, orcs, ringwraiths, and the failure of men, Frodo and Sam the Wise continue their sojourn to Mt. Doom in Mordor. In his despair and hopelessness, Frodo asks Sam, "What are we fighting for?"

“Yes, that’s so,’ said Sam. ‘And we shouldn’t be here at all, if we’d known more about it before we started. But I suppose it’s often that way. The brave things in the old tales and songs, Mr. Frodo: adventures, as I used to call them. I used to think that they were things the wonderful folk of the stories went out and looked for, because they wanted them, because they were exciting and life was a bit dull, a kind of a sport, as you might say. But that’s not the way of it with the tales that really mattered, or the ones that stay in the mind. Folk seem to have been just landed in them, usually – their paths were laid that way, as you put it. But I expect they had lots of chances, like us, of turning back, only they didn’t. And if they had, we shouldn’t know, because they’d have been forgotten. We hear about those as just went on – and not all to a good end, mind you; at least not to what folk inside a story and not outside it call a good end. You know, coming home, and finding things all right, though not quite the same – like old Mr Bilbo. But those aren’t always the best tales to hear, though they may be the best tales to get landed in! I wonder what sort of a tale we’ve fallen into?’

'I wonder,' said Frodo. 'But I don't know. And that's the way of a real tale. Take any one that you’re fond of. You may know, or guess, what kind of a tale it is, happy-ending or sad-ending, but the people in it don’t know. And you don’t want them to.’

When right, you will tell your story as I tell you mine. It will be a horrific tale of losses, pain, and suffering, but in the morning, the sun will shine in the east, and Gandolf and the warriors of Gondor will come and trample the enemies--the precious' of your life. It sucks being under the frozen lake, but you have to keep swimming, or you will die. And when you make it to the other hole, your crew, your 'Group of Drunks,' will pull you to the surface, and you will live to fight another day. To live, you must relinquish the ring of power and control. Your story isn't over; stay in the world of the living…I need your story to keep me swimming to that other hole. I need your story to keep me sober.

I have to let go of the ring of power every day with the help of my group of drunks, letting go of all I fear losing, even that dam 'precious ring.'