Guns, Jesus and Church Safety

One church's Memorial to 331 gun victims in Philadelphia  from 2012.
photo by cocoa biscuit / flickr

The Religious News Service has this article by Jeffrey MacDonald about how the government is working to keep churches safe during this strange time. Who would have ever thought we would in this place. My only fear is that the government can get carried away and overstep their work with church. Separation of Church and State is still a cardinal rule in this country. Funny--as the government steps in--nobody but nobody seems to realize the danger that guns cause everywhere. Will we ever learn not to get rid of the guns but to keep them out of the hands of crazy people. Nary a word about gun registration or legislation.

It would be irresponsible if churches did not struggle with how to keep their congregations safe these days. I recommend Kyle Childress' fine article in the Christian Century on "Guns and Baptism." Deep in the heart of Texas this faithful minister writes about how his church is dealing with faithfulness to Jesus Christ and safety of his members. He is Pastor of the Austin Heights Baptist Church, Nacogdoches, Texas.

I recommend both of these fine articles.

photo by Lawrence OP / flickr

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com

Evangelicals, the President and Mulligans

Bankrupt. Any insolvent debtor; one unable to satisfy any just claims made upon him or her; at the end of one's resources, lacking; utter ruin.

My first memory of Church was the brick building with the tall white columns. It set across from the school--and it was two blocks down from the mill where both my parents worked. But on Sundays we would don our finery and off to church we would go. Some of the happiest memories I have are those early years were walking through the columns, into the church foyer and finally the Sanctuary. I thought it was the prettiest church I had ever seen. 

Back of the Sanctuary were our Sunday school rooms. And year after year teachers would stand up and hold forth on what Jesus said, what Jesus would do, what the Bible said about just about everything. It was during the war years and soldiers from Fort Benning would come to our church and some to our homes after church. I never heard a sermon about politics in that church that I can remember.  

Of course our congregation was lily white like the rest of Georgia. And nobody ever thought anything about it. We never even asked about where the black woman that worked so hard in our house went to church. We never wondered where Shine, the man who shined our shoes and even brought them to our door--would be welcomed into our church.  No preacher ever said anything about the pay-day loan companies that fleeced my father.

But what there was no doubt about was that the Bible was true. We sang: "The B-I- B-L-E...Yes that's the book for me...I stand alone on the word of God--the B-I-B-L-E." We believed in those Ten Commandments. We believed what Jesus said. Even the turning the other cheeks part and walking the second mile. Of course our admonitions were selective--like ignoring Jesus' relationship to every woman he met. We never got what it meant--that John 3.16 passage: God so loved the world--not just Georgia or the USA. We never realized that the good Samaritan did not look like us. 

We went to camps in the summertime and Vacation Bible Schools and the centerpiece of it all was the Holy Bible. The Gideons gave out little tiny testaments to us in the school room. Of course we never read them but we put them in a drawer to keep the tiny books safe. But we did believe what the Preacher and all those Sunday School teachers said. Often reluctantly. And if the church's pronouncements were not enough our parents punctuated all those things when we got home. 

It was a world far simpler than ours today. But the lynchpin of our lives were those values that we were told you better live by. Things like the Golden Rule and John 3.16 and the Lord's Prayer. In some ways it was a harsh time. You couldn't serve as a Deacon if you had been divorced. And if you were a Preacher--well, forget it. The Bible said: Thou shalt not commit adultery and you shall not lie. And you better not bear false witness against your neighbor. There were rights and wrongs and do's and don'ts. And we carried a lot of guilt some days because of "what the Bible said." I never did understand where that no drinking', no dancing', and no mixed bathing came from.

Nobody told us how to vote. Nobody dragged politics into the church--though looking back there were some things we tip-toed around that we should have talked about. 

And how strange it is to wake up to church leaders who say they give the President a "mulligan" for all the things he has said and done. A mulligan! Whatever happened leaders to "Thou shalt not commit adultery?" Whatever happened to for better or for worse...in sickness and in health...till death do us part.  Whatever happened to lying and bearing false witness against your neighbors and coveting not only your neighbor's house and wife but also his oxen and donkeys and whatever else he might have. Reckon that list might include: Refugees...Mexicans...those from s...hole countries...those that disagree with us... and the poor? 

Evangelicals--I am sorry but I cannot buy you casually giving out mulligans. Character still counts--more than tax breaks and coddling prejudices. There are values that are sterling silver and though sometimes they get tarnished--we have to keep cleaning them off. They stand. And they endure.

German churches swallowed the Hitler line hook line and sinker. And people crowded into

photo by Jeena Paradies / flickr

those houses of worship to see the swastikas right next to the Holy Bible. He gave them VW's and the trains ran on time. And when it was over--the churches found themselves empty and those that followed the hate and prejudice of the Nazis grew quiet. Go to church in Germany today. Where are the people? Not there.

I don't fault all those good people who file into their churches Sunday after Sunday. Most of them are people hanging on by their fingernails and trying to keep themselves and their loved ones from sinking. But I do fault their leaders who have compromised that book they claim to preach. Some things just don't file underneath the strange term: mulligan.

I heard a funny story about a man who was being ordained to preach. And he knelt at the front of his church and the leaders filed by and laid hands on his head. His daughter was sitting with her Mama looking at what was happening at the front of the church. She whispered to her Mother: "What are they doing to Daddy?" And the Mama said: "Honey, they are taking his spine out."

Preachers who have somehow forgotten too "stand on the promises" are pathetic and spineless and they are bankrupting their churches. Character and values do not change.

The writer of another day Lloyd Douglas had a friend who was a violin teacher. Douglas saw the old musician one day and said, "Well, what's the good news for today?" The music teacher went over to a tuning fork that was suspended by a chord. He struck it with a mallet. "That is the good news for today, " he said. "That, my friend is an 'A'. It was an 'A' all day yesterday. It will be an 'A' all day tomorrow, next week, and for a thousand years. The soprano upstairs warbles off-key, the tenor next door flats his high notes and the piano across the hall is out of tune. Noise all around me, noise; but that, my friend is an 'A!'"

We're not talking about perfection. The treasure always comes in an earthen vessel. But our task always is to show the transcendent power belongs to God and not to us preachers or presidents or USA or anybody. No mulligans, I am afraid.

photo by Gerry Dincher / flickr

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com

Anniversary Time

All lovers have a favorite song and singer. Ours was: "When I fall in lover it will be forever..." by Nat King Cole. Her Daddy hated that record and presented it to us when we got married. But it was a dream for that 25 year old and that 21 year old. I won't tell you which is which--but you know. 

It has been 57 years since that icy night in Louisville Kentucky --with 8 inches of snow on the Ground--when we said I do. 

It's been quite a ride--six churches: from Kentucky to Virginia to Kentucky again to South Carolina to Tennessee to Alabama. And that does not count the eight interims. But I dragged I have dragged her from pillar to post--and it is hard for me to believe that she has stood by me all this time. But oh, she has.  

The world has changed and so have we. Yet--the old song comes back again. I can hear Nat King Cole as if it were yesterday. We've added two red heads that have both made our lives and the world a better place in their own separate ways. And from this marriage has also come two granddaughters--who are working on their own parts of making this a better world. I don't know how many dogs and cats we have had. I do know that everywhere we lived there were a wonderful cadre of people that loved us and maybe helped firm up the marriage too. Who knows. 

One of my favorite descriptions of marriage comes from the fine writer, Wallace Stegner. In his book, The Spectator Bird--an old man writes of the marriage to his wife, Ruth. You can't beat what he said:

"It is something--it can be everything--to have found a fellow bird with whom you can sit among the rafters while the drinking and boasting and reciting go on below; a fellow bird whom you can look after and find bugs and seeds for; one who will patch your bruises and straighten your ruffled feathers and mourn over your hurts when you accidentally fly into something you can't handle."

If I were to write another book I would dedicate it this way:

Gayle...Gayle...Gayle.

--Roger Lovette/ rogerlovette.blogspot.com

Jesus is Back and is He Mad!!

(Occasionally I read something so good that I want to share it with you. Words I wish I had said or written. Phillip E. Jenks from Port Chester, New York  is as fellow blogger. He has been a newspaper reporter, a columnist and has written widely for the American Baptists. His blog is called: The Little Scroll--I recommend. Thanks, Phillip.) -RL

Monday, January 22, 2018

Jesus is back. HIDE!

I first heard the joke sitting around a campfire at Pathfinder Lodge, a Baptist camp near Cooperstown, N.Y.

“The good news is that Jesus is back.”

“What’s the bad news?”

“He’s pissed.”

This sounded dangerously impious to seventh graders and the counselor’s silent disapproval was accentuated by the snapping firewood and the gyres of sparks in the humid darkness. The censorious face of a counselor looks satanic in the red glow so we’d cautiously tongue our smores until the evening ended with choruses of kum-bah-yah and we could escape to our tents. There, we’d repeat the hazardous joke and squeal with laughter.

Of course, the Jesus-is-back-and-mad joke pales in comparison to other eighth grade anecdotes designed to bring kids up to speed on important issues of sex and scatology. I remember an older kid had us on the verge peeing our pants with his story about an inarticulate Baptist preacher who encouraged seventh graders to set aside their spare change for Jesus and accidentally said nipples instead of nickels.

There were other stories of high hilarity that became anecdotal sign posts for our coming of age. I’d like to look back on them and report I no longer find them funny. But all of them are funny, just not repeatable in church settings. Which, of course, is what makes them funny.

The one joke that never loses its humor over the years is the Jesus is back joke. Jesus is back and he’s furious.

Actually, this is more a hermeneutic than a joke. It’s a brief, two-part sermon with yawning theological depth.

It forces us to ask ourselves: what is there in our world to gladden the heart of a returning savior?

Certainly if Jesus came back this morning he would be enraged by our rigid inability to put his greatest commandment into practice: love God and love your neighbor. As I write, the U.S. government is shut down because politicians have reached an impasse over many issues, including whether persons from other countries - among them, if you will pardon my soaring presidential rhetoric, shithole countries - should be welcomed to our shores and allowed to stay. 

It would be a mistake to think Jesus is neutral about this brazen desecration of the great commandment. 

We might glance wistfully at pastel portrayals of “gentle Jesus, meek and mild” on our Sunday school walls, the Jesus who tiptoes through the tulips with his entourage of happy children and docile lambs, and tell ourselves that anger is beneath him. 

But scripture makes it plain that Jesus had a temper that he could unleash with a righteous fury in the face of ignorance and hate. He scorned the self-important scribes as poseurs who “devour widows’ houses” (Luke 20:47). He denounced Pharisees and Lawyers as “full of  greed and wickedness” (Luke 11:39), called them hypocrites” (Matthew 23:13), “blind guides,” “blind fools” (Matthew 23:16, 17), castigated them as  “brood of vipers” and asked how they could escape being sentenced to hell (Matthew 23:33). He condemned whole villages that rejected him, and predicted an intolerable judgment that would drag them en masse to hell (Luke 10:15). Most famously, he physically drove the money changers out of the temple, calling them “robbers” (Mark 11:17, Matthew 21:12-13).

Who, then, would escape the fury of Jesus?

We might figure that out by looking at the types of persons Jesus hung around with, some of whom are specifically named and others inferred: Pharisees (there were some he liked), tax collectors, officers of the despised Roman occupation, poor people, blind people, lepers, thieves, scoundrels, whores, adulterers, idolaters, homosexuals, and Samaritans (e.g., persons perceived as having an intolerable religion akin to Muslims, Sikhs or Buddhists). When Jesus returns, we can be sure he will not waste time delineating between undocumented aliens and Mayflower descendants. But he will certainly be pissed if he finds us arguing over which of us is legal and which is not.

Some scholars, including Garry Wills (What Jesus Meant, Viking, 2006), contend Jesus was also a feminist because he talked to women, intervened when they were under attack, enlisted them as apostles, and made a point of appearing first to a woman after his resurrection.

And who made Jesus angry? The rich, the powerful, the upper classes, the religious elite, anyone who posed as superior to or exercised power over the persons Jesus loved most.

It’s a fair guess that when Jesus returns he will be angriest at the staunchly ignorant and hateful: persons who deem themselves to be in a higher class than others, persons who deem themselves to be a superior race, white supremacists who sing songs of hate that invite other ignoramuses to join the battle against people of color, or – the list is interminable – Westboro Baptist Church and its insane homophobia. (Perhaps you’ve seen the widely posted sermonette on social media: “Live your life in such a way that Westboro Baptist Church will want to picket your funeral.”)

Some haters are so whack that Jesus might actually take their dysfunction into consideration. He might be inclined to cut the incredibly ignorant some slack because, well, because of their incredible ignorance. In my more generous moments, I’m inclined to think this category might include our current president and his unChristian cabal of followers.

But would the rest of us be so fortunate?

Jesus has taught us to love one another unconditionally, as God loves each of us. That does make you worry how Jesus will react to the vast majority of us Christians who can’t quite manage to love one another. For most of us, one of life’s greatest challenges is to tolerate persons we can’t stand. 

In my years as a church and newspaper journalist, I had ample opportunities to observe and participate in activities that must have angered Jesus.

I’ve seen congregations split for all sorts of reasons, most of them stemming from the inability of members to “live in love, as Christ loved us” (Ephesians 5:2). Of course churches come apart at the seams over issues of theology or pastoral leadership, but they have also divided over the color of paint in the sanctuary, the style of choir gowns, the artistic quality of banners, the timing of potluck suppers, the casting of the Christmas pageant, the animals chosen for the crèche, and the temperature of the coffee. 

Some of these childish divisions might actually make Jesus smile. Other foibles of human behavior may be less amusing and more destructive, such as family feuds, relationship betrayals, vicious gossip, rumor mongering, jealousy, office treachery, and condescension toward all. 

The Apostle Paul, in his letter to the rowdy Christians at Ephesus, summarized rules for behavior based on the simple command to love one another:

“Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were marked with a seal for the day of redemption. Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.” (Ephesians 4:29-32)

These are familiar words about niceness, but what if we take them seriously? If this is the standard of Christian behavior Jesus expects, the joke takes on deeper meaning: Jesus is back, and he’s mad.

If you generalize this standard of behavior to recent human history, it gets worse. Let’s pick an arbitrary date that has special interest to Americans and Europeans: 1492. That was ostensibly the year the Americas were discovered by European sailors with a missionary zeal to bring the aboriginal peoples to Christ. On the island of Hispaniola, 90 percent of native Tainos were dead by 1519 because the European Christians brought them the gifts of small pox and slavery. Somehow the Christians, who reputedly traveled with their bibles, missed the bit about being kind to one another.

The year 1492 was also the year Rodrigo Borgia was elected Pope Alexander VI, beginning a reign so licentious that it inspired two cable mini-series that capitalized on his sexual libertinism, brazen nepotism, and Machiavellian machinations. Although an actual portrait of Pope Borgia casts doubt that his sexual favors were much in demand, he spawned a murderous brood, including his poisonous daughter Lucretia and sons Cesare and Juan, both popular candidates for anti-christ. What bible were they reading?

As time went on, the concept of divine right of kings had effectively squashed any notion of Christian kindness. Henry VIII (1509-1547), after defying the church to divorce two wives who bored him and execute two more who annoyed him, tried to win back God’s favor by making it a capital offense to believe the Eucharistic host was merely bread. Perhaps these out-of-control megalomaniacs had already formed in their minds the excuse Dostoyevsky posited in Crime and Punishment (1866): that God placed some humans so far above their fellows that they need not adhere to biblical standards of behavior. It worked for Napoleon (1769-1841) but, as any literature major knows, not for Raskolnikov. (Read the book.) And don’t get me started on former President Robert Mugabe, the iron-fisted and homicidal dictator of Zimbabwe who began his address to the 1998 Harare Assembly of the World Council of Churches, “Christian sisters and brothers.”

But there’s no point to trying to name history’s worst Christians. The list has no end, and there are days when it includes me.

So I contend the case is adequately made to support this theological syllogism:

Jesus is coming; Jesus is mad.

So what are we going to do when the trumpet sounds up yonder? Hide?

My instinct is to recall those moments of my youth (and perhaps a little older than my youth) when I realized I had really screwed up. I had broken a rule so fundamental, so inviolable, that no forgiveness was possible. 

Dare I confess it? When I was 17, I stole my father’s tractor to haul some discarded wood beams across town to a small cave, where my spelunking pals and I thought we could build a wooden doorway.

It didn’t work. The entrance to this cave was pure mud and bats, and no amount of lumber was going to change that. So we packed up the wagon and I drove the tractor home.

There, waiting for me at the top of the hill, was Dad. He waited for me with a red but expressionless face.

Jesus is back and he’s mad? Big deal. This was serious. This was my dad, and he was clearly pissed. My impulse was to run. Maybe Dad’s impulse was to slap me upside the face, which – truth be told – would have been justified.

But what I remember about this incident, in addition to the horror of being caught, is that it ended okay. He didn’t kill me. He didn’t slap me upside the face. He just gave me one of those sad, disappointed looks that I remember to this day: the look of a father who loved me so much that his disappointment in my bad behavior was more painful for him than for me.

That, I suspect, is the kind of anger with which Jesus is returning. He’ll be mad. He’ll be hurt at our behavior. But his love for us will be the same.

Henry M. Nouwen wrote: 

“Jesus’ whole life was a witness to his Father's love, and Jesus calls his followers to carry on that witness in his Name.  We, as followers of Jesus, are sent into this world to be visible signs of God’s unconditional love.  Thus we are not first of all judged by what we say but by what we live.  When people say of us:  ‘See how they love one another,’ they catch a glimpse of the Kingdom of God that Jesus announced and are drawn to it as by a magnet.”

It’s not going to be easy. There are still going to be people we can’t stand. There are still temptations we can’t ignore. There is still the potential that we will make terrible mistakes, errors that will make Jesus mad.

But “in a world so torn apart by rivalry, anger, and hatred,” Nouwen writes, “We have the privileged vocation to be living signs of a love that can bridge all divisions and heal all wounds.”

Jesus is coming, and Jesus is mad – very mad.

But may Jesus take some comfort in our futile efforts to “put away all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander … and to be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ has forgiven us.”

May Jesus take some comfort in our futile efforts to be seekers of sometimes impossible standards, to be members of a tiny sleeper cell of love amid all the hatred and cruelty and pain that surrounds us.

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com

A Sermon: When Trouble Comes

photo by ancient history / flickr

A great preacher once said, “When I get into trouble I always turn to the Psalter.”  That’s not surprising. For God’s people have always found hope and healing from the Psalms. Psalm 130 writes: “Out of the depths I cry to you.” And year after year people have turned to the Psalms because they deal with the raw stuff of life. “How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?” they asked in that terrible exile time. We keep coming back to David’s confession in Psalm 51 because those words are our words: “Have mercy on me, O God , according to your steadfast love.” “Blot out all my transgressions.” ”Create in me a clean heart…O God.” “My soul thirsts for God…” “Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted. (Ps. 25.17) “In my distress I called upon the Lord; to my God I cried for help.” (Ps. 18.6b)

Claus Westermann a very fine theologian was Pastor in Germany during the Second World War. Hitler had him locked up in a prison camp like so many other courageous Pastors. Westermann said he only had two books with him in prison. A copy of Luther’s translation of the New Testament and the Psalms. And this is what he wrote about those Psalms: 

 “Whenever one in his enforced separation praised God in song or speech, or silence, he was conscious of himself not as an individual, but as a member of the congregation. When in  hunger and cold, between interrogations, or as one sentenced to death, he was privileged to praise God, he knew that in all his ways he was borne up by the church’s praise of God.”

photo by Carson Coots / flickr

More than half the Psalms were written in a time of trouble and great need. And this is the setting of the words we come to today. Psalm 62. We don’t know what the trouble was. Enemies—within or without. People who hated him and wanted to do him in. He says he felt battered and anxious and assaulted. Enormously disappointed. Sound familiar? Of course it does. For out of the depths of our lives—we reach out too, don’t we. A world in disarray. Kids or grandchildren we can’t reach don’t understand. Like the woman that told me after they arrested her only son for more than the first time, “You know, if I had known it would be this hard—I would never have had a child.” I teach a Grief group these days—and they come in with their stories. None are the same. And yet—underneath all their separateness there is this common thread. Help. What are we gonna do? It life over? 

We all have asked these questions in hard times. And if God were here today sitting in this chair—I think we would have a lot to ask him. Wouldn’t we? 

It has always been that way—we have these lists not only of our troubles—but the woman  who lives across the street. The brother that is so difficult. The heartbreak of the headlines.  And all the worries we carry around. And if we are wise—like that old preacher—we too turn to the Psalms with our questions. Because this old book always provides a good word for a church without a Pastor and wondering, just wondering.

photo by Timothy Vogel / flickr

I think most of us are like little Davie. His Mama told me that years ago every morning they would sit at the breakfast table and they had this little box on the table. It contained little tiny Scripture verses. And every morning they would take one out little card and read it. And she helped him memorize those verses. Maybe the words would help. So one morning he took out this card that read: “I will trust and not be afraid…” And over and over his mother made him say the verse: “I will trust ands not be afraid.:” That afternoon she took him to see a movie. “Oliver Twist.” And there is a scene in that film when things get dark and the music is ominous—and someone is being hanged and they are twisting in the wind. And little wide-eyed Davie stood up, in the darkened theatre and said out loud: “I will trust and not be afraid…” And he sat down and wet his pants. 

So much for trust. Except—underneath our laughter—we know, don’t we that when times get dark and scary—we find it so hard to trust. And this is why I think the church keeps coming back to these old words: “How long will you assail a person, will you batter your victim, all of you, as you would a leaning wall or a tottering fence? Their only plan is to bring down  a person of prominence. They take pleasure in falsehood: they bless with their mouths, but inwardly they curse.” (Ps. 62.3-4)

But we don’t stop there. The trouble is that many times we stop right here. But this isn’t the end of the story. Listen. These are his next words: “For God alone my soul waits in silence., for my hope is in him. He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be shaken. On God rests my deliverance and my honor; my mighty rock, my refuge is in God.”(vs. 5-7)

And then as in summary he says: “Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us.”(vs. 8) And then he ends the Psalm:  “…Power belongs to God, and steadfast love belongs to you, O Lord.”(vs.11b)

You see what kept them going. Trust. Not trust in the things we worry about every day. No. But a larger trust. Twice in the Psalm he says it: “For God alone my soul waits in silence.” 

Thomas a Kempis found this to be true. In silence he sat there. And he whispered, “Oh, if only I knew I would hold out to the last.” And his soul rose up and answered him with scorn, “Look back…Has God ever failed you in the past?” and his soul answered, “No.” And then he thought. “For the same God who has been and who is so evidently sufficient, will be with you every step to the end, always as gloriously present for you then as  now.”

Trust. Hang on. Trust what? Look at what the Psalmist says:

Trust—the God hope. Buechner says that if Paul were writing today he would not say:

photo bt Subana / flickr

“Faith, hope and love….but the greatest of these is love.” No, Buechner said, “If he were writing today he would say: Faith, hope, love—but the greatest of these is hope.” For this is the desperate need of our time. To believe that whatever happens somehow God will be with us all the way.

Trust—God is a rock. Years ago my little boy was in a Montessori school and his teacher took them outside the church to a huge rock that was next to the church. And she told them: “God is like a rock…children…climb up on that rock and try to move it.” Trust remembers that God is  strong and will be there for every occasion. Nothing—no thing can separate us from the love of God.

Trust—God is salvation. Not only that I was saved way back there. Nah. But trust that this God will save you, not once—but again and again…and you will believe, like Paul said, “that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion.” God still saves us. And his salvation in a continuing thing. 

Trust—God is Fortress. We visited Ireland months ago and everywhere we went were these monasteries. And they were all tall with tiny windows. And the monks would peer through those windows and look for the enemy—they were protected behind their fortresses. And so are we.

Trust—God is Deliverer. He will not put more on us that we can bear. Sometimes we don’t believe that. But the old prayer which we keep praying over and over: “Deliver us from evil…” is true. Trust—God is our deliverer. Isn’t this why we keep praying it over and pver—we all still need a delivering. 

Trust—God is honor. Strange term, it seems. God honors us. Isn’t that what happened to the Prodigal son. He came stumbling back. Smelled awful. Lost everything he had. Wouldn’t look his father in the eye—even though the old man had tears running down his face. "Take me as one of your servants", the boy  mumbled. And the old man said: "No. No. Bring a robe for his back. Put shoes his calloused feet. Prepare a banquet—for he is hungry and we will celebrate." Regardless of what we have done. He wraps us in the arms of love. Let’s not forget that. He honors us all.

Trust—God is a rock. He’s already said that. But he reminds us again. He really is the Eternal Father—strong to save…as the old song goes: For all those in peril on the sea. In him we will find our strength.

Trust—God is also refuge. Old Abraham Lincoln beset with so many problems. So many killed. The country in disarray. "How do you stand it"? they asked. And he said, “Again and again I have turned to God because there was no other place to go.” And he was right. God is our refuge and strength—a very present help in time of trouble. But then he said: We will not fear. 

It’s so hard to trust when awful things happen to us. But I remember a story from 2011. It was told by the Interim Pastor of a Lutheran Church in Joplin, Missouri. 

A tornado swept through the town on May 22 of that year. And when the tornado hit this Pastor was not in the church but in his motel—and he hunkered down in the basement. And when the storm was over he went outside and saw that the church was blown away. The whole place was gone.

And he said the Monday after the storm a lot of church members were walking around the rubble of the church building asking, “Where are we going to worship next Sunday?” 

He said they decided to meet in the parking lot where the church had been the next Sunday. They wanted to remind each other and everyone that even after what happened in Joplin they were still a congregation. So, he said, the next Sunday the service was chaotic but a moving spiritual experience. Newspapers and radio and television stations sent people to that service. ABC, NBC, CNN were all there.

photo by Landon Taylor / flickr

That Sunday morning when they gathered the rain had finally stopped. It was a beautiful day except the winds were still blowing about 35 miles an hour. But the preacher said, most importantly—God was there —moving among the hundred people that came that morning.

The service moved along. Somebody had loaned them a keyboard, somebody came and played a flute…and they prayed and he preached and then they had Communion which gave the people to celebrate and weep over lost homes and jobs and friends and some family members. He said, despite it all—God was there. He didn’t know where they would worship the next Sunday—they couldn’t keep meeting in the parking lot. He said they had no hymnals even though some church had offered some. They had no musical instruments even though they had been offered an organ. He said they had no copy machine and no computers or telephones. Nothing was left. He said they had lost so many things that the church just took for granted every Sunday. But the members came together to do whatever had to be done. And the Synod and churches from all over the country pledged their help.  And the Pastor said how could they not have gone on with that kind of a back-up team. And he ended his article by saying just this: “God is, and remains, with us in Joplin.” Not only in Joplin, my friends. Not only in Joplin. Even here. Especially here.

So, you see the old book is right. “For God  alone may soul waits in silence.; from him comes my salvation. He alone is my rock and my salvation,  my fortress: I will never be shaken.” (vs. 62.1) Thanks be to God.

photo courtesy of SSFWSmidwest / flickr

(This sermon was a preached at the First Presbyterian Church, Pendleton, SC, January 21, 2018 

where I serve as Supply Minister.)

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com

The President--Who's Responsible?

photo by art flick/ flickr

The good news is that President Trump passed his physical with flying colors. The bad news is that we can now hold him responsible for his words and actions. I cannot think of a single difficult event or decision that our President has taken responsibility for.  On the flip side, every positive sign since he has been in office he has taken credit for. All the negatives went to someone else.

The minions around President Trump rush to his defense of unaccountability.  He really did not say the vulgar words some say he used. He really has never lied. He really does not watch TV endlessly. He only occasionally plays golf. It is not clear at all that President Obama was born in the United States. He says he is not a racist—why would anybody say this? The firing of the FBI Director was all Mr. Comey’s doings. He never had any dealings with Russia and never sat in on meetings that involved them. Why would anybody want to see his tax returns? And when things get dull he really would not attack President Obama or Hillary Clinton or anyone else who has disagreed with him. The mayor of London. The Puerto Rican people who cannot handle their own crises. Or the FBI or the Justice Department and even the CIA. Or, of course the newspaper-TV world. The fake news seems to be everywhere. 

No, he is not mentally deranged. He is accountable for his actions which are cruel and selfish and hurtful to our great country. In one year he has altered the way so many for us feel about the country we love. And the way so many countries look at us today is embarrassing. 

photo by Paul Hanson / flickr

Weeks ago I saw the incredible film, Darkest Hour about Winston Churchill’s leadership as Prime Minister in England.  It was a gut-wrenching time for Mr. Churchill to stand up to his own people and many of his colleagues. He stood firm against the attempts to negotiate a peace with Nazi Germany.  He knew they could not be trusted. Everyone in England seemed to be against him. But the Prime Minister adamantly refused to follow public opinion. We now know he made the right decision. In England’s darkest hours they had a Prime Minister whose courage not only saved his country but also made his nation stronger. No wonder history called those hard days England’s finest hour. Churchill’s leadership made the difference.

On the heels of the movie I read Chris Matthews’ book on Robert Kennedy. It is a fascinating read about the shaping of the character and leadership abilities of the President’s brother. Born in a rich and powerful family Robert Kennedy stood courageously for the underdog. The poor, the Latinos, the blacks—all those that had been left out of the country. When he died and the train carrying his body moved from town to town people lined the railroad tracks knowing they had lost an advocate who worked tirelessly to make their lives better. One wonders if our history would have been different had he lived and become our President. Strong leadership is essential. 

photo by Eric B. Walker / flickr

Alongside the Kennedy book I have also been reading the biography of Abraham Lincoln by David Herbert Donald. We honor Lincoln as one of our greatest Presidents. After his assassination, as the horse-drawn casket passed through the Washington streets one black woman held her grandson high and said,“Take a long long look, honey he died for you.” Citizens everywhere knew he cared. As we stand before the Lincoln Memorial in Washington it is hard to hold back the tears. We are a better people because this President dedicated himself to the principle that all men are created equal. His leadership changed the nation.

There is enough chaos in our time without President Trump creating more havoc. He is responsible for the ugly things he has said about nations and about individuals. He has no idea the power of his words. He is accountable, not only to his base—whoever they are—but to all the American people. He took and oath to “protect and defend “ all our citizenry. It includes people of color, different races, every economic status and all those who come from other countries. This is the United States—united—-not to be divided. And the Commander in Chief has a responsibility to continue the dream of the more perfect union that our forbears envisioned. 

President Harry Truman reminded us that the buck really stops at the President’s desk. This is not fake news—it is the heart of who we are as a people. It is high time we hold our President accountable for his actions or lack of.

photo by Wally Gobetz / flickr

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com

Dr. King--A Meditation

photo by ellabella1 / flickr

Today is the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. Strange time to celebrate his birthday--with all the chaos swirling around us.  Dr. King, by this time I thought we would have moved further down the road you dreamed about: "to turn the mountain of despair into a stone of hope." And for a while after the election of Barack Obama I though maybe we had turned a corner. One of those good places where there is no turning back. I was wrong. For somehow his presidency unleashed a stream of venom and hatred that we thought was gone forever. 

Today's President has not helped the cause. In fact we are more divided than we have been in a long, long time. But I don't want to talk about Mr. Trump. We know him. We have all heard him ad nauseam. No. I want to talk about us and what we can do with the time we have. 

When you are 82 are find yourself attending too many funerals--you know painfully there is not as much ahead as there was behind. And that is a grief. But it is also a gift I guess. It means that I am more conscious than I've ever been too realize how precious the days I have left truly are. I'm trying to make the most of it--but like so many others I still fall of the wagon and fall off the wagon and fall off the wagon. But I still tear up when I hear "We shall overcome some day...deep in my heart I do believe..." because in my lifetime we have made incredible progress and somehow, despite it all I have this hope. 

I'm still preaching and I am enjoying it whether those that come do or not. But last Sunday on the eve of Dr. King's birthday--I remember something that happened to me in Birmingham while I was Pastor. Must of you know that I was Pastor of an inner-city church there. And after work I would drive a mile or so down the road to work out. It was good medicine. I would change clothes at the Y and run up and down the streets of downtown Birmingham. It took the kinks out most days. 

And one particular afternoon I had put behind me a lot of stuff I had dealt with that day. I needed to run, maybe away from it all. Anyway I pulled into a parking space near the Y took my Gym bag and started up the street. A black man came up to me. I thought, Oh, no. He looked like he might be homeless and I did not need another 'Help me"  So I shook my head, and said, "I don't have any money,"  "Mister", he said," I don't want any money--I jest want you to know I ain't crazy." This is not what I expected. But I told him, "No, you are not crazy but you are a child of God." He is face lit up like a Christmas tree. And he nodded, turned and walked away. All the way down the street I still remember what he said, over and over, "Child of God...Child of God...Child of God."

And on this special day I do want to remember all those out there that need a reminder that regardless of who they are and what they have done or failed to do--they really are children of God. 

And so Dr. King on this day, with all its problems: "deep in my heart I still believe..."

photo by Indraneel Biswas / flickr

"Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope." --Romas 15.13

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com

Dr. King and the Dreamers

photo by duncan c

One of the great moments in my memory of speech-making was when Dr. King stood in front of the Lincoln Memorial and told us: “I have a dream…” Those words are embedded in my heart and in the hearts of so many other people.

As I think about the Dreamers—a term that President Trump refuses to use—I think about Dr. King’s all-encompassing dream he gave us in August of 1963. We are in shaky ground in this country if we let these 800,000 young people be denied of their hopes for a better life. Yes, they are illegal. Yes, their parents brought them into this country as little children but most of them were born in this country.

And yet somewhere along the line from home or school or our history we kindled a hope into their hearts. The American dream. They could work hard, get an education and go on to college—like so many of us that were born in this country. Months ago I drove over to Greenville one night to hear some eight or ten of these dreamers open up their hearts and share their stories. Those I heard were outstanding students. They had won all sorts of academic awards for their hard work. Members of honor societies in high school. Some had already received scholarships at schools like Furman. One young lady had enrolled in cosmetology school only to be told toward the end of her studies she could not receive certification to work in our state. 

These 800,000 represent some of the finest young people in our country. It is hard for me to imagine that we would send them back to places they have never lived. They would take with them the broken dreams this country had snatched from their their hands. Some of their parents fled not only from poverty but also from fear for their lives. They wanted something better for their children than closed doors and fearful nights with no promise for a better world. Sounds like the rest of us.

President Trump has left these young people scared that they might lose all they have worked for. One day the President says he will protect the Dreamers, another day he states we could let them stay with strings attached. The Wall. More security along the borders. 2,000 miles of fencing to keep our neighbors out.

None of us want this country less secure. We all want to live in communities that are safe for all our citizenry. But these Dreamers have nothing to do with political matters. But they have much to do with the kind of country we want to be. How tragic it would be to close doors after all the opportunities our country’s provided these young people. To deny the Dreamers a chance for a great future would say much about the kind of people we truly are.

Last Spring my wife and I spent thirteen days in Ireland. One day we stopped in New Ross.

Replica of boat that bought Irish to America

From that village thousands of folk left everything they had ever known for the promise of a better life for them and their children. We saw a replica of the tiny ship that crammed over 150 people into their cargo holds. They left with tiny bundles of clothing. Most were poor.  Many could not even read or write. They left their homeland because they were starving and saw little hope in the county they were born in. They sacrificed everything for the hoped-for-American dream. A place where they could work and have hungry stomachs no more. A place where they would not have to bury their children because of disease and poverty. They risked it all because of the American dream. Many died along the way.

And when they arrived many of these immigrants found resentment and hatred. Yet they persisted and worked and determined to make the dream they had of America a reality for themselves and those they loved. We haver heard some of the stories of our Irish neighbors. They have gone on to enter a multitude of different professions and helped make this country the rich nation we are.

We’ve come as long way since that day in Washington when Dr. King gave us a great vision. As we celebrate  the great man’s birthday let us bring his dream up to date. Years from now almost a million folk that we opened the doors to will find their lives richer and far more meaningful because we gave them a chance. In doing so our nation will once again live up to the promise of those words embedded at the base of that statue so many first saw when they came into our land. 

We held out hospitality to “the tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to be free”. And we  opened wide the golden door for so many. A nation that stands by it’s values will be stronger and better for the doing.

photo by J Kim / flickr

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com