I miss my mate, Phil.

My mate Phil Latham passed away in the early hours of Sunday the 29th of December. I miss him.

When I first met Phil I wasn’t sure how to take him. He looked like a biker. But it was soon clear that the image of the gruff biker that you would infer from a distance did not represent the heart of the man.

Phil was a chaplain and he really cared for the kids he worked with. We recorded this video with him about a year ago:

My hope is to build a church where everyone is finding their calling, and in chaplaincy Phil had clearly found his. He seemed to almost effortlessly build bridges with people that resulted in the kinds of conversations that would change lives.

One of the themes in my discussions with him about his work in the schools was his real concern for the mental health of our kids. He was particularly concerned about the number of students he saw who have had their lives negatively impacted by digital devices in general, and social media particularly. Phil was always concerned when he thought anyone was missing out on living life fully.

It was that same impulse that meant his heart broke for the homeless in Hobart. Over the winter there were numerous stories about the plight of people who were missing out in Australia’s most challenging rental market, so Phil thought he would go and find them so he could understand the problem for himself. After hanging out with people that most Hobartians would cross the street to avoid, Phil organised the kids from Bellerive Primary to have an experience of homelessness which became front-page news in the Hobart paper.

After a while, I also discovered that Phil wrote songs. He talked about a song he had written from the point of view of a soldier in the middle of the chaos of war. When I discovered that Remembrance Day was going to fall on a Sunday in 2018, I immediately asked Phil whether he would be open to performing it:

As I hope you can already tell, Phil was a special bloke. I didn’t really understand how special he was until about this time last year (January 2019) I spoke to Leeanne about the possibility of starting a small group. Phil and Sonya (Phil’s wife) were two of the first to sign up.

I explained to everyone on the first night that I wanted to find a way to build a real sense of authentic community in our church and that this small group was an experiment for me in how we could make it happen.

Our small group is a real mixture of personalities. The first few weeks were a little awkward but Phil really helped us all. He was ready to share honestly from the first week, which along with his ability to crack a joke at just the right moment, helped everyone to relax. He naturally built the kind of community that I hope will become normal for our church.

After a couple of weeks at the small group, Phil heard about my weekly Kingdom Cell catchup. I wrote about Kingdom Cells in my book 6 Radical Decisions. They are basically a very small group (2-5) of people at a similar life stage whose purpose is to encourage one another to follow Jesus in every area of their life.

We all need these kinds of mates. I knew I did when I started meeting with Gus and Mark in early 2018. When Phil asked whether he could join us I wasn’t sure how it would work. We three were only just starting to get to know each other. I wasn’t sure how much adding a fourth person would affect us. I shouldn’t have worried.

The level of heart response Phil brought to our conversations helped us all. He helped us think about things from a different perspective. He cared deeply and both approached and also appreciated life in a refreshing way.

Before Phil joined us, I assumed the ideal number for a Kingdom Cell was three people, I’m now inclined to favour four.

Phil kept suggesting that we take time to do a walk together or hang out together more. I thought it was a good idea but figured we would get to it when things were less busy.

A life and death battle

For a while, Phil was complaining about gut pain and not eating properly. It seemed strange but I didn’t think much about it. When he finally got the necessary tests that showed cancer in his kidney and liver it was hard to process.

Phil and Sonya continued to come to our small group. Phil still faithfully turned up at our Kingdom Cell Wednesday mornings. In some ways, it was hard to tell that he was sick, but gradually the battle became clearer. When Phil was hospitalized as a result of excess fluid and other complications from medication, I began to realise how serious the situation actually was.

While at the hospital Phil’s remarkable character stood out to everyone. Not only did he push through pain in order to engage with the steady stream of visitors, and take the time to join our small group on speakerphone (and crack a few jokes at my expense), but he connected deeply with one woman whose daughter was terminally ill, assuring her that he and our small group would be praying for her.

Phil seemed to have a remarkable ability to both make people laugh and then quickly move to heart level communication.

It was only a few weeks ago that Phil declared to a table of stunned wedding guests “It’s time to get this party started” as he spilled a bunch of his cancer drugs onto the table. I bet a number were trying to work out whether to laugh or call the Police. A few minutes later he was asking two young women at the table whether they knew Jesus and sharing how important his own relationship with God was as he managed this stage of the journey.

I’d love to know how many people had the trajectory of their lives changed through conversation with Phil in the last months of his life. I know it was a lot.

For the last few weeks, our Kingdom Cell met at Phil’s place and it was there where Phil said clearly to me, “I think Jesus is calling me home.” Phil was genuinely open to God’s will. I was less excited.

About 12 hours before he passed away he was in and out of consciousness. At one point he groaned from the pain and looked into my eyes and said: “I need you mate.” I needed him too. I didn’t want him to go.

I asked whether he wanted me to pray and he nodded. Searching for words, I wanted to pray for the miracle, that everything would be ok. In the end, I can’t remember exactly what I did pray. It was a bit all over the place. I’m grateful I was there though.

The next morning I was preparing to head into church to preach my final sermon before taking a few weeks off when the phone rang. It was Sonya. Phil had died during the night.

Trying to make sense of our loss…

I believe that God heals people. From the moment we got the news till the day Phil passed away I was praying for a miracle. The elders anointed Phil with oil, we laid on hands and prayed on several occasions and we even had a week of prayer and fasting. Sometimes the prayer seemed to help in the short term, but nothing changed the trajectory of the disease which moved faster than anyone predicted.

Phil had so much more to give and I have no doubt that if he had been with us for another 30 or 40 years, many people would have benefitted.

One of the most difficult questions for me as a pastor is why God seems to answer some prayers and not others. It seems crazy that God would give someone a carpark in a shopping center and not heal my mate.

I take some consolation from the fact that the two most significant people in the bible also had prayers unanswered.

The Apostle Paul had an affliction that he was desperate for God to relieve:

I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me.

2 Corinthians 12:7-8

God’s answer to Paul was one that Phil embodied:

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

2 Corinthians 12:9

As our Kingdom Cell was talking this week about Phil, Mark said something that most people who met Phil over the last two or three months would agree with. “The only way to describe how Phil managed his illness was that he had supernatural help.”

Jesus himself prayed that God would save him from suffering:

He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.”
Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me.

Matthew 26:37-39

Jesus’ response to God was the same as Phil’s:

Yet not as I will, but as you will.

Matthew 26:39

There is an uncomfortable part in one of my favorite N.T. Wright books that reminds me that the measure of faith isn’t how God answers our prayer for freedom from affliction but rather to what extent we are willing to die to ourselves.

He writes:

Because Jesus bore the cross uniquely for us, we do not have to purchase forgiveness again; its been done. But because, as he himself said, following him involves taking up the cross, we should expect, as the New Testament tells us repeatedly, that to build on his foundation will be to find the cross etched into the pattern of our life and work over and over again.

We would rather this were not so, and we twist and turn to avoid it. We find ourselves in Gethsemane, saying, “Lord, can this really be the way? If I have been obedient so far, why is all this happening to me? Surely you don’t want me to be feeling like this?” Sometimes indeed the answer may be “No.” It is possible that we have indeed taken a wrong road and must now turn and go by a different way. But often the answer is simply that we must stay in Gethsemane

N.T. Wright The Challenge of Jesus p 189

Most of us want a God who will save us from any kind of pain. We want a God who makes sure every child is protected, every family is whole and every Phil is healed. The God we follow though, somehow brings hope through our own personal places of Gethsemane.

As Phil experienced his Gethsemane he showed everyone the revolutionary truth that Paul and Jesus knew only too well: God’s strength is most clearly seen in our weakness and the cross is the path to life.

This side of eternity we won’t be able to understand why it has to be this way. But apparently it is. Ultimately I have to trust a God who tells me:

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the Lord.
“As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Isaiah 55:8-9

Thanks, Phil for the way you showed us all what it means to follow the Jewish carpenter. I miss you mate. You could have hung around here a bit longer, and I’m chatting to God about that, but I’m glad you are now hanging out with Jesus.

I reckon you’ve already got a bunch of people laughing and engaged in real conversation. I look forward to catching up in a few decades.