Minority

I am reading through the entire Word of God this summer. 90 days of total immersion, along with the students, and families, and members of all ages, in our church.

My translation of choice, this time, is The Message. Even though I have given The Message less than favorable reviews in the past, when reading it through, as a novel, it is very refreshing, and very approachable, and not at all what I once believed it to be.

That being said, here are two things I’ve gleaned from this summer’s reading so far:

The culture of the Old Testament was incredibly violent. From the flood, to Sodom, to the great escape from Egypt and the final plague, to the wilderness time and the occasional fights against cities, to Joshua and then Judges, and then the era of  the kings, the world of the Hebrews, as written, is very, very, very violent. Which has caused me, as of now, to rethink how I teach those stories.

I’ll not elaborate on that here. What I will say is that reading through in large passages, sometimes fifteen to twenty chapters a day, I am able to really see the entire story of the Word in perspective. Many churches don’t emphasize perspective when teaching the Word of God, because of the enormous expanse of historical information covered in the first dozen books. But, when you read it as it was meant to be read (and memorized), the understanding of the histories makes much more sense, and the idea of God’s displeasure with the Hebrews is more obvious.

This was not the culture God intended in Eden. And for God to watch his own children exact violence against his own children must have greatly disappointed him, and greatly broken his heart.

As this culture of violence spawned more and more violence, there is such an apparent need for grace, then. To teach a violent culture through violent acts would not have been memorable. For God to teach violent people, He had to do so with grace, with forgiveness, and not violence.

Saying that, and then knowing how often God exacted justice, through violent means, especially against the kings of Israel and Judah, would almost seem to be an oxymoron. I won’t defend, theologically, why those things occurred, to say only that God himself stated through Ezekiel (Ezekiel 18) that he takes no delight in the deaths of those who do not believe in him. My statement above really only implies the intervention of grace as the overwhelming way God chose to have his people approach him, after the culture of violence ended.

The second thing I noticed, and perhaps the most surprising, was how quickly the worship of Yahweh became the practice of the minority of people. The book of Judges itself is a testament to how quickly the Hebrews abandoned the worship of Yahweh, until God called a local commander to bring relief. And even then, the revival was short-lived. Judges 11 indicates that 300 years had passed from the Exodus to the time of Jephthah, (and 260 years had passed since the death of Moses) and in that time, the Hebrews had all but abandoned the worship of God as Moses instructed.

Which again leads me to the need of grace. If such an overwhelming miracle that delivered the Hebrews, and such an expansive, comprehensive, and explicit law was given, and then, in spite of those two things, the Hebrews still abandoned God, then God, to me, had no other choice but to bring grace to humanity.

I am still working on these hypotheses, to be sure, but I am convicted of God’s grace more, through every chapter and book I’ve read thus far.

Instead

An excellent post appeared on Good.is about what you could accomplish instead of watching television. You can read what I did without TV here.

According to the site, Americans spent, on average, 143 hours watching television from January to March of this year.  They decided to see what you could accomplish if you had spent those 143 hours doing something else.  Here are their recommendations:

Exercise

An hour of jogging each day at just 5 miles an hour will burn 584 calories. And 3,500 calories is how many you’ll need to burn to lose a pound of fat. In other words, if people ran as much as they watched TV, and ate healthy food, they could theoretically lose 24 pounds in a month.

Build a House

According to a North Carolina Habitat for Humanity organization (PDF), it typically takes 12 people 16 working days to build a home for a needy family. Get 11 of your friends to join you, and that’s a brand new house in 128 hours.

Get Scuba Certified

It only takes three or four days to get your scuba certification—a maximum of about 40 hours. Do that in two weekends and you’ll still have more than 100 hours for TV.

Become a Yoga Instructor

The Equinox gym chain has a 200-hour yoga teacher certification course. If you devoted less than six weeks of TV time to the training, you could have a healthy side gig and some extra cash for organic dinners out.

Learn Spanish

Rosetta Stone language software claims it takes 40 to 50 hours to complete the content of each level of their five-level programs. In 143 hours, you could nearly complete level 3, at which point you’d have the skills to, according to Rosetta Stone, “enjoy social interactions such as travel and shopping and … share your ideas and opinions.”

Get Smarter Than Your Friends

It takes 77 hours and 22 minutes to read the Bible at the pace of a book on tape. Instead of watch TV, you could read the Bible, then read the Koran—which is considerably shorter than the Christian book—and, you know, actually be well versed in heated discussions about Islam and the West.

Volunteer

Idealist.org is currently listing more than 12,000 volunteer opportunities, at least one of which is probably near your home, and all of which would love 143 hours of your time.

Write a Movie

According to film director Luc Besson, it only took him 30 days to writeThe Professional. Instead of watching TV for almost 150 hours, take about five hours a day and bang out a screenplay in a month. Chances are it won’t be any worse than The Tourist.

 

Proof

Reading through Acts recently, and being focused on the Forty Days of Prayer at the MoSt Church, this passage was startling to me when I read it in my personal reading time:

In my first book I told you, Theophilus, about everything Jesus began to do and teach until the day he was taken up to heaven after giving his chosen apostles further instructions through the Holy Spirit. During the forty days after his crucifixion, he appeared to the apostles from time to time, and he proved to them in many ways that he was actually alive. And he talked to them about the Kingdom of God.  (Acts 1:1-3)

For forty days, Jesus appeared with the apostles, and proved to them that he was alive.  The apostles evidently needed proof, and Jesus felt that he still needed to prove he was indeed resurrected.  Those ideas resonated with me.  If these eleven men needed proof, then is proof of Jesus’ authenticity such a bad thing?

As these forty days of prayer began, I watched The Case for Christ, a documentary based upon the book, and research of Lee Strobel.  Before watching it, though, I was indeed a skeptic of the film, and was, for a long time, a skeptic of Strobel’s works, wondering how one man could turn from an atheist to a believer, and then make book after film after book, probably for a good profit.  That is, until I read his book The Case for the Real Jesus two years ago.

That one book, other than the bible, fed my desire to know.  Written well, recording interview after interview of very prominent theological scholars, I have since read the book twice.  I am an historian, as well as a minister, and the very idea of historical evidence is something I treasure.  My childhood consisted of a very conservative theological perspective, and through that teaching, the search for historical evidence was pointless.  It was assumed that if you needed historical evidence, then your faith was merely a shadow of what it needed to be, and any want of evidence proved a weakness of faith. So reading information on the historicity of Christ was, and still is, breathtaking to me.

And, upon a re-reading of Acts 1, the apostles themselves needed assurances of the physicality of Jesus.  They needed proof, even after everything their eyes witnessed for the three years of their shared time with Jesus.

Be warned, though.  If you decided to venture into the area of Christ’s historicity, you will be challenged.  The works of Strobel are good, but his critics are fierce, and, at times, convincing.  And do not be discouraged by the need to see God work in these forty days.  Focused prayer gives rise to bearing witness to the hand of God.  Ancient Jewish mystics even prayed with their eyes open, in hopes of seeing God work, even as they prayed.

So do not be discouraged by the need to know if Jesus is who he claims he is.  Even his apostles needed proof.

Tribute

My grandfather met Jesus on the morning of September 1, 2010.  I was honored to deliver the remarks at his funeral.

This past weekend, as I was given different papers from his house, I found two articles inside an envelope, both written by me.  One was a blog post on my previous blog site, and the other was a brief article I had written for the newsletter of our church.  Both articles included references to him.  Not only did he read them both, but and he kept them close, on a table within arm’s length.

I have debated at length with myself as to whether or not I should publish these thoughts, but am now deciding to post, here, the comments I made during his funeral.  I know that these may mean very little to you, but it is the least I can do to honor his memory.  His name was Kenneth Hogan.

__________

Memorial for Kenneth Hogan
September 3, 2010

As I begin today, I would like to read a letter, sent by Kenneth’s brother, Ed Hogan, who now lives in Montana, and unable to be with us today.  [This letter was read by my brother, but I wanted to include it here.]

Dear Sandra, Gail and loved ones:

I’m sorry I’m not with you at this time but I want to share a few thoughts about our growing up on the farm.

We were always together whether it was work or play.  We all had to help as soon as we were old enough – Griff, Ruf, Kenneth, Junior and me; feeding the animals, milking cows and on Monday mornings one of us had to help Mom with the laundry.  Martha and Virg had married when my memories began.

“Being boys” their was mischief, too.  Kenneth and I both loved horses and there was one choice riding horse – REX.  If we were both going someplace our only transportation was a horse.   Kenneth always beat me to Rex and I ended up riding an old nag. BUT, it wasn’t because he had the good looking horse that lots of girls had a crush on him.

Our lives drifted apart during the war years.  I went in about two years after Kenneth but I was always headed to the same area.  He made the Luzon Island invasion January 9, l945 and I went into Luzon 60 days later.  When the war ended he went to South Korea for occupational duty. I went there on the same duty but he had already departed home for discharge.  We were close but our paths never crossed.  I know we would be talking about that this week as this is the week WWII officially ended.

Our family always enjoyed visits to Arkansas and Kenneth’s visits to Montana.  We talked often on the phone and I’m going to misses our sharing memories, which goes way back, starting in the 1920′s when we were young boys.

My prayers and thoughts are with all of you today…………..Love Uncle Ed

_____

As we stand here today, we honor the life of Kenneth Hogan.  We are unsure, even today, how to honor him, but we know that his life was worthy of this moment, and all the good that we can remember.

And there are several good memories, even for a young boy like myself.

Like the times he rode his wagon and horses into the front yard of our house.  I remember thinking that was such a peculiar sight, but, nonetheless being excited that the man who was brave enough to ride a wagon with a team of horses, in broad daylight, was none other than my grandfather.

I enjoyed the rides with him, the slow pace, and the way the horses moved.  Nearly every time we visited him in these last few years, he would always remark of a comment I made once, while I watched the horses in their slow trot.  And I remember the moment.  I couldn’t help but notice that as those horses walked, their heads and their tails moved in such a way that I thought they were saying “yes” with their heads, and “no” with their tails at the same time.  What interested me, though, as he told that old story, was that his memory was sharpened by that moment, and the smile that crossed his face took the years back to when he rode in wagon with a young boy at his side.

I write this now, remembering when, just five years earlier, I wrote comments for the funeral of my grandmother, Eloise Hogan, who met Jesus for the first time in February, 2005.  I stood here, in this very place, and read words of a moment when my family last saw her, in her house, and remembering her smile as her great-grandchildren played with the same toys once used by her daughters.  She and Papa had a good relationship in the final years of her life, speaking often on the telephone.  He was unable to attend the day of her funeral, and remarked to my mother, his daughter, that Eloise “knew I cared about her, and that I did the best that I could.”

How those words have haunted me these years, and how those words began to shape the man I am, and the way I see the world.  He taught me, with that one statement, spoken to his daughter, that regret is a prison which never really lets you leave.

And though time can offer you the heavy blanket of long years, there are moments, still, when the darkness of night forcefully overtakes us, when the moments of silence burn your heart, you learn, again, that mistakes once made may be forgiven, but can never be forgotten.  And my heart hurt for him.

It was in that moment, too, that I realized the loneliness of my grandfather, when, in just a few short months later, I attended the visitation of Griff Hogan, Kenneth’s brother, and realized that Uncle Griff, and Papa, talked often before Griff’s passing.

And then I was introduced to the loneliness that bore hard and fast upon a man whose mobility was becoming very limited – upon a man who was slowly outliving those he loved the most.  I knew, then, that if I was to be a grandson that could honor his grandfather, I would need to rebuild my own relationship with him, and help replace, if I could, some of the lost time.  So I began to call him.  And I called him often.

In these last five years, then, we spoke as frequently as we could.  Sometimes I would call him.  Sometimes he would call me.  One instance I remember in particular.

In these past five years, I would ask him several times if he wanted me to buy him a cell phone, and, knowing the stubborn man he was, he would immediately remark back that he wouldn’t have one of “those things” even if I bought it for him.  And we’d laugh together.

Then, last year, he called me his first cell phone.

We laughed quite a bit that day.

I remember a conversation in the spring of 2007, one gentle afternoon, listening to him as he told me of his decision to stop drinking whiskey.  He had been one year without a drink, and he told me only after he had celebrated his first year of sobriety.  He was proud to tell me that the decision was an easy one – he stopped suddenly, “cold turkey” as they say, and never looked back.  In that very same conversation, too, he told me that he had begun to receive communion again, and I marveled that this man, this very, very proud man, was taking the time to offer me his testimony, and I felt honored that he would share these intimate things with me.

I have learned, then, that this man was grateful to have the time to let the grace of God change his heart.

I’ll miss those conversations the most.  I loved to ask him to recall some of his experiences in World War II, or his experiences in the Civilian Conservation Corps, when he worked in Minnesota as a seventeen-year-old boy, making $30 a month, sending $22.50 home to his family, and keeping $7.50 to buy cigarettes.  Just last month he had the opportunity to call the place where he worked, Gooseberry Falls State Park, in Minnesota.  The dear lady with whom he spoke was delighted to hear his story, and told him that several people a year call, just like him, who worked on the parks and requesting information.  She sent him a packet he displayed with such great pride.  Inside were copied newsletters and such, where he found his name, and again, had the chance to remember days that he really never forgotten.

He learned, though, that he could again be mobile, even if it meant riding the streets of Newport in his wheelchair.  When he learned of the new Walgreen’s in town, he rode there straightaway on his scooter, only to get there and notice that his battery of his scooter was drained, and he wouldn’t have enough power to ride the scooter back.  He needed to charge it.

So, he asked the employees if he could plug into the outdoor receptacle.  They agreed, and so he waited there, on the sidewalk of Walgreen’s, recharging his battery so he could ride home.

That scooter was his entrance to the outdoor world.  The first day it arrived, some five years ago, the delivery man came to his front door, having driven all the way from Conway, Arkansas, just to deliver this machine to Papa.  Papa, however, was a suspicious man, and wasn’t afraid of protecting himself, even with his pistol, if need be.  So he told this young man that if he had other intentions, he just needed to remember that Old Man Hogan held the “difference in his hands.”

He was a man with an ability to turn a dollar.  Proud of his restaurants, and loving his ability to talk to so many in this community, he would often personally take people their orders when his work day was through.  He was also proud of a moment when a local business opened in the late 1970s, and he was paid to cater the event with a total of 1,500 hamburgers.  The sheer magnitude of that sort of event still staggers me, but, yet again, I would have never known that had I not been able to spend so much time talking with him in these last few years.

He would often send me articles from newspapers, only to call me to talk about them.  This spring he sent me an article of the retirement of a football player, and loved the article as much for the time it gave us to talk, as he did for the athlete’s heartfelt stance of knowing that his gifts and his talents were blessings from God.  And it was good to hear Old Man Hogan speak of God in such great regard.

I yearned to know of his time in the United States Army, of his time in World War II.  He was one of four brothers drafted into the service, and one of four brothers who served in various places around the world, and one of four sons apart from their mother.  He served his country admirably, while one of his brothers served on the Philippine Islands at the same time, though neither ever knew.  He would often say that his time worried his mother so much, that soon after all of her sons returned, she died, Papa would always say, because of the years she spent worrying.

I asked him, then, to please record his perceptions, and his time, in the war.  He sent me a letter, postmarked April 19, 2005.  Six pages of history, of his story, that I would like to read for you now.

……….

My grandfather may have lived a life of regret.  But my grandfather also lived a life of redemption.  His life is the testimony of a life that eventually took the chance to love God again, to feel the overwhelming sense of grace and mercy, and know that God’s love is available, and free, and full of healing.

I believe he felt, in these last years, the truth … that God wants, desires, all people to be saved.

I believe, this day as I stand before you, that my grandfather was saved.  Past mistakes may have chased my grandfather to his death, but God’s mercy chased my grandfather into heaven.

_____

Isaiah 40:12-31

The Lord Has No Equal

¹² Who else has held the oceans in his hand?
Who has measured off the heavens with his fingers?
Who else knows the weight of the earth
or has weighed the mountains and hills on a scale?
¹³ Who is able to advise the spirit of the Lord?
Who knows enough to give him advice or teach him?
¹⁴ Has the Lord ever needed anyone’s advice?
Does he need instruction about what is good?
Did someone teach him what is right
or show him the path of justice?

¹⁵ No, for all the nations of the world
are but a drop in the bucket.
They are nothing more
than dust on the scales.
He picks up the whole earth
as though it were a grain of sand.
¹⁶ All the wood in Lebanon’s forests
and all Lebanon’s animals would not be enough
to make a burnt offering worthy of our God.
¹⁷ The nations of the world are worth nothing to him.
In his eyes they count for less than nothing—
mere emptiness and froth.

¹⁸ To whom can you compare God?
What image can you find to resemble him?
¹⁹ Can he be compared to an idol formed in a mold,
overlaid with gold, and decorated with silver chains?
²⁰ Or if people are too poor for that,
they might at least choose wood that won’t decay
and a skilled craftsman
to carve an image that won’t fall down!

²¹ Haven’t you heard? Don’t you understand?
Are you deaf to the words of God—
the words he gave before the world began?
…
²² God sits above the circle of the earth.
The people below seem like grasshoppers to him!
He spreads out the heavens like a curtain
and makes his tent from them.
²³ He judges the great people of the world
and brings them all to nothing.
²⁴ They hardly get started, barely taking root,
when he blows on them and they wither.
The wind carries them off like chaff.

²⁵ “To whom will you compare me?
Who is my equal?” asks the Holy One.

²⁶ Look up into the heavens.
Who created all the stars?
He brings them out like an army, one after another,
calling each by its name.
Because of his great power and incomparable strength,
not a single one is missing.
²⁷ … how can you say the Lord does not see your troubles?
… how can you say God ignores your rights?
²⁸ Have you never heard?
Have you never understood?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of all the earth.
He never grows weak or weary.
No one can measure the depths of his understanding.
²⁹ He gives power to the weak
and strength to the powerless.
³⁰ Even the young will become weak and tired,
and young men will fall in exhaustion.
³¹ But those who trust in the Lord will find new strength.
They will soar high on wings like eagles.
They will run and not grow weary.
They will walk and not faint.

_____

God, you are The Everlasting.  You have seen sorrow, since the beginning of time, and you know full well the extent of our grief.  You have heard cries since the creation of humanity, and you have seen tears that have flowed since the creation of the world.  You know what we feel.

We come before you with many questions, with many doubts.  We are ashamed to admit that this death makes no sense to us, and the guilt of our questions lingers behind the words of our prayers.

Yet we believe.  We believe you are everlasting.  We believe you hold the oceans in your hands.  We believe that you understand our thoughts.  We believe you cause kings to rise and fall.  We believe you have no equal.  We believe the stars are named by you.  We believe you hear our prayers.  We believe you never tire or grow weak.  And we believe you offer us joy while we hope for the better, we believe you give us patience in our affliction.  And we pray for the strength to be faithful in our prayers.

You, God, are awesome.  And amen.

Villainy

Teaching a course in world civilization is interesting, and refreshing, as even I, every semester, see the movable parts which have become our planet.  And I cannot even refer to every story, for a survey course is hard enough to teach in its own way.

But, we do discuss rather powerful things, and that just cannot be helped.  One of the most powerful is the story of William Wilberforce, and his career to abolish the slave trade in Britain.

His influences, too, seem to be a bit providential.  John Newton, former slavetrader, and author of the song Amazing Grace, influenced Wilberforce’s decision to remain in politics, and forego a career as a clergyman.  And John Wesley, one of the founders of the Methodist movement in England, had close correspondence with Wilberforce. 

Wesley actually wrote a letter to Wilberforce — the last letter ever written by Wesley.  Wilberforce, a member of the English Parliament, and subsequently opposed for the better part of twenty years, in his efforts to end slavery, was, at several moments, discouraged, oppossed, and mocked.  Slavery, as an institution, was valuable to the British economy, and to completely end it was to, supposedly, severly cripple English financial institutions.  Wilberforce fought against what many thought was an impossible action.  Slavery would never end, or at least most thought.

It is in this context, then, in 1791, that you should read the following letter:

Balam, February 24, 1791

Dear Sir:

Unless the divine power has raised you us to be as Athanasius contra mundum, I see not howyou can go through your glorious enterprise in opposing that execrable villainy which is the scandal of religion, of England, and of human nature.  Unless God has raised you up for this very thing, you will be worn out by the opposition of men and devils.  But if God be fore you, who can be against you?  Are all of them together stronger than God?  O be not weary of well doing!  Go on, in the name of God and in the power of his might, till even American slavery (the vilest that ever saw the sun) shall vanish away before it.

Reading this morning a tract wrote by a poor African, I was particularly struck by that circumstance that a man who has a black skin, being wronged or outraged by a white man, can have no redress; it being a “law” in our colonies that the oath of a black against a white goes for nothing. What villainy is this?

That he who has guided you from youth up may continue to strengthen you in this and all things, is the prayer of, dear sir,

Your affectionate servant,

John Wesley

What a powerful letter.  Wilberforce’s struggle continued for another sixteen years, but I have no doubt that he treasured these moments of encouragement, from a man of faith, who believed not only that Wilberforce could end the slave trade in England, but also, to end slavery in America, a colony just recently lost by Britain. 

Colonies, power struggles, and the economy means very little to God in the greater struggles for morality.  These sorts of letters, and intimate conversations between two great men, should forever be treasured, and should inspire even us.  We can do greater things than we can even believe, for if God is for us, then who can be against us?

Wilberforce succeeded in 1807.  And his achievement is, today, hailed as one of the catalysts of the demise of global slavery.  One man, with an idea, can be credited with such a fantastic feat, because he believed that, with God as his defense, great things can actually happen.  Even impossible things.