It Takes a Duck

This was written about five years ago.

It has been over a year since my last entry, my life has, naturally, moved on. Here is an insight, I have learned for 1,897th time.

While I seek the truth, I know the truest truth is always bathed in the distorted hues of our hatred, pride, fears, shame and doubt. I am sure truth exists, I am just as certain it influences our lives. (His word is truth.) Our Lord assures us that we shall know the truth and this knowledge will free us from self-deceit. Sometimes this truth reveals the lies told by a massive of choir of liars - among whom, I have a solo part.

While God breathes truth through our minds and hearts, these precepts travel through a glass dimly. I once read that a word is not the thing it denotes, just as a map is the terrain it represents. Truth is like landmarks that correct a poorly drawn map. In June of 2014 I feared that I would never serve as a pastor again. I was prepared for that outcome. Since January of 2015 I have preached every Sunday but two.  So much for the reality behind my fears. See me correcting my map.

I think we see ourselves as navigating our lives through a torrent, when, in truth, our vessel has no  pilot's wheel. Let’s face it; there may be a rudder but we have no control over it. I love the poem “To a Water Foul.” (To shift the metaphor from sea, to air, to land.)

He, who, from zone to zone,

Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,

In the long way that I must trace alone, 

Will lead my steps aright. To a Waterfowl

To a Waterfowl

William Cullen Bryant 1794–1878

Today I believe Mr Bryant is mistaken when he writes, “Lone wandering, but not lost.” Although I cannot fault the poet, for, like him, I often suspect I am alone, wandering, and lost. Thanks God I have learned to mistrust my doubts.

Black Lives Matter

After an exhilarating exchange with my daughter, Amanda, and son-in-law, Dan, about the issues surrounding protests over police conduct we focused briefly on the slogan “Black Lives Matter.” We agreed that all lives should matter or that all persons have significance and are each “endowed by their creator” with certain native rights such as “life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.” Then it occurred to me that this phrase was written when most “Black” people living at that time in America were in economic and social bondage. They did not enjoy the liberty granted those whose “conditions of servitude” were different from their own. If a human being is the personal property of another human being, and laws were written only to protect that property, then the slave benefited only from the rights afforded an animal owned by his owner. That person, who was enslaved, might rightly ask “What do I matter?”

The statement “black lives matter” answers those who say “black lives don’t matter.” If we say, “white lives matter more than black lives.” Or worse, if we repeat the pre-emancipation ethos that assumed “black lives matter only as they are valued property” then the retort “black lives (really do) matter” makes perfect sense.

Regardless of your race, have you ever questioned your personal worth? Is not the phrase, “I feel worthless” not behind the assertion that “my life should matter.” I have a tendency toward social introversion. In some settings I feel as though I am invisible. Have you ever been in a conversation where you spoke and no one acknowledged your words? They just hung in the air and floated away. In such a situation, I ask, “Am I talking to myself.” This is another way of saying, “Do I matter to anyone here.” I can remember seeing a half dozen black people standing in the alley behind a café waiting for their lunch orders to be passed to them. They were there because that was the only way they could be served. I wonder how their sense of worth was impacted by social racism. They might have rightly asked, “Do black lives matter.”

I mistakenly thought the phrase “Am I not a man and a brother” came from William Wilberforce but it seems that Josiah Wedgewood, in the late 1700’s engraved this on a medallion. It brought the question of slavery from economics to ethics. We don’t own our brothers and sisters. Property has economic worth, persons have spiritual, thereby, infinite worth. It is a worth “endowed by a Creator.” The phrase “Black lives Matter” at least faintly echoes the question posed by British anti-slavery advocates. It is now the five times great grandsons and daughters of slaves, long ago given their freedom who raise the question afresh. ”Do I really matter?” I think the sane and humane response ought to be “Why do you ask?”

I don't wish to imply that black persons are more worthy, only that such persons might have a cause to question their perceived worth in the eyes of the majority race. I certainly am not in a position to judge how black people are treated by police officers. 

Is Voting Sacramental

Is voting sacramental? The act of eating certain food elements while gathered with others who attach a shared meaning to this simple meal is said to bring God’s strength and blessing. The act is holy. It is, in most Christian circles, considered sacramental. That is, it is a symbol that not only points our hearts to Divine Grace but the very act produces it. Does the casting of a vote for a presidential candidate arise to measure of a sacrament? A vote is the acumination of a series of judgments about a given candidate and his or her qualifications.

Robert Bellah’s essay entitled “American Civil Religion” forever established my view of civil government. In regards to such matters I am a moderate secularists. My nation is not holy. My society is not righteous. Our elected leaders are no more or less sinners than the rest of us. Bellah defines American Civil Religion as "an institutionalized collection of sacred beliefs about the American nation." As in all beliefs, their truth or falsehood must be backed up with reason based on revelation. Does God desire us to worship our nation?

What are the belief of American Civil Religion? That the nation legally constituted in 1789 formed a covenant with God making it morally and spiritual superior to every other nation. (American Exceptionalism) In 1630, while traveling to the New Land, the Puritan, John Winthrop preached a sermon about the new life and the new land these pilgrims could and should anticipate. The title of sermon is telling. It is “A Model of Christian Charity.” It is their charity or love that makes his community a “city on the side of hill.”

Under the idea of Civil Religion, the president is, thereby, the high priest of this divine nation. The president is the guardian of the covenant terms. We are, somehow, viewed as a New Israel. The President becomes the King of the New Israel. Therefore, the president is placed in office by Divine decree administered through popular election. I happen to believe that God’s Sovereignty is unremitted. It is boundless. It knows no political lines. God establishes rulers and takes them out. Jesus is the King of kings, not the co-sovereign of an American President or any other ruler.

How often have you witnessed congregations singing patriotic songs on various national holidays? I have witnessed flag ceremonies during Sunday morning worship – where the flag was processed in, placed in its standard, and the congregation pledged their renewed allegiances to the “nation for which it stands.” The pledging of allegiance is a covenantal act. In a time and place set aside for the worship of the Living God, it is pure idolatry. Yet, in American Civil Religion and the god of this religion is the “nation.” We may be “one nation” but there is little evidence that we are “under God” sovereign rule any more or any less than any other nation.

How does the Scripture depict civil governments? The Old Testament does demonstrate a particularism regarding the nation of Ancient Israel. It is a people set apart from all other peoples and nations. God reluctantly granted Israel a king – who was anointed to serve in a holy position. The king was called to “walk in the ways of his father David” and was thereby blessed or contrary to David and thereby to suffer a curse. In the New Testament God does not view the government as holy or sacred. The governments serve the function of order and justice. It is part of God’s Common Grace just as the family or the visible Church.

When I chose a president this year, I will choose between two very deeply flawed human beings. Each have proven themselves, in their personal lives and business dealings, to be dishonorable and crass. It is amazing to me how evangelical leaders could endorse Donald Trump in night of his contribution to the moral decay of our society. Imagine George Washington learning that the owner of several large gambling houses could be considered worthy of the office of President of the United States? What Christian could support Hilary Clinton in light of her defense and support of abortion and homosexual marriage? Imagine Abraham Lincoln’s reaction to a Presidential candidate who sold her influence to foreign governments and corporations?

I think this season, voting is a kind of “anti-sacrament.” Rather than grace, it imparts a curse. If there is a civil religion, then it has replaced the God of Abraham. Maybe the new god of Civil Religion is Moloch – to whom infants are sacrificed, or Bacchus the god of intoxicating drugs, or Fortuna, the goddess of chance gain. It is clearly Ares, the god of war. It is certainly all the fertility gods of economic gain. We must event a new god or elevate Narcissus as the goddess of the Selfie. Either of the candidates, this year, are perfectly suited to be the High Priest or Priestess for these gods.