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Sunday Hymns: Walking Alone At Eve

Posted in Other, Sunday Hymns, tagged , on June 17, 2012| 10 Comments »

Brother Slater was a kind of celebrity at our church when I was a boy. He and his wife Sister Slater would sit toward the front on the left side of the auditorium. As a young boy, all I knew was that he had written Walking Alone At Eve, which was one of my favorite songs.

William Washington Slater was more than a celebrity; he was a great saint and servant of God. Born in 1885 in Arkansas, Will’s family moved to Indian Territory in 1890 to farm. Like many boys of his time, his formal schooling ended in the fourth or fifth grade, but not his desire for learning.

By the time he was 18, his special interest in music was apparent.  The story is told of his saddling and riding a mule fifteen miles every Saturday to attend singing schools, so he could become a better song leader.  He later decided he wanted to preach as well, so he soon became a preacher-song leader, preaching gospel meetings and leading singing for other great preachers.

He married Nettie Washington in 1910, and they had five children. Three of his daughters went to church at Eastridge Church of Christ, where I grew up, so I knew them and several of their children. Thelma Slater married Wade Banowsky and one of their sons William Slater Banowsky became president of University of Oklahoma and Pepperdine University.

I remember the quiet announcement at church that Brother Slater had died while preaching a meeting in Arkansas in 1959. According to accounts of his last day, he had preached his sermon and, as was his custom, offered to stay after church and sing with any who wanted to join him.  Someone asked him to lead a song entitled “This Is Someone’s Last Day.” Before leading it, he reminded the church to pay attention to the truth of the message, not knowing that it was his very own last day.

Walking Alone At Eve (1917) was one of Will Slater’s earliest songs.  As in many older hymns, it is God’s creation that inspires worship. I imagine country folks walking or riding in their wagons home from an evening of preaching and singing. As it grows dark and the stars start popping out, this might be one of the songs that they would sing.

Walking alone at eve and viewing the skies afar,
Bidding the darkness come to welcome each silver star;
I have a great delight in the wonderful scenes above,
God in His power and might is showing His truth and love.

Sitting alone at eve and dreaming the hours away,
Watching the shadows falling now at the close of day;
God in His mercy comes with His Word He is drawing near,
Spreading His love and truth around me and everywhere.

Closing my eyes at eve and thinking of Heaven’s grace,
Longing to see my Lord, yes meeting Him face to face;
Trusting Him as my all where-so-ever my footsteps roam,
Pleading with Him to guide me on to the spirits’ home!

The chorus is that simple, ubiquitous longing for rest with God.  Resting is the reward for working hard. I wonder why we don’t sing many songs about rest anymore?  The melody of the chorus is simple, not a passionate cry, but a quiet, simple longing.

O for a home with God, a place in His courts to rest,
Sure in a safe abode with Jesus and the blest;
Rest for a weary soul once redeemed by the Savior’s love,
Where I’ll be pure and whole and live with my God above!

I don’t really know why, but I have sung this song to all of our kids as I rocked them to sleep.  Perhaps it was singing at the end of the day, usually in a darkened room, and the simplicity of the melody—I’m not quite sure why it became one of those songs I sang to them, but it did.

I do know that it cleanses your soul to hold your little God-gifts on your shoulder and to sing about being pure and whole and living with God. The congruity of those precious moments with this melody has always been redemptive for me.

Great hymns do improve our walk with God. 

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A Common Love For Each Other — Really?

Posted in Christian Culture, Other, Uncategorized, tagged , , , on June 12, 2012| Leave a Comment »

A good place for conversation.

We need a new word! We’ve called them retreats, advances, weekends, and other things, but we need a good positive word that implies building a collection of common experiences with people that we go to church with, but that we don’t really know that well outside of church.

I’m writing as the sun is coming up on Sunday morning over Lake Granbury. The sky is that pinkish orange in the east, the birds are awake, so the cicadas are toning it down, lest they become breakfast for the birds. The morning breeze is just enough so that I can sit here on the balcony in my pajamas and be comfortably cool on what may be one of the hottest days of this year by late afternoon. We’ll be home by then!

Sherrylee and I have spent the weekend with three other couples and one single man, all members of our small group from church. Two couples we have known for several years; one couple joined our group just nine months ago, and the single man came into our lives even more recently.

For two years now, we have been saying that the only way to really get to know people at church is to share common experiences outside of church—but that’s easier said than done.  Finally, about four months ago, we committed to this weekend—and still two other couples could not make it work.

Our goal was to be together, to get to know each other, to build each other up, and to build an album of common experiences that will grow more meaningful as we live and worship and serve together in the future.

If you are younger, you might be surprised to learn that it is hard for older people to make new friends—real friends, not just new acquaintances.  Sherrylee and I moved to Fort Worth eleven years ago. We left the place where our kids grew up and went to school, so we left their friends and the parents of their friends with whom we had shared so many school programs, soccer games, and musicals.  We left our friends and colleagues at Oklahoma Christian, our friends at church, all of the people who knew us and our history for the previous two decades.

We came to a new place, but one where I had grown up, so I knew people, and people have known me and my family from my youth. We came to a wonderful church—but most of the people had friends already, and almost everyone had family near.  At our age, people are spending lots of time with either elderly parents, newly married children, or—best of all—grandkids!  And many have all of the above to fill their lives!

Sherrylee and I are doing the same—which doesn’t leave a lot of time and opportunity to build those more-than-superficial friendships that characterize most of our relationships at church.

And yet we still not only long for deeper relationships, we need them for our own spiritual well-being.

So our small group committed to this weekend away together, and it has been wonderful.  Here are a few suggestions in case you might want to do something similar.

  1. Get out of town, but not so far away that it costs a lot to get there or you spend all your time traveling. We opted for Granbury—about an hour outside of Ft. Worth—over East Texas which is much prettier—for this reason alone.
  2. Watch your costs, but don’t make it so cheap or primitive that you are spending all your time trying to save money or be comfortable.  We rented a house from VRBO.com for much less per person than we could have stayed at a resort or hotel. Staying at a house gives you a big living room where you can all sit around and talk,a kitchen and table where you can prepare meals and sit down together without worrying about restaurant disturbances—whenever you want to! And it gives you enough privacy for more intimate conversations if needed.
  3. Don’t overplan your schedule.  Sherrylee made sure I didn’t overplan, which is probably my tendency.  Having a pretty open schedule let us make plans as we go, creating more shared experiences. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t line up a few options ahead of time, however.
  4. Don’t cut your time too short!  We arrived about 3:30 on Friday and will leave by noon today (Sunday), all we could squeeze out of the weekend since most of us still have to go to work on Monday.  A one-day Saturday outing might have worked, but having two evenings to sit around and especially a full morning on Saturday was perfect.
  5. Don’t leave God out of your fun together!  We’ve talked about church, we’ve discussed our own spiritual issues, and we have prayed together. These things all happened pretty spontaneously in our group.  In addition, however, we brought the Gospel of John DVD, a wonderful word-for-word visual rendition of the gospel,  and watched it each evening before we went to bed. This morning after breakfast, we will watch Jesus celebrating His last Passover supper and finish the story as John tells it, after which we will break bread together and pass our own cup just as Jesus did.  We will ask for God’s blessing on our community as Jesus did on His small group the night before He died.
  6. Don’t do it just once.  Make the building of common experiences a tradition in your small group or with those you want to grow near.

The sun is up now, so I have to go help with French toast.  Don’t give up on having real friendships.  Maybe all you need is a trip to Granbury.

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The Keurig Generation vs. Church Leaders

Posted in Church Leadership, Other, tagged , , , on June 7, 2012| 3 Comments »

Last evening, I went to one of our regular restaurants to pick up supper and take it home.  I had to ask for the menu, even though we have eaten there dozens of times over the last decade, and I thought to myself: shouldn’t I know the menu by now?

But the fact is that the menu has changed several times over the last ten years. I don’t mean just a new item or two replacing something that no one ever ate; rather, I’m talking about new menus that mean you can’t even remember what the old menu was anymore!

The latest iteration, however, was not about new items, but about combinations of items. For just $20 you can have your choice of appetizers from a pre-selected list, plus any two entrées, again from a selected list. That’s the combination package that I chose, but there were other groupings as well. Lots of choices!

Have you walked down the cereal aisle lately at the grocery store? And it is a whole aisle—because there are so many different brands and kinds of breakfast cereal. I’m a Cheerios person myself, but now I have to choose between original, Honey Nut, Multi Grain, Apple Cinnamon, Banana Nut, Chocolate, Dulce de Leche, Multi Grain Peanut Butter, Cinnamon Burst, Frosted, Fruity, Oat Cluster Crunch, and Yogurt Burst Cheerios.

Choices—lots of choices—are inherent in the mentality of our culture.  It wasn’t always so.  I remember when we only had three TV channels, not hundreds, and  most people drove either a Chevrolet or Ford.

The Keurig Brewing System is a great example of how we function today.  Keurig advertises its machines as “single cup” brewers of coffee, tea, and other hot drinks.  From what I can gather, Keurig offers about a dozen different versions of its machines from which to choose, both residential and commercial, as well as over 250 different flavors of beverages.

So instead of making a pot of coffee which you drink out of your favorite mug each morning, you get to walk into the kitchen just barely awake and decide whether you want coffee, tea, or hot chocolate, then decide whether you want a breakfast blend of coffee or a real man’s roast, then decide whether you want an expresso-size or mug-size coffee, then punch a button and all your dreams come true! After that cup,  you decide whether you want another cup—and your decision tree starts all over again.

And people love having all those choices every time they want a cup of coffee! 

Church leaders tend to resist lots of choices.  Many, many choices mean messy organization, messy vision, messy budgets, messy theology.  Church leaders want simple church, single purpose, focused activities, and unified vision.

If you have tension in your church between elders and ministers and/or leaders and members, chances are good that it has to do with those who want choices and those who don’t.

If you are a church leader, think about these things:

  • The Apostle Paul had only seven points of unity in his letter to the Ephesians: One body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one God.  If we insist on unity on these points, we have apostolic backing.  If we go beyond this list, we are on our own!
  • This need for lots of choice is a generational difference—and the younger generation always wins because they live longer than you do!  When you are gone, they are going to sing the songs of their choice, meet when they want to, in the groups they like.  If it is not in defiance of Paul’s unities, don’t try to force everyone to eat Original Cheerios just because it is your favorite!
  • Allow yourself to see choices at church as something positive. I bet you don’t just watch network TV anymore—if you watch TV at all. When we got our first “other” channel in the DFW area, they showed the same movie in prime time for three nights in a row. Now you have your choice of around 75 thousand movies on Netflix at any time of the day or night. So many choices allow us to choose good movies now, not just the ones some program director wants us to see.  And that’s good!

Sherrylee’s Grandmother Blackman is famous in our family for saying when asked about raising teenagers, “If it’s not a sin, let them do it!”

That’s not bad advice for church leaders.  

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Sunday Hymns: Nearer My God To Thee

Posted in Other, Sunday Hymns, tagged , , , , on June 3, 2012| 2 Comments »

Just about three weeks ago, the world remembered the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic in April 1912.  I suspect that few events have impacted the psyche of the modern world like the sinking of this unsinkable ship, along with the tragic and needless deaths of over 1500 people, including some of the richest and most prominent people of their times.

One of the stories that persists in connection with the Titanic is that the string ensemble played Nearer My God To Thee until the very last moments before the ship sank, a story, whether true or not, certainly perpetuated by most of the movies about the Titanic, including the latest James Cameron Titanic (1997).

My memory of this great hymn places it among what we would have called communion songs, those songs sung just before serving the Lord’s Supper. As a boy, I remember this as being a very quiet time in our service, the lights dimmed, usually no music—just remembering the Lord’s death until He comes.

I’m sure it’s the mentioning of the cross in the first verse that made it seem appropriate for communion:

Nearer, my God, to Thee, nearer to Thee!

E’en though it be a cross that raiseth me;

Still all my song shall be nearer, my God, to Thee,

Chorus: Nearer, my God, to Thee, nearer to Thee!

It never really suggested imminent death to me, even though that appears to be the context in which it has been most often used.  Besides the Titanic story, this hymn is also associated with the death of two American presidents: William McKinley and James A. Garfield.

James A. Garfield

In 1881, just sixteen years after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, Garfield, the 20th president was shot in Washington, D.C., ironically, in the presence of Robert Todd Lincoln, the former president’s son.  He died 80 days later.  Nearer My God To Thee was played during his funeral procession.

Twenty years later, President William McKinley was shot while visiting the Pan American Exhibition in Buffalo, N.Y. . Here is the report from The Life of William McKinley (1916)

SUNSHINE in the sky above and gladness in the heart of the President brightened the morning of the 6th day of September, 1901. It was to be a holiday: a visit to Niagara Falls in the forenoon, a reception to the people in the afternoon. In joyous mood McKinley passed the hours of the excursion, his nature never more serene.  . . . As he approached, the President extended his hand;—but the proffered friendliness was met by two pistol shots which rang out from the revolver concealed in the seemingly bandaged hand. Instantly several of the guards seized the assailant and bore him to the ground. As they did so, one of them, kneeling by the head of the prisoner, glanced upward and saw the President, still standing, supported by friends, and gazing with an indescribable look of wonder and reproach.

While he was being helped to a chair the Secret Service men dragged the prisoner to the center of the temple and there some one struck him squarely in the face. Seeing this, the spirit of the Master, whom he had served all his life, came upon the stricken President, and he cried in a tone of pity, “Don’t let them hurt him.”

The friends now gathered about the wounded man were fanning him with their hats and watching anxiously to discern if possible the full extent of his injury. But the President’s mind was not upon himself. He was thinking of the beloved wife, who had leaned upon him so many years and whom he had always shielded so tenderly against the slightest care. As the Secretary bent over him, he whispered, tremblingly, “My wife—be careful, Cortelyou, how you tell her—oh, be careful!”

The president was rushed into emergency surgery:

     At such a time as this, the very essence of the human spirit, which may have shrunk for a lifetime from exposure to the eyes of men, is likely to assert its presence. From the time he was ten years old, President McKinley had unreservedly, but without ostentation, put his trust in God. It was the richest, deepest thought of his inner soul, and now, as he closed his eyes, realizing that he was about to sleep, perhaps to wake no more, his lips began to move and his wan face lighted with a smile. It was the same trust that now supported him. “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done,” he murmured. The surgeons paused. Tears came into the eyes of those about the table. “For thine is the kingdom, and the power and the glory, forever, Amen.” With these words he passed into unconsciousness, while the earnest surgeons sought with all their skill to prolong his life.

McKinley seemed to do well immediately after the surgery and all were very hopeful, but suddenly, a week after the operation, he took a fatal turn for the worse:

In the afternoon of Friday the President knew that the time had come for him to bid farewell to the world. He called the surgeons to his bedside and said, “It is useless, gentlemen, I think we ought to have prayer.” His eyes were half closed and again the smile of sublime faith in the future illuminated his features. A solemn silence fell upon the assembled doctors and nurses and tears could not be restrained. The dying President moved his lips and again it was the Lord’s Prayer that welled from his overflowing heart. The twilight descended and the room grew dark.

 The room was silent. The President put his arm around his wife and smiled at her. The family group and intimate friends about the bedside watched and waited. Then the lips moved again and the worn face became radiant. The inner soul was speaking once more and was voiced in the lines of his favorite hymn:—

“Nearer, my God, to Thee,
Nearer to Thee,
E’en though it be a cross—”

Fainter and fainter came the words until the whisper could scarcely be heard. Then a moment of silence. “That has been my inextinguishable prayer,” he murmured, almost inaudibly.

Perhaps one mark of the greatest hymns are those hymns which speak for our souls in the most critical moments, those we choose when our own words fail us.  Nearer My God To Thee has been one of those hymns and will continue to be if we don’t forget it.

Nearer, my God, to Thee, nearer to Thee!

E’en though it be a cross that raiseth me;

Still all my song shall be nearer, my God, to Thee,

Chorus: Nearer, my God, to Thee, nearer to Thee!

Though like the wanderer, the sun gone down,

Darkness be over me, my rest a stone;

Yet in my dreams I’d be nearer, my God, to Thee,

Chorus

There let the way appear steps unto heav’n;

All that Thou sendest me in mercy giv’n;

Angels to beckon me nearer, my God, to Thee,

Chorus

Then with my waking thoughts bright with Thy praise,

Out of my stony griefs Bethel I’ll raise;

So by my woes to be nearer, my God, to Thee,

Chorus

Or if on joyful wing, cleaving the sky,

Sun, moon, and stars forgot, upwards I fly,

Still all my song shall be, nearer, my God, to Thee 

Lyrics:  Sarah Flower Adams (1841)

Tune:   “Bethany” Lowell Mason (1856)

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Are You Afraid To Listen For God?

Posted in Bible Study, Other, tagged , on June 1, 2012| 1 Comment »

Rick Atchley just finished an extraordinary series of teachings called Hearing God, in which he raised some of the hard questions with which the most serious Christians wrestle, like

  • Does God really speak to us today? And, if so, how?
  • How can I improve my hearing?
  • How should one recognize that it is God speaking?
  • What do I think when I hear nothing at all?
  • What keeps us from hearing God?

All six of these lessons are available to you at http://www.thehills.org/index.cfm/PageID/1523/index.html .

Fifty years ago, few people in our movement were very uncomfortable talking about hearing God’s voice.  We were pretty convinced that God spoke to  Abraham, Moses, and the prophets, but that after the cross, He lost his voice and  resorted to just writing His message down by means of the Holy Spirit. And once he put the last period on the Book of Revelation, He had no need to say anything else, so He has not been heard from since.

As is often the case, fear drove us to these theological conclusions.  If God continued to speak, then it might be possible that He

  • Might tell someone else something He hadn’t told us!
  • Might change the pattern that we had discovered in the New Testament!
  • Might talk to someone not in our fellowship, which would suggest His endorsement.

 

Of course, we protected ourselves from our fears with theological headphones—noise-cancelling headphones that let us hear only the sounds we wanted to hear. Because of our fears, many Christians only recognize God’s handwriting, not His voice.

 

Let me just say this: there are false prophets who claim to be the voice of God; there are ungodly voices that want to capture our hearts;  and that some have not only distorted His voice but even forged His handwriting, producing “new” messages from God.  These forgeries, both oral and written, began even during the first century, so from then until now, Christians have been warned:  Do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world” (1 John 4:1)

So what does the voice of God sound like?  I wouldn’t speak for anyone else, but in my own life His voice has always been recognizable, even when indescribable.  I know that doesn’t make any sense, so let me elaborate.

Recognizing the voice of God is easier when you are familiar with what He has said before. By His grace and mercy, we have a whole library of His conversations, His speeches, and His meditations.  If you want to recognize His voice, you will become intimately familiar with what it sounds like.

This familiarity is also your protection against false voices:  the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. 5 But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger’s voice” (John 10:3-5)

My other suggestion to you is to learn to be quiet and wait. 

First, be quiet!  In those times when you are keenly aware of your need to hear God’s voice, perhaps before a big crisis or at a crossroads, stop talking because it is almost impossible to talk and listen at the same time.  In place of talking, listen to what you know to be His voice by reading His message—even ones that you don’t think apply to your situation.  His Word is living and dynamic.  How often have I been surprised by some arbitrary reading that spoke directly to my need!

Secondly, and even harder sometimes, just wait!  If you haven’t heard His voice, don’t do anything until you have!  Don’t let your need to know, or your need for security, or your action plan or schedule dictate when God must speak—or else you’ll act without hearing His voice.  In my experience, It has never been a good idea to give God deadlines.

The last two weeks have been wild at LST. Major changes started happening with our staff: some needed to leave, others needed to shift, and perhaps we need to hire.  In addition, big financial decisions need to be made almost immediately to adjust our spending for the last half of our year to meet our budget, decisions that will mean some shifts in how we do core activities.  On top of all of that, our landlord walked in two weeks ago and said that they were closing our building down and we needed to move by August!

Two weeks ago, Sherrylee said, it feels like God’s asking us to reinvent the ministry! I heard that word as the voice of God. Rick said last week in his last lesson, “Until God speaks, you have not heard the last word,” and those were God’s voice for me.  Some of our staff members had wishes and desires that made the answers to personnel shift decisions pretty obvious to me—and they were God’s voices.

Regarding our new location and office space—His voice is not clear yet, so we are waiting to hear.  That doesn’t mean sitting around the office doing nothing. No, we are looking at properties almost every day and will continue until His answer is clear.

Don’t be afraid! You can recognize His voice. God gave you the headset (maybe heartset would be a better word) you needed when He gave you the gift of His Spirit.

Here’s the last word:  “ The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit. 15 The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things . . . . (1 Corinthians 2:14-15).

 

 

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Sunday Hymns: Two of God’s Great Metaphors!

Posted in Other, Sunday Hymns, tagged , , on May 27, 2012| 5 Comments »

One of the sweet traditions that has all but disappeared in the last twenty years in many of our churches is the singing of morning and evening hymns.  If you don’t know what I’m talking about, then you probably worship in a little more contemporary church with no Sunday night service.

This is not a doctrinal issue or a matter of salvation, but it feels a little like it must have felt to give up eating food you grew in your own garden, or playing checkers with your friends at the courthouse, or watching Gunsmoke every Sunday night after church.  Some traditions were just sweet.

Here are some of my favorite morning hymns:

  1. Early My God Without Delay I Haste To See Thy Face
  2. In the Hush of Early Morning
  3. Again the Lord of Light and Life Awakes the Kindling Ray
  4. Awake and Sing the Song of Moses and the Lamb
  5. Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty, Early in the Morning Our Songs Shall Rise to Thee

Of course, these specifically morning hymns blend with the great songs of praise that were opening calls to worship, mostly for morning worship:

  1. O Worship the King
  2. Come Thou Almighty King
  3. Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee
  4. All Creatures of Our God and King
  5. Come Ye That Love the Lord
  6. All Things Praise Thee  (also, For The Beauty of the Earth)
  7. Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow

But nothing compares to evening hymns, the ones we not only sang at church but at retreats—and summer camp.  Every night at camp we would go to a different spot after dark, look up at the stars that none of us city kids could ever see, and sing one of these songs

  1. Abide With Me Fast Falls the Eventide
  2. Now the Day is Over (great tenor and bass parts)
  3. Softly Now the Light of Day
  4. Be With Me, Lord
  5. Savior, Breathe An Evening Blessing –  my very favorite!

James Edmeston wrote this last hymn sometime around 1820. There is a story told that during the Boxer Rebellion in China between 1898 and 1901, which was an uprising to root out imperialism and Christianity and when many thousands of Chinese Christians and foreign missionaries had been massacred, this hymn was sung as missionaries huddled together at night, worshipping God, but wondering if they would be alive in the morning.

Threatened with imminent death, the last verse must have taken great courage and faith to sing:

Should swift death this night o’er take us and our couch become our tomb . . . .

Here are all the lyrics:

Savior, breathe an evening blessing
Ere repose our spirits seal;
Sin and want we come confessing:
Thou canst save, and Thou canst heal.

Though destruction walk around us,
Though the arrow past us fly,
Angel guards from Thee surround us;
We are safe if Thou art nigh.

Though the night be dark and dreary,
Darkness cannot hide from Thee;
Thou art He who, never weary,
Watchest where Thy people be.

Should swift death this night o’ertake us,
And our couch become our tomb,
May the morn in heaven awake us,
Clad in light and deathless bloom

Of course, morning and evening hymns can still be sung suggesting symbolically the beginning and ending of life, so even without Sunday night services, I hope modern writers will draw on two of God’s most beautiful metaphors.

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Is Memorial Day for the Living Or the Dead?

Posted in Christian Culture, Other, tagged , , , , , on May 24, 2012| 4 Comments »

Smithfield Cemetery

Memorial Day used to be called Decoration Day in most places in the United States.  This annual event probably started as a memorializing of soldiers who fell during the Civil War, at first only the Union soldiers and then, a little later, even the slain Confederate soldiers.  Somewhere around the beginning of the 20th century, the general public adopted the event for their dead loved ones, regardless of military experience.

I had about twenty minutes to kill yesterday before my haircut appointment, so I decided to walk through the cemetery that abuts the parking lot to the hair salon.  The sign says “Historical Smithfield Cemetery,“  a notice that piqued my curiosity about why it was historical.  I found two graves of interest to me. The first was the grave of Eli Smith, recognized as the donor of the land for the church and cemetery and for whom the original town of Smithfield had been named.  The second I stumbled upon, but was glad I did, was for Clarence Cobb , “The barber of Smithfield for 65 years” as the marker read.

“Barber” Cobb cut my hair for all of my teenage years. I would ride my bicycle to Smithfield, walk in his little barbershop, get my burr haircut (we call it a buzz now, I think), get my neck shaved with the strap razor, and talk local baseball.  Good memories of small, insignificant moments—maybe that is what Memorial Day is about.

Memorial Day is not really a religious holiday, like Christmas or Easter–it’s more like Veterans Day—but maybe it should be!  How should Christians feel about those they have buried?  I’ve long felt like our tradition does not have a very highly developed theology of death.

At most we do some lip service to deceased Christians resting in Abraham’s bosom, drawing on Jesus’ teaching on the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19ff).  We certainly believe in the resurrection of the dead, but are uncertain about how physical that resurrection is.  We believe and preach eternal reward and eternal damnation, but we can’t really imagine either and both bring with them divisive questions.

I experienced one of the more shocking expressions of Christian theology in Germany during the 70s when the son of our landlord was killed in a car accident.  Shortly, thereafter, his father died of lung cancer inside the ambulance outside of our office.  We attended both funerals at the local protestant church (Evangelische Kirche), and in neither funeral was there mention of resurrection or heaven; the deceased live only in the hearts of their loved ones.

Is Memorial Day only about our memories of the dead?  Are our loved ones and those we honor still dead in those coffins under the ground upon which we stand?

I’ve come to believe very strongly and very literally in the words Jesus spoke to Martha, “The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die“(John 11).

What a difference it makes if we believe the deceased are alive! 

If the dead are alive, then

  • Perhaps we should view death as a transition from life to life– not such a big transition–one completed with no significant loss.
  • Perhaps we should view dying as more of a “laying off” or a “putting down” rather than “being robbed.”
  • Perhaps we should not mourn as those who have no hope.  We do not mourn that a planted seed will be transformed into a beautiful flower. We do not mourn the loss of a precious seed because we know that it was intended for planting (1 Corinthians 15:35-44).
  • Perhaps we should be more aware that the Body of Christ lives, including those members who no longer live with us!  The saints and witnesses of Revelation are all quite active in the plan and will of God, working on behalf of the saints and witnesses who breathe.
  • Perhaps we would be less afraid, knowing that Death has lost its sting.

Because “the last enemy to be destroyed is death” (1 Corinthians 15:26), Memorial Day is safe and secure, as are the funeral homes and cemetery owners.  Our appointment with dying is unavoidable.

But  what would be different for you if on this Memorial Day, you remembered that those by whose graves you stand are alive—very much alive?

 

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Are Christians Who Oppose Same-Sex Marriage Bigots?

Posted in Family and Marriage, Other, tagged , on May 17, 2012| 5 Comments »

The word bigot is a terrible word.  For me, it is in the same category as maggot, or phlegm, or vomit!  Those may be a little more sensory than you are comfortable with, but what about the racist N… word or the F… word for homosexuals?  Some words evoke so much emotion that to use them carelessly can damage others and to use them intentionally can be immoral, sometimes illegal.

A common dictionary defines bigot as a person who is “obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices, especially one who exhibits intolerance or animosity toward members of a group.”  The etymology is a little shadowy, but some suggest the root of the word may have been “by God,” or the mocking of that phrase by those who resented others using it.  In any case, the word has been around since the 12th century—and people who acted with intolerance or animosity toward others even longer!

Are Christians who oppose same-sex marriage guilty of bigotry?  Piers Morgan, who certainly can be seen as representative of a certain mindset in the American population, suggested the Rick Santorum, a practicing Catholic, was a bigot because he held to the teachings of his church that homosexuality is a sin.  Santorum made very clear that he did not feel it was government’s place to regulate morality for all citizens, but that did not keep Morgan from using the B..word!

I wonder if we could agree that it is not bigoted to just hold opinions?  I wonder if we could agree that within our working definition of bigotry that it is the words intolerance and animosity that give the odious smell to the word?

Was Jesus a bigot for saying that a man who lusts after a woman has committed adultery with her in his heart (Matthew 5:28)? In the same lesson, he says it is wrong to commit murder or to be angry and hate another person. Is that intolerant? (Matthew 5:21-22).

Was Jesus a bigot for saying that adultery is a sin? Or that divorce for frivolous reasons is not God’s Will? Or that not only breaking an oath, but anything other than a truthful Yes or No is not godly?

Was He intolerant because he said not every teacher is a good teacher, that some are wolves in sheep’s clothing (Matthew 7:15)? Or that those who simply call out to God without the prerequisite obedience will not enter the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 7:21).  Shouldn’t everyone get a trophy?

Was St. Paul intolerant and bigoted when he says that it was immoral and wrong for a man to sleep with his father’s wife (1 Corinthians 5:1-2)?

If today a minority group banded together to insist that all loving sexual activity between consenting adults was moral and should be allowed by law throughout the nation, including—as the opponents would certainly point out—prostitution, incest, sibling marriage, cousins marriage, and polygamous marriages, would we relegate St. Paul  to bigotry.

And if I haven’t yet touched anything that you hold a strong opinion on in any of the above paragraphs, anything that crosses your moral line and where someone else might be more liberal than you, how would you feel about wearing the bigot label?

Having said all of the above, I do believe there are bigots among us—on all sides. I’m appalled by bigotry among Christians like the Westboro Baptists who appear to me to cross over unequivocally into bitter intolerance and animosity.

I was reading a great story yesterday about a 9-year-old boy in Topeka, KS who with his mother happened to come upon a Westboro Baptist group picketing with hateful signs. He looked up at one picket sign that said, “God hates F….s”  According to his mother, he immediately ran back to the car and made his own crude, but profoundly true response to the sign.  His sign said, “God hates No One!”

God hates sin, but Paul says—yes, the same one who opposed incest:  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 5:7-9)

Christians cannot but hate sin as God does, but we must be just as loving of sinners, and we must demonstrate our love by letting mercy triumph over judgment! (James 2:13)

 

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A Response to Comments About Same-Sex Marriage

Posted in Family and Marriage, Other, tagged , , on May 15, 2012| 5 Comments »

Those who risked responding to my blog on same-sex marriage with differing viewpoints did us all a favor by kindly but clearly raising cogent arguments supporting same-sex marriage.  Neither Christians nor non-Christians should fear open and honest conversation; rather, I hope that we can all “speak the truth in love.”

In John 9 when Jesus heals the man born blind, Jesus’ disciples did not really see the blind man as Jesus did. They saw a theological problem: who sinned, this man or his parents?  They might have continued their conversation while walking right by the man himself.

Jesus, however, saw a person in need of healing, both physical and spiritual, for the glory of God.  I try to remind myself that in all of these difficult conversations, we are talking about our neighbors, our family, our church members, about classmates, co-workers, about people whom God loves!  That helps me with my tone of voice when responding.

But the love of Christ compels us (2 Corinthians 5:13-15) to speak and to say what God would say because “Since we believe that Christ died for all, we also believe that we have all died to our old life. 15 He died for everyone so that those who receive his new life will no longer live for themselves. Instead, they will live for Christ, who died and was raised for them.” I believe; therefore, I speak out.

So let me extend the conversation in response to those comments:

Argument:  Christians should not force Christian views on non-Christians.

Response:  I agree completely.  God doesn’t force people to believe, Jesus did not force people to follow him, and those who follow Him should not either.  However, my counter-question is how should it work in a democracy or representative government as we have when the political question involves what Christians believe to be a God-revealed truth?  Can only non-religious people have a seat at the table? Can only non-Christians campaign and vote on these issues?  Why are Christians who speak out and vote according to their faith “forcing” their views on non-Christians? And should any majority OR minority group, simply because they believe their cause to be moral and right, be silenced,  be segregated, be harassed, or be hated?

Argument: Marriage is a civil institution, not a religious one; therefore, the definition of marriage can and should be determined by the State.

Response:  I agree and disagree with this argument.  There is certainly a civil aspect to marriage. The State (and I am not using that term pejoratively) regulates the societal aspects of marriage in many ways, such as:

  • Who can get married?  Not 10-year-olds, not siblings, not people currently married, etc.
  • When can people get married? Some states have waiting periods; some require blood tests, etc.
  • Who can legally perform weddings? Some states allow anyone; others require ordained ministers and/or particular government officials.
  • Which marriages are recognized?  If you marry in a foreign country, the U.S. may not recognize your marriage. This is regulated by federal law.

In my opinion, everyone—including Christians—should “render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.” We all should submit to the legal authorities in every way with one exception, and that is, if required by law to violate the higher laws of God.

But I also disagree that marriage is only a civil institution. Marriage precedes the existence of civil states.  Marriage exists outside of political states.  For example, I was just watching “Finding Your Roots” with Henry Louis Gates, Jr., who discussed the fact that prior to the Civil War in the United States free African-Americans could marry legally, but slaves could not.  He continued to say, however, that, of course, slaves did marry, but that it was not recognized by the State.

Marriage, according to Jesus (Matthew 19:6) is God joining people together.  The earliest biblical revelation states that the reason for marriage was that “The Lord God said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” Adam was meant for Eve and Eve for Adam.  No legal ceremony occurred, only God joined them.  And the writer goes on to explain that because of God’s actions in the beginning, future men who marry will “leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. (Genesis 2:18,24)

I also believe all of the references describing Jesus as the bridegroom and the church as His bride made repeatedly from Matthew to Revelation are witnesses to the holy nature of marriage. And the metaphor is consistent with the Genesis passages and the words of Jesus in that only God joins people to Christ. We are born again, not by human will but by the will of God (John 1:13).

This is the “holy” side of marriage that Christians want to preserve.  Of course, they carry those convictions into the political discussion—and don’t they have the right to? They are just one voice, not the only voice, in the political debate.

Next we will talk about the argument that opposing same-sex marriage is bigotry—a very serious charge.

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Same-Sex Marriage and Shades of Grey

Posted in Family and Marriage, Other, tagged , , , , , on May 11, 2012| 3 Comments »

The President’s choice to come out for same-sex marriage disappoints me greatly, not really because of the politics, but rather because of what it says about the moral predicament in our country.  I am strongly in favor of equal civil rights for all Americans, regardless of their immorality, unless, of course they cross the line into criminal behavior—and even then, they should have equal access to the processes of law.

The poll numbers show an American public divided almost 50-50 on the issue. What really disturbs me even more than what the president did is that polls also show that 71% of 18-29 year-olds support gay marriage. I was pretty shocked one day in the LST office to hear a wonderful Christian young woman say, “I wish God hadn’t come down so hard on homosexuality!”   I suspect what these numbers show for young Christians (who certainly have to be in the 71% mix) is their sensitivity to social justice issues in conflict with what might appear to be the more restrictive biblical imperatives.

Before I write another paragraph, let me state that God so loved the world that He gave His Son!  God’s love is all-inclusive, me with my sin and you with yours.  And the Creator God who defines the essence of reality (Truth) by His Word has set homosexuality outside of that which is pronounced “Good!”  The question is not about choice, nor about love, nor about equal rights, but rather about submission.  The question for all of us is whether we live out “not my will, but Thine be done!”

I’m also disappointed in us for making the 50 Shades of Grey trilogy the best-seller on everyone’s list. Romance novels have always sold well, so that’s nothing new, but this particular trilogy seems to be a hit because of its kinky eroticism—especially aimed toward women’s fantasies apparently. I haven’t read it, but here just before Mother’s Day to have all the best-seller lists led by what the reviewers often refer to as “mommy porn” is a sad commentary on us!

Both of these phenomena are possible partly because we Christians have separated our physical bodies—including our sexuality—from our understanding of the image of God, the incarnation (God in us), and the indwelling of God’s Spirit¸ which makes our bodies a temple!

This skewed thinking probably starts as teenagers, when we are taught which sexual activity is right and wrong, but never hear anyone say that sex is for anything other than fun! And adults/church are always trying to keep kids from fun things, so how is sex any different.

I also firmly believe that we Christians have also completely removed the “holy” from holy matrimony.  Although held in church buildings, most of our marriages are secular services, sometimes with an occasional nod toward God who is sitting in the back of the auditorium.

Three things I would like to see:

  1. I’d like for our children to be taught that their bodies are the temple of God. I think once that is our predominant message, we will learn how to help them understand the implications for their life.
  2. Secondly, I would like to see us appear before the throne of God in our wedding ceremonies and not just come to the marriage altar and sign a legal document.
  3. And, lastly, I would like to see us re-mystify our sexuality, acknowledging it as a God-breathed gift, not only for our personal benefit, but because creating and loving is a reflection of God in us!  The oneness of sex is the same mystery as the oneness of God. The joy and pleasure of that oneness should be transcendent, not sado-masochistic.

I pray for the president; I pray for us.

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