Calling All Heroes

     Pilot Tammie Jo Shults, after a catastrophic engine failure on April 17, successfully made an emergency landing of Southwest Flight 1380 with 195 on board. She was given a hero’s welcome at the White House on Tuesday, May 1, 2018. She along with the first officer, three flight attendants, and five passengers of the ill-fated flight were publicly commended by President Trump for their actions. He commented, "Tammie really did an incredible job." He joined the praise that has been heaped upon her by passengers on the plane as well as others amazed at her actions and skills that led them to declare her a hero.
     Heroes are not so much created as much as they just show up and rise up to address a crisis. Having said this we also realize that much of their lives have been preparing for the particular event that demands heroism. Tammy grew up in a New Mexico ranch near Holloman Air Force Base where jets constantly flew overhead. This coupled with reading about missionary pilot, Nate Saint, fueled her inspiration to become a pilot. In high school her interest was further ignited.  After graduating from MidAmerica Nazarene University in Kansas, she applied to the Navy, attended Officer Candidate School, was commissioned into the Navy in 1985, and earned her pilot’s wings. Shults then reached the rank of lieutenant commander becoming one of the first female fighter pilots in the U.S. military. In 1993 she became one of a small percentage of female pilots in the commercial airline industry where just 6.33% of commercial pilots are women. All of that background molded her to become the person she was on that fateful day at 30,000 ft. in the skies between New York and Philadelphia. That day in a crisis she was an aviation hero.     What was her initial response to what had happened? Tammie joined her copilot and the flight's other three crew members issuing a statement that they "feel we were simply doing our jobs." As the media reported on her heroism, Christianity Today interviewed Staci Thompson, a longtime friend and administrative assistant in the church office of the First Baptist Church in Boerne where Tammie worships and serves. Staci said, “She wants people to know that God was there with her” on Flight 1380, “that He helped her in getting control of that plane and landing that plane.” Thompson added, “It was because of Him, not her. She was just a teammate and a co-captain. He was the captain.” Tammie’s text to a fellow pilot several hours after landing the plane, “God is good.”     In many respects she was already a hero in many other ways. The Dallas Morning News wrote, “It seems that nearly everyone in Boerne has a Tammie Jo story, and taken together, they paint a picture of a woman almost too impossibly caring, too impossibly devoted to her community. But, they say, that’s why she was a role model long before she landed that damaged jetliner.” Her Christian faith guides her and her family. The newspaper reported, “Shults has taught nearly every grade level of Sunday school at their church. She’s volunteered at a school for at-risk kids and turned a cottage on her family’s property into a temporary home for victims of Hurricane Rita and widows.”     The Bible is filled with women that became heroes as they stepped into the messes and crises of life in a sin- marred world. One such woman that comes to mind is Esther. Esther was called upon to enter into the lives of the Jewish people who faced extermination at the hands of a religious bigot who hated the Jews for their religion and cultural differences (Esther 3:8-9). The challenge to intervene in this crisis was issued by her Uncle Mordecai. Esther had been divinely placed in a favored position as the queen of King Ahasuerus, the Persian king who ruled a vast empire from India to Ethiopia. Her first response was hesitant. She receives further urging from her Uncle Mordecai (4:8,13,14). He challenges her to act courageously by saying, “Who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” As we live our lives we must consider that all of the experiences we have had in life may be leading us to act in the crisis that we are currently facing. Esther did act. The king reversed the evil intentions of Haman the bigot (Esther Ch. 7-8). The extermination of the Jews was averted.     Heroes are manifested when people act as they should to intervene in a crisis. It may mean using a divinely given talent. It may mean speaking up to address an injustice. It may mean placing oneself in harm’s way for the life of another. It may mean ignoring personal cost while focusing more on the other person’s need. One thing is for sure, a hero shows up by their action not their indifference.     The greatest hero to me is Jesus Christ. The Scripture describes his action this way, “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:6-8). Christ saw us in crisis and acted to intervene in the crisis. He is definitely a hero!     Our world is desperately in need of more heroes. They will show up as people rise up to enter a world in crisis.