Do you want to be made well?

That is the question I left you with last week, as I started this four-part sermon series on faith and mental health. I made the case that God wants you to know real peace in your life — he wants you to know what the Bible calls “shalom,” a deeply personal peace that includes wholeness, soundness, tranquility and contentment. In last week’s sermon, I introduced you to The Threefold Cord of science, spirituality, and psychotherapy, and I encouraged you to hold tightly to these three interwoven strands.

It is God’s will that you be well, and he offers you The Threefold Cord as a tool to help you “restore your soul.”

Many of us find it to be a challenge, however, to grab all three of the strands: science, spirituality, and psychotherapy. We might be willing to hold one, but we are afraid of another, and we reject the third. Dori Baker, a professor at Union Seminary in Richmond, tells me that she is distressed because everywhere she turns a mother is being prescribed an anti-depressant by a general practitioner without training — these patients are taking drugs, but they are not supplementing their medication with any other therapies. And at the other end of the spectrum, there are church leaders who fight efforts to blend spirituality with psychotherapy. Albert Mohler, the president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, does not believe that “a humanistically-based therapeutic approach is compatible with biblical Christianity.”

It is often a mistake, I believe, to treat mental illness with drugs alone, or with faith alone. And honestly, I don’t know why people are afraid to grab all three strands of The Threefold Cord, as needed. Since God is the source of every good and perfect gift — from the scientific to the spiritual — I am convinced that single-pronged approaches are unfaithful, shortsighted, and ultimately doomed to failure. They ignore the biblical view of the human being as a unity, one which God never intended for us to split apart. We are not either a body or a mind or a spirit — we are all three.

As Christians, we believe that God came to earth as Jesus Christ — a fully human person with a body, a mind, and a spirit. He faced the same shocks and stresses we do, and his personal peace — his shalom — was threatened by the forces that we confront each day. Although he was also fully God, this does not mean that he was a superhuman in terms of brain chemistry, mental toughness, or spiritual stamina; in fact, his tremendous appeal comes from the fact that he was as vulnerable as any other human, and he suffered as we do. To be faithful followers of Christ, we need to admit our weakness and our need, and make an effort to care for every aspect of our selves — body, mind, and spirit — by tapping all the resources available to us. We have the potential to enjoy abundant life, but only if we get a grip on the interwoven strands of The Threefold Cord.

One of the ways to do this is to find a counselor who fully embraces this approach. Fortunately, we have such a group of therapists right here in our building, just down the hall, in the “Center for Pastoral Counseling..” This is a group made up of pastoral psychotherapists — counselors who combine respect for spiritual beliefs with training in psychotherapy. These counselors make a point of weaving spirituality and therapy, and can put people in touch with doctors who prescribe medication, when needed. They are a life-saving resource for people who want to gain a solid grasp of The Threefold Cord.

The Rev. Benjamin Pratt, a retired counselor known to many of you, found that in many of his therapy sessions, life's difficulties could only be discussed in a context of faith and theology. He helped, for example, a mother who had lost a child to come to believe that she was not being punished by God for actions earlier in her life. He was willing to discuss his clients’ faith questions as they related to life’s dilemmas, and explored issues of guilt, grief, values, and the meaning and purpose of life. “I, of course, was not into … forcing faith issues,” he tells me; “they were the natural fruit of our work together.”

Jesus knew the importance of not forcing faith issues, but instead letting them rise out of natural encounters with people throughout the course of his ministry. One day he is passing through the region of Samaria, on his way from Judea to Galilee, and he stops to rest at a well, in the heat of the noontime sun (John 4:1-42). A Samaritan woman comes to draw water, and Jesus asks her for a drink. She is shocked that Jesus speaks to her, since Jews tend to look down on Samaritans, but Jesus answers that she should be asking him for water — for what he calls “living water.” She is confused at first, wondering how Jesus can get water without a bucket, but then he explains that the water he gives is “a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.”

Then Jesus asks her to call her husband and come back. She admits that she has no husband, and Jesus commends her for her honesty, telling her that she has had five husbands, and that the man she is living with now is not her husband. The woman realizes that Jesus is a prophet, and the two of them enter into a conversation about where and how to worship God. Jesus ends up telling her that there will be a time when the distinction between Samaritans and Jews will break down, and “true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth.” He tells her that he is the Messiah, and she runs off to tell her fellow Samaritans about her encounter with Jesus. She says to them, “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done!”

I find this story fascinating because it sounds so much like a session of pastoral psychotherapy. I know that many of us resist entering into therapy, because we feel like it is a sign of weakness … or we don’t trust the therapist … or we don’t understand the process itself. But this story reveals that Jesus was a very skilled psychotherapist — a word that literally means “soul therapist.”

Let’s take a look at this story, and discover just how healing and helpful psychotherapy can be. First, the therapist and the client come together to talk in an atmosphere of mutual respect, without the social or cultural distinctions that so often separate people, such as the split between Jews and Samaritans.

Second, the therapist really listens to what the client says, and helps guide the conversation to new insights — in the case of Jesus and the Samaritan women, insights about the gift of “living water.”

Third, the conversation is one that is absolutely dependent on honesty, and is non-judgmental about embarrassing revelations. Jesus discovers that the woman has had five husbands and a lover, but he does not condemn her for her past.

Fourth, the conversation digs deep into religious material, and new understandings arise about God’s love and acceptance — about his desire for people to worship “in spirit and in truth.”

Finally, the client is sent out to act on these new understandings, and to take this newfound personal peace into all the relationships of life. By the end of the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman, the woman moves from being a second-class citizen to being the number-one messenger of Jesus the Messiah.

This kind of psychotherapy — “soul therapy” — can move us from confusion to contentment, and from stress to a deep sense of shalom.

Kristen Leslie, one of my classmates at Yale Divinity School, who is now a professor of pastoral care and counseling, believes that many people are choosing pastoral counseling over secular psychotherapy because they want to experience this kind of spiritual growth. They perceive that mainstream psychologists and psychiatrists are hostile to religion, so they choose pastoral psychotherapists — people with whom they can talk openly about their beliefs, and together discover how religious truths can lead them to shalom.

In my own ministry, I have seen numerous people helped in this way. Years ago, a young man underwent a devastating breakup with his fiancée as I helped to prepare them for marriage. He discovered that she was cheating on him, and she did not have the maturity or desire to commit to marriage. He was shattered by this breakup, but slowly put his life back together and gained greater self-understanding with the help of a pastoral psychotherapist. In time, he met another woman, married her, and is now enjoying the deep happiness that can come from a committed relationship.

Later, a mother of four, who had enjoyed tremendous success as an executive, was overcome by anxiety as she faced the birth of her youngest child. She feared the loss of her marriage and her sanity, called me in a panic, and after a time of conversation and reassurance accepted my recommendation that she see a counselor. She gradually regained her serenity through the gentle guidance of a pastoral psychotherapist, and is now able to enjoy family life again.

In times of enormous stress and mental anguish, religious people are going to gain the most benefit from the guidance of a therapist who shares their values and beliefs, and can show them the path to inner peace. Unlike secular psychologists, pastoral psychotherapists will try to sense the presence of God in every counseling session, and will listen for what the Lord is saying in the midst of conversations about painful human struggles. Because of their psychological training and spiritual sensitivity, pastoral psychotherapists are in a good place to help people get a grasp on the interwoven strands of science, spirituality, and psychotherapy.

The Threefold Cord is trustworthy, but it needs to be grasped with faith. In times of trouble, let’s get a grip. Amen.