The Gospel According to Brutus Part 3: "Unsportsmanlike Conduct" OVERTIME

Note: This is a continuation of the sermon from September 23 entitled “The Gospel According to Brutus Part 3: Unsportsmanlike Conduct.” If you were unable to worship with us on that morning, please consider listening to the sermon by clicking on the “Sermons” tab of our church website. You can listen to it streaming on the internet or you can download the mp3 file.

One of the worst things I’ve ever done—probably in the top 3—occurred right after Christmas of 2004. I was twenty-six-years-old, had been married for four years, and I was halfway through my Master of Divinity coursework at Austin Seminary in Austin, Texas. My dad had worked it out where Danielle and I, as well as my sister, Angel, and her kids who live out in California would spend Christmas in Summerville, South Carolina at my dad and stepmom’s house along with my other sister, stepsiblings, nieces and nephews. The whole family was coming together for the first time in a decade. Sounds wonderful, right? Well, it was about as wonderful as throwing a snake, a mongoose, a honey badger, and a Tasmanian devil in a room together and saying to them, “Merry Christmas!” It was a disaster that could have been predicted by anyone (and probably was), except for those of us who actually wanted to enjoy being together for a change. It was bad in a Brady Bunch meets Hatfield & McCoys sort of way. The visit culminated in me exploding in anger and screaming as loud as I possibly could using words that probably would have made Woody Hayes say, “That’s a little harsh, don’t you think?” Decades of anger, frustration, and disdain poured out of my heart, through my mouth, and flooded over my stepmom like a bursting dam. Then Danielle and I packed my car and drove to my oldest sister’s house. There were yellow “unsportsmanlike conduct” penalty flags thrown all over the field that day.

I should have known better. I was a grown man training to become a pastor. To make it worse, neither of my sisters want anything to do with the Church or any sort of Christian faith and the witness that I’d shown them in our first time together in years was to scream and tear our stepmom down. My sisters started calling me “The Cussin’ Preacher” after that. They thought it was kind of funny. I felt like an absolute failure as a Christian, an overall terrible person, and I even started to wonder whether or not I was cut out for the ministry. My stepmom and I had never gotten along, but nobody deserved what I dished out that day. After we got to my sister’s house, Danielle went in and I stayed in the car by myself with my head down on the steering wheel. I was so ashamed I couldn’t even ask God for forgiveness and I didn’t want to face my little niece and nephew who had seen it all happen. I can handle it when someone does me wrong, but I have a very tough time handling it when I do wrong to someone else. Alone in that cold car, with my face hidden in the sleeves of my sweatshirt to hide the emotion on my face, I was at the lowest point in my entire life.

I did eventually get out of the car and about three years went by with minimal communication with my dad and absolutely no communication with my stepmom. I had never apologized, and it continued to gnaw at me from the inside. I felt like a terrible hypocrite up there preaching the gospel when I had not allowed it to change me enough to make things right. Then one Sunday morning when I was standing at the communion table presiding over the Lord’s Supper it hit me, right in the middle of the liturgy. In that sacred moment the Holy Spirit found a little seam somewhere in my heart where God could get in and it struck me like a bolt of lightning. “She is your sister in Christ,” was spoken into my heart and it floored me. I’d never thought about that. My stepmom wasn’t just my stepmom; she was a fellow disciple of Jesus. It wasn’t right for me to treat my stepmom like that, but much worse even than that was that I had treated my sister in the covenant family of the Church like that. Remember Jesus’ words, “I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, ‘You fool,’ you will be liable to the hell of fire.” Pretty much whenever we read “brother” or “sister” in the New Testament it means a fellow disciple of Jesus. Jesus was VERY concerned about how his followers treat one another. After all, how can we treat other people right if we cannot even treat each other well as fellow believers? When I stood at that communion table that morning what hit me hardest were Jesus’ words in the next verse. He says, “So when you are offering your gift at the altar (referring to the Jerusalem Temple), if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift.” God doesn't even want our offerings if we are not willing to offer reconciliation to one another.

Well, I couldn’t just stop in the middle of the Lord’s Supper. After all it wasn’t the congregation’s problem to deal with; it was mine. But that afternoon I nervously dialed the phone and spoke that difficult phrase into life: “I’m sorry.” That was in about 2007 or so when I made that phone call. This past June my stepmom and my dad drove the eleven hours from South Carolina and pulled up to the manse to see a huge sign that the kids and I had made saying “Welcome Grandma and Grandpa!” We had a great time together, joking together, hugging each other, and my kids absolutely loved both their grandpa and their grandma. That whole week I gave thanks to God for the reconciliation that had taken place those years earlier that made that visit possible. Their visit to us redeemed our visit to them eight years earlier.

For that redemption and reconciliation to occur between my stepmom and I there were two things that were required: HUMILITY and FORGIVENESS. I had to humble myself to the point of apology, but it was God that did a great work in my heart to help me do that. I couldn’t do it on my own. I also had to forgive my stepmom for those things over the years when I was a kid that were hurtful to me. Then in response to my phone call, my stepmom made the choice to forgive me. There can be no reconciliation, no peace of any kind, until there is humility and forgiveness. This is true in our relationships in our families, in our communities, and in our congregations. This is even true for nations. How many wars have been fought, how many people have died, because of a lack of humility and forgiveness? This is also true in our relationship with God. We have to humble ourselves before God enough to ask for God’s forgiveness. Then, ironically, God’s forgiveness humbles us even more.

Proverbs 11:2 assures us, “When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with the humble is wisdom.” Psalm 149:4 promises, “For the LORD takes pleasure in his people; he adorns the humble with salvation." Psalm 25:9 guides us with these words: “He leads the humble in what is right, and teaches the humble his way.” I could go on and on with this. Humility is a big deal in the Bible because humility is a big deal to God. The Apostle Paul writes in Ephesians 4:32, “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.” We already know how big of a deal forgiveness is in the Bible and to God.

Take a few minutes to watch the music video below and then there’s something i want you all to consider. If you have peace in your heart, perhaps the next step God might be calling you to is peace in your relationships. Is there a relationship in your life that humility and forgiveness might mend? If so, might this be the day to let that happen? The least you can do is pray about it.

Some Random Thoughts

This is the first time in my nine months here that I really have not had anything that I felt led to blog about. I’m pretty tired (emotionally and physically), worn out really and my brain just isn’t working all that well. But I made a commitment to myself that I would post a blog every week that I am not on vacation or study leave so I will just let some thoughts come out and we’ll see what we come up with. Here it goes:

I ran into a church member the other day at a store. She was looking for a Bible. She was embarrassed to tell me that she didn’t own a Bible. She had owned one but it went missing or was ruined or something and for a long time she did not replace it. I think she expected me to reprimand her for not owning a Bible. Now, don’t get me wrong, I do find it surprising and ill advised that a Christian doesn’t own a Bible, but what good would it do to get onto someone for something while they are in the midst of making a sincere effort to remedy it? It wouldn’t do a bit of good and would most likely discourage instead of encourage. Instead, I was happy that this person was out getting a Bible because she wanted to participate in the “Two-A-Days” spiritual disciplines that I handed out in bookmark form after the sermon last Sunday. I was ecstatic that God was using something I’d done—preaching the sermon and coming up with the bookmarks—to draw someone to God’s Word. How cool is that!

Our congregation really came together to honor David Fabb this past Sunday and to offer our comfort and support to Judith and the rest of the family after his death. We worshiped God, gave thanks for and honored the life of our brother in Christ, and we offered unparalleled hospitality to the family and community. What more could we do? Everything was perfect. Now, however, we need to remember that although the difficult week or two of worry and response to David’s illness and subsequent passing is over for us, the difficult part has just begun for Judith. Pray for her, but don’t just pray for her. Be there for her, especially those of you who have lost your own spouse.

I got word the other day that someone from the community had gone to our church website. The person said she was impressed by all the information we had online, including sermons, choir audio, blog, and calendar. She said that so many churches do not keep their websites updated but we were doing a good job. I was glad to hear that. Since she told me how impressed she was I have not been able to upload our sermon audio from last week as the site just won’t work and locks up my computer. Go figure. She must have jinxed us.

On Saturday, January 19, 2013 there will be an officers retreat for our board of deacons and session. It will be from 9 am to 4 pm at the Procter Center, an Episcopal retreat center out toward the town of London. We have not been training our officers as we should and this will be a step forward. Plus, it will enable us to be together outside of a hurried evening meeting. There will be reviews of Presbyterian theology and government, along with worship and times of fellowship and faith sharing. I will work with Jennifer Pieratt and Dick Glass to lead it. I’m very excited about it as it will be a chance for us to grow closer to one another and to reflect on our role as the leaders of this congregation. I’m sorry that you have to give up a Saturday but at least for many of us that is a three day weekend. Please don’t ruin this by being grumpy about it. You just might grow in your faith and become a better leader.

Finally, I came across this hymn text from the Presbyterian Hymnal from 1860. We have a copy of it in our church library. Actually it is sitting on my desk right now. There are no musical notes, just the words for each hymn. This is probably back when Presbyterian churches didn’t generally have instruments and often sang most hymns to a rather small number of familiar tunes with a song leader keeping time. Anyway, I love a lot of the hymn texts and I wanted to share just one of them with you. It called simply #371 “A Thankful Heart:”

Father, whate’er of earthly bliss
Thy Sovereign love denies,
Accepted at thy throne of grace
Let this petition rise—

Give me a calm, a thankful heart,
From every murmur free;
The blessings of thy grace impart,
And make me live for thee.

Let the sweet hope that thou art mine,
My life and death attend;
Thy presence through my journey shine,
And crown my journey’s end.

Have a great rest of the week. May each of us be a beacon of Christ's light to everyone around us. You never know who might need that kind word, that smile, that prayer.

Peace,
Everett

The Voice

On Monday night, after the kids were in bed, Danielle and I sat down to watch the season premiere of The Voice. You should know that Danielle and I don’t share a whole lot of interests when it comes to our television viewing. I have little interest in whether or not they’ll “Love It or List It” (a real estate & interior design show) or about what is happening in the lives of “The Real Housewives of Wherever.” On the other hand, she is not a big fan of zombie invasions and she doesn’t care who wins between two college football teams she’s never heard of playing on Thursday night. But last year, we found that we both liked The Voice. Now I have to admit, like a lot of things, I begin to lose interest as the season goes on but I especially enjoy the “Blind Auditions.” If you’ve never seen it, the four “coaches” (very successful recording artists) sit facing away from the stage. They cannot see who is coming on stage to sing. A person comes out and begins to sing their heart out. If a coach (or more than one coach) likes what they hear they press a big red button that turns their chair around. The singer gets to choose, of those coaches who turned around, which “team” they’d like to be on for the rest of the season. Sometimes one, two, three, or even four coaches all turn around making the singer decide between them. Sometimes though, and it is difficult to watch when it happens, nobody turns around and dreams are dashed.

I think the reason I like this early stage of The Voice the most is that we learn the background stories of the singers before they go out for their “blind audition.” Quite often there is a very powerful story behind what brought the singer to that point. Last night there was a young man (maybe 18 or so) whose father was a musician. His father was his hero and best friend, but tragically his father was diagnosed with a cancerous brain tumor, which began a long, painful fight with cancer. The young singer told the story of how he and his brother, just boys themselves, finally went into their father’s room and told him it was okay to stop fighting, that they would miss him but that they couldn’t see him suffer any longer. He died within days. It was at that time the young man decided he was going to become a singer to honor his father and to carry on his legacy. After we saw that “video package,” Danielle and I (and millions of others around the world) thought, “Please let this kid get picked.” Unfortunately, whether it was nerves or something else, his voice didn’t come across very well. He was not chosen. Thankfully this show isn’t like the early years of American Idol in which Simon might say something like, “I’m sorry your dad died, but your voice is just plain rubbish and it makes me think of a dying animal caught in a trap.” The coaches on The Voice heard more of his story and were very empathetic and proud of him. They also encouraged him, reminding him that he is young and has time to work on the mechanics of being a good singer. “You’re 80% of the way there,” one of the coaches said. The young man began to weep on the stage. It was a difficult moment to watch, a moment of raw humanity.

There was another singer, an amazingly beautiful young woman (early twenties?) who was born into abject poverty in Jamaica. When she was two, her single mother left her and her siblings with family members and moved to the United States to try to find work. Her mother worked several jobs, sent money back to Jamaica, and finally was able to send for her children. This young woman was singing to honor her mother, to honor her Jamaican heritage, and to shine some light on the millions who live in squalor in the very poor nation of Jamaica. She chose to sing “No Woman No Cry” by Bob Marley, a song that comforts a woman living through terrible trials. As she spoke of her mother, tears began to leave dark trails from her eyes down over her cheeks. “I really hope she’s good,” I said to Danielle. Perhaps it was the emotion, I’m not sure, but like that young man she just didn’t come across that well in her singing. Ironically, it lacked emotion. It was “flat,” I think one of the coaches later commented. None of the coaches turned their chair. She told her story to the coaches. “I’m sorry, but that didn’t come across in your singing,” one of them commented, feeling bad for her. Then the young woman did something I’ve never seen any other “contestant” do. She asked, “Could I sing it for you a capella? I know you can’t choose me now, but could I just do this?” They were gracious enough to let her do it. With tears running down her face, she then sang “No Woman No Cry” beautifully with so much depth and emotion that all the coaches had chills and it moved the hearts of millions. What courage that took! They encouraged her to come back next year to give it another shot.

There were other stories as well: the rock singer who gave up his band to start a family, the preacher’s daughter who had been outcast from her church as she discovered in her teens that she was lesbian (her parents, who are both pastors, were there with her to support her and had not cast her out like so often happens), and there was the retail clerk working two jobs that after she sang one of the coaches called her, “Without a doubt the best country singer we’ve ever heard on this show.” It was good stuff and there’s two more nights of “blind auditions” this week. I’ll be watching because of the stories as much as the music.

I’m like this with the Olympics too. I tend to care more about the stories behind the athletes than the actual athletic feats themselves. I, like many others around the world, was inspired by Oscar Pistorius of South Africa, who was running on prosthetic “blades” and had fought for his chance to compete against “able bodied” runners. The courage and perseverance of Guor Marial was awe inspiring. He is the Sudanese marathoner who took up competitive running “after running for his life since he was a young boy in Sudan, growing up in the middle of one of the deadliest wars of the 20th century. He learned to run as he fought to escape from those who killed his siblings and relatives and later kidnapped and enslaved him.” There was also the brave story of Tahmina Kohistani, “the lone woman in the Afghan delegation, who endured threats and taunts to keep her out of the Games” as well as the first two female athletes ever to compete from Saudi Arabia, Wojdan Ali Seraj Abdulrahim Shahrkhani and Sarah Attar, “who represent a country where women are not only banned from participating in sports, they're even banned from watching sports events in major stadiums.” How inspiring!

It is no accident that people who are relentless in pursuit of their dreams, whether as an Olympic athlete or on The Voice or many other arenas of life, have stories of hardship in their past. Does that young man wish his father was still with him? Of course he does, as he should. But some good has come out of the terrible; he has developed perseverance, drive, and a purpose. Does that young woman wish her mother would not have lived in poverty and had to work her fingers to the bones? I would imagine so. But some good has come out of the bad; she has an example in her mother of fierce determination and love. It is the same with the Olympic athletes I mentioned too. They probably wish they had not suffered. But they did, and some good has come from it. It doesn’t make what happened to them good, but it does show that some good can come from the bad.

I don’t know what you are facing today. Maybe you or someone you know is suffering. Maybe you are sick or exhausted or feel all alone. Maybe somebody did something to you a long time ago that has scarred you. I have no idea why you are going through this or why someone you love is going through this. I will never tell anyone, “This is God’s will for you.” First of all, I don’t know that and secondly, who does it make God if we believe that cancer ravaging the body of a helpless little child is God’s will? Every day I, and billions of others, pray for an end to suffering, but it does not come. Many of us, however, continue to believe in God and that God is a good God who loves us. It is impossible for us to reconcile suffering and God’s goodness in any way that will satisfy our understandable confusion and anger. What I have chosen to do is put my faith in God in Jesus Christ anyway, and to ask the Holy Spirit to give me more faith and courage than I currently have. My life is pretty idyllic right now but storms will come eventually. After all, the most peaceful beaches in the world get hit by hurricanes from time to time, don’t they? That is why I (and many others)hold on to the truth of Romans 8:28, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” To claim this biblical truth does not mean we believe God caused what is happening. Sometimes we cause our own difficult circumstances, but most of the time we don’t and we don’t know what did cause it. “Why is this happening to me?,” is a legitimate question to ask.

Tragically, much that happens to us we must simply endure as a part of living in our fallen world. We can either become bitter or we can allow ourselves to be made better in spite of it and through it. Do we continue to wish it didn’t happen? Of course we do. It is not how we would have written the script for our lives. Every day we miss someone who has died. We miss them so deeply that our chests ache and we lament that they didn’t have the chance to live out “the fullness of their days.” We struggle everyday with what someone did to hurt us or hurt someone we love. We look at our loved one lying in a hospital bed and we feel helpless, which in many ways we are. But it is happening to us; in most cases we can’t change that. It is happening. PERIOD. So we hold on to hope. We hold on like a drowning person grasping for anything that will float. We do our best to trust that somehow it is really true that from death God does bring life, that from Friday does come Easter Sunday, that from the cross does come the empty tomb, and that somehow, someday God will bring something good out of something so bad. Perhaps someday we will know the answers to our questions. But that day is not today. In the meantime, we can be thankful, at least, that sometimes the good that rises out of the rubble of the bad is nothing less than our voice, a voice we didn’t know we had, a voice that we can use, perhaps trembling at first, to sing out to the Lord in the midst of our trials, to sing out to the Lord a new song.