Market Focus?

MARKET FOCUS?

 by
Rick Brand

 We were outside the racquetball courts and a newly arrived retiree from up north commented to me that Henderson would never advance economically until it fixed its schools. Such a verdict is not new. In fact it is one of the most consistent mantras of our community. Talk to just about any citizen about Henderson and they will quickly rattle off a string of negatives about our community, always including the matter of poor schools.

 Not long ago the Dispatch reported on a meeting of the Economic Development Commission and the County Commissioners that focused on how to “brand” our community. In that meeting it was commented that Vance County needed to have a focus and a target for economic develop and to market that brand aggressively.

! I do not know how wide spread the comments have been, but two of the wiser people in this community, two who have both led very successful businesses, have observed that Vance County and the EDC ought to focus on marketing to retirees. All of the groups concerned about economic development: The Chamber of Commerce, The EDC, the City and the County ought to be running ads in the AARP bulletin, magazines that target the people approaching retirement, in the newspapers in Boston, New York, Newark and other major northeast areas. This ought to be our number one marketing target.

In my mind there are many pluses that can be highlighted: we have a great lake area; we have two major golf courses; we have a great YMCA and we have an above average Adcock Recreational Center; we have great travel options as I-85 and U.S. 1 go right through our county. (Remember most people in the northeast are used to long commutes. From Brookline to downtown Boston by rail is close to 45 minutes if the T is running on schedule.) We are only three hours from professional football in Charlotte or DC. There are national powers in basketball. We are close to NASCAR racing. We are about four hours from the coast and about four to five hours from the mountains. We have a wonderful climate with all four seasons. There are first class medical facilities within an hour’s drive. There is first class entertainment at the DPAC (and soon at our own Performing Arts Center). There are educational opportunities at the host of universities and schools plus continuing ed at VGCC. There is an incredible Library. And the amount of house that one can buy in our community for the money is way more than the house one could buy in other retirement places.

 For Vance County the great benefits would include new names on the tax rolls. Retirees would not be looking at the quality of schools, though the new property taxes might give the county additional income to improve the schools. The marketing would have to be all along the northeast and would have to be constantly repeated. This marketing focus would have to be aggressive. But Vance County does have these advantages over other communities who are also needing revival. We might have to make some infrastructure additions. But we have already begun to have county water. Contractors would be happy to build “dream” homes. If we are looking for “branding” and a marketing program, I think the suggestion of those two wise successful business people makes great sense. 

Is A Horse a Person? More education Needed....

     The man was explaining why he did not mind paying taxes. He knew that taxes were the way we invest in our future.  We build new roads for future growth. We build better airports. We expand mental health programs to make our future better.  He closed his comments by saying that he believed in paying his taxes and investing in education because he just did not want to live in a community of ignorant and uneducated people.
      The evidence seems to me to suggest that we need more taxes and more investment in education. The evidence just seems to point out that we have, regardless of public, private, home school, or whatever, a growing problem with education.
        a.  The refusal on the part of so many people to accept the work of science and the conclusions of the vast majority of science that there is a problem with global warming and human activities have a part to play in that warming.  Almost 200 countries gathered and agreed that there is a problem and they want to fix it, and we have political leaders and followers who want to refuse to fund our country's part in the solution.
       b. The second evidence for me is the incredible number of people who think the Donal Trump, Ted Cruz, or Ben Carson are equipped and qualified to be President of our country.  When other countries are already passing resolutions to refuse to admit Mr.Trump to their country how will he be able to conduct foreign affairs?  How do you make another country pay for a wall?
       c. But the greatest evidence for the failure of our educational efforts appeared recently when a huge number of people became upset when American Pharaoh did not win Sports Illustrated "Sportsperson of the Year." Somewhere, somehow, the failure to educate our people to understand the basics of "person" is disturbing.  The award is given to a person, not a horse.  It is not fun to live in a country or community with uneducated people. We need to invest more into public education

Same old issues in American Politics

We may find ourselves amazed at what is happening in our political arena in our country at the moment, but while reading an essay by G.K. Chesterton in the Illustrated London News of November 17, 1928 I found the following description of the American situation:

      "The election is not a conflict between Democrats and Republicans, or between Drink and Prohibition or even in the first place between Agriculture and Finance. It is , in the simplest sense of the very strongest phrase, a conflict between light and darkness, between things understood and things not understood; between people who take a certain view of the facts, and people who have never yet even heard of the facts, between principle and prejudice; between cosmos and chaos."

     Chesterton was convinced that America was too large for a campaign to be able to adequately express its ideas and objectives.  The size of the country and the number of people meant that there were just large blocks of people who had no idea what the issues were, no idea of what the candidates stood for and so voted on instincts, fears and prejudices.  His subject was the anti-catholic fears against Al Smith in that election. The great fear that a Catholic president would become a slave to the Pope.  The very "Know Nothing" Party that, Chesterton suggested, was a very apt name for the party because they really did know very little about the Catholic faith and the world around them.

     There seems to be much evidence that we have not moved there far from where we as a country were in 1928.  We have so many new toys and yet we still play the old games.

An annual tradition:

CHRISTMAS SONNET, 2015

It jumped so quickly in the news 

And not for the latte that they brew 

Old Starbuck got their dander up 

Because of some old plain red cup.

In Paris France the blood ran deep 

As music fans were shot like sheep 

On our West coast another scene 

Of guns and hate is now routine.

As leaders from around the world 

The global warming issues swirl 

They search for ways to give to all 

Solutions that preserve the ball

Yet somewhere in this ugly mess 

God’s grace is born for us to bless.

--- -rick brand 

May the season of the year renew your hopes and courage!

Rick

Go Back to England

I heard a story about a man in a check out line in a large supermarket. Behind him was a woman talking on the phone. The conversation was in a language which the man did not understand.  When the woman finished her call, the man turned to her and said, "If you want to speak Spanish, go back to Mexico. This is America, we speak English."  The woman calmly looked at the man and said, "I was speaking Navajo, and if you want to speak English, why don't you go back to England?"

A rather powerful way to remind us that almost all of us are here as the results of some body's immigration into this country.  Almost all of us are here because we have ancestors who came to this country.  Some were brought here by the desire to create their own religious community. Some were brought here by the English to empty their prisons. Some were brought here by ships as slaves. Some came as a result of famine and crop failures. Some came looking for land. But almost all of us are the results of immigration to this country.

Yet now there are some who want to stop this process. They want to build walls to keep people out of the country.  There is even talk by some that we should round up all of the recent immigrants and ship them home.

The great irony of this passion to stop the influx of Mexicans and Latin American people is that all of this focus on the Mexican border ignores the fact that the Hispanics are no longer the largest group of immigrants into our country.  The expenditures of billions of dollars to build a wall on the Mexican borders, (and who really thinks that we could build a wall on the Canadian border as well as one politician suggested) is to try to stop the second largest group of immigrants.

According to the Pew Research center the figures for 2013 show that the largest group of immigrants was Asians. The Asian portion was 35% of the immigrants while the Hispanic percentage was 33% and going down.  Our focus is in the wrong direction if we want to stop the largest group of immigrants now coming into our country.  One does not hear a word about stopping the Asian influx.

The immigration issue is not just a United States issue.  Europe is currently besieged by the flood of immigrants from the Middle East because of the wars and fighting which was unleashed by the USA invasion of Iraq.   This is an issue that all of the nations are going to have to face and find a way of dealing with all these people on the move. It is a position our congress has refused to deal with. But it will not go away.

Put it to use

He was a very well known preacher in his day. In the 1950's he was a special guest at lots of preaching missions. I know he was always a special preacher in the East Tennessee yearly preaching mission in Johnson City, Tenn. His name was Charles Allen, and he was the pastor of the First United Methodist Church in Houston, Texas for ages. He proved to me that the Methodist do not always move their ministers every four years.

He once told me that when he found a great story or an illustration, it did not matter what he was preaching he was going to use that story the very next Sunday. He did not want anyone else to use it before he did, and he knew that even great stories lose their power when they are no longer timely.

He told a story about a man in his congregation who made buckets of money. He was super successful in his business and he did some great financial planning. It was a good thing because the man died very young. The business man had set up a trust fund for his son that said that the son would get a regular income, a living wage, as long as he was in college.  So the son spent 48 years in college, earned 11 degrees and did absolutely nothing with any of his education.

It is a painful story because I think it reminds us that all of us have been left incredible resources and opportunities, and the question that has to haunt us all is what have we done with it. What kind of contribution have we made to the betterment of our community, our state, our world with what we have received?  48 years of college for one man is amazing, but 500 years of accumulated wisdom is available to all of us and how have we made use of it?

First Citizens Bank has a commercial that suggests the same thing, "Money isn't everything, but so much depends on what you do with it."  Having the gifts, having the abundance and advantages that we have as citizens of this country, the question is still what have we done with it?  How have we helped the other countries in the world?

Bird in the Garage- sound familiar?

I have a garage with an automatic door opener. I opened the garage to get the car out so I could get the lawn mower out to take care of the two week's worth of grass I had from vacation.  I had left the garage door up. This garage has two windows at the back of the garage.  When I brought the mower back after finishing the mowing, there was a bird beating against a window in the back. I watched for several minutes. It was a good size bird. I kept trying to get out of the window. It would back up and fly into the window. Finally, I decided I had had enough so I got a broom and got between the bird and the window and swung at the bird. It turned around saw the wide open space where the garage door had been, and flew out of the garage.

It struck me that I had been that bird, and I think a lot of other people have been that bird. We are so narrowly focused and see only one source of light and we keep trying to get to it, and fail, and fail, and never realize that there is another way out of the mess, if we would just turn around.  A friend of mine, Ernie Campbell, who used to be the pastor at the Riverside Church in New York, wrote a book called "Locked in a room with open doors."  He suggested that we often keep ourselves in a place thinking that we are locked in when the doors are really unlocked if we would just try them.

There may well be a large open way out of our situation if we would stop beating ourselves against the window and look around.  It might actually be in the opposite direction of where we are trying to go. Like the bird had to fly in the opposite direction to get out of the garage, but it would have never made it out of that window.

What is Truth? Wanted More Pontius Pilates.

Someone suggested that the first encounter with Jesus makes you confused. That Jesus undercuts your absolutes. Jesus makes you doubt yourself.  The author pointed to Nicodemus who comes to Jesus seeking to get a handle on all this stuff. Nicodemus starts with the polite conversation, but Jesus confronts him with "You must be born again."  Nicodemus is blown away!  "How the hell is that possible?"  The first conversation with Jesus makes Nicodemus confused and outraged.

When you come to the end of Jesus ministry and Jesus is at Pontius Pilate's court (John 18:38), Pilate's encounter makes him ask the question, "What is truth?"  Pilate's encounter with Jesus and his political experiences makes him unsure of what is true and what is false.

I was watching Sen. Ted Cruz answer questions before the 2000 delegates to the Iowa Christian Convention.  Senator Cruz said that it was his intention on this campaign to speak only "the truth". He would not shy away from offending people, if they were unable to handle "the truth".

In fact, it seems to me that is one of the marks of the many candidates who are currently running for President. They all claim to know "the truth". They are absolutely convinced that they are right. When Senator Cruz said that he was going to speak "the truth" on this campaign, I knew immediately that what I wanted was more Pontius Pilates.  I think we need more politicians who are not sure they know the truth but are willing to seek it by listening, by talking with others, by exploring all the possibilities, and by being willing to say this is how I see things and there are others who see it differently and we can both enjoy the rights and privileges of this country.

What I think we need is more Pontius Pilates, more politicians who admit that they do not know what the "truth" is and who can live in that kind of ambiguity.

A Compromise Proposal--about marriage

Since there is such a great outcry from all those hurt by the Supreme Court's decision about the rights of same sex couples to be married, and all the religious people claim marriage is between one man and one woman, here is a proposal.


Since it seems to me that gay people have to have the right to get "married" because all the laws, tax codes, insurance policies grant to "married people" certain benefits,  being allowed to be "married" grants to gay couples those same rights and privileges.

Now supposed all the language was just changed to "civil unions".  All couple, gay or straight, would have to be "civil unioned" by the state.  Being "civil unioned"  would grant all couples gay and straight all the same benefits.

Any couple that wanted to be "married" would have to go to a religious group and have that group perform the ritual that blessed their civil union and made it a marriage.

I can understand why gays would not want civil unions if straight couples got married by the state. Gays want the same respect from the laws of this country as other citizens, but if all couples had to be civil unioned and that gave all of them the same rights and benefits, then the religious orders could do what they wanted about whether or not they would add the blessing to the civil union.  Religious orders might conduct services they call marriage for gay couple or they might refrain from performing those services.   The term "married" would designate that a religious group had blessed a civil union.  Those who did not go to get a religious blessing would, gay or straight, be called civil unions.

The civil union suggestion was first made as an effort to appease the gays, but it did not satisfy because it was different from what straights got from the state. This way all couples get the same certificate and the same benefits, and those who want the religious stuff can talk to a religious leader.

Future of Faith

It is going to be a new world we live in.  The Christian faith is going to be, as it has always been in this country, one of many. The major difference will be that it will not be given preferred status by law. The situation will be more like the church in the first two or three centuries when it was competing with the Roman and Greek religions. It was not given preferred status until the Emperor declared it the religion of the Empire.

The Christian faith will no longer be privileged before other faiths. The Jews, The Muslims, the Buddhist and others will have equal standing in law. The people who want to be Christians will have to be intentional about it the way Jews have to be intentional about their faith. The way Muslims have been intentional about their faith.

The impulse of all Religions to impose their values and laws upon the rest of the society will have to be rejected. Shari law can not be accepted in our society nor can the religious practices of Christians be imposed upon the rest of society.  Any laws and rules will have to be rooted in some common and general sense of values that are good for all society.

This will be a very rude awakening for most nominal Christians. The thought that this is a Christian nation has been an illusion.  The reality is that most of the early Christians came to this country to be able to practice their religion they way they wanted to and they all attempted to impose their religion on the whole community. That is how Roger Williams had to flee to Rhode Island.

It will be a great benefit for the Christian faith because it will decrease the number of joiners who simple tag along for various personal reason.

There is no cure for those who will not see

There is all this fear that "Obama is going to invade Texas."  What would he do with it if he invades? I think the people who suggested that Obama's real posture towards Texas is that he would give it back to Mexico if they would take it.

There is all this fear that Christian ministers will HAVE TO marry gay couples. Who is the one who started that rumor?  Ministers in all the denominations I know have never had to marry anybody.  The ministers ask for pre-marital counseling and frequently they tell the couple that the couple should not get married.  All these governors who are signing laws that exempt ministers from doing gay marriages are showboating for their political base.

There is a fear that Obama is coming for your guns and your Bible.  There has never been any suggesting, except for Karl Rove, that all guns should be removed from the country. We just want better limit on who can have them, how many you can have, and how many bullets they can shoot at one time.  No one needs assault weapons as a hunting rifle nor home invasion protection, And why should Obama or anybody come and take away your Bible. The Gideons will give anybody one free.

The great sadness for me is that all of these fears are being flamed because some group or some person sees a way to benefit from the fears.  The media that continues to report these things and the talking heads that encourage these fears do so for their own profit.

The Two Tune Motto

Jimmy Buffet has a lot of great music but I find myself caught between two lines in two different songs. One is Trip Around the Sun, and the line is "If there is one thing that I've learned from all this living is It wouldn't change a thing if I let go."  I decided to retire and that song kind of summed it up. The life of the church and the life in the community would just go on. It would be like pulling a stick out of the water, it would not leave a hole. It would not change anything if I retired, let go of the offices I had. And that has been true.

The other line is from the song " I just growing older, I am not growing up." and the line is "I would rather die while I am living, than live while I am dead."  I hope that my family knows that as well. I do not want to live on if I do not know it or cannot participate in life. We are planning to do as much living, loving and traveling and doing as we can and hope we wear out and not rust out.

I guess I got some of that from life, from my mother. She would get on a plane and fly to visit us, and said when her friends worried about air travel,  air crashes, mother said she just told them "What a way to go."

We are just passing through and most of us do not make that big of an impact that it makes a difference if we let go, but we can all enter into living as much and as fully as possible so that we die while living.

Something like the catechism "Man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever."

The Perspective

I have always like to fly in airplanes.  I have always enjoyed coming to the beach and standing on the sand and look out at the horizon.  Both of these give me a great perspective on life.

As we go up in the plane the people on the ground, of course, become smaller and smaller. Which then makes me think and feel like the problems, the strutting, the things we all get for evidence of our status, the new car, the cell phone, the chains on the chest, all of those disappear from high up.  We all become just little creatures like ants hurrying and scurrying around and what we think are major issues become invisible.  I think there was a song ages ago about "from a distance you look like my friend."

The Ocean and the horizon have another way of reminding me of how small and temporary I am and human life is. It is great fun to play in the water and to enjoy the shore, but when you look out to the horizon and cannot see the end, you are "put in your place" and are reminded that we are really so small and the earth is so great.

It is a perspective that we might benefit from acquiring more often. The Psalmist asked that question, "What is man that thou art mindful of him?"  We are God's creatures, but our importance is in who made us not in ourselves. I think that we might make a lot more progress toward cooperation if we would allow this perspective to humble us.

Some Times a Light Surprises

There is a hymn in one of the older hymn books that begins "Sometimes a light surprises The Christian while he sings. It is the Lord, who rises, with healing in His Wings." I certainly was surprised to hear the President of the United States break into a solo of Amazing Grace on Friday.  But it was a moment of light with healing in its words.

There is a lot of surprises in Charleston and around the country in response to the deadly shooting in a church. Nine people at Bible study were killed.  The Charleston community surprised many by the reaction they had to that event. The families surprised us all by the healing forgiveness they offered to the shooter.  The community turn out for the eulogy for the Pastor led by President Obama. The light surprised us and there was much healing in the grace proclaimed.

The surprise of forgiveness and grace, and hope and mercy gives us all another chance to get it right and make a difference. To listen to the pain and anger that certain deeds, flags, symbols and statues caused our neighbors.

The two major court decisions which affirmed that the Health Care law would continue to provide health insurance for so many, and the affirmation of the right of same sex couples to have legal weddings also surprised some and brought a light of hope and possibility to all.  Things can be changed, there is hope that efforts, conversations and political action can bring about changes. Sometimes we get discouraged by the long battle, but then a light surprises and a new day comes and there is hope for all of us.

Sometimes a light surprises. It does not happen all the time. We cannot make it happen, but we can work towards it and be ready to celebrate it when it comes.

Let's keep it a secret

I must confess that I almost laughed at the passage. It is in Mark's gospel. Jesus goes to the home of Jairus. His daughter is sick when he comes to get Jesus, but by the time Jesus gets through with the woman and the bleeding, the child is reported as dead.  Jesus goes to Jairus' home. There is a crowd of mourners there. They are all sure that the child is dead. Jesus said the child is sleeping. They laugh at him. Jesus goes into the room where the girl is, he restores her life, and she gets up and he suggests that they give her some food.  What was most amusing to me was that Jesus then gives them strict orders not to tell anyone.

So how do they keep it a secret when the girl goes out to play?  How do they not tell anyone when she is seen moving around.  What are they supposed to keep secret?

Anyway, one of the constant themes in Mark is the scholarly subject of the Messianic secret. But what I find most appropriate now for Christians is that Jesus spends a lot of time telling his disciples to cool it. To keep their mouths shout. Not to say anything. Just to keep doing what they are doing, healing the sick, caring for each other, and listening to Him.

I think that in our current situation as Christians in a culture that is evolving and trying to find a way to have a multi-religious society, one of the best contributions Christians could make is to curtail and refrain from a lot of talking.  As followers of Christ, we do not have to out yell everybody. There might be a lot less stress and hostility if we were a lot more silent and patience.  The advice of Gamaliel to the Jerusalem council is still good advice for us, "If this great evolution of our society is of God, it cannot be stopped. If it is not of God, it will not endure."

something is missing in worship

When I was in seminary I read a book by Rudolph Otto who had made a study of the religious experience. He stated that there were two basic elements to the religious experience: there was a powerful experience of mystery and wonder; and there was a deep feeling of fear, apprehension and anxiousness. One of the early American preacher once said “it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of a living God.”  Annie Dillard spoke of the silliness of humans playing at worship because it was such a mysterious and dangerous activity.

The places I go lack both of those aspects. The worship services I go to, even the ones where I am scheduled to preach at, lack both of these aspects. The whole direction of most of the worship services is informality.  There is a prelude music, which might set some ground work for mystery and wonder, but that is destroyed immediately by some one who gets up and makes announcements.   These announcements are usually printed in the bulletin so they should not have to be read or given at the first of the service. The feeling that most of these churches want to convey is one of friendship, family, comfort, and happiness.  The idea that one might come to encounter the holy and be scared to death like Isaiah is foreign to most of them. The worship services are not much different from the civic clubs that hold weekly meetings.

I mentioned that to one person and they responded in agreement about the announcements, the singing, but claimed that you did not hear the Word of God preached or the sacraments observed (thanks, Calvin).  My response is that most of the preaching sounds like civic club programs as well. Case in point:  two sermons in the June 26, 2015 Christian Century by a highly respected professor of preaching had as topics: one was “interruptions in your life” and the second was “failures in your life.”  You would have both but they both might be good for you.  Not much mystery or fear in those messages. 

The greatest sadness for me is that most of these churches are not even trying to encounter a living, mysterious, awesome, holy love that could frighten their comfortable, predictable little world.  The Kingdom of God is a vision of God that is in direct conflict with the kingdoms of this world.  Pope Francis is correct. His vision of the way towards being the Kingdom of God is in direct conflict with the kingdoms of this world. But he is staying faithful to the vision of the Kingdom. He is exciting.

It would be my observation that most of the Christian worship I experience is trying to enable us to be at home and comfortable in the kingdoms of this world.  There is no awesome, scary, wonderful alternative vision of the Kingdom of God being shared. 

A Long Journey of Tears

Retiring in 2008 from the full time pastoral ministry,  I have taken my time to let time give me some perspective on the journey.  In forty years of ministry, there were lots of wonderful memories. Lots of places that I got to go because I was clergy. Places that I would not have been welcomed if I had not been clergy.  There were people I met and people I got to listen to and read that were exciting and powerful.  I had five great pastoral situations. Each was different and each was special. We did some special things in each place.  I have no regrets about the churches I served, the friends I have made. I am even satisfied with the enemies I made. I might say that I am happy that the people who did not enjoy my ministries did not enjoy it. If the mantra is to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted, I think those that felt afflicted need to be afflicted.

But despite the fact that my own local situations were enjoyable, I must confess that the larger bodies of the church have done nothing but had conflict the whole time.  At the national level it has been nothing but one fight after another.  Always there was some issue that was supposed to be going to divide the church, drive people away, and cause the collection to go down.

When I got out of seminary in 1968 the Presbyterian church was divided in the Southern church and northern church. Both of them were engaged in constant arguments over the question of integrating the worship. Civil rights and segregation were major topics of concern.  Every session had long meetings talking about what they would do if a black person came to worship in their white church.
Pastors lost their position because they preached integration too much.

While that issue was boiling up a second issue was not far behind, the war in Vietnam.  The country was greatly divided over that issue and if the country was divided then certainly congregations were divided, and long debates at the different levels of the church court were over what to say or preach about participating in the war.

When we moved to Texas one of the issues that got put up as the next chapter in the fight was the whole question of whether or not children should be admitted to the Lord's Table.  Should Baptized children be given communion or should they have to wait until they made their own profession of faith.  The argument was supposed to be about children at the Communion Table, but it was really about the meaning of Baptism.  For the longest time Baptism in the Christian tradition had included both the water and the confession. Two parts which in Adult baptism came at the same time. Presbyterians used to say that the baby got the water and then at age 12 made the confession so Baptism was a 12 to 15 year process. The decision to allow babies who had received the water to the table changed the meaning of Baptism.

But that was just a passing fight. We had the fight about church union and reuniting the southern and northern parts of the Presbyterian Church.  We had a fight over whether or not to have women elders, and then whether or not to have women ministers. Some denominations are still having those fights.

Now we have the fight about gays and lesbian people whether or not to allow them to join, to elect them as officers, to allow them to preach, and to perform worship services for them.  One of the amazing thing to me is that we have had these issues brought up, and one of the best stalling tactics has been to claim that we need to talk about them. The motion to decide is postponed in order to have dialogue, and then there is little dialogue.

The history of the Presbyterian church in this country talks about a split and a fight between what was called the Old School and the New School.  I think that split has never gone away. When we get through with the gay and lesbian issue, there will be another one.

The claim is always made that the issue we are debate will divide the church. I suspect that rather than one issue causing the Presbyterian church to lose member, it is just that people have gotten so tired of all the fight that they just no longer want to be a part of a church that talks about unity and love and yet cannot find a way to show it.

Return of Brother Biddle

It has been a long time since I got a note from Brother Biddle who used to be over at the East Burlap Protestant Parish.  He and I used to write each other about twice a year. Once after Easter on the Low, slow week after Easter and once after all the activities of Christmas had finished and we were waiting on the New Year.  Brother Biddle retired from East Burlap about the same time I retired from my work in Henderson. So we kind of dropped the correspondence for a while.

But I got a note from him this week, telling all of the strange goings on at East Burlap. He said that some eager bunch of folks had decided that the Christian faith needed a little more purification. They thought, how could they ever think this, that there were too many non Christians in the Bible. So they formed a committee to try to rectify the situation.

They found they had a lot of problems with the Old Testament because it had a lot of Jewish people in it and they probably needed to be converted or those books needed to be revised so that it was good Christian people who were in God's special city.

Brother Biddle said what had really started them thinking this way was when some scholar visited the church and mentioned that the Wise Men might have been Muslims or Hindus or some other pagan religion.  These people did not want any foreigners messing with the lovely Christmas story so they were going to leave out the wise men. The Shepherds were not middle class but they were in the same country so they must have been of the right race.

This committee was not very excited about all that early church socialism either. That was certainly unAmerican and anti-capitalism and the committee voted to make sure that story never came up in the lectionary that East Burlap used.  The committee wanted to add a story about God's special blessing on America, but the new Pastor finally put his foot down and said that they were not going to write new  books for the Bible. It might be possible to edit the current version but he was not going to let them write new stuff.

Brother Biddle said that he though that was a pretty bold and courageous stand for the minister and Brother Biddle said he sent him a note congratulating him.

Brother Biddle's notes always made me realize that things where I was were not nearly as horrible as I might have imagined.

Too Far Off

The prophets of our day are the scientists. They see the climate changing. They tell of the waters rising. They report the population growth. They tell of the wars over water.  The prophecies of the scientists are given in decades not minutes. They talk of events that will happen in twenty or thirty years.  Their prophecies get very little attention from the people who are now making decisions. The CEO's who are focused on the bottom line today. The politicians who are focused on the next election.  They may hear the prophecies but these prophecies are not as important to them as the decisions of today.

I suspect that the same reaction may have been given to the prophecies of Jeremiah.  Jeremiah has some short term prophecies that are not very pretty.  Jerusalem and the people are going to be sacked by the Babylonians, taken into captivity, the temple is going to be stripped of its treasures and all the "brightest and best" are going to be made slaves of the Babylonians.

Then Jeremiah says, "The Lord proclaimed:  When Babylon's seventy years are up, I will come fulfill my gracious promise to bring you back to this place (Jerusalem)" (Jeremiah 29:10)  Judgment, punishment, pain and sorrow will last seventy years, but don't worry, at the end of seventy years, you will be brought back.

Who would find any comfort in that in our day and age?  At my age the fact that in seventy years things will be better is not a good message for me. I will be dead.  All the people who are taken into captivity now will be dead. That is why Jeremiah tells them they have to have their children marry, have babies, and make a living in Babylon so that there will be people to be brought back.

The people who hear and can accept Jeremiah's good news are people who are more concerned with their corporate identity, the existence of the people of God, the national concept, who care more about the survival of their group than about themselves.  They have a very solid identity as a people. The individual is only a part of the whole.  The way fans look at a college sports program.  It is more about Kentucky basketball than about any individual player.

It seems to me that there is a small sense of corporate identity in our culture.  We may care about our country, but I suspect that if you had told those people in the great depression that in seventy years the stock market would recover they would not have found that much good news. If we were to say that in seventy years we will have found a cure for cancer, I am not sure that that would bring joy to the cancer people now.  I think our society has a lot more focus on the immediacy and the individual satisfaction than we have on our corporate survival and success.   Pie in the sky bye and bye is not a big seller any more and I doubt if pie in the future (three generations) would be a big hit either.

Christmas sonnet, 2014

I put the Christmas poem of 2013 on this blog and forgot to put the Christmas poem for 2014

So better late than never.

                                THE CHRISTMAS  SONNET, 2014

The paper's full of blood and guts.
The whole damn world's jut going nuts.
School children slaughtered at their desks.
A Sydney siege just turns grotesque.

Cheap gas gives auto sales a boost
As Putin's "bucks" tank through the roof.
But sales are said to still be good
So Santa's doing what he should.

There is a battle raging here.
It seems more vicious than past years.
Which Savior should we welcome here:
ISIS, Santa, Guns or Beer?

A messy baby in some straw
Contends that God has love for all.

Passed By

     When they went around the room in the parlor to introduce the members of the commission to ordain a young woman who had grown up in the church while I had served there, I introduced myself as the "has been."  That always seems to get a laugh, but it is more true than joke.

      The church, the culture, the religious landscape has passed me by and I do not know what is needed or what would be nourishment and blessing for a congregation.  The little congregations I supply from time to time are not willing to make any changes and so what I give them they welcome, but it is not the "bread of life" that a congregation in a major urban area would like

       That the worship has passed be by has been demonstrated to me very clearly in the last two sermons I have heard from two very high steeple churches in New York City.  Both preachers were well known preachers and they gave very strong messages and were, of course, well delivered. I get that.  They were very much like dramatic monologues, with all the gifts of good drama.

       What struck me so strange was that both congregations broke out in applause after the pastor finished.  Applause like it was a performance on a stage.  Applause like going to a concert and hearing a singer perform.  I was nurtured in the tradition that congregations were not supposed to even applaud the choir or the soloist.  We even thought it was unseemly for people to say "amen" in our congregations to good point in a sermon.

        What that suggested to me was that more and more the congregation does not see itself as part of the drama. That they do not understand that they are the Greek chorus and the whole worship is the play for the benefit of the world outside.  The congregation has speaking parts, confession, hymns, prayers, affirmation of faith, and the choir and preacher have other parts. The very coming to worship is a part of the drama which is conducted for the purpose of giving God praise and for witnessing to the world.

       The applause for the sermon is another step towards seeing the congregation as the audience and the preacher and choir as the actors on stage putting on a show for the crowd. It is not what I understood as worship.  But as I said, I am a has been and the new reality in religious worship has passed me by.

Why Jesus always gets abused

THEY GROW UP SO QUICKLY

February 22, 2015

Brookston Presbyterian Church, Henderson, NC

Rick Brand, Supply

Boy, they sure grow up so quickly, don’t they?  No sooner do you celebrate the first step they take, than they are asking for the keys to the car.  The young grow up so quickly. It seems like only yesterday they were taking him down to the temple to be baptized. Life just goes by so quickly. We all get caught up in our own little worlds and the next thing you know you’re getting wedding invitations from the little girls who used to baby sit for you.  Young people just seem to grow up so fast. Why, it doesn’t seem like more than just a couple of months ago that we were celebrating the birth of Jesus, and now look at him. Standing up there, making public speeches, just look at how he has grown, look at how poised he is. Listen to him speak, “ The Kingdom of God is at hand, Repent and believe.”

They grow up so quickly and they sure can come up with some really crazy ideas.  Where in the world do they come up with all that radical stuff.  Young people going off to war thinking they are going to fight to end all wars. Going to go fight to make the world safe for democracy.  They are going to build a great new society. Young people claiming the They Shall Overcome.  Going to build the peaceable kingdom right out there in Woodstock. They grow up so quickly and they come out with some really crazy ideas.  Why look at Jesus, seems like just a few weeks ago we were celebrating his birth and now he is telling us that The Kingdom of God has arrived.

Mark is the earliest of the gospel writers and Mark says what all the Gospel writers say, “Jesus came teaching and preaching that the Kingdom of God has arrived and the time is fulfilled.”  In other words, all those promises about what will happen in the Day of the Lord, all those prophecies about what will take place when the Kingdom of God comes are now being fulfilled in his presence.  Where did Jesus get those strange ideas?

August Wilson is a Pulitzer Prize winning play writer. He has a play called Seven Guitars and in that play, one of the main characters is named Hedley. Hedley starts talking about what he thinks will happen when the Kingdom of God comes.  When the promised Kingdom comes, Hedley says, “I gonna be a big man.”  Louise, his mother, snaps back, “”You ain’t gonna be nothing.”  Hedley says, “The Bible say it all will come to straighten out in the end. Every abomination shall be brought low. Everything will fall to a new place. When I get my plantation I’m gonna walk around it. I am going to walk all the way round to see how big it is. I’m gonna be a big man on that day. That is the day I dress up and go walking through the town. That is the day my father forgive me. I tell you this as God is my witness on that great day when all the people are singing as I go by...  and my plantation is full and ripe ... and my father is a strong memory... on that day... the white man not going to tell me what to do no more.”  That is what Hedley thinks is supposed to happen when the Kingdom of God comes near.

The Bible says that when the Kingdom of God comes -- the lion will lie down with the lamb --- the desert will blossom like a rose-- righteousness will flow down like a might stream -- peace will flow like a river -- the knowledge of God will cover the earth as the waters cover the seas”   If you want to reduce those visions to one word, the word is Gospel - the kingdom is good news. And Jesus is up there telling the crowd that the Good News is being fulfilled in his presence.  Jesus is saying that all the promises about what will happen when the Kingdom of God comes are now being made good in his presence.   They grow up so quickly and come up with such strange ideas.

Jesus began his public ministry by preaching in his home synagogues from the text of Isaiah. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach the Gospel to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives, recovering of the sight to the blind, to set at liberty those that are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.”  Then he closed the book and gave it back to the Priest and said, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. “  Jesus says that he is doing all those good things. He is the anointed of the Lord.

That first sermon did not go very well. It did not end up with all of them standing around and congratulating him on his first sermon.    Something in that sermon offended the congregation. The hometown folks were insulted mightily and rose up and ran him out of town. They tried to take him to a cliff and throw him over to kill him.  Something very ugly, deep and bitter is going on here. Something there is that does not love the good news.  Cause the same thing kept happening to Paul when he preached the Gospel.  Whenever and wherever he went to declare that the Kingdom of God was fulfilled in the person, life, death and resurrection of Jesus, Paul got beaten, arrested, and abused. 

Jesus says, “The kingdom of God is being fulfilled now. Believe the good news, Repent. The time is now.”  Paul says Jesus is the good news. In Jesus all the goodness and grace of God has been made visible, the fulfillment of all the promises of the Kingdom of God have been achieved in Him.  And the results of their preaching is that they are bitterly resented and brutally attacked. What in the world is going on here?  Jesus has some youthful ideas about the time being fulfilled, claims the Kingdom of God is at hand in his life!  What is so dangerous about that?  Why is that message so radical?   

Because if it is true then most of the things we have been doing with our lives has been wrong.  If Jesus is the one who makes the Kingdom of God real and present, then most of the goals and objectives we have invested our lives in, have been wasteful. If Jesus is the fulfillment of the Kingdom of God, then the Messiah is a suffering lover and not a royal monarch.  If Jesus is the fulfillment of the Kingdom of God, then the Kingdom of God is open to “whosoever” will, and not just to the Jews.  If Jesus is the fulfillment of the Kingdom of God, if He is the Kingdom made manifest, then we are called to repent, and we do not like being told we are wrong.

Why has the Oklahoma legislators talked about ending AP History courses in their high schools?  Because the curriculum includes those events in American history that speak to the dark side of our history as well as to the glory.  Because the course does not present the United States as the greatest and best nation in the world. The course not only talks about the tremendous fight for liberty in the American revolution, but it talks about the horrendous treatment of the Native American Indians and our lies and treaty violations. It talks about the economy if the south being built on slavery and the nasty Jim Crow laws.  We don’t want to be called to repentance.

Of sure we want a Savior, and like Hedley, we want the Kingdom of God to come and make us wonderful. We want a theology of glory. We want a kingdom of triumph and victory. We are not very interested in a theology of suffering and the cross. Who wants to go to a Heaven where everybody who wants to be there will be there?   Who wants to go to a Heaven where repentant child abusers, racists, embezzlers, and who knows who else might be there?  Have you ever talked to anyone who thought the grace of God in Jesus Christ might be large enough to allow Hitler to be forgiven?  We want a Kingdom of God where we get what we think we deserve and have earned, and we think we deserve a lot.

The theologian Douglas John Hall suggests that one of the greatest problems with Christian communities in North American is precisely that people expect the church to be a place for good people, to be a place of harmony and peace. “Therefore people can only accept these church and retain their membership with them by suppressing the unwelcome reality that is nevertheless there in them, underneath the surface.  They may confess, in a rote manner, their sins, but they do not expect sin actually to manifest itself openly, unguardedly, in their midst.  Through an enormous effort of will, tens of thousands of middle-class people  come together every Sunday, sit quietly listening to words that they either do not hear or comprehend only superficially, sing only familiar hymns so that the tunes block out any of the troubling lyrics, all while suppressing whatever honest questions, doubts, fears, or worries they may have carried with them into the worship. Dr. Hall says that if one tries to confess real sins in Church or welcome those who are acknowledges as real sinners, one can get attacked and abused like Jesus and Paul.  We want a conquering triumphal Lord over all, and a kingdom of white washed saints.

From the beginning Mark and the Gospel writers want us to know is that the Kingdom of God as Jesus brings it is going to be a lot different than the Kingdom of God that we would like to see.  We just do not want to see or live the truth that the kingdom of God comes through suffering love.  We all have this amazing ability to refuse to see what we do not want to see. Jesus says the kingdom of God is at hand, repent, and refuse to see the need to repent. The blindness, that willful and intentional blindness is in fact what we must confess and repent of to see and welcome the Gospel as God gives it in Jesus. Jesus says that the kingdom of God is fulfilled and come in his person, and there is that persistent and determined opposition to see that, of recognizing that, or accepting that because if we accepted that it would open us up to a confession that we have been headed in the wrong direction and we would need to change and repent.

But what does He know? He just a young man? How dare he come in here and tell us that he is the one who is empowered by the Spirit of God to bring the kingdom. He grew up around here? Where did he get so uppity?  We have been taught a long time that when the Messiah comes, when the Kingdom of God comes, it will bring the restoration of the Glory of Solomon back. It will drive out the Romans, it will create a mighty people of God who will rule the world.  And he thinks that the kingdom will care about the blind, the prisoners, the hungry and the lame?

They grow up so quickly and have such strange ideas. There is this Jesus, whom I swear, we just had the baby shower for a month or so ago, and now here he comes claiming that he is the fulfillment of the promises of the Kingdom of God. He is the God who comes into the world to redeem the world.  If he is the Messiah, then it means that the Good News is that where there is pain, suffering, guilt, and regret, God is present and redeeming,  that sacrifice and love are the weapons of God Kingdom, and not power and might and wealth. That the kingdom of God is made up mostly of all the people we have been trying most of all to avoid.  If we refuse to welcome that word, we continue to deny the grace given in Jesus, continue to want to seek the Kingdom of God   where the Messiah comes in power and might, wealth and prestige, where only “nice” people like us are a part of the Kingdom of God, where we can continue to believe that all is right with what we have done, then we will continue to see a world where kindness is crucified, where one group of self-righteous people behead other self-righteous people, where we keep dividing into warring sects, where the world is divided into the haves and the have nots, and the have nots are just collateral damage in the struggle for survival. Jesus says the Kingdom of God has come. The time is now. Repent, 

Ah, these young kids. They grow up so quickly, and they have such strange ideas, but of course, they usually outgrow them when they get older.  There is no need to take them seriously.