No Democracy in Jesus

We had a wonderful snow storm on Tuesday. It made a great excuse to stay inside and watch all of the incredible happenings in Washington, D.C. There on the steps of the Capitol and in the crowd on the Mall, we had a marvelous demonstration of the power of democracy. Obama was elected by the people. The people had come to share in the celebration.

Later on the news that night WRAL reported a story about a wild snow ball fight at East Carolina. It was reported that more than 200 students engaged in this frenetic and chaotic event. More and more students joined. The students continued to find more and more snow balls, hunks of ice, slush balls, and to push ice blocks off of window ledges. At one point the campus police were sent in to restore order and to bring the rampage under control. As the story was being told, YouTube film was being shown of the students and their snowball fight. Then YouTube film of the police arresting a student and forcibly moving others around. Immediately after the fight a number of students claimed that the police over reacted. In one sense, all this was not new. We have seen these scenes before. What was a most surprising next step was that Pam Saulsby asked the viewers to email the station with their opinion as to whether or not too much force had been used by the police. From that one little bit of YouTube film we were asked to make our opinion known as to whether or not too much force had been used by the police.

Such is the logical development of our democratic ideals. We are all equal and so every opinion is as important as any. My opinion about how much force is needed to control a student melee is equal to the chief of security at East Carolina whose career has been in crowd control and safety? Your opinion is as just as good as the opinion of the police officer on the scene with students throwing snow balls at him?

Not only are all opinions now made the same, we will pile them all together and claim that the 50,000 viewers who email in are more important than the 10 campus security people who have been hired to protect all the students.

The amazing thing is that in many ways we think that this equality of all of us and thus the equality of our opinions and our votes is something that is in harmony with our discipleship with Jesus. Jesus came demanding that we follow him. Jesus talked about there being "truth" and that that truth was to be followed even when all of the other opinions were against us. Jesus talked about being a King to whom loyalty and allegiance was expected and His vision was the vision that mattered and not our own opinion. Jesus did not seem very interested in concept that everybody's opinion was as good as anybody else's and he certainly was not willing to say that majority rules. Not when the majority wanted Barrabus.

I like Democracy when it gives me Obama. I did not like Democracy when it gave me Bush. I certainy do not want to have the kind of community where those who are experts and educated have no more importance than the garbage collectors. I do not want my physical health to be put to a vote of the citizens of Henderson. Jesus never suggested that everybody's version of the Kingdom of Heaven was acceptable and he never indicated that the Kingdom would be run by a majority vote.

Where is the Dream

Martin Luther King Breakfast
Jan. 19, 2009


I am humbled to be invited by Eddie Wright to be a part of this program. I told him that as an old retired minister I was not sure I had much to say, but he was so full of blarney that I finally agreed.

He asked me to take a few minutes to reflect on Dr. King’s Dream. As I took a few minutes to think about that, it seemed to me that, with events such as Obama’s election, we are fast approaching the time when that dream is going to have to become a concrete political agenda. As I think about the dream and the fact that the new President is a black American. As I look around me at Vance County, and there is a black man as sheriff. The last two judges to be elected were Judge Bridges and Judge Yancey. As I look at the City Council and see five out of the nine members are black Americans. When I look at the County Commissioners and we are only one vote away from having a black majority on the County Commissioners, it seems to me pretty obvious that there is a real growing awareness that there is no reason why the majority of the population in this community cannot be in charge of this community.

That would begin to mean that the black community could no longer blame the system for their problems because they are fast becoming in charge of making the rules for the system. The significance of that means that a great deal more focus may need to be placed of finding strong, outstanding leaders like Obama. It means that our young people do have to be shown there are open avenues to power in this community. The dream now becomes the basis for a political agenda by the new leaders or the dream becomes a piece of historical remembrance. It seems to me that we in Vance County are very close to the place where the black community takes charge of the dream and begins to focus their new political power towards making it a reality.

But that is the hard work because it never ends. To celebrate the achievements of Obama and the black leadership in Vance County is only the first step in the dream.

He was speaking to a group of Presbyterians. He had been hired to start an intentional multi-cultural Presbyterian Church. He talked about how hard it had been to get both Blacks and Whites to make the necessary accommodations for each other. Two years they had worked on it. He was beginning to think it was running smoothly and he said he looked one morning and there in the congregation was a bunch of Chinese from Taiwan where the Presbyterian church has had a long history of missionary work. They wanted to be a part of his church. He said it was like starting all over. And just when he thought that maybe they were going to make it work, he found in the congregation three or four pews full of Mexicans who had also been a part of Presbyterian mission work. They it was a group from Lebanon. Each time he about gave up because he knew how hard the work was.

Dr. King’s dream was that there would be a day when all God’s people would be judged on the conduct of their character and not the color of their skin. The Black Community is moving steadily towards taking over this community in political power, but now there is a growing minority of Hispanics moving into our area. They will have to become part of the dream. Maria Parham tells me we have a small group of Filipinos who are recruited as nurses. How do we include them in the dream?

This is an incredible day to celebrate a fantastic moment on the journey of the dream. But the day marks the transition of the dream in lots of places from a dream to a hard political agenda and the realities around us remind us there are still so many other people to bring into the dream.

There Has to be a name

A woman in the Mental Health Field wrote on a web site an article about bi-polar problems, symptoms, and treatments. Immediately one of the responders let loose a horrible attack upon the whole mental health field, the whole medical field: doctors, drug companies, and nurses. It was a mean and vicious attack. The only name give was some email handle. The writer of this smear did not use a real name.

The whole University of North Carolina System is currently engaged in a discussion and debate about how to deal with racist and bigoted comments spray painted on the tunnel at N.C. State University after Obama's election. The lawyer for the ACLU was quoted as saying that this was a very, very difficult issue but that the constitution was clear in its protection of free speech.

Indeed, free speech is a very precious right for all citizens of the United States of America. No one wants to take away that right. But it seems to me that in order to live under that protection there has to be an equal requirement that one has to be public in that speech. That if you want the protection of the first amendment then we have to know to whom that protection is to be given. The person who paints racists comments on a tunnel and flees does not have the protection of the first amendment. The person who paints that comments and signs his name (her name) has the protection of the first amendment. The person who makes accusations, innuendos, slander, or spreads lies on the internet without using their real name gets no protection of the first amendment. The people who want to make those comments and sign their names have that protection under the first amendment.

The first amendment gives protection to citizens, but not a blanket protection to an amorphous vague citizen, but to individual citizens who can be identified with their speech. With every right there is a responsibility. With the right of free speech and the protection of the constitution comes, it seems to me, the responsibility of being willing to be identified with your speech.

Get On with It

There is a story in the New Testament where Jesus comes with his disciples to Peter's house. It seems that his mother-in-law was very ill. Jesus visits her, touches her, and heals her. The story goes on to report that the woman immediately got up and "waited upon them." There have been observations made by women that that was just typical male behavior. A woman just recovered from illness is still expected to take care of the disciples. Maybe the woman wanted to do it out of gratitude. Maybe she would have been insulted if she had not been allowed to care for them. It is hard to know what motivated her to "wait upon them."

But the story does provide an example of the fact that most of Jesus miracles are done to enable the recipients to get on with life. Miracles are not a doorway out of the demands and duties of our ordinary lives. The gift of a miracle is not the gift of luxury and wealth. The wine at the wedding continues the celebration. The sight returned to the blind enables them to go about the normal life. The gift of life to the widow's son gives them back the same old ordinary life they had before he died. So many of the miracles of health and new life do not bestow super powers or extraordinary giftedness to the recipient. The miracles merely restore them to the common life of the period.

By that standard there are lots of miracles happening all around us. People are being restored to their daily lives. And much of what we think we want from a miracle is not a part of what Jesus does with his miracles. Maybe the best miracle for so many of us is that we get up each day and are able to get on with the daily grind. After all most of us just pray "give us this day our daily bread." They say when you fall off the horse you have to get back on. When you almost drown in swimming, you need to get back in the water. The miracle of God's sustaining love is what keeps us getting back into the pool.

What to do?

He would have been a great talking head for television's talk show. He had a very logical mind. He had a very lively wit. He had an amazing way of expressing paradoxes. G.K. Chesterton did not have television so he had to use newspapers, but he used them well. His collected works amount to more than forty volumes. Most of his editorials were done for The Illustrated London News. He wrote in the early 1900's and wrote throughout World War I. His essays during the first World War focused primarily on reminding the English people that they were fighting an evil country which had invaded a small country. It was a long war. He felt that the citizens needed to be constantly reminded that Prussia had started this and needed to be defeated.


But recently a paragraph from the essay of June 19, 1920 has been stuck in my mind. He is responding to the new criticism of the new entertainment industry, the movies. He was hearing that the Cinema was bad for people because it showed them how to be crooks, or it inspired them to commit murder. the movies were too bloody, or there was too much love and romance, or they frightened people. We know the same arguments about video games. We have had the same argument about every new form of entertainment that has come out. Chesterton accepted none of those criticisms.


But what he did find disappointing was something nobody ever mentions. "Nobody mentions it , because everybody is helping to do the same thing in ways that are far worse. It is the indictment against the whole of our modern mechanical and urban civilization, and it is simply this --- that people cannot enjoy themselves. That is they cannot amuse themselves, and therefore they must be amused." Certainly that has only increased. The electronic devises we have to entertain ourselves have only gotten more abundant.


Hospitals have to have a television in every room. We have to have music in elevators, we have to have a radio or television on all the time. Cell phones, laptops, and all kinds of new gadgets and devices. All because we do not like to be alone. Chesterton says, "We do not enjoy ourselves,... We have to have something that does not come from ourselves."

Has to make you wonder what it is about ourselves that we cannot stand? Why is an hour with nothing to do the hardest hour in the world? Why do we spend so much time playing games on the computer? Are we really so empty inside ourselves that we cannot endure looking at our own lives? There is nothing wrong with all of our games, gadgets, entertainment programs, except they allow us never to have to look at our own lives and see if we need to confess, improve, change or rejoice. As long as we are filling up our time with activities outside of ourselves, we will never discover that many of our problems are our own fault. And that is a problem.

When You Need Them

One of the great Old Testament readings is from Second Isaiah (that is chapter 40-55 of Isaiah) is the passage at the end of Chapter 40. "Do you now know, have you not heard? The Lord, the everlasting God, creator of the wide world, grows neither weary nor faint; no man can fathom his understanding. God gives vigour to the weary, new strength to the exhausted. Young men may grow weary and faint, even in their prim they may stumble and fall; but those who wait upon the Lord will renew their strength, they will grow wings like eagles; they will run and not be weary, they will walk and not faint."

These promises were made by the prophet to the children of Israel when the people of God were in captivity in Babylon. These promises were given to a people who were in great disappointment and discouragement. These promises were Isaiah's version of Jimmy Valvano's "Never give up." Do not give up because those who wait upon the providence of God find that they will discover the energy and ability to fly, to run, and to walk. Those are three very different gifts. Wings, running, or walking and not collapsing are very different kinds of activities or conditions.

Those who wait upon the Lord are the ones to whom these gifts are given. Do some people get the wings and others just enough to walk on? Are these gifts to the community of those who wait and to that community these gifts are given to different members? Or do all of us get wings and get to soar? Do all of us get the power to run for a long time? Do all of us get the gift of endurance without fainting? Do those gifts reflect a chronological reality? The young get the gifts to fly, the middle aged get the gift of running without weariness, and the aged get the gift of just walking and not fainting? But nevertheless, there is an assurance to all of us in these anxious times that God is the one who keeps creation and gives to all of us the power to go on, to keep going, to survive. There are promises of unending prosperity or success, but like Donna Summers "we will survive." We may fly, run or walk, but we will go on by the creative power of God.

At least be honest!

This being retired and visiting around is interesting work. It is interesting to see how others are trying to worship God. I guess there is no way to know whether what we are doing truly give God glory or whether God feels glorified by what we do. But lots of people are trying and trying it in lots of different ways.

One of the things that has been most consistent is that there is a lot more singing and lot more music in the way that others are doing it than the way it was done in the congregations where I worked. In fact, an effort to increase the number of hymns was resisted in my last place of work. Not only do others sing more, then sing faster. The tempo of the hymns is much more upbeat. The music has been written by composers and musicians born in the 20th century. It is been mostly pleasant to sing with them.

Two things have been most unexpected. One, There is almost no confession of sin in any of the other places of worship where I have visited. Two, There has been very, very little actual reading of the Scriptures. It seems strange to worship in congregations which would tell you they are Bible believing people, and then not have the Bible read at all. Two or three verses as a basis for the sermon is all that is read. Obviously, I have not been in a lectionary following congregation.

What turned me off immediately in the last place I was attending was the first few lines of the sermon. The preacher began by saying,"I don't talk about politics. That would divide us. I avoid that at all cost. Even if I mentioned football, we would have differences of opinion. But if I preach the gospel, then we are all united. In Christ Jesus we are united. Paul said he preached Christ only for it was the power of salvation. In the Gospel of Jesus Christ, we are all united." And I said to myself, "Where does he live? Southern Baptist are divided and there is a new Convention growing. The Episcoplians are split over a gay Bishop. There are people leaving the Presbyterian church and creating an evangelical presbytery. Rick Warren's invitation to pray has got the conversative community in a snit." That was a stopper for me. Preaching, for me, is an act of truth telling, and if the preacher will not even be honest about how divisive the good news of Christ can be, then I have little confidence in his ability to tell me the truth about the rest of life. Even Jesus was honest and said he had come to bring a sword to divide people. As soon as he said we were all united in Christ, he had cut me out of the herd and I was left to ponder the mysteries while I waited for him to finish.

To be honest, the best a preacher can say is that in the face of the great mysteries of life, this is what I have faith in and hope for.