I Remember Ebby

           

Not too long after I came to be the pastor of Central Christian Church of Dallas, TX in 2000, Ebby Halliday Acers celebrated her 90^th birthday. A little while later the church had a dinner to honor a dozen or so nonagenarians in the congregation. They were an enchanting, engaged and energetic group. Ebby was the last one of that group to leave us for the glorious company of the saints in light.

During my eleven years with Central Christian Church, Ebby was a faithful worshipper. She had her own special place not too far back on the pulpit side where she had sat with her beloved husband Maurice Acers for many years. I did not get to know Maurice who had departed to that heavenly company before I came to Dallas. But Ebby continued to hold him in a dear place in her heart. She took great joy in listening to the glorious pipe organ she and Maurice had given to the church, to which she gave periodic additions.

Eventually Ebby’s brother Paul Hanson came to sit with Ebby in her pew as they worshipped together. When Paul had trouble hearing in that service, Ebby went with him to the early service in the chapel where he could hear better. Being with her beloved brother was more important than listening to the great organ.

Ebby was an Elder Emeritus whose wisdom was especially valued on the occasions when the congregation faced some challenging decisions. Ebby was remarkably generous in ways that supported the church’s ministry without controlling or creating dependency. She was an anchor and center of gravity for the Shank Adult Sunday School Class, not only in their learning but also in their vigorous social life.

Ebby was honored for her contributions to the Dallas community by many organizations between her 90^th and 100^th birthdays. She frequently asked them to invite me, as her pastor, to offer an invocation prayer. Thanks to Ebby, I had the opportunity to meet many significant people, for which I am thankful. But most of all, these experiences increased my appreciation for the ways Ebby shaped not only Central Christian Church but the whole Dallas community by putting her faith into action in the public arena.

ThanksGiving Square was one of the organizations Ebby believed in and supported. She included me in a number of their events and eventually suggested I serve on their Interfaith Council. Thanks to Ebby I have been enriched by getting to know a wide variety of people from many backgrounds I worked with there.

With her own “hardscrabble” upbringing and breaking into the business world as a woman at a time when that was exceptional, Ebby has always invested herself in aspiring young women, especially those from difficult backgrounds. The Ebby House at Juliette Fowler Homes for young women aging out of foster care put her passion into practical action. How appropriate that she was able to live and be cared for in her final days at Juliette Fowler Homes.

Ebby celebrated her 100^th birthday shortly before I wrapped up my pastorate with Central Christian Church in 2011. At that time I frequently heard her answer those who asked for her secret of longevity, “I don’t drink; I don’t smoke; and I don’t retire.” So I learned from Ebby not to say I was retiring as the pastor of Central Christian Church but making a transition to ministry as an interim pastor.

To be sure, the people of Central Christian Church and I will miss Ebby, but she left a mark on all of us that will bear fruit for many more years. Thank you, Ebby!

Simultaneous Suffering and Security

    Doug Skinner has been preaching for Northway Christian Church in Dallas, Texas on the ten most searched for Bible verses in the Bible Gateway internet site. On Sunday, September 13, 2015 he came to #3: Romans 8:28. “We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.”

I thought Doug’s sermon was honest, insightful and gutsy. Romans 8:26-31 was read in worship, and as I listened the context, before and after verse 28, prompted fresh insights that culminated in the celebration of the Lord’s Supper after the sermon.

Doug’s premise was that this verse and the confidence it gives in a world of tragedy and violence and cruelty can only be understood in light of God’s incarnation in Jesus, by which he entered fully into all human suffering, culminating at the cross. It was an accessible and compact presentation of Jürgen Moltmann’s concept of Jesus as the suffering God. Doug did not mention Moltmann, and I’m not suggesting Doug embraces all of Moltmann’s theology, only that I made this connection.

People do not often quote Romans 8:26-27 when they invoke v. 28 as a shallow, superficial panacea for personal or global troubles.  Yet this introduction is essential to understanding God’s assurance for inexplicable crises. In verses 18-25 Paul had already been contrasting the present suffering with the glory to be revealed.  He was building a case for having hope when all seems hopeless and acknowledged we do not know how to pray as we ought.

I have long contended that a lot of prayer (public and private) suggests we think God is ignorant of what we want and need and must be informed and instructed to know what to do. By way of contrast, I have also contended that the reverse is more to the point of prayer. When we are baffled and overwhelmed, our praying becomes a pleading with God to see what God sees and how God sees and how God addresses the realities beyond our limited vision.

When we know that we do not know how to pray as we ought, we are promised that the Spirit intercedes with groans too deep for words. The Jesus Prayer is appropriate at such times. “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me (us) a sinner (us sinners).” In that prayer, based on Luke 18:13, we give up putting into words what we see and want and cry out for Christ mercy on us who are broken human beings.

The Spirit’s intercession in groans too deep for words is my understanding and interpretation of my own praying in tongues. I’m not suggesting that my utterances are a heavenly language or even the sounds of the Holy Spirit, but of my spirit groaning along with the Spirit who is doing the real interceding and praying. I will not attempt to explain prayers, intercessions, communication between the persons of the Trinity but simply accept this as also a mystery beyond human language and logic, as Paul seemed to.

Setting this up against what Doug (and others) said about the incarnation being God’s full participation in all human suffering, I think the “groans too deep for words” may be understood as God’s grief and pain at human suffering, especially the violence and cruelty people inflict on each other. So as the Sprit intercedes, not just for my personal concerns but for all the pain of all humanity, it is according to the will of God, knowing God’s heart. With our limited human logic and language we see a contradiction between God’s will for good for all people and God’s grief over human suffering.

However, I see this passage as suggesting that in the Trinitarian mystery of the Godhead – the Spirit interceding for suffering people and the Father willing good for all people – converge in Jesus, the incarnate Son of God who expresses and embodies both the infinite love, compassion and mercy of God as well as experiencing the fullness and totality of human suffering.

As I reflect on “sighs too deep for words,” I am drawn to Psalm 130:1 which says, “Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord. Lord hear my voice! Let you ear be attentive to my supplications!” This is an appeal too deep for words. The Psalmist is not instructing or informing God, but crying from somewhere so deep that it cannot be framed in words.

The appeal is not for a specific remedy for a crisis but for God to release mercy into the Psalmist’s unspeakable anguish. The appeal is not based on the Psalmist’s need but on the expansiveness of God’s mercy (v. 4). In fact, the Psalmist relinquishes any claim on deserving God’s mercy, for without it no one could stand (v. 3). No point in saying I don’t deserve this suffering, but only throwing one’s self, indeed all suffering humanity, on God’s mercy. Only then can the Psalmist wait on the redeeming love of the Lord (vv. 5-8).

As we celebrated the Lord’s Supper after the sermon, I thought about the variety of moods and directions the Lord’s Supper can take: joy, unity, fellowship, gratitude and also penitence, redemption, mortality and hope of resurrection. Sunday, as I looked at the torn shred of bread and cup in my hand, I realized these elements of broken body and shed blood were the signs conveying all human suffering, especially the suffering people inflict on each other. By eating and drinking, I was personally participating as both victim and perpetrator. But also by eating and drinking, I was receiving both Jesus’ (and thus God’s) full identification with human suffering and it redemptive remedy.

Doug mentioned in his sermon how reluctance to teach and meditate on Jesus’ return – particularly among mainline churches – deprives us of a full picture of the redemption in which God does set all to rights again and the loving good intentions of God will be fully realized. This is not “pie-in-the-sky-by-and-by” but the tension of the already and not yet of the Reign of God that fully engages human suffering in the here and now with a confidence that this is not all there is.

Though this paragraph is a tangent, I do suspect (speaking only for myself and my perceptions) that some of this reluctance to embrace the return of Jesus is due to the distortion, misuse and manipulation of the eschatological teaching of Scripture to monger fear, suspicion and even hate for specific political and social agendas, rather than the faith, hope and love it should engender.

Yet, as I looked at the bread and cup in my hand on Sunday, and saw Christ’s full participation in human suffering, I saw how much the cross is the touchstone and fulcrum point of the Gospel. For a long time (many years) I have frequently crossed myself after eating and drinking when receiving the Lord’s Supper. This is not at all a hollow or holy habit, but is a tangible way of identifying myself with Jesus in his death (Philippians 3:10).

For some reason (could it have been the prompting of the Holy Spirit?), I thought about the voice Constantine said he heard from heaven, “In this sign conquer!” Traditions vary on whether he saw a cross or a chi-rho () in the sky. I rather prefer to think in terms of a cross for the way it captures the culmination of Jesus’ receiving the fullness of human suffering, but I don’t know if chi-rho is any less significant in that regard. The chi (X) is usually understood to be a cross.

But in light of my reflections on Romans 8:26-30, I had an insight into Constantine’s experience, or at least it historic or legendary account. I have usually dismissed the claim of Constantine’s voice and vision as quite likely a fraudulent invention to co-opt a Christianity he didn’t understand, which he feared threatened his power. His remedy was to distort it and deploy it for his own military and political ambitions, which came at great cost to the true Gospel.

However, as a meditated during worship on Sunday, I had an insight into a possible alternate interpretation and explanation of Constantine’s voice and vision that he used to establish his own distorted and diminished version of Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire. From that rose the Holy Roman Empire (unholy though it certainly was), and Christendom, and the illusions of Christian civilization and Christian nations, which persists in our time.

If I accept the premise that Constantine did see a sign in the sky (cross or chi-rho) and hear a voice from heaven say, “In this sign conquer,” and accept that these indeed came from God (which I had previously considered preposterous based on what Constantine did with them), I am exploring the possibility for consideration that Constantine misunderstood and misapplied the message God was sending him.

Constantine had been conquering with the Roman sword and the power symbolized by the Roman eagle. Now God says, “conquer in the sign of the cross.” I would suggest that if this came from God, God was saying to Constantine, “Give up conquering with power, force and violence. Instead, take a whole new approach, the approach I (God) took with Jesus on the cross. Don’t put the cross on you battle banners, but put yourself on the cross, as it were, identifying with suffering people. Deploy all of your resources for the benefit of people in pain. Reverse your whole idea of conquest. Conquer by relinquishing, by letting go, by becoming like Jesus – sacrificing yourself for others.

As I reflected on this, my contemplations were to Romans 8:29-30, which are often avoided to keep from trying to explain predestination. Once again, I’m going to leave those theological conundrums to others, for I think they miss the point when seen in the full context of this passage, which is being conformed to the image of God’s Son, Jesus. This same principle is in Philippians 3:10 where Paul wrote of his intention to be like Christ in his death and suffering as the necessary path to resurrection.

Understanding Jesus as God incarnate entering fully into all human suffering, culminating on the cross, then for us to be conformed to the image of God Son, means we also must identify with human suffering and the cross so that our prayers harmonize with the Holy Spirit’s groans too deep for words. This is the path to which we as disciple of Jesus are called and predestined, for which we have been justified, which alone leads to glory!

These reflections prompted me to ponder my present place on my pilgrimage. I am waiting for one more interim pastorate and feeling some anxiety about scheduling an interview and getting a call and a starting time while managing our finances and some of our practical matters about the house and our cars. I ponder my craving for moving into a more relaxed pace on this transitional stage of our journey and a jubilee experience of freedom from debt and living in simplicity. Then I hold this up to what God says so clearly, that Jesus lived so fully into identification with suffering people. This can’t just be an abstraction but necessitates being with and present to people in their pain.

For all my anxiety about this transition in my journey, we have been remarkably comfortable: we have not missed any meals, all our bills are paid, out debts are almost eliminated, our health is pretty good (especially at our age), our children are going well (even Erik is doing better). So how dare I talk about human suffering? How dare I be anxious?

Good Kings of Ancient Judah and Today’s Realities

The world is, rightly I believe, horrified at the destruction of antiquities by the Islamic State and other radical Islamists. In order to address this with any hope of effectiveness, the West must understand that they see these things as snares of idolatry. They do not see themselves as destroying culture but as cleaning culture of pagan evil. I can’t help but remember being taught in Sunday school as a child about the “good kings of Judah” in the Old Testament who we saw as God’s heroes who destroyed the high places and idols. I am not suggesting an explanation, only inviting pondering. Here are some starter scriptures for exploration. I am not ready to write off ancient Israel nor to approve the destruction of antiquities today, but am listening for the voice of God in the uncomfortable spaces between these scriptures and today’s experiences.

Numbers 33.52: you shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you, destroy all their figured stones, destroy all their cast images, and demolish all their high places.

2 Kings 12.3: Nevertheless the high places were not taken away; the people continued to sacrifice and make offerings on the high places.

2 Kings 14.4: But the high places were not removed; the people still sacrificed and made offerings on the high places.

2 Kings 15.4: Nevertheless the high places were not taken away; the people still sacrificed and made offerings on the high places.

2 Kings 15.35: Nevertheless the high places were not removed; the people still sacrificed and made offerings on the high places. 

2 Kings 18.4: He removed the high places, broke down the pillars, and cut down the sacred pole. He broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the people of Israel had made offerings to it; it was called Nehushtan.

2 Kings 23.8: He brought all the priests out of the towns of Judah, and defiled the high places where the priests had made offerings, from Geba to Beer-sheba; he broke down the high places of the gates that were at the entrance of the gate of Joshua the governor of the city, which were on the left at the gate of the city.

2 Kings 23.13: The king defiled the high places that were east of Jerusalem, to the south of the Mount of Destruction, which King Solomon of Israel had built for Astarte the abomination of the Sidonians, for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, and for Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites.

2 Kings 23.19: Moreover, Josiah removed all the shrines of the high places that were in the towns of Samaria, which kings of Israel had made, provoking the Lordto anger; he did to them just as he had done at Bethel.

2 Chronicles 14.3: He took away the foreign altars and the high places, broke down the pillars, hewed down the sacred poles,

2 Chronicles 14.5: He also removed from all the cities of Judah the high places and the incense altars. And the kingdom had rest under him.

2 Chronicles 17.6: His heart was courageous in the ways of the Lord; and furthermore he removed the high places and the sacred poles from Judah.

2 Chronicles 31.1: Now when all this was finished, all Israel who were present went out to the cities of Judah and broke down the pillars, hewed down the sacred poles, and pulled down the high places and the altars throughout all Judah and Benjamin, and in Ephraim and Manasseh, until they had destroyed them all. Then all the people of Israel returned to their cities, all to their individual properties.

2 Chronicles 34.3: For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was still a boy, he began to seek the God of his ancestor David, and in the twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem of the high places, the sacred poles, and the carved and the cast images.

Public Service and Christian Conscience

At her contempt of court hearing, when Kentucky’s Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis told U.S. District Judge David Bunning, “God’s moral law conflicts with my job duties,” she expressed a far more profound and radical reality than she herself probably realized. Drawing on the Church’s first three centuries (before Constantine made his own distorted version of “Christianity” the official religion of the Roman Empire for the purpose of military and political conquest), Anabaptists have consistently told the rest of the Church that working for any government, whether paid or not, inevitably conflicts with the righteousness of Jesus. For this reason some Anabaptists recuse themselves from participating in public life as much as possible, obeying laws that do not violate Christian conscience but avoiding being complicit with compromise.

In the Christendom culture that grew out of the Holy Roman Empire and informed the illusion of “Christian nations,” devout Christians did (and still do) public service in the arena of political and practical compromise in a sincere effort to be “salt and light” in a corrupt and dark world. Christians in non-Christendom cultures also take public service roles in this way, sometimes at great risk to themselves and their families. Either way, they do that in the knowledge that they are outsiders attempting to influence huge processes with minute doses of Jesus’ righteousness. These efforts are always clouded and the Reign of God remains largely hidden, awaiting the Parousia.

Martyrdom and civil disobedience has deep roots going all the way back to the Hebrew Prophets and the New Testament Apostles. We admire (at least in history) those who stand against compromising faith and righteousness at the cost of their own lives. But from the time of the Donatist Controversy at the end of the 3^rd  century, the Church has struggled with what compromises were trivial and how to respond to the compromisers who wanted to return to full Church fellowship. Was burning a pinch of incense to the Emperor a mere act of civic duty (akin to saying the Pledge of Allegiance) or a renunciation of the faith? The issue is starkly with us in our time in areas under control by radical Islamists, and Christians are honestly debating if reciting a bit of the Koran to spare one’s life is justified.

Kim Davis’ case poses this question in realms much less dramatic that reach well beyond one’s religious convictions about same-sex marriage. Many Christians have legitimately objected to legalized and state sponsored gambling. At a personal level it compromises faith in God and good stewardship of God’s resources entrusted to us. As a justice issue, gambling preys on the elderly, poor and other vulnerable people with a false hope of escaping their conditions. Since casinos are often connected with hospitality and food services that the state regulates for the common good, can a Christian code inspector who objects to gambling on religious grounds refuse to inspect their facilities to insure they comply with public health and safety standards? The examples are boundless. Discerning these boundaries and determining which compromises are legitimate is not easy.

As one with generally Anabaptist social justice perspectives, I am inclined to say that Christians in public service whose role (whether or not a paid job) requires them to compromise their own standards of righteousness for themselves, simply need to resign or withdraw from such public service. More complex is when the role of Christians in public service facilitates in some way others in practices of which the Christians do not approve. Often they would not have a way of knowing this. For example, a clerk in the motor vehicles office doesn’t know that a particular car has been purchased for the purpose of transporting illegal drugs. In many cases, such as the code inspector, the good of protecting the public outweighs the negative of some of the businesses inspected.

From the days of the New Testament, the Church has struggled with Christians participating in the military and war. The classic Just War Ethic asserts that some wars are just and some are not, and individual Christians are responsible to discern the difference and refuse service in unjust wars. However, no government has ever allowed selective objection (nor will they). In U.S. law, if you are drafted or already enlisted and choose not to serve in the military, you must object to all war. Though the Nuremberg Trials after World War II held that individuals were morally responsible for their actions and are accountable to disobey unjust orders. The point here is not pacifism vs. just war ethics but that the complexities of individual discernment in public service leave only the options of opting out entirely or living with the ambiguities of what is and is not legitimate compromise.

Particularly since the Supreme Court marriage equality decision was a 5-4 margin, opponents of same-sex marriage see an opportunity for this to be reversed by constitutional amendment or a change in the composition of the court or by carefully (cleverly) devised laws to make same-sex marriage difficult or unavailable without actually outlawing it. Whether one agrees with the court or not, I do believe it is the legal reality that is going to prevail, and public servants who object will either have resign or accept it as the give and take reality in which they live.

The business realm (corporate and private enterprise) presents a somewhat different issue than public service. Cases have been mentioned of businesses that provide wedding related services being sued for refusing to provide them for same sex couples. While I do want Christian business people to live out their faith in the marketplace, I fail to see how florists, bakers, photographers, formal wear shops, etc. can offer their services to the public and not serve all customers. Would one who would want to refuse to serve a same-sex wedding also refuse where there has been divorce or adultery, domestic abuse, criminal convictions, religious or racial intermarriage, non-Christian or non-religious couples, or other religious impediments? Would not a same-sex couple prefer a sympathetic vendor to serve their wedding? Perhaps after the political posturing on both sides passes, that pragmatic principle will prevail. Based on Mathew 5:40-41, one friend of mine suggested that if same-sex couples want wedding cakes from Christian bakers who don’t affirm same-sex marriage, the bakers should bake them two. A bit tongue in cheek, but worth pondering how our Christian posture is perceived. Legally, the public accommodations principle from the civil rights movement would suggest that if you offer your services to the public, you must serve whoever in the public comes to you. Perhaps a bit less clear is the case of the wedding chapel that is a for-profit business, albeit run by an ordained minister, offering services to the public without religious specification. The courts have decided, rightly I think, that this is a business and not a religious institution and must comply with the public accommodations principle.

One other final excurses on the fear mongering about religious liberty. I find the proposed laws to protect pastors from being sued for refusing to perform same-sex wedding to be silly political posturing. We pastors are not required to perform weddings for every couple who asks. We have always been free to use our judgment to tell a couple (yes, a heterosexual couple), that they are not ready or a good match or the pastor finds some other impediment to preforming their wedding. I have had couples decide to call off their weddings because of insights from the marriage preparation sessions I do with them, without me even needed to tell them that.

Lastly, I want to point out that this essay says nothing one way or another about my opinion on same-sex marriage, and I hope no one will try to extrapolate one from it (though I have written about that elsewhere). While some of the rhetoric may sound like this is a debate between the Church and the world, I personally know very well that marriage equality and other related issues are being vigorously explored and, yes, debated among devout, theologically responsible Christians. This happens to be the fulcrum in which the Church in the West (largely Europe and the Americas) is learning how “to sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land.” (Psalm 137:4) Depending on the social consensus of Christendom has made the Church spiritually weak with a pseudo, generic, diluted and distorted form of Christianity (compare with the 4^th century and the awakening spiritual decay prompted the Desert Fathers and Mothers to pursue). The challenges of secular materialism and growth of Islam (neither limited to nor excluding radical Islam) are an opportunity for a spiritual awakening and invigorating renewal of Christian discipleship.