Peter Witkowski Memos

April’s February 2022 Cancer Update

April and I arrived at last Wednesday’s juncture worn out like a pair of well-trod shoes. The last few months of chemotherapy treatments have extracted a toll on April’s body and on the souls of our entire family. Though we long for rest, the results of Aprils latest scans revealed the need for a new treatment plan…for more action.

What’s Next

According to April’s UVA team, her breast cancer has managed to squeeze past the safeguards provided by her chemotherapy regimen. It has made noticeable gains in the lymph nodes around her breast. A combination of scans and blood work also strongly suggests that April’s ER+ PR+ and HER2- cancer cells have also started to rebuild themselves within her breast and bones. Thankfully, the tumors in April’s liver remain stable. No new tumors have reached her lungs. Because the cancer has not penetrated her vital organs, the side effects of the new breast cancer growth remain minimal. But as we learned last spring, her cancer will not play nice for long. Last March, April came far too close to the edge of ruin. As the windshield wipers aimlessly swept back and forth on February 3, 2022 following the conversation with April’s UVA oncologists, we determined to do our best to avoid another debacle similar to the one of last March.

Over the past week April and I have repeatedly talked through the various treatment options with April’s UVA and Mayo oncologists, exploring both the standard of care path and the experimental treatment path. Choosing the right way forward has proved difficult for all the paths lead into dense woods with undiscernible futures. Because oncologists have only used hormonal therapies for a little over five years, little data exists regarding what doctors should do after treatments like Ibrance and Letrozole cease to work. With each change in treatment, the discussion moves from estimates and scientific studies to guestimates and anecdotal reflections. After weighing the few things that we could measure such as the physical effects travel against the backdrop of educated guesses, April and I decided to embark upon a standard treatment path composed of two drugs, Fluvestrant and Abemaciclib. The first consists of a shot administered monthly and the second a pill taken twice daily. Together, the drugs promise to keep April’s cancer at bay for another five months. They also threaten only mild side effects such as stomach issues, headaches, and some soreness at the injection locations. In short, the new treatment plan promises to work as well as the chemotherapy but with less side effects.

Though our shoes our worn, we hope this new path will lead us to a period of relative rest.

Reflections

That said, we continue to live in a world of varying shades of uncertainty. The path forward could twist this way or that with little warning. Though we remain confident in our choice, our hope resides not in the path but in the Lord above.

In many ways, our spiritual journey remains centered upon truths we have shared before. Suffering whether cancer or otherwise is the typical lot of the believer. Though April’s youth makes her illness less common and her suffering and that of our family more intense than others, the suffering itself is not an oddity. Jesus declared in Matthew 7:24-27 that the storms of affliction would crash against all of us. Or as James the brother of Jesus says, “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the test of your faith produces steadfastness.” Because we know our suffering is not beyond the knowledge of God, we also know that our God can see us through this time. We do not know where April’s cancer battle will take us. But we do know that we do not have to worry about tomorrow for the God who cares for the lilies of the field cares for us. He will see us through today and tomorrow. Our heavenly Father knows all that we need. When we remember this, we have great hope. When we forget the love of God and gaze only upon the path, we fear everything from the next turn in the treatment path to what a nurse might think of us. The battle forever and always begins and ends not with our circumstances but with our heart. Oh for more steadfastness.

Prayer

  • Pray that the new medicine would hold the breast cancer at bay for the next 5-6 months.
  • Pray that our weariness would be replaced with faith that would lead to steadfastness.
  • Pray for God to grant us the wisdom needed to determine our children’s educational future.
  • Pray for God to give us straight paths and provide for us the best housing arrangements.
  • Pray for our children to repent and believe in Jesus Christ.
  • Pray would be obedient in the mundane stresses of life.

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Peter Witkowski Sermon on the Mount

I Can Judge You: Jesus Says So

The biblical phrase “Judge not, that you be not judged” and its more direct rendition, “Do not judge” has achieved a unique level of popularity within Western culture (Matt 7:1). These words seemingly validate modern self-expression. Perhaps more importantly, these words invalidate the mandates of our self-righteous friends. The moment, they whip out their judgmental ticket book, we can piously respond, “Don’t judge me.” Then, we go on, “Jesus calls you to love and accept me for who I am.”

Though Jesus’s words have taken up residence in our culture, they have often done so under false pretenses. The biblical context and the logical implications of these words, reveal that Jesus never intended for us to suspend all judgment. More importantly, he is also not condemning judgment within the context of interpersonal relationships. Rather Jesus’s words condemn hypercritical judgment. To “judge not” means we are to refrain from delighting in the needless and unscriptural criticism of others. But we can and must compare people’s actions to Scripture. Allow me to explain.

Good Judgement

We know Jesus cannot stand in opposition to all judgement, for human life is predicated upon judgement. If Hank suspended all judgement when driving, eating, walking, and working, he would not live long. The person who eats moldy bread and fresh bread with the same gusto will be spending some quality time in the bathroom. Similarly, if Sally decides not to exercise judgment when choosing which side of the road to drive on, she will not make it work alive. And if Phil suspends judgement and plays video games instead of completing the prestation for work, his income will take a hit. We must make judgements to have full lives. We also know Jesus did not want us to live every day as if it were a “Yes Day” for he too exercised judgment when picking disciples, choosing locations for ministry, and even when eating. Matthew 7:1 cannot mean that all judgment is bad.

Can I Judge You?

But the words also should not by universally applied to interpersonal relationship. Jesus has not given us license to live life as we choose within the bounds of community. In verse 6 of Matthew 7, Jesus tells his followers to exercise judgement within the interpersonal context of evangelism. If a soul proves especially belligerent to the gospel, Jesus told his disciples to end the conversation with the wild dogs and disgusting pigs of the spiritual realm and move on. Then in verse 15, Jesus tells his listeners to beware of “false prophets,” noting “you will recognize them by their fruits (20).” Jesus calls his followers to examine their interpersonal relationship with pastors in light of God’s Word. Such evaluations undoubtedly produce judgements. In other words, Christian should respond very differently when encountering a pastor who faithfully preaches the Word and loving affirms the hurting teenager and a pastor who sleeps with his secretary and regularly defrauds his members. We are to praise the one and warn and condemn the other.

Though Westerners find the idea of interpersonal judgement distasteful at one level, they all implicitly affirm the need for it. Even the most secular among us condemns people who abuse children, rape women, and murder the elderly. I believe such judgements are good and just. But their existence again raises two question: “What do we mean when we say, “Do not judge?” and does it line up with what Jesus meant?

What We Mean

I suspect many of us appeal to the phrase “Do not judge me” not because we oppose judgment in a philosophical sense but because we oppose people judging us. In short, we use “Don’t Judge me” as an ethical get-out-of-jail free card the moment someone challenges a live decision. We could also say that we use the phrase as a simple defense of self-expression: namely, “what I like is right.”

What Jesus Means

Jesus never intended his words in Matthew 7:1 to be an uncritical defense of our self-expression, a get-out-of-jail-free card. Rather when Jesus tells the disciples not to judge he warns them to avoid hypercriticism, judgement that makes personal preference divine law. For example, the hypercritical person condemns his fellow church members because they have tattoos, own a T.V. or joined the wrong political party. Similarly, the person is quick to suspect that her pastor has abandoned the gospel because he changed the drapes from green to red. She knows that poor design choices reflect a poor walk with Jesus. The hypercritical spirit quickly condemns all who fail to achieve its standard with some whispered words and a haughty look. If the hypercritical person is honest, he or she often enjoys the failures of others because they give the hypercritical soul something to talk about that confirms their self-righteous impluses. This is the attitude that Jesus condemns in Matthew 7:1. When this person gets his engines revved up, we should quickly play the “Do Not Judge Me” card. But in so doing, we are not calling for the abolishment of all judgement but rather for biblical judgment.

Jesus wants our interpersonal judgment to be fused with his understanding of truth and applied with mercy and forgiveness. At the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, “Blessed are the merciful for the shall receive mercy.” The context of Scripture clearly indicates that these statements are not conditional but revelatory. In other words, we don’t show mercy to get mercy. But if we have experienced the mercy and forgiveness of God, we will extend that mercy and forgiveness to others. If we perpetually refuse to extend mercy and forgiveness to the kids running in the hall and mercy to the lady with the tattoos, we show ourselves never to have experienced the mercy of God. One day very soon, God will judge us with the judgement with which we have judged others. While we can only see in-part, God sees in the whole. He knows each time the hypercritical person broke his own rules running through church in his younger years or watching T.V. while at his favorite restaurant. The merciless judgement with which we condemn others with will be applied to us a million-fold. “Judge not, that you not be judged.”

Final Thoughts

Jesus’s command to “Do not judge” should not be seen as a divine call to suspend all judgement. The believer should exercise discernment when eating, when talking with her parents, and when attending church. The believer should choose not to walk with the ungodly and should avoid the seat of scoffers. But she must do so graciously and lovingly. As Jesus notes in Matthew 7:5, the Christian is to deal with her own sins before straining at the imperfections in another. But still she must help her brother caught in sin once she has dealt with her own sin. Godly criticism should lead to restoration. But when her criticism expands beyond the pages of Scripture and makes her preferences about food, dating, entertainment, organization, and church polity matters of salvation, she becomes guilty of hypocritical judgement. She has created laws where mercy and grace should abound.

Good judgement depends upon mercy and forgiveness. To display such judgement requires great wisdom which requires much prayer. May God help us all to not be hypercritical.

Peter Witkowski Ecclesiology

Why This Pastor Goes to Church

While preaching remains the undisputed foundation of congregational worship, the pulpiteer is not the church. In other words, I as the pastor of a local church do not head to church to hear myself preach on Sunday mornings. I study, wrestle with, apply, and come to terms with the text during the week so that I arrive in the pulpit intent upon sharing my Scriptural convictions rather than forming them. I do not come for the academic insights.

I attend church every morning because my local church serves as a rallying point for God people through whom God edifies my soul. I find encouragement in the corporate singing of doctrinal hymns that encourage my soul , the prayers of my fellow believers that infuse my heart with hope, and the discussions that arise from the congregation after a sermon which guide me to great biblical clarity. I pastor as well as I do (whatever level that is) because I do so within the loving bounds of the local church. In other words, I go to church because the people of God convey me afresh to the throne room of Jesus. Or as David says in Psalm 26:8, “O Lord, I love the habitation of your house and the place where you glory dwells.”

With this conviction in mind, I refused to exclusively “live-stream” my church’s Sunday morning service when the COVID-19 pandemic sent us scurrying to our homes. I believed then as I do now that church is more than a pulpiteer and skilled pianist or music team. Church is the old lady who gives the best hugs, the child who wiggles and occasionally cries, the young couple who faithfully serves in the nursery, the sweet greeters who never meet a stranger, the faithful single wrestling through the idea of marriage, and the aged saint who stands ready to stop and pray with you the minute you open up about your latest struggle. While the sermon serves as one of the foundational pillars of the congregation, it is not the totality of worship nor of the congregation. The church is the body of Christ, the hands and feet of Jesus (1 Cor 12:14).

For this reason, I also require all of my counselees to attend a local church for the duration of their counseling. Just as I need the whole church, the wounded and smarting heart also needs the whole church. Yes, the counselee needs the intensity of the biblical counseling office and the reinforcement that comes through practical homework assignments. But she also needs those encouraging hugs, the hope found in a rich hymn, the loving prayers of the couple in the next pew over, and those moments of reassurance that come as she realizes through a lunchtime conversation about the sermon that she is not alone in her battle against temptation. The soul twisting in the wind needs the church just as much as the soul grounded upon the gospel.

The church fathers of old used to speak of the church as being a nurturing mother. Just as a baby dies without milk, so the believer will die if he or she neglects the food of the church. Stated positively, confessional corporate worship will as Hebrews 10:25 says, “stir up one another to love and good works.” The faithful local church feeds the soul.

The couple that can skip church for months to pursue their highschooler’s softball career no more understand the gospel of Jesus than a surgeon who thinks it’s fine to amputate a foot and then leave it on ice for a month or two understands medicine. We would undoubtedly question the skills of the surgeon. Understandably, the authors of the Bible question the spiritual life of those who willfully neglect the gathering of the church, the life-giving food of the Lord.

Christians need the local church, the whole body. Those who delight in God will forever delight in church: the old ladies, the wiggly kids, the awkward teenager, the tired mom, and the host of other personalities who make our local churches the household of God. As David said in Psalm 16:3, “As for the saints in the land, they are the excellent ones, in whom is all my delight.” This pastor needs the saints. You need the saints.

So why do I go church? I go to church because it consists of the people of God who facilitate the worship of God. If you claim Christ and can make it to church this Sunday, I encourage you to go too. Will you?