The Internet Monk Archives

Our Moral Impulses — And Appreciating Our Neighbors’

Peaceable Kingdom (1846) Hicks

Note from CM: Sorry folks, but I see I’ve lost the battle today. I feel like the substitute teacher who has no hope of bringing order to the class. Please, either start responding to the points the post makes, or I will close comments for today.

Here’s my summary of what the post is about.

First, I am responding to Stephen’s comment yesterday about sympathizing with his conservative family members.

Second, I am trying to encourage loving our conservative neighbors by better understanding how they respond to the world in certain ways because of their moral instincts.

Third, In order to give us a template for thinking about those moral instincts, I appeal to Jonathan Haidt’s chart of five basic moral impulses, stating it and then restating it so as to give a picture of how, as Stephen said, “They feel lost and are daily confronted with a larger culture they feel alienated from.”

These are the points I had hoped we would discuss more fully today, but we’re chasing rabbits down a hundred other paths instead.

* * *

In his book, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion, Jonathan Haidt sets forth five foundations for the moral ways people think. He calls them the “taste buds” or receptors of the righteous mind.

I will call them “impulses” here to reflect Haidt’s point that these are fundamentally intuitive, “gut” instincts by which people respond to moral situations and questions. Reasoning comes later, both justifying and refining our moral viewpoints.

The Care vs. Harm Impulse
This impulse is sensitive to signs of suffering and need. It reacts against cruelty and sympathizes with those who are hurting, wanting to relieve their suffering.

The Fairness vs. Cheating Impulse
This impulse is sensitive to perceptions of fair treatment vs. the sense that someone is being taking advantage of or cheated.

The Loyalty vs. Betrayal Impulse
This is the tribal impulse. It is sensitive to signs that another person is (or is not) a team player. It trusts and rewards such people, and it wants to hurt, ostracize, or even kill those who betray the group.

The Authority vs. Subversion Impulse
This impulse finds security in order and in structures that assign people certain roles to fulfill. Respect for rank and status is to be rewarded, while disrespect and disloyalty must not be tolerated.

The Sanctity vs. Degradation Impulse
This impulse responds to things as clean vs. unclean, sacred vs. profane, virtuous vs. disgusting. As Haidt puts it, “people feel that some things, actions, and people are noble, pure, and elevated; others are base, polluted, and degraded.”

One of the ways Jonathan Haidt applies this understanding of our moral impulses is by looking at how, in general, people and groups who are “liberal” differ from those who are “conservative.” In his work he found that:

those who identify as liberal tend to emphasize the first two moral impulses,
whereas conservatives tend to emphasize the last three while redefining the first two.

So then, more “liberal”-minded people care most about care and fairness. They define care primarily in terms of protecting and advancing those who are suffering or have been marginalized — the weak, the poor, the forgotten, the invisible of the world. They define fairness in terms of equality.

The more “conservative”-minded people care also care about care and fairness. But they define care primarily in terms of worthiness — they long that honor be given to those who have proven themselves loyal to the group. And in terms of fairness, they define it not as equality but as proportionality — each getting what is deserved.

“Conservatives” exhibit the last three impulses most strongly. They value loyalty highly, find security in order and defined roles, and view things in terms of the sacred vs. the profane.

In other words, in the culture wars, we have (generally speaking) two opposing tribes, both with “righteous minds” (thinking they are right and their opponents wrong), who are speaking very different moral languages, misunderstanding each other because each can’t translate the moral impulses that drive the other.

This, I think, describes a key element in Stephen’s comment yesterday:

It’s easy to be dismissive and more than a little angry at them but I still feel a great deal of sympathy for the Trump Evangelicals. Perhaps because this group includes some of my own family. They feel lost and are daily confronted with a larger culture they feel alienated from. They can’t rely on the privileges enjoyed by their own parents. They listen to folks they shouldn’t listen to, who assure them there’s an easy way to solve all their problems. When Trump is gone they’ll be even more alienated from the political process than they are now. This is dangerous because frightened people are capable of doing foolish things.

Stephen is describing conservative people here.

People who have lived their whole lives feeling that certain things are sacred and certain other things are out of bounds, unclean, harmful to those who participate in them, and offensive to God and/or inherent laws of morality.

People who value and find security in stability, order, and clearly defined roles, and who struggle with changes that upset the balance and make them uncomfortable because they no longer know what to expect or how to speak and act.

People who want to stay loyal to the institutions and principles that they feel have provided security and well being, and who distrust and fear those who show disrespect or disdain for such loyalties.

People who value responsibility and wish to see it rewarded while irresponsibility is challenged and not rewarded.

People who are sensitive to the sacrifices of those who have built and maintained the world they love and wish that our society would prioritize making sure they are recompensed before taking on other care projects.

These are the conservative instincts that move many people to decide and act as they do, in their lives and in their political choices and loyalties. As supportive as I am of other, more progressive instincts to expand opportunity and limit discrimination, to provide care for all our neighbors and not just those who are like us, and to recognize and limit the powers of other corporate, institutional, and systemic threats to liberty besides that of “the government,” I want to make sure that I listen well and understand where my conservative neighbors are coming from too. And to recognize that I have a lot in common with them, and actually appreciate many of their impulses.

Frankly, I still don’t understand (and probably never will) how their “conservative” ethos ever led them to support the current regime in the White House. That choice seems to me to represent the very opposite of everything truly conservative-minded people stand for. That was a crap shoot, one of the riskiest shots in the dark ever fired in American politics. And then for their support to continue unabated while almost every traditional conservative doctrine has been abandoned….

Well, like I said, it’s beyond me.

The only thing I can figure is that “conservative” and “liberal” have taken on a revised meaning in our day. These labels have become mostly tribal designations, signifying more about whose side I’m on rather than describing what I actually think and feel.

Perhaps there was also a sense of desperation (that I admit I have difficulty understanding) about losing their world, that the appeal of a “strong man” presenting himself as their protector and the restorer of greatness was worth the risk.

At any rate, Jonathan Haidt wrote his book to help warring tribes learn to understand each other. To keep from talking past each other ad infinitum. To begin to appreciate the different impulses we think, speak, and live by. To recognize that the “other side” is not evil, but moved by different values, and that the fundamental impulses of others may be just as legitimate as my own and worthy of consideration.

Lion, meet lamb. Lamb, meet lion. Whaddya say we sit down together and talk about it?

Bring your swords too, maybe we can do a little pounding on them together.

Tuesday with Michael Spencer: The Tactics of Failure

The Right Way and the Wrong Way. Photo by Stephen Percival at Flickr. Creative Commons License

Note from CM:

From 2006, this is an edited excerpt from Michael’s diagnosis of why evangelicals are increasingly drawn to the culture war. It’s not, he says, contrary to what the rhetoric wants us to believe: because they have a Jesus-shaped mission to the world, caring passionately about the issues Jesus cared about. No, it’s a bit less flattering. He is suggesting that spiritually empty, poorly led and poorly taught evangelicals are mistaking the Kingdom of God on earth for the victory of their political and cultural preferences. The Culture War is a poor replacement for the mission of the church as a Jesus-shaped community, pointing to the eschatological Kingdom of God.

And if you want some clear examples of how bad it has gotten since Michael wrote these words, check out the articles about evangelicals on the iMonk Bulletin Board.

• • •

An edited excerpt from:
The Tactics of Failure: Why The Culture War Makes Sense To Spiritually Empty Evangelicals

Everywhere one looks, evangelicals are becoming the religion of the culture war. Liberals vs evangelicals almost defines America these days, and evangelicals don’t mind at all. The more intense it gets, the more we seem to know our place.

Increasingly, major evangelical ministries are becoming more interested in the culture war than any other topic. Take Baptist Press, the former press outlet for the Southern Baptist Convention. These days, fully half of the articles and columns coming from Baptist Press are culture war related, particularly dealing with abortion, homosexuality, feminism, stem cell research, support of the War in Iraq, displays of the Ten Commandments and politics in general. The SBC itself is, on some days, fortunate to get 1 or 2 articles on its own press service.

The SBC mounted a thinly veiled GOP-friendly voter registration movement in this past Presidential election., calling it “I Vote Values.” The SBC’s leading theologians are becoming secondary voices for the Republican party, with radio programs and press releases echoing the daily talking points from the RNC. SBC churches are more politicized than ever, and vigorous defenses of a political, culture war interpretation of discipleship are common. Younger culture war pastors, invigorated by the examples of SBCers like Jerry Falwell, Christian America historians like David Barton, and political preachers like D. James Kennedy, are making increasingly brash statements in the pulpit about what views on the culture war are compatible with being part of SBC churches.

The recent national story of Minneapolis pastor Greg Boyd losing over a thousand members in response to his stand against typical conservative culture war issues — such as the display of the American flag during a Christian worship service — points out how strongly many evangelicals feel about the culture war. They see the culture war mission as the critical component of living as a Christian in America. While no one denies that issues of life and sexuality are part of any Christian’s commitment to truth and compassion, the identification of these culture war issues with the myth of a Christian American is disturbing. Where is the gospel?

I believe the upcoming Presidential election cycle will bring about an unprecedented amount of Christian culture war rhetoric. The likely candidacy of Hillary Clinton will energize many American evangelicals as never before. Christians will be subjected to endless reminders that the “Salvation” depends on the defeat of Clinton. Clinton’s likely appeal to her own faith and to younger, anti-Bush, anti-war evangelicals will make the rhetoric among evangelicals even greater.

Of course, it would be hard to beat what one can hear right now from a Rod Parsley or Richard Roberts. A recent Roberts’ message that I overheard openly stated that the Bush re-election was God’s victory over Satan, and that it was the church that elected Bush. Such rhetoric is wrong and spiritually dangerous, but it also indicates a level of evangelical failure that is seldom discussed.

I wonder if evangelical leaders have contemplated what the effects on the “soul” could be with a political message and a culture war Gospel being sold by trusted leaders to a church often devoid of a Biblical mission.

Perhaps the evangelical lust for success in the culture war tells us more than we see it at first; perhaps it tells us about a more profound and troubling failure.

The Failure of Spiritual Formation

The most basic aspect of any religion is the ability to pass on its DNA to converts and the next generation. That DNA contains the essential beliefs, texts, stories, theology and articulation of the religion, but it also contains the “shape” or “form” of how that religion is lived out in the world in the lives of its believers.

For example, Islamic beliefs are easily summarized by any high schooler with Wikipedia, but what about living the Islamic life? There are already major divisions in the religion regarding religious practice, but fitting Islam into the modern, globalized and secularized world is the greatest challenge of all. Resurgent Islamicism is, in large part, a struggle to change the world to fit Islam because of the threat that Islam will be diluted and changed by the world.

Evangelical Christians face a similar challenge. The DNA of our religion can be passed on in books and other forms of written communication, but how do we live the life of a Christian? This is the question of “spiritual formation,” a much talked about subject among practical and experiential theologians and practitioners. How do we “form” our children into disciples? How do we bring them to the place of choosing Christian identities? How can we influence them toward the forms of Christian life, practice and worship that bring authentic Christianity into this generation, and prepare to move it on into the next?

Spiritual formation has, traditionally, been the work of the Christian family and of the church, particularly its teaching and pastoral ministries. Most evangelicals are aware of aspects of spiritual formation, even if they have never heard the word. Quiet Time. Personal Worship. Accountability. Discipleship groups. Mission trips. Choosing a Church. Knowing God’s Will. Prayer Life. Scripture memory. Personal retreats. Revival. Evangelism training. Re-dedication. These are some of the ways that evangelicals have talked about and attempted to carry out the important work of spiritual formation.

American evangelicals can point to hundreds of publications and programs aimed at some kind of spiritual formation result. The fact is that any honest, but generous judgement would say that after a century of moderate success, the twentieth century and beyond have witnessed an unparalleled failure of evangelicals in the area of spiritual formation. In other words, evangelicals are increasingly spiritually empty, and they are susceptible to a message that the world needs to be changed rather than themselves.

Both families and churches struggle in turning out disciples. American churches specialize in an consumerized, gnostic, experiential Gospel that is increasingly inseparable form the culture in which that church exists. American evangelicals have become as much like the dominant culture as it is possible to be and still exist at all. In fact, evangelicals continue to exist, in large measure, because they have mainstreamed the culture into their religion so that one’s Christianity hardly appears on the radar screen of life as any in any way different from the lives of other people. We are now about values, more than about Christ and the Gospel.

Evangelicals should come to terms with this: they are in every way virtually identical to suburban, white, upper middle class American culture. They are not as bad as the worst of that culture, but they are increasingly like the mainstream of that culture and are blown about by every wind of that consumerized and materially-addicted culture. In fact, go to many evangelical churches and the culture is so present, so affirmed, preached and taught that one would assume that there is nothing whatsoever counter-cultural about the affirmation that Jesus is Lord.

Spiritual formation is no longer interesting to most evangelical churches. Pentecostals want experience and megachurches want activity and support. The point at the end of it all is the expansion of the churches themselves and the ability of individual Christians to live in support of the church as the proper end of the earthly Christian life. The missional goal of most evangelical churches in America is the further growth of the church.

Eugene Peterson has written for years on the loss of the pastor as one who directs the spiritual formation of Christians through the Word, prayer, community and the sacraments. He has lamented the ascendancy of a “pastoral” model that is, in reality, a church growth technician, not a spiritual leader. Peterson has been a true prophet, and we can only hope that younger evangelicals are going to reread and finally hear his warnings now that they have all come true.

My Conclusion

I am suggesting, therefore, that the increasing interest in the culture war among evangelicals is not an example of a reinvigorated evangelicalism remaking its culture. Instead, I believe the intense focus by evangelicals on political and cultural issues is evidence of a spiritually empty and unformed evangelicalism being led by short-sighted leaders toward a mistaken version of the Kingdom of God on earth.

The Culture War makes sense to Christians who have little or no idea how to be Christians in this culture except to oppose liberals and fight for a conservative political and social agenda — an agenda often less than completely examined in the light of scripture, reason, tradition and experience. Those evangelicals — like Greg Boyd — who have challenged or broken the identification with the political right can testify to how they are immediately viewed. Dissenting evangelicals are labeled as pro-abortion, pro-gay marriage and pro-Democrat instantly. The rhetoric of the culture warriors is relentless in associating dissenting evangelicals of every kind with the issues of abortion and homosexuality. No one could be blamed for believing that evangelicalism was a modestly spiritual movement with the goal of banning abortion and gay marriage. (I predict the comment thread of this essay will demonstrate exactly what I am saying.)

In this scenario, there are a number of bizarre takes. The SBC’s most well known theologian doesn’t write books of theology. He hosts a daily talk radio program on cultural war issues. Rod Parsley may preach about miracles, but he uses his influence to elect candidates and promote political causes. Politicians elected by evangelicals get re-elected by appealing to the hot button culture war issues, but their positions on issues like gambling or Aid to Africa are unpredictable and often unknown. The Left Behind movies become video games where the godless are shot by Christians defending themselves. Ann Coulter appears on TBN, promoting her take on why evangelicals ought to care about the influence of real “godless” liberals.

Where is the gospel? Where is the missional calling of the Christian? Where is the church’s ministry of spiritual formation? Where are ministries of Word and Sacrament? All of these are increasingly buried under doublespeak and culture war rhetoric. Evangelicalism is being betrayed by many of its leaders who are building their “ministries” by the appeal to anything but the Gospel and compassion of Jesus.

The culture war agenda increasingly makes sense to evangelicals who are spiritually unformed, distracted and misled.

Sermon: Are We Living at a Turning Point in History? (Luke 12:49-56)

Storm Clouds Gathering. Photo by Zooey at Flickr. Creative Commons License

Sermon: Are We Living at a Turning Point in History? (Luke 12:49-56)

“I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed! Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three; they will be divided: father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”

He also said to the crowds, “When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, ‘It is going to rain’; and so it happens. And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, ‘There will be scorching heat’; and it happens. You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?

• • •

The Lord be with you.

Last year, Sojourners magazine, a publication that exists to discuss “the intersection of faith, politics, and culture,” asked a question in one of its articles. Here is that question: “ARE WE LIVING IN A ‘BONHOEFFER’ MOMENT?”

Do you recognize that name? Sojourners was speaking of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, one of the most famous Lutheran theologians and pastors in the last century. Bonhoeffer is famous for his writings and actions in Germany when the Nazis rose to power and led Europe into World War II. Bonhoeffer was part of what was known as “The Confessing Church,” a group of Christians who believed that it was a Christian necessity to oppose Hitler and the Third Reich.

When the Nazis came to power, they tried to unify all the Protestant churches into one state church. In answer, some Protestants, led by such theologians as Karl Barth, Martin Niemoller, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, put out a statement called The Barmen Declaration, which said that it is theological heresy to have the State control the Church, and that both Church and State stand under God’s Word and commandments. The Nazis, of course, were trying to coordinate and take over the churches to promote their Aryan and antisemitic views and policies. Bonhoeffer and other members of The Confessing Church would have none of it.

Bonhoeffer had voiced his opposition to the rise of the Nazis very early. When Adolf Hitler was elected chancellor of Germany in 1933, just two weeks later, Bonhoeffer did a radio broadcast, warning that too many young Germans were attaching themselves to a false idea of a leader — or a Führer — who would be the savior of Germany. Bonhoeffer’s vocal and active opposition to the Nazis continued from that point, until 12 years later he was executed as a traitor.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer lived at a turning point in history. A crisis point. One of those times in the history of the world when people were called upon to take a stand, to take sides, to clarify their loyalties. It was a life or death time, a no-nonsense time, a time when the issues were becoming clear and people would be forced to choose which way they would go. It ultimately turned into a time of world war and deadly consequences for millions of people.

As we look back now, it becomes clear what people should have done in those circumstances. But what do you think you would have done if you had been a Christian in Germany in those years when the Nazis came to power? What would you and I have said or done as one of the most challenging crises in human history was developing and forming into a storm that would ultimately threaten to overwhelm the world?

In our Gospel text today, Jesus is warning the people of his day that they too were living on the cusp of one of those times — one of those turning points in history. He and his fellow Jewish citizens lived at a time of Roman occupation and growing unrest in the land. And now he had come: Jesus, the promised Messiah, at the greatest turning point in history, warning about a coming crisis and calling people to trust him, to follow him and to live out his teachings in the light of the impending storm.

In our text today Jesus indicates that this storm is going to come like fire falling from heaven. The troubles, he says, will include a crisis event in his own life — a “baptism” he calls it that he must undergo. He is certainly speaking of his own death here. He also says that the days which are coming will be so stressful and full of conflict that even households will be divided. Intimate family members will take sides and oppose each other passionately. A time of trouble and war is on the horizon, Jesus is warning, and people must be ready for it.

He is speaking of events that actually took place. Within a generation after Jesus died, the Romans invaded and destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple, scattering the Jewish people from their land into exile among the nations. It was such a thorough and decisive loss for Israel that it took them almost 1900 years to ever gain a foothold in the Promised Land again. It wasn’t until after the days of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and World War II that they came home.

Jesus saw that coming. He knew he had come in a moment of impending crisis. It was of those times in the history of the world when people would have to take a stand, take sides, and clarify their loyalties. It was a life or death time, a no-nonsense time, a time when the issues were becoming clear and people would be forced to choose which way they would go. It ultimately turned into a time of world war and deadly consequences for millions of people.

As the text goes on, Jesus admonishes the people that they must be wise, they must be discerning, they must recognize the signs that are pointing to this coming crisis. People in that land were very skilled in predicting the weather and planning their lives accordingly. But Jesus rebukes them for being unaware of the political, social, and spiritual storm that is on the horizon. “You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?” he says. It’s remarkable how we human beings can be so blind to the dangers in our midst, so slow to grasp the signs of the times.

And so, I would like to ask, along with Jesus and with Sojourners magazine: ARE WE IN SUCH A MOMENT?

Are we living in a time that has the potential to become a full-blown crisis? Are there signs around us that we should be seeing? Signs that a storm is coming? Signs that, pretty soon, we won’t be able to just conduct business as usual? Signs that our faith is going to be tested like never before? Signs that we are going to have to take stands, take sides, and clarify our loyalties in ways that might even upset members of our own families? Are there indications that a “life or death” time is not far away, and that we are going to have to make some extremely difficult choices about what we will say and how we will live our daily lives?

I’m not Jesus. And I’m not Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Frankly, I don’t know if we are facing an imminent turning point in history in our lives, in our country, or in the world. The people in Jesus’ day certainly were. And Dietrich Bonhoeffer was wise enough to see the storm coming in his day — though it is certain that many, many people didn’t believe him, didn’t agree with him, and didn’t heed his warnings. They didn’t heed the warnings in Jesus’ day either.

I’m not here as a watchman today, crying out that a storm is certainly coming. I’m here to say that there have been countless times throughout history when storms did come, and that there is no reason to think we will be exempt. So Jesus is encouraging us today to learn wisdom and discernment about the times in which we live, and to follow him accordingly.

Whether the storm is coming soon or not, it is always wise and right for us to listen to Christ, to trust in him, to follow his teachings, to help our neighbors, to live lives of sacrificial love and service, to take care of the most vulnerable and needy among us.

Whether the storm is coming or not, it is always wise and right for us to nourish the virtues of faith, hope, and love as individuals, as families, and as a faith community, worshiping God together, and leading lives of prayer, humility, and spiritual formation.

Whether the storm is coming soon or not, it is always wise and right to live as concerned citizens, challenging our public leaders and representatives do what is right, what is just, and that which will contribute to the common good.

If we practice these things, and stay open to the Spirit, we may find it easier to have the wisdom to know when a storm is brewing and to maintain the faithful practice of following Jesus when the storm hits.

At one point, Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote a catechism for the people of his own day, speaking to some of the issues that were pertinent to the storm that was coming upon Germany. He concluded it with one of his favorite quotes from Martin Luther:

“This is the Christian faith: to know what you must do and what has been given to you.”

Whether the storm is coming soon or not, it is always wise and right to remember that Jesus went through the greatest crisis of all for us, dying for us that we might have life, and sending the Holy Spirit that we might have the inner resources we need to follow the way of Christ in all the different seasons and circumstances of our lives. Even if the storm comes. Amen.

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May the word of Christ dwell in us richly in all wisdom. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Sunday with Walter Brueggemann: The Involved Life

Outskirts of Paris: Road with Peasant Shouldering a Spade, Van Gogh

Sunday with Walter Brueggemann
The Involved Life

We are called to put on love for the world, the world we have been taught deep in our bones to fear and hate and resist. But we did not learn so from Christ, rather we learned God so loved the world. So in our maturing we need to ask how we feel about the world of arms and poverty and TV and mobility and pressure and pace and people and problems. This is so very new for many of us, and the church stands accused of not helping us love this world where God has placed us.

We shall have to put on the notion that life, in all its abundance, comes from involvement. But our monastic ideals, which have been transformed only slightly into our suburban detachment, have taught us to avoid and keep clear and stay detached. But we did not learn so from Jesus. We learned about the involved life from manger to cross with the road between littered with need and filth and joy and all the humanness of the world into which he came. The life of Jesus speaks so eloquently about the joy and pain of involvement, and it calls us to unlearn our non-Christian notion of detachment from the hurt of the world.

• A Gospel of Hope, pp. 115-116

The IM Saturday Monks Brunch: August 17, 2019 — Hometown Edition

The IM Saturday Monks Brunch: August 17, 2019
Hometown Edition

The closest I have to a “hometown” is Dixon, Illinois, on the Rock River in north central Illinois. It’s really my dad’s hometown, but I spent enough time there as a child, and lived there for a few years too, that it’s where most of my small town Midwest roots were nourished.

Dixon was where I learned to love the Cubs, sitting with my grandpa and watching games together. Dixon is where I sang my first church solo, showed promise for the first time on the baseball field, bought my first record (Best of the Kingston Trio), climbed the cliffs of the old quarry on the way to school, fished above the dam for bullheads and catfish in the Rock River, and spent all my money at our little neighborhood store buying baseball cards.

Dixon is famous for its arch, its two bridges crossing the Rock River, and its designation as “The Petunia City.” When Dutch Elm disease wiped out the trees gracing its streets and yards in the late 1950s, a group of concerned citizens began planting petunias all around town and tending them each year. Now there is an annual festival and the city is abloom with color. Dixon is also known as “The Catfish Capital of Illinois.” And Dixon has one of the most beautiful high school buildings you’ll ever see.

Dixon High School, home of the Dukes. Dixon, Illinois

My grandparents, my little brother, and many aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends are buried in Dixon. All of our family ties with the town are now historical.

Dixon was the childhood home of Ronald Reagan, and you can visit that very house today. Charles R. Walgreen Sr., who founded the drugstore chain, was from Dixon by way of Galesburg, another Illinois town where I lived during my childhood. A couple of pro basketball players and a major league umpire hailed from here. It was just up the road from Dixon, in Grand Detour, that John Deere made his self-scouring steel plow that forever changed Midwest farming. It was at Dixon (then Dixon’s Ferry) that Abraham Lincoln joined the militia at Fort Dixon during the Blackhawk War.

We attended the Methodist church in town, and this is where I have my first vivid memories of sanctuary, liturgy, candles, sermons, Sunday School, choir, and a sense of the holy.

First United Methodist Church, Dixon Illinois (2010)

Here’s a drone video that will give you a sense of the town and the region…

A flyover of Dixon and the Rock River (City of Dixon website)

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I thought it might be fun to see what was happening in the news in and around Dixon during three generations of our family.

100 years ago, when my grandfather was young, what was Dixon like?
And how about 70 years ago, when my dad was a teenager in high school?
I lived there 50 years ago, in the tumultuous final years of the 1960s. What was happening in this little burg then?

Here are some snippets from the Dixon Evening Telegraph —from 1919, 1949, and 1969 — with commentary in the captions.

DIXON, THEN AND NOW…

100 years ago — August 1919

Newspaper ad for a Studebaker Light-Six. W.R. Thompson, Dixon, IL

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One of the hallmarks of small town newspapers has always been the social notices – who is visiting whom and who is doing what. Pretty much everybody knows your business in a place like Dixon in 1919.

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Keeping up with everyone’s business in town included public announcements about every aspect of life — births, who was admitted or discharged from the hospital, who was taking a new job, who was having whom over for a get together, and…who was having marital troubles.

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My grandpa was from around here during WWI, my dad came of age here during WWII, and I was a boy here during Vietnam. But Dixon has an even longer wartime past. Here’s a notice for a Civil War reunion in 1919.

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Pretty good price in 1919 for all you’d get.

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70 years ago — August 1949

The state of Illinois, including Dixon, had to deal with a deadly polio outbreak in 1949.

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The house we lived in in Dixon had an old coal bin. In 1949 it would have been full.

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This was the year my dad turned 16. Didn’t cost him much to get that driver’s license.

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Millions of refugees from World War II were an matter of concern in 1949. Here was a church in Dixon trying to educate themselves so they could help.

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In 1919, my grandpa’s Cubs finished in third. In 1949, my dad was rooting for their arch rivals and a pretty good player named Stan the Man.

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50 years ago — August 1969

In 1969, our small town stores were trying something new — staying open a couple times a week in the evening!

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For $25,000 you could get a pretty fancy new house in Dixon in 1969.

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1969 was going to be the year, at long last, for the Cubs. In August we were sure of it. Then came the Miracle Mets, and they stole my childhood from me…

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This was what was on most people’s minds…and on the front page every day.

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Speaking of the military, here is news in the paper about some members of my family from 1969.

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I am a town…

One of the best songs ever written about small towns like Dixon is this one by Mary Chapin Carpenter. It’s about “a town in Carolina,” but people all across this land can relate to the pictures she paints with words and music.

• • •

I’ll bet many of you grew up in small towns in the Midwest or elsewhere. Some of you are still living in those places. It’s easy for me to get sentimental about that simpler life and all. (There’s a reason It’s a Wonderful Life is my all-time favorite movie, you know. And I’m a big fan of Mayberry and Lake Woebegone too.)

However, we realize there were all kinds of problems inherent on Main St. and in the neighborhoods of small town America too. I’m sure some of us, in fact, fled those environments because we found them parochial, limiting, or even oppressive in certain ways. Nevertheless, I find there is much to appreciate and much for which to thank God about my roots and my heritage as a native of “fly-over” country in the heart of the heartland.

What has been your experience of small town life, either in America or elsewhere?

I think that’s a good question to throw around the Brunch table this morning. Have at it!

Romans 5-8: The Gospel for Weak and Strong

It is right and good to finish reading Romans with chapters 5 through 8, because these chapters are not only the high point of the letter but the solution to the problems vexing the Weak and Strong relations in Rome’s house churches.

• Reading Romans Backwards, p. 141

• • •

Romans 5-8: The Gospel for Weak and Strong

To summarize Scot McKnight’s impressive approach to reading Romans, I offer the following outline:

First, we read Romans 12-16 to understand the pastoral context of the letter (the conflicts in Rome between the Weak and the Strong)

Then, we read Romans 9-11 to see how Paul gives them a sweeping overview of God’s surprising grace that both chose and blessed Israel and is now incorporating the Gentiles into the people of God. It contains important lessons for both the Weak and the Strong, showing them that neither has the right to become arrogant and look down on the other.

Third, we read Romans 1-4, which Paul addresses primarily to the Weak. He argues against their condemnatory attitudes toward the Strong and instructs them that God’s redemption of everyone depends not upon keeping the boundary-marking practices of Torah, but by faith in Christ.

Finally, we read Romans 5-8, which includes passages addressed to both groups and encompassing “all.” This is Paul’s comprehensive vision of God’s redemptive grace in Christ through the Spirit that will transform individuals and, ultimately, all creation. In pastoral terms, Paul calls them back to the gospel — to Christ and the vivifying, renewing power of the Spirit (rather than Torah) — which is God’s way of making them and their relationships new. If they take the gospel seriously, both Weak and Strong will seek peace.

I will not attempt to detail Scot’s analysis of the dense and profound gospel teaching of Romans 5-8. I encourage you to read Reading Romans Backwards for that. But let me give an overview of the way he sees these chapters addressing various groups with gospel truth.

There are “all” sections (5:12-21, 8:1-8) that help everyone (both Weak and Strong) who reads Paul’s letter to step back and get an overview of Paul’s comprehensive vision of God’s saving grace in Christ.

There are “you” sections (6:11-23, 8:9-15) that are aimed primarily at the Weak, challenging them to trust in the power of the Spirit and not keeping the Torah to transform them.

There are “we” sections (5:1-11, 6:1-10, 7:1-6, 8:16-17, 8:18-39). These are the most extensive passages in Romans 5-8 and in them Paul identifies with and addresses the Strong. His teachings here essentially mirror the teaching of the “all” sections but personalize them and help them see how God’s gift in Christ and the Spirit sets them free from their former slavery to Sin and the Flesh.

Finally, there is an “I” section (7:7-25), famous for a long history of debate regarding its interpretation. Paul is addressing the Weak here and, to do so, he sketches the experience of a character (perhaps the Judge of ch. 2) who finds that trying to keep Torah cannot bring about the transformation he seeks.

So then, Romans 5-8 seeks to encourage both Weak and Strong to abandon their feud by focusing on the good news of God’s grace in Christ, the power of the Spirit to transform them both, and their common hope of being made new together in a new creation. In the end, it’s not about Jewish privilege or Gentile pride of status. It’s not about keeping the Torah or looking down on those who have emphasized the importance of that. It’s about welcoming each other to the table and focusing together on God’s surprising and vivifying grace that makes them one in Christ.

•

We conclude our series of reflections on Scot McKnight’s book by giving him a final word of summary and application.

To read Romans well, we read it as pastoral, ecclesial theology for a specific church in a specific time. To be sure, Romans fares well in other contexts, but, until we profile those contexts and the message of Romans for those contexts, we don’t know what to make of it for other contexts. Romans, like no other book in the entire Bible except for Philemon, is more relevant for the churches of the United States than any book in the Bible. The message is a lived theology of Christoformity manifested in peace among siblings — all siblings, not just siblings like me. The message shouts to the American church that its classism, its racism, its sexism, and its materialism are like the Strong’s social status claims and the Weak’s boundaried behaviors. They divide and conquer. The message of Romans is that the Weak and the Strong of our day — and I say now what I have not said, that everyone thinks that they are the Strong and that the other is the Weak — must surrender their claims to privilege and hand them over to Cruciformity. (p. 180f)

God’s Good Earth: The Case for an Unfallen Creation, by Jon Garvey, Chapter 12 – Direct Effects of the Fall on Nature

God’s Good Earth: The Case for an Unfallen Creation, by Jon Garvey,

Chapter 12 – Direct Effects of the Fall on Nature

We will continue our review of God’s Good Earth: The Case for an Unfallen Creation, by Jon Garvey. Today is Chapter 12 – Direct Effects of the Fall on Nature. Jon begins the chapter reiterating the notion that the good creation may be used by God in ways that cause us harm is not a sign of its corruption but of its continued obedience to him. It is a sign of our corruption that such judgments should need to occur. I am somewhat ambivalent on this Augustinian notion. On the one hand scripture has many references to the use of natural disasters by God as judgement on sinful humanity. For example, the list of curses in Deuteronomy, Chapter 28, for forsaking the Lord’s covenant with Israel include:

21 The Lord will plague you with diseases until he has destroyed you from the land you are entering to possess. 22 The Lord will strike you with wasting disease, with fever and inflammation, with scorching heat and drought, with blight and mildew, which will plague you until you perish. 23 The sky over your head will be bronze, the ground beneath you iron. 24 The Lord will turn the rain of your country into dust and powder; it will come down from the skies until you are destroyed…

38 You will sow much seed in the field but you will harvest little, because locusts will devour it. 39 You will plant vineyards and cultivate them but you will not drink the wine or gather the grapes, because worms will eat them. 40 You will have olive trees throughout your country but you will not use the oil, because the olives will drop off. 41 You will have sons and daughters but you will not keep them, because they will go into captivity. 42 Swarms of locusts will take over all your trees and the crops of your land.

It occurs to me that the notion of natural disasters being judgment of God is like geocentrism, a simplistic idea the writers of scriptures held that is no longer valid in the light of today’s science. Then again, what do I know, maybe that’s a result of my modern sensibilities? We have discussed this before in these posts regarding Katrina or the flooding of Houston or the Banda Aceh earthquake. In the post on the Houston flooding I said:

Which brings us to Christian Credulity. We talked about the eclipse and certain Christians ascribing God’s judgment to natural phenomena. That was on display again for Harvey; although why wouldn’t Matthew 5:45 apply (…for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust) since Christians and non-Christians both live in the Houston area. And anyway, who decides what God intends with any natural phenomena? So here, any pronouncement of God’s intentions should be met by Christians with incredulity. Shouldn’t Christians remember Luke 13:1-5 when trying to ascribe motives for judgement?

13 Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. 2 Jesus answered, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? 3 I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. 4 Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? 5 I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. ’”

Michael Spencer, in his reflection on the Banda Aceh earthquake and resulting tsunami said:

I don’t think these events have anything to do with direct expressions of God’s wrath. I think they have to do with creation. We don’t see this as something wrong- we see it as something terrible, in the “awe struck” sense of that word. We are to be put in our place by nature: in awe of what God has made, and how fragile we are. We are mortal, and death is a fact. Death that separates families and loved ones is painful. Death that separates from God is a true disaster. But death at the hands of nature is no surprise to anyone with their eyes open.

Could God bring some disasters as judgment while others are just the outworking of “normal” nature? Are the descriptions of such in scripture simply archaic? For now, I’ll stick with what I said in that post, either all natural disasters are God’s judgment or none of them are. In any event, Jon’s point remains; they have nothing to do with a fallen creation.

Jon then rehearses the long history of humans trashing the planet. From the desertification of Mesopotamia due to the inevitable silting up of irrigation channels to Plato’s account in 360 BCE of deforestation and soil erosion of his own Greek state of Attica; it’s a long history. Maybe even longer if the theory that early man hunted woolly mammoths to extinction is valid.

The Romans, supposedly ruthlessly exploitative and lacking any real environmental concern, extended deforestation empire wide. They had huge numbers of beasts pitted against each other and humans in lethal combat. Titus, for example had some 9,000 wild animals slaughtered during the three month’s dedication of the Colosseum. Trajan’s conquest of Dacia (modern Romania) was celebrated by games in which 11,000 beasts were killed (Ehrlich and Ehrlich, Ecoscience) When you consider that the present population of lions in the whole of Africa is some 30,000 and there are maybe 25,000 rhinos, those figures are sobering. Jon notes that 2016 saw the publication of a paper by a multi-disciplinary team of 22 authors in Science endorsing the thesis that, since the 1950s, the world has entered a new geological age, the Anthropocene, as a result of human activity (see here for a pdf of the article). The abstract says:

The appearance of manufactured materials in sediments, including aluminum, plastics, and concrete, coincides with global spikes in fallout radionuclides and particulates from fossil fuel combustion. Carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus cycles have been substantially modified over the past century. Rates of sea-level rise and the extent of human perturbation of the climate system exceed Late Holocene changes. Biotic changes include species invasions worldwide and accelerating rates of extinction. These combined signals render the Anthropocene stratigraphically distinct from the Holocene and earlier epochs.

Jon accuses Enlightenment philosophers like Francis Bacon (1561-1626) of co-opting the language of Genesis to justify a completely non-biblical and actually quite new way of studying the world, based on a strong sense of human domination over all things. He says because this proceeded from a radical desacralization of nature that had come to regard nature as an entirely inert and passive work of God. So then it became legitimate to plunder it for any resources or secrets it held that might benefit humanity. Father Stephen Freeman and the Orthodox say something similar:

I have used the imagery of a one-storey versus a two-storey universe as a means of getting at the same point. When creation is removed from God and understood to exist and to have meaning as a thing in itself – then the world begins to lose meaning and to collapse upon itself as the product of chance and accident. Humanity collapses into the same randomness and absurdity…

Secularism is the great religious crisis of our time (perhaps the definitive crisis of human sin). Its critical temptation is the lure of religion – to carve out some small piece of our lives and our world in which we speak or think about God – leaving the rest of creation inert and unsanctified, bereft of the glory of God…

Within the Church this can occur by limiting the grace of God to certain defined moments or actions (sacraments) with those moments and actions serving not as revelations of the whole truth of our existence but serving only as a “sacralization” of unique moments. If the Eucharist is not a transformation of the world, then Christ’s death and resurrection are stripped of their power and significance.

Jon concludes the chapter with:

One could multiply instances of the way humankind has damaged, and still damages, God’s natural creation, and apportion specific responsibility in each case. But there would be few, if any, of us who could claim to be innocent, for the world is not damaged because people are scientists, politicians, soldiers, industrialists, jihadists, Catholics, air passengers, or anything else, but because they are sinners exiled from God’s wisdom by sin, and believers instead in their own wisdom.

Another Look: I Am a Pastor

I wrote this many years ago, while on a mission trip in India. I used it to teach children about what a pastor is and does.

Over the years, I’ve come back to it many times. Its simple words remind me of and refresh me in God’s calling.

Perhaps, today, it can be of encouragement to those who share a pastoral call, in whatever specific form that may be.

“Be shepherds of the flock of God.” (Acts 20:28)

• • •

I am a pastor …

If you would ask me who I am, I would answer, “a pastor.”

To be a pastor means to be a shepherd.

To be a shepherd means to care for sheep…

to attend to their births,

to cleanse and groom them, to see that they are well fed,

to tend to them when they are hurt or sick,

to go ahead of them, seeking clean sources of food and water, to rescue them from difficulties,

to guard them from predators and fight off attackers; to seek and find them when they wander off,

to provide a calming presence when they are in frightening situations,

to remove them from the comfort of sheepfold at times, and lead them out into open places,

to gather them together again and lead them back to their warm, familiar home,

to understand the unique characteristics of each sheep — where each one is weak and where each is strong — so that I might give the entire flock wise and sensitive care.

to set them on their feet again when they fall and cannot right themselves; to put up and maintain fences to protect them and keep them from going astray,

to see to their health and nurture them toward maturity, so that they can reproduce and bring forth lambs,

to help them adapt to and flourish in the different seasons and circumstances of life,

to remember, mourn, and bury them when they die.

I am a pastor. I take care of sheep.

In return, they nourish me, warm me, and keep me company on bright days and through dark nights.

They are my friends.

With them, I follow a greater Shepherd, who does all this and more for me as well as them. God equips me to serve my flocks as an under-shepherd, and I am generously rewarded.

I do what I do for my Shepherd’s pleasure, for the increase of his honor, and for the well being of the ones he created and loves forever.

God is the Shepherd of us all, and in him we have no wants.

Another Look: Fear Not, Little Flock

Another Look: Fear Not, Little Flock
From 2011

• • •

Last Sunday, my wife and I entered the side door of the old church building. The small entryway had a few steps that led up to two vintage oak doors. The one on the left led to the back corner of the sanctuary. Next to it, the right door led to an overflow room that people walked through to get to the offices and classroom building.

As we opened the left hand door, it creaked. The floor creaked under our feet. Light streamed in from the bright winter day outside through the large stained glass windows set above the sanctuary. The room had been designed in a rather unique fashion. Square, the pulpit area was set in a corner and the pews fanned out and up from it in auditorium fashion. I walked to the platform and noted the ancient chairs and the pulpit with its small velvet-covered top. I looked out over wooden pews and surveyed a sanctuary that was over a century old.

It brought back memories.

•

At the tender age of 22, still single and only a few years into a whirlwind time of life-change that included moving east with my family from Chicago, finishing high school, undergoing a tumultuous adolescent storm and a spiritual awakening, cutting my hair and going off to Bible college, getting my first car, serving my initial pastoral role as an assistant to the ailing pastor in our home church, getting my first exposure to the wider world on a mission trip to Haiti, meeting and becoming engaged to the love of my life, and then leaving home for good — packing all my belongings in my little black ’74 Super Beetle to go to Vermont — I heard news of a church in the hills that needed a pastor.

The little Baptist church was in a small village in southeastern Vermont, just over the mountain from one of the most popular ski resorts in the region. The church building was one of those “calendar” churches — white clapboards, steeple, tall side windows, front steps. They rang the bell in the tower when it was time for church to begin. Years before, congregants had attached the town’s old one-room schoolhouse to the rear of the building for a Sunday School room. The church proper was nearly 120 years old. Set close to the road that went up over the mountain, it was one of the few public buildings in the heart of the village, along with the volunteer fire department, the post office, and a small general store that went in and out of business over the years. A small fellowship hall, used infrequently and maintained by the Ladies Aid and Missionary Society, sat across the street.

The congregation had first incorporated in 1814, just about a generation after the Revolutionary War and the founding of our nation. You can still go to the town hall and read records that stretch back to its beginning, when the village had a grain mill on the brook that ran down the mountainside. Amid the perfunctory accounts of names, finances, and business meetings, you can read about such events as when the church officially disciplined a young man accused of stealing from the mill, actually holding a trial in the church to take testimony, examine the evidence, declare a verdict, and pass sentence.

The church used to practice closed communion, dismissing non-members after the main worship service, so that the members who had professed their faith openly could gather at the Lord’s Table. One of the longest disputes in town, between two families, grew out of an incident when a man took objection to being excused from taking the ordinance.

And so they have carried on over the years, struggling to be God’s people among neighbors who live close, know your secrets, and probably heard you take the Lord’s name in vain when you smashed your finger with the hammer. Throughout various seasons, they made it through without a pastor in the pulpit. Every year to this day, they have “Old Home Sunday,” when they send out invitations to anyone they can find who has ever come to church there, encouraging them to come back for worship and dinner on the grounds.

Someone once wrote a brief history of the church. For its theme, the author chose Luke 12:32 — “Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” Over the years and decades, the Father has done that. They have always been, and probably always will be a “little flock.” But of such are the kingdom of heaven.

The parsonage, also across the street from the church, was built just before the house of worship. It was a plain white wooden two-story affair, with an old garage/barn attached. It became my home, and soon our home when Gail and I were married. It had big square rooms with high ceilings, wooden floors, a nice big country kitchen, a small study that became my office, an oil furnace (in the midst of the “energy crisis” no less), and — get this — no heat upstairs. In Vermont. A round hole in the upstairs bedroom floor marked the spot where a stove pipe had come through when the house was heated by wood. It provided the only opening for warmer air to rise into the second floor. Not much rose, let me tell you, especially on subzero winter nights in New England. It might have provided the ideal situation for newlyweds to snuggle close at night, except that we wore more clothes to bed than we did during the day!

The congregation had been without a pastor for several years when I showed up. With little more to offer than a pittance of a salary (without benefits) and a 120-year old manse with no heat in the bedrooms, set in a village of 200 people in the mountains, ministers were not beating down the doors for the opportunity to serve there. Apparently the denomination wasn’t helping the church much either, believing the setting to be unpromising. That was a source of irritation the church leaders felt perfectly free to scowl about. The New England states also had a reputation as spiritually barren. People were cold there, like the weather; that was the scuttlebutt.

In other words, it was the perfect place for me.

When we returned there recently for a visit, a lady told me she had visited the church soon after I became the pastor. When she saw me up front at the pulpit that morning, she thought it must be youth Sunday. I was so wet behind the ears it wasn’t funny. What was funny was the fact that I apparently didn’t know it. I had enough youthful chutzpah and ignorance to think I could be a pastor. Hey, I did great in school! People liked me well enough. I’d had a little experience preaching and singing and standing in front of people in college. I knew absolutely nothing, including the fact that I knew absolutely nothing.

Like I said though, I had found a perfect place. Patient people dwelt in these hills. These folks had lived in the green mountains and along their ridges, forced to eke out a living year after year for generations. Handymen, tradesmen, laborers, all hard workers, many served the flatlanders who came up periodically to enjoy vacation homes with spectacular vistas, ski down Vermont’s renowned slopes, and visit the quaint tourist villages and shops throughout the area. Many of the women cleaned houses or inns, cooked, and took care of elderly neighbors. Others drove school buses, helped at the school or library, or worked in shops and offices in nearby towns.

Most were self-sufficient to one degree or another. They filled their freezers with meat from hunting. They had woodpiles the size of small barns to keep them warm through the winter. They planted big gardens and raised animals. They tapped trees for maple syrup to use and sell. They fixed their own cars and made their own repairs on their houses and property, often making use of a neighbor’s expertise in matters where one lacked skill or knowledge. They figured out a way and kept going.

Lord knows, they were patient with me. I don’t know about you, but I had all the answers when I was 22. When you add to my youth the fact that my entire life had changed dramatically in five years, catching me up in a tempest of spiritual fervor, rapid change, and the adventure of launching out into adult life with all its boundless possibilities, it was a heady time in my life. So our wise God in his providence slowed me down.

He set me behind a velvet-covered pulpit in a 120-year old church building with an old Regulator clock ticking away on the wall. He had me lead hymns accompanied by Rose and Leone, the octogenarian musicians, who played at such a painfully slow pace that I think we still have a verse or two to sing. He called me to sit in on board meetings where we quibbled about literal dollars and cents. I thought I had to wear a suit. I should have toned it down a bit. I should have joined the volunteer fire department, like my successor did, but I was too “separated” at that point in my life to do that. Oh God, I didn’t have a clue.

So God was kind enough to do things like giving me a second job as a school bus driver. That humbled me. I arose on those frigid mornings at 5am and went up to the neighbor’s house so he could try again to show me how to put the snow chains on the tires. I never did get it right. In that church I met Harold, the old Vermont farmer who couldn’t accept that the Bible called him a “saint” or that we ought to pray when there was work to be done. I had to swallow my pride and grudgingly admit that he and a lot of the other men there knew Christ far more deeply than I did, even though I knew the Bible better. And I wore a suit.

I did more funerals than I can remember. Many of them were graveside services overlooking spectacular scenery. Spread my ashes there, please. Evangelism was tough and I wasn’t very good at it, though we had a few notable successes. I drank more cups of coffee and tea and ate more pieces of pie, cake, and pastry on visits to homes than I care to admit. I learned to listen, I tried to speak the right words, and I came to be profoundly convinced of the importance of forbearance and forgiveness. I needed it so often, you see.

It grieves me to recall one particularly painful failure when I walked into the post office one afternoon to get my mail. I greeted a lady with a smile and perfunctory hello and walked out without talking to her. Only later did I discover she had just lost a child in an accident. She was a neighbor and I didn’t know it. You’d better believe I heard about it from the postmistress who was her friend and a member of the church. I slunk up to my neighbor’s door and apologized so fervently my head almost came off.

God is so good. He called me to serve (and mostly to learn) in that little congregation and parish of people with weather-worn skin and calloused hands who knew how to survive. If they could wait out the long winters, they could wait out a young buck like me. And so they did.

•

As I sat last Sunday on the platform in a historic brick Presbyterian church in central Indiana, in the ancient chair, covered like the pulpit top in red, velvety fabric, I sank low into a cushion that had upheld generations of pastoral posteriors. I looked out on a congregation that had many elderly people in attendance, though on this day it was encouraging to see a good mix of families joining them. I thought some of the faces looked familiar. Not that I knew the people personally, but I knew the faces. Most of them were small town folks and some had been in that church all their lives. They sat in creaky wooden pews. The order of service probably hadn’t changed much in years. The choir consisted mostly of older men and women, and they and we sang accompanied by a white-haired organist. We used hymnals. I wore a suit.

I felt at home, though by now I’ve traveled enough miles and been in enough different settings that I can have a sense of being “at home” almost anywhere. Whether it’s in a well-appointed sanctuary, a megachurch “worship center,” seated on the rug on a floor in Kyrgyzstan, on a rooftop gathering with youth in India, at an outdoor rally in Brazil, or in a rec center classroom with a small church plant, God has graced me with such a wide variety of experiences with his people that no place seems out of place to me for his presence or service. He is here, and there, and everywhere. “Let us join our hearts together in worship…”

Still, there is something about the scent of old wood, the creaking of doors, floors, and pews, the sound of shuffling hymnal and Bible pages, the feel of the velvet on top of the pulpit and on the cushion into which I sink, and most of all, the sight of the wrinkled faces of those who have learned to survive.

I too will survive. There is a place for us all. Fear not, little flock.

Monday with Michael Spencer: They Bought Me, And I’m Glad

Country Church – Valle Crucis NC. Photo by Carlyle Ellis at Flickr. Creative Commons License

Monday with Michael Spencer
They Bought Me, And I’m Glad (excerpt, 2008)

• • •

There is one aspect of ordination I appreciate on a very personal level. When a congregation ordains you, they are setting you aside to serve them, yes. But they are also saying, “He belongs to us. We bought him, and until he proves himself unworthy of our confidence, he’s ours. Even when he leaves, he can still come back and know we signed his papers.”

My uncle was a pastor for almost fifty years, and he built one of the largest churches in our community in his day. But I remember that he always talked about his first church- the church that ordained him- as special. He didn’t brag about the big church when he needed to remember who he was; he recalled the country people who “bought” him as a young pastor, and took on the task of being his first church.

Years later, I was speaking in the area and some of the people from that church were present at the meeting. When I mentioned my uncle- whom I look like- many of them came up to me and excitedly told me about the love for my uncle.

Because of recent events, I need to know that someone out there still believes in me and my ministry. There are people I love who’ve always supported me who have moved on to other churches and beliefs. There are people who have trusted my preaching for years who want me to sound more like an Oprah rally or more like an angry fundamentalist. There are folks who have just noted that I’m pretty old and don’t show movie clips like I’m supposed to.

Because of where I live and the kind of preaching that’s wanted in mountain churches, requests for pulpit supply are almost non-existent. The preaching that I am paid to do is preaching for young people who, for the most part, are required to be present and would be happy to be elsewhere doing anything rather than listen to me. I love them, they respect me and it’s a good ministry, but you always know they would prefer puppets.

So today, my ordination saved me from some of the rising discouragement. I’ve been going to the little Baptist church next door for the last few weeks. Going by myself and sitting alone, which is very hard. I go and pray for whatever is going on and whatever is talked about, prayed for or preached on. It’s one of those times that I’m mostly there to remember that I am part of the people of God, and we’re on pilgrimage- going forward, foibles and all- together.

I arrived today and said hello to the pastor on the way in. He stopped and called me back to where he was standing. He wanted to know if I would preach for him next week.

It’s not the biggest deal in the world, but for me, today, it works to lift me up a little higher.

Our pastor has many preachers in his congregation to ask to preach when he is gone. He knows what’s going on in my life, and he’s aware that my stock is down a bit around here. He was choosing to encourage me.

When I preach next week, most of those who will be present will be praying for me for various reasons. While I will bring the Word, I’m expecting that I will be the one who is encouraged and helped the most.

Today, my ordination reminded me that I belong to God’s particular people, and they aren’t giving up on me. They are keeping their promise when they bought me, and they are picking me up when the road has gotten almost too steep to walk with any joy.

Most of life’s discouragements are small, and some of the largest ones are disguised as the small ones. But most of God’s encouragements look very small, too. But they aren’t. Those encouragements can be as big as the love of God itself, and when they fit exactly what you are facing, they are sweet indeed.