Ringing the Bell

There is a remarkable story told by Harry Emerson Fosdick about the College of William and Mary in Virginia.  The school was damaged and closed during the Civil War.  When the war was over the college opened for a short time, but for some reason it was necessary for it to close again for a period of seven years. But every morning during those seven years the President rang the chapel bell.  There were no students, no faculty, all the buildings were empty, the campus desolate.  But President Ewell still rang the bell!  Why?  He rang the bell every morning as a way of sending a message:  "Despite this present situation, the intellectual life will come back again and fill these empty halls with reality once more and be a dynamic power."  

This morning I’m thinking about how my vocation through the years has been about “ringing the bell.”  Whether anyone heard the bell or paid any attention to it’s ringing made no difference then and it makes no difference now.  It is my duty and joy (I can do no other) to ring the bell; to send the message: “Love is at the heart of all things.”

Hope is a form of faith and produces what it sees.  Despair is a form of faith, too, and it tends to produce what it sees.  What do you see when confronted with a problem?  Do you see new possibilities growing out of the struggle or do you give way to cynicism and despair?  Hope hangs in; despair quits.

What if Moses had quit after the eighth plague in the story of the Exodus?  No one could have blamed him.  Pharaoh wouldn’t budge even after the waters of the Nile had been turned to blood, the frogs, the lice, the flies, the disease that killed the livestock, the boils, the hail and the locust swarms.  It must have seemed to Moses that nothing was going to work.  He had every cause to despair—and to quit!  But Moses stood his ground with hope and after just two more “plagues” Pharaoh finally released the Hebrew slaves.

Do you live in hope or despair?  Don’t quit! Choose hope!  Hang in there! 

Pondering the Constitution

In 1960 I enlisted in the Air Force and like every other military enlistee, I took an oath that I would support and defend the Constitution of the United States.  Again, some years later like every appointed officer of the United States military, I took that oath again.  "I do solemnly affirm that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign or domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservations or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office upon which I am about to enter; So help me God."  I took that oath seriously and I will continue to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign or domestic.  At this time in our history the threat may be more domestic than foreign.

This morning I'm pondering the question:  "Why has the Constitution of the United States been able to stand for nearly 230 years?"  It is a great document to be sure.  It is well-written.  It brought thirteen independent colonies together into a single entity--a nation.  Since its adoption, thirty-seven additional states have subscribed to it.  It has  survived a Civil War.  It has been amended (27 times); the first ten are known collectively as the Bill of Rights.  It has been interpreted.  It has been argued.  It has been contested.    Amendments, interpretations, arguments, and contentions will continue as we attempt to live under a document written in a time quite different from our own. The Constitution was meant to be and it is a "living document” growing and developing along with the people it governs.

Fifty-five men framed the Constitution of the United States.  It was a compromise document.  It was debated vigorously.  There were many differences of opinion.  When finalized, the document seemed so unsatisfactory that sixteen of the fifty-five framers refused to sign it.  Thirty-nine signed it but not a one of them found it satisfactory.

So how has this Constitution of ours endured?  It has endured because there was in 1789, and there is now, in the minds and hearts of most of the American people, enough ethical and spiritual principles, enough intelligence, enough conscience and loyalty, enough regard for the dignity of every human personality to sustain it.  This is the foundation that has enabled the Constitution to stand.  Take away the ethical and spiritual principles, the intelligence, the conscience, and the belief that every human being has worth from the minds and hearts of the people and the Constitution will not stand.

Secondhand Belief

When entering my study each morning I am surrounded by my library friends, friends who have instructed me through the books they have written.  How grateful I am for what they have taught me and for the encouragement and hope they have given me in my struggles to be.  But, this morning I realized that this is all secondhand stuff.  An old saying runs through my mind, “Seeing is believing.”  To be sure it is, but the reverse is not true.  Believing is not necessarily seeing.  For example, I was told by my brother that the Rainbow Bridge was an unforgettable sight and I believed him.  Then I saw it for myself, firsthand, and became convinced.  Believing is a substitute for seeing, a mere acceptance of what someone else reports they have seen or experienced.  

How many of my beliefs are inherited beliefs and how many of my opinions are inherited opinions?  Have I passively accepted these beliefs and made them my own?  Are they simply hand-me-downs?  Is my Christian faith simply a secondhand faith?  Are my opinions really my own or are they secondhand—handed down to me by others?  I believe I am a free thinker, but am I?

I read the parable of the man born blind in John’s Gospel this morning.  Jesus heals the blind man.  Don’t get hung-up in the miracle—John is dealing with the spiritual side of it and suggesting that such a thing is reproducible in us.  John portrays a man born blind who at last can see, and who at that point stands his ground against all challenges.  Even when the religious leaders argue with him, threaten him, he digs his heels in and will not budge.  Jesus, he says, may be this or that, and your opinions may be this or that, but one thing I personally know:  “Whereas I was blind, now I see.”  

Is our Christian belief simply a creed “handed-down?”  Is it a blind faith?  A blind faith is a travesty on what the New Testament celebrates:  “Whereas I was blind, now I see.”  Secondhand belief doesn’t provide the vision—it doesn’t open our eyes to a new way of life that sees Love at the heart of all things.  

Intercessory Prayer

The Gospels tell us that Jesus prayed for others.  He prayed for children.  He prayed for the sick.  He prayed for his disciples.  He prayed for his enemies.  He prayed for the world.  This is one thing we know about Jesus—his was a life filled with intercessory prayer.  We find this true in the life of the Apostle Paul.  Turn to any one of the epistles, Thessalonians, Corinthians, Romans or Philippians and you will find Paul praying for people.

Just the other day someone asked me to pray for someone in their family.  I said I would “hold her in my bundle” which is my way of saying that I would pray for her.  I had no idea what her problem was.  It really doesn’t matter.  I can still pray for her.  But why pray for her?  What kind of God would withhold good things from people because there was not someone around at the proper time to ask God to do so?  Does a God of love have to be begged to act in love?  What about the many in our world who have no one to pray for them?  Does God ignore their needs because there is no one praying for them?  Of course not!  

God desires a deep personal relationship with all his children.  God wants us to open our hearts to him without fear or scruples, just as a father wants his son to share what goes on in his young life.  Prayer  is not telling God what to do.  That would be presumptuous.  Prayer is telling God what we think we or someone else needs, always adding, “if it be thy will.”  (Aren’t you glad some of the prayers you’ve uttered have not been answered?) Elton Trueblood wrote, “Most of the problems relating to God’s will are already solved when we see prayer not as an effort to change it, but as loving communion which may help in the promotion of that will, whereas without the prayer it might be frustrated….Whatever God’s power may be, we are needed, and never more so than when we pray.”

Who do you have in your bundle this morning?  The real reasons we do not pray may lie deeper within ourselves than in our concept of God.  It may be that we do not pray for another because we do not love enough or care deeply enough.  It may be that we cannot get outside our own puny selves long enough to intercede for another.  I wonder, this morning, if there is anything more important in this world than praying for that world and those who inhabit it.

Passion

Seeing the title, “Passion,” you might think that I am entertaining thoughts this morning about those deep emotional feelings aroused by romantic love, or the compelling enthusiasm of artist or writer for their life work.  That is typically what we understand the word  “passion” to mean these days.  But originally passion came from the Latin word passio, which means “suffering.” Christians, for example, speak of the Passion of Christ—his suffering upon the cross.

Easter Dawning--2014, Grenoble, France

I believe in a God of love and I express this belief when I say, “Love is at the heart of all things.”  But in the course of my life and in my vocation as a pastor, I have witnessed many things which appear to contradict this belief and I find no easy explanation for them.  One of these contradictions is human suffering.  How can “Love” possibly be found in the grotesque suffering of  the people in  Somalia, Iraq, and Syria?  How can “Love” be seen, known, or experienced in the suffering that comes with mental or physical illness?  If “Love is at the heart of all things,” then “Love” must be in these seeming contradictions, including suffering.  Even nature can at one time seem to be “all things bright and beautiful,” and at another a ferocious demon destroying thousands of  homes and lives (as in Richmond, Texas in recent days).

Although I do not claim to know the answer to all these contradictions, I have found some clues which have helped me deal with them.  The chief of these is that I have come to see  that the unknowable power behind this universe, and all others, became one of us in the Man Jesus of Nazareth.  The World Beyond (Love) broke into this world—Love suffers with us and is always intimately connected with our sorrows and griefs (whether we know it or not).

When people say “all religions are the same,” they are deeply misguided.  No other religion comes close to suggesting that the unknowable God became known in a Man, that he suffered pain, disgrace, and death; that he is with us now in all our trials and difficulties.  He is the contradiction within the contradictions. 

On Divine Protection

I do not know when or who started the idea that if one serves God and lives their lives to please  and serve Him, then God will protect them by special intervention from pain, suffering, misfortune and other disasters that occur in life.  This idea of divine protection has even been accorded to our nation. It is a prevalent notion, but we need look no further than the recorded life of Jesus himself to see that even the most perfect human life does not secure such divine protection.

How much misunderstanding and mental anguish could be avoided if this erroneous idea were exposed and let go?  How many people who suffer some calamity of one sort or another say, “Why should this happen to me?  I’ve always lived a decent life.”  Some people even feel that God has somehow broken His side of the relationship (or reneged on the supposed bargain) in allowing illness or calamity to happen to them.

This notion or idea is nowhere to be found in the New Testament.  No such arrangement, bargain, or deal is offered to those who open their lives to the living Spirit of God.  They are guaranteed that nothing, not even the worst kind of persecution, the worst misfortune or even the death of the body, can do them any permanent harm or separate them from the love of God.  They are promised that no circumstance of life can defeat them in spirit and that the vast resources of God are always available to them.  They are also assured that the ultimate purposes of God can never be defeated no matter what!  But, the idea that if we please God, then God will especially shield us is an erroneous one and has no place in Christianity.  “In the world you shall have trouble, but be of good cheer…” (John 16:33).

A Flicker of Hope

Yesterday my grandson was one of the 333 students to graduate from his high school.  We celebrated his achievements with joy and enthusiasm.  Proud parents and grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, neighbors, and friends were there doing the same for their graduate.  It was a great celebration!

What struck me most at this event was the realization that the American dream (“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all [men] are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”) has pockets of reality.  This reality was evident in the composition of this Class of 2016.  I was fascinated by the names of the students:  Ahmed, de Luna, Capobiano, Kim, Myers, Chen, Wright,  Singh, Finkelstein, Mahmoud, Hong, Johnson, Nguyen, Isroilova, Karunakaran, Williams, Smith, Herandez, Okada, and Owens.  These graduates represent not only the American dream, but the cosmic dream of an international community.  (There were no indigenous Americans in the class—every name represents an immigrant, a refugee, a particular race, nationality or creed—who came to America to find the dream).

The American dream, however, isn’t just a dream for a few who happen to live in the geographical space of these United States.  When we say all [men] are created equal, (which expresses the dignity and the worth of every human personality) the American dream ceases to be just an American dream.  That dream takes on cosmic proportions and becomes, in my faith, the Dream of God. The American dream can never become a reality without this larger dream of a world of brothers and sisters living in peace and good will with one another.  The world in which we live is a world of geographical oneness and we are challenged to make it spiritually one.  No nation can live alone, just as no individual can live alone.  We must live together and we must all be concerned about each other.  

We’ve got a long way to go to make the American dream a reality within our own geographical boundaries. But I am convinced that can never be until we are able to see and live in the larger geographical neighborhood, the larger dream, that gives dignity and worth to every human personality everywhere.