So can a person who lived and died before the invention of the camera have a major impact on Hollywood History?  Yes, with lots of practice and a little help from their friends.

My story begins with that other Wesley fellow – Charles.  Charles Wesley has always been in the shadow of his more famous older brother, John Wesley.  Even today, you can do a bust of a young Methodist preacher at his home and catch him with a bust of John Wesley.  Charles doesn’t get that much attention from the pulpit.  But his claim to fame comes from the hymnal.  According to author John R. Tyson, Charles wrote a mixture of 9,000 poems and hymns.  Can you imagine Easter without a “Christ the Lord is Risen Today”?  Or a Methodist meeting without “Oh For a Thousand Tongues to Sing.”  When I was in college or shortly afterwards, there was a popular worship with the lyrics, “Amazing Love.  How can this be?  That you my king would die for me?”  Well, Charles gets some credit for that one as well.  He wrote “And Can It Be That I Should Gain” – a very awkward title with the lyrics of “Amazing Love.  How can it be?  That thou, my God, shouldst die for me.”

So on one occasion in 1739, our friend Charles publishes a song with the opening lyrics, “Hark how all the welkins ring, Glory to the King of Kings.”  That’s an okay start to a song.  I have a hard time imagining Bing Crosby singing it.  And hymnals usually don’t come with a glossary in the back to tell you that the word welkin is a poetic word that refers to the space between heaven and earth.  Personally, I would have told him to change welkins to heavens and be done with it.

But then enter his friend George Whitfield.  When he published the song in 1753, he made a slight edit to it.  Personally, I’m a little leery of when editors change song lyrics.  Sometimes, they make sense as in “Joy to the World,” they change the lyric from “let men their songs employ” to “let all their songs employ.”  I’m down with that.  I want to ladies to sing as well.  But then that get into the stupid column like in “Because He Lives” when I see the lyric “How sweet it is to hold a newborn baby, and feel the pride and joy he gives” and it has an asterisk.  And at the bottom of the hymnal, we are given permission to sing “feel the pride and joy it gives.”  It?  Bill and Gloria Gaither were writing about the firstborn son, not about the cousin from the Addam’s family.

So Whitfield changes the lyric to, “Hark the Herald Angels Sing!  Glory to the Newborn King!”  Oh my!  We went from a song about the victorious king of kings to the helpless newborn king.  With a slight edit, Whitfield took an everyday hymn with some archaic language and turned it into a beloved Christmas carol.  Later song writers also tweaked the song to make it more user friendly, by using the Herald Angels lyrics as a chorus.

But here’s the catch.  This Christmas carol is rich in theology.  How many carols do you know that explain the theology of the Incarnation like this: “Christ, by highest Heaven adored, Christ, the Everlasting Lord, Late in Time behold him come, Offspring of a Virgin’s Womb.  Veiled in Flesh, the Godhead see, Hail the Incarnate Deity! Pleased as Man with Men to appear, Jesus, our Immanuel here!”

So Charles Wesley wrote the hymn, George Whitfield helped him out, but how does Hollywood come into this?  That revelation slowly came upon me as I was decorating in phases.

A few weeks ago, I was setting out my houses of Bedford Falls.  Bedford Falls is the setting in director Frank Capra’s 1946 classic movie “It’s a Wonderful Life” starring Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed.  So I placed the movie in my laptop to listen to it, while I was unpacking boxes and setting it out.  Jimmy Stewart’s performance is a tour-de-force as we see him transform from a young dreamer character (like his earlier “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” character) to a very troubled character (like his latter characters in the Alfred Hitchcock movies).  In one particular scene, he comes home on Christmas Eve, deeply distressed.  His daughter, Janie is practicing on the piano.  I’m not a parent, but in my principal days, I got invited and attended several piano recitals.  Basically, you enjoy 4 minutes of your kid playing the piano, and the rest of it is a musical purgatory.  But hey, you got to start somewhere.  So as Janie is hammering at the piano, Jimmy Stewart’s character snaps at her and says, “Janie, haven’t you learned that silly tune yet? You play it over and over again. Now stop it! Stop!”  And then he physical takes out his frustration on a table, causing his daughter to cry.  That “silly tune” is “Hark the Herald Angels Sing.”  Blessedly, at the end of the movie, Janie gets to “play it again” with a rousing rendition featuring everyone from the sheriff to the bank examiner.

Fast forward a little bit and I was wrapping presents on the dining room table.  So to make time fly faster, I put in the 1951 movie “Christmas Carol” (sometimes called “Scrooge” in the United States) in the DVD player.  There’s been a lot of Christmas Carol movies, but the British nailed it in this particular version.  The writers added a few extra scenes to the story to help explain why Scrooge became bitter and how he and Marley ended up owning the business.  But most importantly, Alistair Sims is Scrooge.  His transformation is a joy to watch.   And I think that’s hinted at in the opening credits, when we hear…”Hark the Herald Angels Sing” and particularly that lyric, “God and sinner reconciled.”  Later in the film, the Ghost of Christmas Past shows Scrooge eagerly signing Marley’s death certificate and refers to him as a “squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner.”  But there is still hope and grace for old Scrooge! The Ghost of Christmas Present reminds him, “Mortal! We Spirits of Christmas do not live only one day of our year. We live the whole three-hundred and sixty-five. So is it true of the Child born in Bethlehem. He does not live in men’s hearts one day of the year, but in all days of the year. You have chosen not to seek Him in your heart. Therefore, you will come with me and seek Him in the hearts of men of good will.”  Yes, God was working overtime during Christmas to be reconciled with the sinner Scrooge.

Then fast forward slightly later, and I am setting out all my various Snoopy figures and putting my Christmas Brown Christmas Tree together.  So I pop in the 1965 “A Charlie Brown Christmas” into my laptop.  And once again, I hear Charlie Brown ask what is the meaning of Christmas.  And once again, Linus puts his trusty blue blanket down and recites from St. Luke about the Angels visiting the Shepherds.  And guess what song that the Peanuts sing at the very end of the program?  “Hark the Herald Angels Sing.”

Later that same day, I’m decorating the Christmas tree.  I needed some angelic help, so I put the 1947 movie “This Bishop’s Wife” in the DVD player.  It’s a romantic comedy with David Niven as the troubled Bishop, Loretta Young as his beautiful wife, and Cary Grant as the dashing angel Dudley.  One of my favorite scenes is how Dudley decorates the Christmas tree in a matter of seconds.  I could have used him.  But at the very beginning of the movie, we open with an aerial shot looking down at the city at night while listening to Christmas carolers.  And we get down to earth, there’s Dudley on the busy sidewalk, listening to Christmas carolers sing…wait for it….”Hark the Herald Angels Sing.”

And that’s when it occurred to me.  That’s three classic movies and a beloved TV program that referenced “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.”  Pretty impressive when you think of the carol competition.  Charles Wesley and George Whitfield made Hollywood history in classic Christmas cinema.

And so I was kicking around the idea of whether or not that was blog worthy.  But then that same night, I drove up the street to the Calhoun United Methodist Church drive-through live nativity.  And that was special.  I attended several vacation Bible schools there as a kid growing up in Calhoun.  I saw my friend, Kerri, who helped recruit the livestock and the actors for the stable, and spoke to her for a little bit.  I drove around the corner, got a treat bag, and my first boss, Ms. Roxanna from my Calhoun Public Library days recognized me and hollered me.  And then I drove a little further to the prayer garden, where the pastor gave me communion and read the holy scriptures.  It was a special moment.

Later that evening, back at home, I was unpacking the treat bag, and to my surprise, it had an ornament.  It was a beautiful harp.  And engraved on it was, “Hark the Herald Angels Sing.”  Yes, indeed. And glory to the newborn king!

Every year in December, we rightfully reread the story of Mary of Nazareth.  We read about how she was visited by the angel Gabriel and told that she would give birth to God’s son.  And then we skip ahead and read the familiar story about Mary and her husband Joseph traveling to Bethlehem where Jesus is born.  Then the shepherds come, and then we skip ahead again to the coming of the Wise Men.  With all this skipping around, are you aware that there’s a prequel to the Christmas story?  Are you aware that Dr. Luke actually tells us about two miraculous births.

When Dr. Luke begins his books, he starts his narrative not with Mary and Joseph in Nazareth, but with Elizabeth and Zechariah in the Jerusalem area.  They are not a recently engaged young couple like Mary and Joseph.  They are an elderly couple, who have been married for years.  Zechariah is a priest in the temple.  But they carry a secret sorrow.  Elizabeth has struggled and lost to infertility.

In the ancient world and in the not-so ancient world, infertility was a huge problem.  Back before Social Security, you depended on your children to care for you in old age.  Also, children were considered to be a blessing from God.  So if you didn’t have children, you might be looked upon as not being worthy of that blessing.

Interestingly, the Jewish scriptures are full of stories of women who wrestled with infertility.  And the results were not pretty.  And the husbands usually didn’t help matters.  While the letters of Peter and Paul give good marriage advice about how husbands and wives should love and submit to each other, the Jewish scriptures serve as a cautionary tale about what not to do.

First, there’s Abraham and Sarah.  Sarah is old.  She can’t have children.  So she suggests that Abraham solve this problem by using her Egyptian slave Hagar as a surrogate mother.  Husbands, take note.  A bad idea is a bad idea, even when it’s your wife idea.  Listen to the train wreck that happens next:

“But when Hagar knew she was pregnant, she began to treat her mistress, Sarai, with contempt. Then Sarai said to Abram, ‘This is all your fault! I put my servant into your arms, but now that she’s pregnant she treats me with contempt. The Lord will show who’s wrong—you or me!’ Abram replied, ‘Look, she is your servant, so deal with her as you see fit.’ Then Sarai treated Hagar so harshly that she finally ran away. (Genesis 16:4-6 NLT). 

Oh my goodness.  Hagar looks down on Sarah; Sarah lashes out at Abraham; Abraham shrugs off his leadership; Sarah mistreats Hagar; Hagar runs away.  No wonder the Middle East is such a mess.

Fast forward to Genesis 25, Abraham’s son Isaac and his wife Rebekah are wrestling with infertility.  But Isaac does a much better job than dear old dad.  He prays for this wife.  And during a difficult pregnancy, Rebekah cries out to God, who explains to her that she will have twins, Esau and Jacob.

Fast forward to Genesis 29, Jacob is getting married and discovers that while the veil was pulled over the bride’s eyes, the wool was pulled over his.  He had been duped into marrying the wrong sister.  Jacob loved Rachel, but did not love her sister Leah.  Leah got the bad end of the deal.  Genesis tells us that “When the Lord saw that Leah was unloved, he enabled her to have children, but Rachel could not conceive. So Leah became pregnant and gave birth to a son. She named him Reuben, for she said, ‘The Lord has noticed my misery, and now my husband will love me.’ (Genesis 29:31-32 NLT).  She goes on to have two more sons. 

Now Rachel feels like that she is getting the short end of stick.  She is envious of her sister and pleads with Jacob, “Give me children, or I’ll die!”  Now Jacob feels like he’s getting unfairly blamed.  “Then Jacob became furious with Rachel. ‘Am I God?’ he asked. ‘He’s the one who has kept you from having children!’”  Instead of comforting his wife, he lashes out at her.  Eventually they borrow a page from grandfather Abraham and grandmother Sarah and use a servant, because they worked out oh so well for Abraham.  Leah, when she is unable to have children, follows suit with her servants.  But surprise!  Leah goes on to have two more sons and a daughter.  And Rachel finally has two sons, Joseph and Benjamin.  Jacob looks up and he has twelve sons and one daughter.  Talk about Social Security!

Fast forward hundreds of years past the time of Joseph, and the Exodus with Moses, and the Conquest with Joshua, to the time of the Judges.  In Judges 13, we have a husband named Manoah whose wife is wrestling with infertility.  They both received divine visits and the nameless wife gives birth to Samson.

Fast forward toward the end of the times of Judges in 1 Samuel 1 and you have a husband named Elkanah with two wives – Peninnah and Hannah.  And just like with the whole Jacob/Rachel/Leah marriage triangle, Elkanah loved Hannah more than Peninnah, but Peninnah was one with the sons.  Peninnah, in turn, would irritate Hannah about not having any children.  Listen to the heartbreak: “Year after year it was the same—Peninnah would taunt Hannah as they went to the Tabernacle. Each time, Hannah would be reduced to tears and would not even eat.” (1 Samuel 1:7 NLT).

And her well-meaning husband tried to comfort her by asking, “Why are you crying, Hannah? Why aren’t you eating? Why be downhearted just because you have no children? You have me—isn’t that better than having ten sons?” (1 Samuel 1:8 NLT).  Again, don’t try this at home.  He should just have hugged her and told her that he loved her.  Later, we read that “Hannah was in deep anguish, crying bitterly as she prayed to the Lord.”  She is a hurt individual.  But this time, her prayer was answered, and Samuel the first of the prophets is born.

Reading Hannah’s story, I’m reminded of my sister.  For several years, she was in the adoption process, and it was a tediously slow process.  It made for some difficult Mother Days at church to have that deep desire to be a mother, but no baby to hold.  On one occasion, my sister was invited by the birth mother to join her for the ultrasound.  My sister then sent me some ultrasound pictures of my future niece/nephew.  But after the birth mother delivered, she changed her mind.  I remember it well, because it all went down on Good Friday.  Apparently, these false starts are common in the adoption process, situations to where the birth mother has chosen an adoption family, but then later decided that she could not place her child for adoption.  What a terrible situation for a young unwed mother to be in.  And what a frustrating position for the would be mother to be in.  My sister found comfort in a quote from one of my favorite authors C.S. Lewis, “I do not know why there is this difference, but I am sure that God keeps no one waiting unless He sees that it is good for him to wait.”

Now some 1,000 years after the time of Samuel, Zechariah is at the Temple burning incense.  The people are outside praying and wondering what is taking the old man so long.  Well, Zechariah had a visitor.  He received a divine visit and was told that Elizabeth would have a son.  And Zechariah asks the angel, “How can I be sure this will happen? I’m an old man now, and my wife is also well along in years.”  And yes, that was a dumb question for a priest to ask.  He should have known his Jewish history. And apparently it irritates the angel, who must not be a Precious Moments angel, because he replies, ““I am Gabriel! I stand in the very presence of God. It was he who sent me to bring you this good news! But now, since you didn’t believe what I said, you will be silent and unable to speak until the child is born. For my words will certainly be fulfilled at the proper time.”

Zechariah had become cynical.  I remember the week of Father’s Day in June.  I told Dad that I would take him to the Cracker Barrel on Tuesday, but not on Father’s Day when it was jammed pack.  So this would be on Tuesday evening, June 23.  Before we left to eat, Dad told me that my sister had received a phone call about an adoption.  I kind of shrugged my shoulders and said, “Well, let’s keep that under our hat and wait to see what happens.”  After the Good Friday fiasco, I wasn’t getting exciting.  I was like old Zechariah.

When Elizabeth realizes that she is pregnant, she thanks God and says, ““How kind the Lord is!  He has taken away my disgrace of having no children.”  Notice the word disgrace.  That’s how she felt watching her friends have children, and then grandchildren.  Not having a son going through the Bar Mitzvah or getting married.  Missing out on all those wonderful life events.

Elizabeth thinks her pregnancy is a secret.  But she gets surprised when Cousin Mary shows up at her doorstep.  Elizabeth’s unborn child leaps with joy when he hears Mary’s voice.  Cousin Mary was told by an angel that Elizabeth was pregnant as reassurance that she would give birth to God’s son.  Elizabeth tells Mary, “God has blessed you above all women, and your child is blessed. Why am I so honored, that the mother of my Lord should visit me? When I heard your greeting, the baby in my womb jumped for joy. You are blessed because you believed that the Lord would do what he said.”

Mary stays with Elizabeth throughout the pregnancy. And after the baby is born, Elizabeth causes a commotion by telling the neighbors that the baby will be named John.  Why John?  So the neighbors ask Zechariah for a second opinion.  I find it amusing that the neighbors disagreed with Mom about what to name the baby, so they asked Dad.  Dad does a game of charades to request something to write with, and he writes the name John.  As soon as he does, he has his voice back.  He begins rejoicing and praising.

“Praise the Lord, the God of Israel, because he has visited and redeemed his people.  He has sent us a mighty Savior from the royal line of his servant David, just as he promised through his holy prophets long ago. Now we will be saved from our enemies and from all who hate us.  He has been merciful to our ancestors by remembering his sacred covenant— the covenant he swore with an oath to our ancestor Abraham.”

Notice the words promise and remembering.  Those are not accidental.  Zechariah in Hebrew means “The Lord has remembered.”  Elizabeth in Hebrew means “My God is an oath.”  Put their names together and you have God has remembered God’s oath.

The word spreads quickly.  The neighbors marveled and asked, “What will this child turn out to be?”  The answer is found in the story of Samuel.  Samuel was the answer to his mother’s prayer.  His biggest claim to fame was the day that he went to the little town of Bethlehem and anointed a shepherd by the name David as King of Israel.  Similarly, John’s biggest claim to fame was the day when he baptized Jesus, born in Bethlehem, descendant of King David, our Good Shepherd who would give his life for his sheep, and proclaimed him as Israel’s Messiah, the King of Kings.  Samuel was the prequel for King David. John the Baptist was the prequel for Jesus of Nazareth.

So this is the season to celebrate the miraculous.  We need to remember the miraculous birth of John the Baptist, proof that God does remember his promises.  We need to remember the virgin birth of Jesus of Nazareth, the greatest gift God has ever given.  And as I am celebrating the birth of Jesus with family this Christmas, I will have someone new joining me.  My six-month-old nephew, Josiah, who was born on June 24^th will be joining me Christmas Eve.  He likes to eat, to be outdoors, and play in his jumperoo zoo that Uncle Tim bought him.  He’s another reminder to me of God’s goodness.

Reflection Questions

Throughout the Jewish scriptures, we see several couples wrestling with infertility.  Does it seem strange to think that we are not all that different from the people in the ancient world?

Looking back on the couples who wrestled with infertility, what were some of the wrong responses?  What were some of the right responses?

Zechariah is criticized for having doubts after an angel appeared to him.  We’re probably not going to have an angel appear to us to deliver news.  So how do we find a balance between being realistic and being hopeful?

Elizabeth comments that the Lord had removed the disgrace from her.  Do you feel in our society today, that there is a disgrace, a stigma attached to childless families?

The neighbors rejoice with Elizabeth after John is born.  In our society, do we consider the birth of a child to be a blessing from God, or more of a burden?  How would considering every child to be a blessing, change the way that treat them?

Both Samuel and John the Baptist were answers to their mother’s prayers.  They went on to prepare the way for David and Jesus.  Were you the answer to someone’s prayers?  Is someone special in your life the answer to your prayers?

For decades, he was the most powerful man on the planet.  And yet, this most powerful man was destined to become a mere pawn in the game plan for an even greater ruler. 

Born in 63 BC, Octavian was the nephew of the famous Roman General, Julius Caesar, giving him a huge head start in making his way in the world of the Roman Republic.  When he was just a teenager, his uncle Julius was assassinated in 44 BC, after several Roman Senators, like Brutus, deemed Julius a little too power hungry.  Using his uncle’s name recognition, he joined forces with two other men – Lepidus and Mark Antony – to consolidate power by executing any opponents.  Lepidus would eventually fall from power, be exiled, and be forgotten.  Mark Antony, however, became infamous with his romantic and political alliance with Cleopatra – queen of Egypt and the mother of Caesarion, the son of Julius Caesar, who apparently conquered Egypt both in the battlefield and the bedroom.  War broke out between Rome and Egypt.  Octavian’s forces won.  Mark Anthony committed suicide by the sword.  Cleopatra famously committed suicide by the snake, the deadly adder.  And the teenage Caesarion was executed by orders of Octavian.  There would only be one Caesar is this new world.

In gratitude for crushing the Egyptian threat, the Roman Senate gave Octavian the title of Augustus.  And so, Augustus continued the process of transforming the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire, with the Emperor increasingly having more power than the Senate.  And as Emperor, Augustus was very much concerned about the day-to-day stability of the Roman Empire.  He wisely made a peace deal with the Parthians (modern day Iran) on the eastern border.  He began a massive renovation project in Rome to where he could later brag that “I found Rome in brick and left it marble.”  Concerned by the recent lack of religious devotion of the Romans, he became High Priest in the Roman pagan system and restored eighty-two temples in the City of Rome.  And he was also concerned about family values – he passed laws against sexual misbehaviors and adultery.

Augustus is a complex character.  On one hand, he’s like the evil Senator Palpatine from the Star Wars movies – the scheming political beast who uses military crises to obtain political power, destroying the Republic.  On the other hand, as emperor, he comes across as a blend of popular two-term American presidents Dwight Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan.  President “Ike” Eisenhower is best known for his massive infrastructure project – the interstate, and President Reagan is remembered for his peace deals with the eastern Soviets and for promoting conservative family values.

Augustus’s obsession with family values issue is interesting story.  One day, he simply walks into the Forum and takes a very simple survey:  he orders all bachelors to one side of the room and all the married men to the other side.  Much to his chagrin, there were only a handful of husbands.  Augustus becomes angry and gives the bachelors a tongue lashing.   According to Dio Cassius, he said, “What shall I call you? Men?  But you aren’t fulfilling the duties of men.  Citizens?  But for all your efforts, the city is perishing.  Romans?  But you are in the process of blotting out this name together!  What humanity would be left if all the rest of mankind should do what you are doing?…You are committing murder in not fathering in the first place those wo ought to be your descendants.”  

And you thought that your parents were impatient for grandchildren.  This incident lead to a flurry of legislation to encourage men to get married and have children.  But was his plan actually working?  There was only one way to find out.

If one visits Augustus’s mausoleum, there are two bronze plagues, listing what he considered his top ten, well rather, top thirty-five achievements.  At number 8, he boasts that three times, he took a census of the Roman empire, and that in a fourteen year time span, the number of Roman citizens increased from slightly over 4 million to slightly under 5 million.  Just as the U.S. Constitution mandates that a nationwide census takes place every ten years, Augustus took several censuses to track his population progress.

Undoubtedly, these censuses of Roman citizens, encouraged the many rulers throughout the empire to take a census of non-Roman citizens.  In fact, Dr. Luke probably refers to two such censuses in his books The Good News and its sequel the Acts of the Apostles.  In Acts 5:37, Dr. Luke makes a fleeting reference to the infamous census of AD 6-7 and the bloody uprising that followed: “After him, at the time of the census, there was Judas of Galilee. He got people to follow him, but he was killed, too, and all his followers were scattered.”  In Luke 2:1-2, Luke is referring to an earlier, quieter census that had faded from public memory: “At that time the Roman emperor, Augustus, decreed that a census should be taken throughout the Roman Empire. (This was the first census taken when Quirinius was governor of Syria.)”  Who would have guessed that an impromptu marriage survey would lead to an empire wide census that would lead to one of the most beloved world holidays?

Just imagine the look on Julius Caesar’s face, if we could summon his ghost, and give him a report on the legacy of his nephew and son.  “Tell me about my son by Cleopatra, Caesarion!” he would order.

“Well,” we would reluctantly reply, “Your nephew had him executed as he consolidated power.  But he’s not forgotten.  In fact, he’s a household name.”

Julius Caesar would then smile.  “Ah yes, pray tell me more.”

“Well, you see Caesar” we would awkwardly answer, wanting to change the conversation, “the name Caesarion in our language means ‘Little Caesar,’ so we associate your illegitimate son with the phrases ‘Pizza! Pizza!’ and ‘Hot and Ready’.”

“What!  Then what about my nephew Octavian!”

“Well, Caesar,” we would reply, “he went onto become the first emperor of the Roman Empire and a highly successful one.  We might think of him during the months of August and October.  In our day and time, however, we mostly think of him and his census and his cameo appearance in the narrative of the birth of a Jewish king, named Jesus, whom you Romans tried to execute.  This Jesus conquered the hearts of millions, not by the sword, but by his gospel of peace – peace between people, peace with themselves, and peace with God.  He is the True Emperor.”

Perhaps Julius Caesar’s face would turn red, “Great Jupiter!  The world has taken little note of the Caesars and worship this Jewish peasant rebel!  How can this be?”

“You see Julius Caesar, we haven’t totally forgotten your nephew or even your son.  But when it came to truly changing the world, that honor doesn’t belong to the men who were the nephew and son of Julius Caesar.  It belongs to the child who was the stepson and son of Joseph and Mary.  When your nephew sent out a decree from Rome that the Roman Empire should take part in a census, it had a ripple effect.  Part of that ripple effect is that a young couple left their village of Nazareth to return to their ancestral town of Bethlehem.  And today, in our troubled world, we know that the way to peace is not found in a palace in Rome.  He’s found in a manger in Bethlehem.  Our world doesn’t need another Caesar; our world needs Christ.”

Reflection Questions:

It was a huge inconvenience for Mary and Joseph to have to leave home and travel to Bethlehem.  And for the Jewish people, it was more than just a little irritating to think that they had to do this because Augustus in far away in Rome thought it was a great idea and one of his underlings followed suit. 

Can we possibly relate to any of that in 2020?  Can we relate to having to change our daily routines?  Can we relate to having to change plans?  Can we relate to the feeling that other people have more say in our daily lives than we do?

And if we can, can we be like Mary and Joseph and realize that God is working behind the scenes?  Can we have faith that something good can come out of this?

As this crazy year wraps up, what might God be up to in your personal life during a worldwide crisis?

A few years ago, I was going through some things at my childhood home, and I found what I imagine may have been my dad’s very first Bible. His name is embossed on the front, and on the inside cover I read that it was given to him by his parents on Christmas Day 1939, when he was 11 years old. The leather’s pretty worn around the edges. There are no notes or underlining in it. Maybe that kind of thing was frowned upon back then. But apparently the Word found its way into his heart, because when he grew up, he became a Sunday school teacher for one of the adult classes at my home church. It’s a class very similar to the Home Service class here at Keith Church led by Neal Ensminger for so long. My dad taught the class every other week, just like Rick Lay and Sara Armstrong do, for nearly forty years. Perhaps my dad’s lifelong knowledge of and love for God’s Word got its start with this Bible.

When we were going through things, I also found his father’s Bible, my grandfather’s Bible. Unlike my dad’s, my grandad’s is filled with all kinds of things – notes from sermons he preached (he was a very active lay speaker, like Tim Womac, Austin Fesmire and Sarah Prince and some others are here), sermons he’d heard, lessons he’d led, news clippings, pamphlets, flyers. It’s clear he was an avid reader and student of God’s Word. 

We also found one of the Bibles of his father, my great-grandfather and one of my namesakes, David Graybeal, who was born in 1866, the year after the Civil War ended. He was a farmer and a teacher who became a licensed local preacher later in his life. Perhaps he used this Bible when he was preaching. Or perhaps he kept this one at the family home, because the back of his Bible is full of family information – people’s birthdays, marriage days, death dates, the family tree.

The question, of course, is what to do with all these Bibles? They’re all the same version – the King James or the Authorized Version. That was really the only version available back then. But I don’t need multiple copies of the same version, especially since I’ve got virtually every version of the scriptures I’d ever possibly want to read, in any kind of language, all available to me at my fingertips, on my phone, on the Bible app.

But I can’t get rid of these Bibles. I’m still going to hold on to them because they are so meaningful to me. They are some of the only physical connections I have to those who have gone before me. But still the question remains: what do we do with these Bibles? Or more specifically, what do we do with THE Bible? What is this thing that I’m holding in my hand? 

Obviously it’s a book. It’s often referred to as “The Good Book.” But what kind of book is it? It’s actually a book of books – a library of books. There are 66 of them in our Protestant version; there are more in the Catholic version which includes additional books called the Apocrypha. And these books are written in several different styles by several different authors over several hundreds of years. There are books that contain laws and commandments, genealogies, family histories, political histories, religious and political commentary. There are books of poetry, short stories, wise sayings and songs. There are letters, short ones and long ones. There are those special biographies of Jesus we call the Gospels. And there is that strange fantasy-like book at the end called Revelation. The Bible is a lot of different books about a lot of different things.

Some people treat it like an owner’s manual, like you put in your car’s glove compartment. If you have a problem or question, just look it up in the index to see how and where the Bible addresses it. Some view it as a rule book, a bunch of do’s and don’ts (mostly don’ts). To some it’s an acronym, BIBLE, Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth. People look at the Bible as all kinds of things. 

But I like the way that the British bishop and theologian NT Wright views it. In his book that came out a few years ago, Scripture and the Authority of God: How to Read the Bible Today (2013), he says the Bible is fundamentally not a rule book or instruction manual but a story. It tells the great and grand story of God and God’s involvement with God’s people throughout history. 

It’s a story told broadly in five acts, like a Shakespearean play. The story starts with the creation of the universe and everything that exists. It continues with God’s covenant with a people called Israel and God’s steadfast faithfulness to them despite our sinfulness and stubbornness and waywardness. It climaxes in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, it carries forward in the mission and ministry of the church throughout the world, and it culminates in a glorious new creation in the end, where all is good and right and well as God intended it to be. This is the story the Bible tells. The Bible is essentially a great big story. In all of its pieces and parts, even the parts that can be hard to stomach or that we struggle to make much sense of, it tells the bigger and broader story of God and God’s investment in and involvement with God’s people and God’s creation.

But we also speak of the Bible as having a certain kind of authority in the church and in our lives. But what kind of authority does the Bible have if it’s just a story, you might ask? And that’s a good question. But have you ever noticed the power of stories to form and shape us as people, to cultivate our character? Stories can do that. Stories are powerful like that. Stories can author a certain way of being into existence. That’s the kind of authority stories can have.

For example, can you remember the first time you heard or read the story Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White? Or maybe you saw the movie. It’s the story about Charlotte, a barn spider who weaves messages about how fabulous the farm girl Fern’s pet pig Wilbur is, messages like “Some Pig” that she means for the farmer to see (I suppose while he’s “web-browsing”) and ends up saving Wilbur’s life even as she loses her own. Do you remember getting all teared up and feeling a knot form in your throat? Now you might say, well, that’s just a story. And it is. It’s a story about friendship, and compassion, and sacrifice, and so much more. And it’s a story that can form and shape those same virtues and values in our own hearts and minds. Stories can do that. That’s the authority of stories.

Maybe that’s why Jesus taught so much in stories. He could have just said things directly, like go, love God, love others, period, end of story. Actually, he did say exactly that, when he was asked what the greatest of all the commandments was. But he knew that simply saying so wouldn’t make it so. So instead he told it to us again, indirectly, in stories. And those stories form and shape us as his followers, still to this day. 

He told us the story of the Good Samaritan to show us what loving our neighbor looks like (Luke 10:25-37). He told us the story of the prodigal son to show us what it’s like to be lost and to be found, and what forgiving and being forgiven is like (Luke 15:11-32). He told us the story of the sheep and the goats to show us the importance of looking after the least of these among us in this world (Matthew 25:31-46). He told his disciples then and now all these stories to try to form and shape us as a people who love God with everything we’ve got and who love our neighbors as we love ourselves – who love like Jesus loves.

But these stories can’t do their work – or perhaps it’s better to say the Spirit of God can’t do its work – in and among us through these stories if we don’t know them. And we won’t know them if we don’t read them and study them and take them to heart and live them out in our own lives. Because this world in which we live, so painfully divided in so many deep and distressing ways, is desperate for us to know and to show and to share this story, this life-saving story, this world-redeeming story, this story of God’s love for the least, the last, the lost, and the lonely; of God’s affection for the poor, the widow, the immigrants and the orphans along all the borders of life; of God’s attention to the hungry, the homeless, the helpless and the hopeless; and of the promise of God’s presence with us always, through the good times and the bad, the happy times as well as the sad, through the Spirit of Jesus Christ, Emmanuel, God with us.

This promise of God’s presence with us always was something I learned at an early age. In addition to the other Bibles in our family – my dad’s, his dad’s, his dad’s – there is another very special Bible to me. It was my very first Bible. As it happens, it’s also a King James Version. My mom gave it to me on December 19, 1981, when I was 8 years old. 

But she didn’t just give me this Bible. She sat down and read it with me. She helped me memorize scriptures. I remember sitting up in my bed at night with her and working our way through Psalm 121 – “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth.” We worked through that psalm one verse at a time, until I had the whole thing memorized, all eight verses. We lived in a hilly part of southwest Virginia. I lifted mine eyes unto the hills all the time. I still do. And every time I lift up mine eyes unto the hills these days, I remember whence cometh my help. Because my mom memorized that scripture with me.

That’s a Bible I’m definitely going to keep. I couldn’t very well get rid of it even if I wanted to, because I carry it around with me wherever I go. 

No, not on my phone. In my heart.

Saul the Prosecutor.  Paul the Apostle.  Paul the Prisoner.  Paul the Prisoner on Death Row.

Paul was used to being under arrest.  There was that time that he had a “rocky” night in the Philippian jail.  Then he spent two years under house arrest in Caesarea Philippi awaiting his trial before the Roman governors.  From there, he appealed to Caesar.   After a hazardous trip on a ship, Paul finally arrives at Rome….where he spends another two years under house arrest.  But it was time well spent.  He wrote letters to churches, including the beloved letter of the Philippian.  And he welcomed visitors, sharing his faith with all of them, Jews, Greeks, and Romans.  So powerful was Paul’s testimony, that he was he even converting some members of the palace guard as well as Caesar’s household.  After two years, he finally stood trial before the young Emperor Nero.  Apparently, Paul was acquitted of all charges, but the status of the Christian faith was still vague.  Would Christians be considered a subset of the Jewish faith like Pharisees and Sadducees and given religious freedom?  Or were Christians another annoyance like the Druids and the various astrologers and sorcerers? Only time would give that answer.

Paul, meanwhile, continued his mission.  He possibly finally realized his dream of going to Spain, the very edge of the Roman Empire.  And then it was back east to follow up with the churches.  In Ephesus, Paul was very upset with two members of the local church, Hymenaeus and Alexander.  Paul said that they had “deliberately violated their consciences; as a result, their faith has been shipwrecked.”  Strong words from a man who knew what it was be shipwrecked.  So what did Paul do?  “I threw them out and handed them over to Satan so they might learn not to blaspheme God.”

That was an act of great courage.  Just as he confronted Peter, so many years earlier, Paul confronted these two rascals and tossed them out.  But it came at a terrible cost.  Remembering how the silver smiths had pressed charges against Paul years earlier, Alexander pressed charges against Paul.  The local officials decided that this case was best decided in Rome.  Why?  Word had reached Ephesus that Nero was leading a crackdown on Christians.  Not having clear guidance on what to do next and not wanting to risk Nero’s wrath, they shipped Paul back to Rome.

Paul is aware that this a one-way trip.  He is not coming back.  No comfortable house arrest this time.  He is in the cold, dark, dungeon known as Castra Praetoria.  At the end of his life, Paul really is not thinking.  Or even “just remembering.”  He is reflecting.  He feels the pangs of loneliness.  He dictates, “Timothy, please come as soon as you can.”   He takes inventory of his friends – one has abandoned him while two are carrying on the mission work, and one is still with him.  He dictates “Demas has deserted me because he loves the things of this life and has gone to Thessalonica. Crescens has gone to Galatia, and Titus has gone to Dalmatia. Only Luke is with me.”  Then Paul pauses.  Reflecting on his life, he realizes that he had been harsh to a certain young man.  Paul should have been more patient.  This young man had blossomed under the mentorship of first Barnabas and then Peter.  So Paul dictates, “Bring Mark with you when you come, for he will be helpful to me in my ministry. “  Then Paul remembers that he had left out a coworker, “I sent Tychicus to Ephesus.”  Paul want to makes sure that there is a strong Christian to lead the church in Ephesus while Timothy is in Rome.

And then Paul dictates a poignant personal request.  “When you come, be sure to bring the coat I left with Carpus at Troas. Also bring my books, and especially my papers.”  Paul needed his coat to keep his body warm, but he needed his scriptures to keep his heart strangely warmed.  Interestingly, in the winter of 1535, the English reformer William Tyndale was imprisoned in the dungeon in Vilvoorde Castle.  He is imprisoned for the crime of translating the Bible into English.  He writes a letter to the governor of the castle asking for warmer clothing, “a candle in the evening, for it is wearisome to sit alone in the dark,” and “above all” he writes, “my Hebrew Bible, Hebrew Grammar, and Hebrew Dictionary, that I may spend my time with that study.”  Separated by some 1500 years, both of these godly men ask for warmer clothing and the Scriptures.

Paul then dictates a warning to Timothy.  “Alexander the coppersmith did me much harm, but the Lord will judge him for what he has done. Be careful of him, for he fought against everything we said.”

Paul then reflects on his pretrial.  “The first time I was brought before the judge, no one came with me. Everyone abandoned me.”  The man who wrote the magisterial book of Romans, was in trial in Rome, but none of the Romans would even accompany him to court.  So great and furious had been Nero’s persecution of Christians, that none of them dared to be seen in the courtroom with Paul.

Did Paul respond with anger or bitterness?  No.  He simply says, “May it not be counted against them.”  That is a though that he had thought of many of a time throughout the years, and more so now as he faced is own execution.

Paul dictates that “But the Lord stood with me and gave me strength so that I might preach the Good News in its entirety for all the Gentiles to hear. And he rescued me from the mouth of the lion. Yes, and the Lord will deliver me from every evil attack and will bring me safely into his heavenly Kingdom.”  The “mouth of the lion” reference is a play on words.  In the spiritual sense, Paul was rescued from a Satanic attack that would have him deny the Christian faith that he had spent so many years and miles proclaiming.  It also has a very literal meaning in that Paul as a Roman citizen would not have to face the lions as his fellow Christians did.  As a Roman citizen, he would die by beheading.

Luke encouraged his friend, and Mark and Timothy finally arrived.  Paul would still have to die, but the persecution against the Christians had subsided.  His friends, Pudens, Linus, Claudia, and other brothers and sisters were there at the end.  Together they take the final walk down the Ostian Way, just past the city limits of Rome.

On the final walk to the execution block, there was a heaviness in their hearts.  Sensing this, perhaps Paul pointed up to the blue sky and the white clouds and said, “My dear brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be concerned about me and others who sleep in death. I do not want you to grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. Remember, those of you who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those of us who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and we, the dead in Christ, will rise first. After that, those of you who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with us in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Comfort one another with these words.”

When they arrived at the place, perhaps Paul then placed his hands on Timothy, passing the mantle of leadership by saying, “Timothy, I solemnly urge you in the presence of God and Christ Jesus, who will someday judge the living and the dead when he comes to set up his Kingdom: Preach the word of God. Be prepared, whether the time is favorable or not. Patiently correct, rebuke, and encourage your people with good teaching.  Do not be afraid of suffering for the Lord. Work at telling others the Good News, and fully carry out the ministry God has given you.”

Smiling at his friends, Paul says, “Dear friends, as for me, my life has already been poured out as an offering to God. The time of my death is near. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, and I have remained faithful. And now the prize awaits me—the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give me on the day of his return. And the prize is not just for me but also for you, and all who eagerly look forward to his appearing.”

Walking up to the centurion, Paul smiles and says, “Friend, I have a few parting words for you as well.”  The centurion smiled back at this perplexing Paul.  “Old timer.  I’ve heard my fair share of parting words at the execution block.  The word friend wasn’t one of them.”

Paul chuckled, “I suppose not.  It may seem strange to you to hear this now, but I too, have played the role of executioner.  I used to believe that I ought to do everything I could to oppose the very name of Jesus the Nazarene. Indeed, I did just that in Jerusalem. Authorized by the leading priests, I caused many believers there, both men and women, to be sent to prison. And I cast my vote against them when they were condemned to death. Many times, I had them punished in the synagogues to get them to curse Jesus. I was so violently opposed to them that I even chased them down in foreign cities. 

For the first death, however, I had a very small role to play.  A man named Stephen was to be stoned.  The mob took their coats off, and laid them at my feet for safe keeping.  I watched them stone Stephen and approved of it.  But before he died, Stephen said three things that I have thought often.  First, he said, ‘Look, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing in the place of honor at God’s right hand!’  For Stephen, the thin veil between heaven and earth was pulled back.  He prayed, ‘Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.’  Then finally he prayed for his enemies, the very men who were stoning him.  He prayed, ‘Lord, don’t charge them with this sin!’ And with that, he breathed his last.  So friend, I pray that the Lord will not charge you with sin in my death and that you would suffer no guilt.  But rather, I pray that will you know the peace and joy that I have, without the chains of course.”

Paul knelt down, placed his head on the block, and prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”

Then the sound of the sword.  And then the remembrance of Paul’s words…

Yes, and the Lord will deliver me from every evil attack and will bring me safely into his heavenly Kingdom.

After they had buried Paul in a nearby sepulcher, perhaps Linus unravels a scroll.   Linus reflects, “I still remember the night that the deaconess Phoebe arrived with this letter that Paul had written to us Roman Christians and read it aloud to us and explained it to us.  This letter, if it can be called just a letter, was how Paul introduced himself to us.  It is only appropriate that we read a part of it now, as part of Paul’s farewell to us.  We shall never forget to love that Paul had both for the Lord Jesus Christ and the people of Rome.  Hear now these words:

“What shall we say about such wonderful things as these? If God is for us, who can ever be against us? Since he did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won’t he also give us everything else? Who dares accuse us whom God has chosen for his own? No one—for God himself has given us right standing with himself. Who then will condemn us? No one—for Christ Jesus died for us and was raised to life for us, and he is sitting in the place of honor at God’s right hand, pleading for us.

Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or hungry, or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death? No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us.

And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

The heaviness in their hearts was lifted, and they quietly returned home.  What a beautiful day it was.  And look at those white clouds in the blue sky.  Paul was absent from the body, but present with the Lord.

Reflection questions

In I Timothy, we learn that Paul took the dramatic step of tossing out two church members, and he did it at a time when it was best to not makes waves.  Why do you think that Paul had such urgency to take such action at the time that he did?

When Paul is imprisoned for the second time in Rome, we sense that he is lonely.  Yet, he says that he actually sent three of his coworkers away to continue the gospel, while asking for two others to come quickly.  Was there a time in your life, when you had to send someone away for a greater good even though it meant you would not see them – perhaps college, military, or a retirement home?

Both Paul and William Tyndale make hauntingly similar requests.  What does it tell us that these two Christians leaders both asked for warm clothing and the scriptures?   When it comes to your physical needs and spiritual needs, do you neglect one over the other?  Why are both important?  If you were imprisoned and had to request a few personal items, what would they be?  Would your Bible be one of them?  Why or why not?

Paul very briefly tells us that at his pretrial, everyone abandoned him.  Can you think of another Biblical figure who as abandoned at his pretrial?  Can you think of a time when you felt abandoned?

Concerning those who abandoned him, Paul says, “May it not be counted against them.”  How easy or difficult would it be for you to say that about those who abandoned you?

In imagining Paul’s final day, I adapted words from Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians.  In that letter, Paul describes how the dead in Christ would rise first on the Resurrection morning, followed by those who are still living.  In our modern church, do we fully understand the idea of Resurrection?  Or do we carelessly use the phrase “die and go to heaven” and not even bother mentioning Resurrection?  Why is it important to remember Resurrection?

In imagining Paul’s final words to Timothy and his friends, I adapted from 2 Timothy.  Who would be your Timothy, the person who carries on your mission?  And then Paul uses the metaphor of a race.  Why is running the race a good metaphor for the Christian life?

On October 31, 2020, most Americans are going to be thinking about Halloween and setting back the clock for Daylight Savings Times.  If a couple goes to bed at 11 P.M., they will set back their clock to 10 P.M. so when they awake the next morning, losing that precious hour of sleep, they will be in the new time.  This weekend many of us will be buying batteries to change out in our smoke detectors and candy for little monsters.  It will be the last weekend of political campaign adds, let it come quickly, Lord Jesus.  For some us, it will be the start of 6 months that the clock in our vehicle is off by one hour.  But this can also be the weekend that you “set back the clock” in your spiritual life.

My story begins with a college student. His dad was paying for him to go to law school, because Dad’s hopes and dreams (and retirement) were all on him.  But life was difficult back then.  At that time, a plague came through, and it took the lives of several of his college buddies.  Later, he was stranded in the middle of a terrific storm, became so frightened that he made a deal.  If you’ll let me live, I’ll become a monk.

The life of a monk or a nun varied widely.  For some of us, we think of Friar Tuck, Robin Hood’s friend.  Some of us, may think of Sister Mary Clarence aka Whoopi Goldberg in Sister Act.  This young man joined the toughest monastery in town.  He went from being a college student, enjoying German beer and playing the lute, to being an Observant Augustinian with a rigorous schedule.  Look at this daily schedule that begins at 1:45 …. in the morning.

Daily Schedule – Observant Augustinians

1:45 Wake Up

2:00 Church Service

3:30 Sleep

4:00 Church Service

5:00 Private Reading and Prayer

6:00 Church Service and then Breakfast

7:00 Work

8:00 Church Service

9:15 Work

11:45 Church Service

12:00 Midday Meal

1:00 Private Reading and Prayer

1:45 Sleep

3:00 Work

5:45 Meal

6:00 Church Service

7:15 Private Reading and Prayer

7:45 Church Service

8:00 Bed and Sleep

I don’t know about you, but if I had to wake up at 1:45 AM for a 2 AM church service, I would be in a very unholy mood.  I would not be getting closer to the Kingdom of Heaven.  This young man kept this schedule up for years in an attempt to get closer God through good deeds.

As this young man wrestled with his conscience and his fear that God was going to condemn him, his spiritual advisor realized that something had to be done.  This young man had waaay to much time on his hands, even with that schedule.  This young man was constantly going to confession, even when he didn’t have anything to confess.  So what do you do with someone with too much time on their hands?  In the case of this bright young man, you send him off to seminary.  You make him a seminary student.  And then a priest.  And then a professor.  Between being a pastor and a teacher, he would be so busy with tending his flock and writing out his lesson plans, that he wouldn’t have time to think.

But the Lord was up to something.  He wanted this young man with a sharp legal mind to read the scriptures in the original Hebrew and Greek.  And as this young man did so, he noticed that what the church taught was not found in the Scriptures.  In fact, a person could create a short timeline of ideas that had crept into the church.

200 A.D. – Tertullian develops the doctrine of Mortal sins and venial sins

240 – Origen of Alexandria creates the idea of Purgatory 

Mid 200’s – Cyprian uses the Latin word for priest to refer to elders

250 – Cyprian of Carthage teaches about the “Bloodless Sacrifice” and “Sacrificing Priests”

250 – The doctrine of penance begins as Church leaders wrestle with what to do with weak Christians who denied the faith during a recent persecution

275 – St. Anthony, alone in Egypt, starts monasticism in a hermit style

340 – Basil, Bishop of Caesarea, develops the monastery

Late 300’s -Augusta of Hippo begins teaching about infused grace

382-early 400’s – St. Jerome begins translating the Bible into Latin – the famous Vulgate.  In his translation he includes the Apocrypha, which he did not consider to be on the same level as Jewish Scriptures and Christian writings.  He also makes four translation choices that create confusion in the years go come

1. In Genesis 3, he translated that “She shall crush his head” leading many to believe that the Virgin Mary would defeat Satan.  That should have been translated as “He shall crush his head.”  Eve’s descendant, Jesus Christ, would be the one who crushes and defeats Satan.
2. In the four gospels, he translates the word “repentance” (change of heart) as “penance” (to do an act of penance)
3. In Luke 1, he refers to Mary as being “full of grace,” putting the emphasis on Mary rather than a gracious God.
4. For righteousness, Jerome used a word that meant “not guilty via faith and good works” rather than “by faith declared not guilty.”

451 – Pope Leo the Great declares that the Bishop of Rome was superior to all the other bishops

590 – Masses for the Dead/Intercession for the Saints in Purgatory – Pope Gregory the Great

831 – Transubstantiation is created by Pacschasius Radbertus

1000’s – the Plenary Indulgence becomes popular

1214 – St Dominic teaches the Rosary

1139 – The church prohibits the ordination of married men

1150 – The 7 Sacraments are taught by Peter Lombard 

1215 – Pope Innocent III orders all Christians to annual confession, under penalty of damnation

1215 – Transubstantiation becomes official doctrine

1230 – Hugh of St. Cher teaches the Treasury of Merits

1274 – Purgatory becomes an official doctrine

1274 – Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologica teaches “Infused Grace” – Grace that works in us to earn heaven

1300’s – Gabriel Biel teaches that God gave grace to those who did want was in them

1343 – Pope Clement VI declared the Treasury of Merits to be dogmatic

1439 – The Seven Sacraments become official doctrine

Unfortunately, more ideas kept coming in such as the Immaculate Conception in 1854 and the Assumption of Mary in 1950.  It was like a house that was newly built with plenty of storage space that a young couple buys.   And then twenty years later, they are running out of space, because of all the stuff they placed inside the closet, attic, basement, and garage.  Over time, the church had been cluttered by extra-biblical teachings.

The result of all this clutter was that instead of a loving, gracious heavenly Father who was eager to forgive his children though the life, death, and resurrection of his son Jesus Christ, and give them the Holy Spirit, the church created a Vending Machine God – with the right prayers, the right saints, the right acts of penance, the right priests, maybe with an indulgence from the pope, maybe some help from the Virgin Mary, and a generous donation – a person could find forgiveness. 

It was time to set back the clock.

This young man didn’t realize that he was getting himself into on October 31, 1517.  Martin Luther was simply nailing an announcement to the church door.  It wasn’t even in German; his 95 Theses were in Latin.  But it was a spark that created a burning blaze that swept the world.

It even created the course of Methodist history.  You may recall that a young Anglican priest went very unwillingly to a Bible Study on Aldersgate Street.  The teacher that night was reading from the preface of Martin Luther’s commentary on the Book of Romans.  Be honest.  Would you really login to a Zoom meeting, if I told you that I was going to read the preface of Martin Luther’s commentary on the Book of Romans?  But here’s the deal:  The good news is still good news.  It’s not like bread that gets stale.  And that night, John Wesley heard these words: “Hence it comes that faith alone makes righteous and fulfils that law; for out of Christ’s merit, it brings the Spirit, and the Spirit makes the heart glad and free, as the law requires that it shall be.  Thus good works come out of faith.”  That night, the Holy Spirit made John Wesley’s heart glad and free.  He wrote that he felt his heart “strangely warmed.”  Like Luther, John Wesley was no longer trying to earn his salvation.  He could accept it by faith alone, and it doing so, it freed him to better serve his parish – the world.

So what about you?  Are you trying to earn God’s grace?

Or do you realize that God can’t possibly love you anymore than he loves you now?

Do you realize God’s love for you when you look at the cross?

Do you treat God like a Heavenly Father or as a Vending Machine?

Are your ideas about God accurate?  Or do you need to some fall cleaning and get rid of some clutter?

Do you understand that Faith in the Engine and Good Works are the Caboose?

Or are you trying to put the cart before the horse, and feel like you’ll never measure up?

My friend, you don’t have to go through this life wondering if you’re good enough for God.  It never was about your goodness.  It has always been about God’s grace.  That’s not a Wesleyan teaching or a Lutheran teaching.  It was there all along.  So maybe this weekend, you need to go back and accept God’s grace by faith.

Maybe you need to set back the clock.

Twenty years ago, Tracy and I spent a year in Cornwall, England, where I served five British Methodist churches in the seaside town of Penzance. Cornwall – like Scotland and Wales – has deep and ancient Celtic roots. It was in Cornwall that we learned about “thin places,” what the Celts called those times and places where the familiar lines between heaven and earth, day and night, darkness and light, become fuzzy, faint, indistinct. Many was the twilight evening when we would be driving through the countryside and we wouldn’t be able to tell where the land ended and the sea began, or where the sea ended and the sky began.

I came across this concept of “thin places” again in a book that Andrew and I found recently. It’s called How To Lead When You Don’t Know Where You’re Going: Leading in a Liminal Season, by Susan Beaumont. The title caught our eye, because that’s certainly where we find ourselves as pastors these days – not really knowing how to lead in these strange times and not really sure where we are heading. 

As her subtitle suggests, we are in a “liminal season,” or as the Celts would have called it, a “thin place.” The word “liminal” comes from a Latin word meaning “threshold.” A liminal season is when we are in-between the familiar, known, predictable world we’ve lived in, and the unfamiliar, unknown, unpredictable future that is ahead of us. It’s when we are betwixt and between the old ways of life that are coming to an end and the new ways of life that are beginning to be discovered.

Our lives are also punctuated by liminal seasons. One of the examples Beaumont provides is pregnancy. That’s a season for parents of transitioning from being a couple to becoming a family. We can make all the preparations in the world, but we still can’t know what parenthood really involves and requires until what we have been watching and waiting for is brought to birth. Graduations can propel people into a liminal season. The first few months or years of retirement can be a liminal season. That year that Tracy and I spent in Cornwall was a liminal season in our lives and in our marriage (we were newlyweds that year).

The scriptures are full of liminal seasons – the Israelites wandering in the wilderness for 40 years between their former life as slaves and their future life in the promised land, the Israelites in exile for 70 years in Babylon before returning back home, the 40 days Jesus spent in the wilderness between his baptism and the beginning of his public ministry, the three days he spent in the tomb, the 40 days of his resurrected earthly presence. As Beaumont suggests, God does some of God’s greatest work with God’s people in liminal seasons.

Clearly, the COVID-19 pandemic has us all in a liminal season. It’s becoming clearer that we won’t get back any time soon to “the way things used to be” – however much we might want to go back there – but it’s also not yet exactly clear what “the new normal” will look like. We are in-between. We are in a “thin place,” a liminal season.

It can be very frightening for us to be in this liminal season, very frustrating and disorienting, and we are all experiencing the anxiety of this time. But liminal seasons can also be very energizing. It can be a time for trying new things, for experimenting, for re-imagining and re-envisioning, and for more flexibility and fluidity than perhaps we’ve experienced before.

That’s where we are in our nation and our world. That’s where we are in our communities, with our schools, our businesses. And that’s where we are as a church. I don’t have a crystal ball as to what our “new normal” will be as a church – when we’ll when we’ll be able to worship together again indoors without wearing a mask, when we’ll be able to sing again, or what our worship services and Sunday school classes and small groups will even look like a year from now. We’ve been doing our best to keep things going as close to “normal” as well as we can for as long as we can, but we are beginning to realize things may look very different whenever we emerge out of this liminal season into whatever the “new normal” is, and that we might be in this season for quite some time.

Liminal seasons have their own timetable. They operate on their own schedule. There’s no telling how long this season will last. I’m praying it won’t be 40 years or 70 years like it was for the Israelites. But however long we are in this liminal season, let’s try to make the most of it. To paraphrase an old saying, “when God gives you liminal seasons, make lemonade!” So let’s work together, pray together, talk together, to discern together what God may be envisioning for us whenever we emerge from this liminal season.

Andrew and I believe this work is so vital and important that we’re going to be basing our fall sermon series, starting Sunday, September 13, on what living in a liminal season faithfully and hopefully in Christ can look like. We hope this series will be helpful to all of us not just as a congregation, but also to you as you navigate this season in your own life, in your family, in your schools and workplaces and throughout our community. 

Fall itself is a liminal season, no longer summer but not yet winter, and we hope and we pray that this exploration together this fall will help us discover and live into maybe what the year 2020 was meant to be all about anyway – a new, clearer vision of a new reality into which the Spirit of God in Jesus Christ can lead us all together.

The last song in the musical “Hamilton” opens with the apparition of the deceased George Washington singing words that he’d sung earlier in the musical to his then-assistant Alexander Hamilton as they were in the middle of the War for Independence in which so many of his soldiers had died,

Let me tell you what I wish I’d known
When I was young and dreamed of glory
You have no control
Who lives, who dies, who tells your story

He sings these words again here at the end, after he himself had died, after Hamilton’s son Philip had died, and now after Hamilton himself has died from his duel with Aaron Burr. It’s a profound recognition by this military general, first president and founding father of this nation, that there is much – in life, in death – that simply is beyond our control.

This is a hard fact for us to admit. We like to think we have control over things in our lives, like our health, through our diet and exercise. And while it’s true that there are some things in our lives that we can control, most of us live under the illusion that we have more control than we really do.

This has become especially apparent throughout this pandemic. Though many of us are doing the best we can to try to control the things we can control – we wash our hands, we wear our masks when we’re out in public, we maintain safe distances from others, etc. – we still cannot completely control who gets sick and who doesn’t. Who has symptoms and who doesn’t. Who goes to the hospital and who stays at home. And even who lives and who dies. This virus, which seems to have gotten out of control, at least here in this country, has reminded us how out of control we really are.

We also can’t control, Washington sings, who tells our story. History, it is often said, is written by the winners, told by the victors. Thankfully, the colonists won the War for Independence, and the story that was told of Washington was of a hero and not a traitor. But what if it had gone the other way? So Washington recognizes that we ultimately can’t control who tells our story. But in a way, we do have some control over how our story gets told, because, in a way, every one of us writes our own story.

One of the things we do as pastors is preside at weddings. One of the very first things I’ll ask a couple when they ask me to preside at their wedding is for them to tell me their story – to tell me the story of how they met, how they fell in love, how they “knew” that the other was “the one,” and always the story of how they “popped the question” and got engaged. And I try to work elements of their story into their wedding, as a reminder to them not only of the love story they’ve already been writing together but also of the love story yet to be written and woven even more fully into God’s love story.

Another one of the things we do as pastors is preside at people’s funerals. Part of that responsibility involves composing a eulogy, a word which literally means “a good word.” In preparation for that, I usually try to find some time to sit down with the family where I ask them to tell me about their loved one. Even if I’d known the person pretty well, there are almost always things I discover about them when their loved ones tell me their story. And then my job is to get up at the funeral and tell the story of their loved ones’ life as faithfully as I can and to try to point to intersections between their story and God’s story. There’s no way to tell the whole story, of course, of either God’s story or theirs, and sometimes there are chapters that we can’t go into too much detail about. But one of the things I’ve discovered is that people pretty much write their own eulogies.

To a large degree, we write our own stories. We are the primary authors of our own lives. Now, admittedly, there is much we cannot control – when we’re born, where and to whom, and how we’re genetically wired. And there is much – especially in our early lives – that we had very little or no say in, no choice in the matter. But as we grow older, we gain more freedom, more control, more choice. We become not just the leading actor on the stage of our lives but the primary author. We are able to make decisions about how the rest of our story plays out. So no matter what may have happened to us in the past, or what bad decisions we may have made in the past, or what is happening all around us, the future is always an open book, and the question always before us is “where do we go from here?”

This is powerfully portrayed in the musical by Eliza. After learning about her husband’s infidelity, she furiously burns all the love letters he had sent her. She sings, “I’m erasing myself from the narrative. Let future historians wonder how Eliza reacted when you broke her heart. You have torn it all apart. I’m watching it burn.” And we can empathize with her anger and her desire to remove herself from his story, to separate her story from his. But then, by the end, after her husband has died, she has a change of heart. She sings, “I put myself back in the narrative, I stop wasting time on tears. I live another fifty years.” And that’s when she sets out to make sure Hamilton’s story gets told. 

She interviews soldiers who served with him. She publishes his voluminous writings. And she tells his story. But at the same time she also tells her story and how she went on to speak out against slavery, to raise money for the Washington monument, and to establish the first private orphanage in New York City where she helped raise hundreds of children who were going through what Alexander himself experienced early in his own life. So not only did she tell his story, but she told her own story as well. She reclaimed her own authority – her own authorship – and wrote the rest of her story. And her doing so allowed the creator and star of the musical, Lin-Manuel Miranda, years later to tell their story for us.

So who tells your story? To a large degree, you do. And no matter how smoothly or how horribly your story has gone up to this point, you get to say how it’s written from here. You get to choose where it goes from here. You get to write the next chapter. Maybe you have some co-authors who will help you write your story, even as you help them write theirs. And there’s also the joy of writing the story of a shared life together. And maybe you’ll discover some of the ways in which the story of your life intersects with the story of God’s life, the ways in which the story you are telling resonates and reverberates with the story God is telling. Because, after all, God is the greatest storyteller ever, and however much we may be the author of our own stories, God is the Author of it all.