WLSU: A Really Broken Ankle

Hi friends. As you may know, I am currently on sabbatical and we'll be out until August 11th. Throughout my time off we have a couple new episodes that I recorded prior to leaving that are related to my sabbatical journey. We will also rerun a couple of previous episodes that are connected to the ongoing theme of transformation and best of all.

Throughout the time I'm gone, I have asked a few good friends to share with you their stories of transformation. So you'll hear some of those as well. All beautiful stories from people who influenced my life and make this world more loving. I hope you will enjoy it all. I hope you enjoy this time and I hope that during this time you will also prayerfully consider your own transformation stories.

Our guest today is the Reverend Jimmy Bartz. Jimmy is the Rector of St. John's in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, but more than that, he is one of my true dear friends. Jimmy was the priest who sponsored me for ordination. He officiated at the wedding between my wife and me. He is the godfather to my middle child and my middle child's got part of his name as well.

Jimmy was the first mentor that I had once I decided to become a priest. He helped guide me through the ordination process. He looked out for me and continues to look out for me. Jimmy is a brilliant Pastor, a thinker, and a dear friend, not just to me, but to so many who are fortunate enough to have known him.

And when I talk about influences in my life, there are a few who have influenced me, to the degree that my friend Jimmy has. I'm so grateful that he has chosen to be a guest on the show. And I look forward to you hearing what he's got to say.

This blog is also available as a podcast

I heard the bones in my ankle crack, but it didn’t register right away. I just knew I was on the ground and wasn’t supposed to be. I knew that I had experienced some sort of injury but wasn’t exactly sure what part of my body was injured. My stomach felt a little upset, and I wasn’t sure why until I looked down to see my foot looking in a direction it shouldn’t.

Within seconds my wife was standing over me stating the obvious, “you just broke your ankle. I heard it.” “Let me just think for a minute,” I said. I had this overwhelming sense that I needed to get my mind around what had happened, and where I had gone wrong before anyone, or anything touched me. I was in the backyard. We were doing some remodeling. I had been moving some building material around. Flip flops—the worst decision. I missed that step. My foot is looking left when it should be looking right. Call David and Mary and tell them dinner is off. Can you back your car all the way back here?

We had been in our house for less than two weeks. Earlier that morning, I had preached my last sermon at All Saint’s Parish in Beverly Hills where I had served as an Associate Rector for the last five years. Cake, tears, high fives, hugs, well wishes and a warm leave taking in order to launch into the unknown of planting a church that might reach a different kind of Episcopalian. People would ask what kind of church. I’d just been saying, “well, sort of a hippy, rock n roll Episcopal Church.” A few probed, “what does that mean.” I would just respond, “I’m not sure, yet.” It was true. I wasn’t sure, yet. And, my ankle was broken. Really broken, not just a little broken—a lotta broken.

Our lives were moving a million miles an hour when I broke my ankle. Leaving one stable job for a start-up church plant that was currently funded for about 3 months. We bought a house and had begun a remodel. And we were eagerly awaiting word from the Chinese government that we could travel to China and adopt our daughter.

On the way to the ER, I called my brother, who’s a hotshot orthopedic surgeon, to get him looking for the ankle person in LA. There’s always a person. One for knees, one for shoulders, one for elbows, one for hips, and I knew there would be one for ankles and the network could plug me in. It took a couple of days to track him down and to get in to see him using every favor in the favor jar, but I got there, and in a few more days after some wrestling with insurance, I was waking up in a recovery room after a complicated repair and told that I couldn’t weight bear for at least four months. Four months. Four months.

Now the overwhelm began to set in. I had so much to do. How was I going to do it all? Newsflash, I wasn’t going to do it all, but I certainly didn’t know it yet. My moment of conversion didn’t come for a couple more weeks, but it was a direct result of this busted ankle, this very busted ankle.

Fast forward a couple of weeks, and I told you we were planting a church. Every Sunday morning, a small team met at a ministorage. There at the ministorage, we loaded a bunch of SUV’s with church, or what it took to pull off church. Coffee pots and kids toys, and music stands and signs and sound equipment and paper cups and pillows for the nursery—everything week in and week out came from a ministorage and went to the jazz club where we met, and after church it went back. It as labor intensive, and your rector was ALWAYS there to help. Always.

It was one of those mornings. In the labyrinthine hallways of the ministorage, where I was converted through the incredulous look and gentle words of Jamie, one of my dearest pals. I crutched around a corner with a pillow in my teeth to meet Jamie, who was returning to the unit for another load. He looked at me for a second with that look of surprise, and, then, with a measure of concern, said, “Jimmy, what are you doing.” Through clenched teeth, I said, “I’m helping. I can still help.” To which he responded something like, “if we need that kind of help from you right now, we are in real trouble.”

I was good at helping. I was good at giving. I was good at being there for folks in need. I was and still am almost always game for showing. I was no good at receiving. I wasn’t any good at letting others give me a bit of help or care along the way, and my unwillingness to ever be set to receive, rather than send, impeded my real ability to experience the kind of community that I had envisioned to build in this new venture. It was a block for me, and my dear friends stupefied gaze and matter of fact words caused me to turn around and see how The capital K Kingdom wouldn’t work without a real measure of interdependence. How we can’t just give, give, give. How something loving like giving can become absurd under certain circumstances. A grown man, on crutches, with a pillow in his teeth at 7:30 in the morning with a hive of people working around me.

The capital K Kingdom and The Garden before it, for that matter, isn’t about rugged individualism or self-sufficiency—both those places are about connectedness, about giving and receiving, about collaboration and cooperation, about interdependence. Don’t hear what I’m not saying. I’m not saying rugged individualism and self-sufficiency aren’t American values. They most certainly are. I’m saying they aren’t Christian values, or looking even further back into the story, they aren’t Jewish-Christian values. Humanity doesn’t reach for the fruit of the tree in an act of willful opposition and adolescent defiance, we reach for the fruit of the tree because we are under the illusion of, “I got this. I can manage on my own.” And, honestly, we can’t.

Dear ones, if you are like me—always willing to give, never willing to receive—then, REPENT and return to the Lord, whose love is steadfast and abiding, the one who built the garden, so that we might live together in harmony, which requires both give and take.