DOES PREACHING, GOOD DOCTRINE AND RITUAL MAKE US HOLY?

“Seven times a day I praise you for your righteous word.” – Ps. 119:164

I have pastored three churches in my lifetime. The first one was in Goshen, Indiana, a small congregation of about 100 people. I was finishing my final year in seminary. The tradition of most churches in those days was for the pastor, at the end of his sermon, to go stand in the narthex, to greet the worshippers as they left. I walked down the aisle to take my position to shake hands and accept/administer hugs. One of the stalwart women of the church stopped, shook my hand, waited a brief moment until we caught each other’s gaze. She had something to say. It was this: “You must be a very holy man!”

It was impossible for me to say, “thank you, I do try.” I would have gagged. I can’t remember that sermon. No idea what I said that prompted such a remark. It made me feel small. My stomach churned at this because I knew she was wrong – REALLY wrong! I’m not sure but what it was meant to make me feel smaller than the spiritual giant I apparently portrayed in the pulpit.

Is there anyone on the planet who could be called a “holy man?” The Bible makes it abundantly clear that we have “all sinned and come short of the glory of God.” “ There is not one that does good, no, not one.” (Romans 3:23. 10_12)

Let’s take a look at king David. The scripture says that God considered David his “friend.” Indeed, God chose him when he was just a kid, and he wrote most of the Psalms.

So, David said he praised God seven times a day.

Pardon my skepticism, but being a sinful man myself, when I read the scripture above, my response is, “really?” Wasn’t he as human as the rest of us? He was a sinful man to be sure . . . check that . . . he was a murderer, adulterer and polygamist. Was David even telling the truth here? Who is he trying to kid?

Get this: He was telling Almighty God (Just the Creator of the Universe) that he praised him seven times a day! Surely he was bright enough to know that God will know if he was lying.

Ok. Maybe there are people who do the seven times a day thing. Does that make anyone holy? Paul told the believers in Thessalonica to “pray without ceasing (5:17).” Moreover, he used the term “without ceasing” no less than five times in his letters to describe how he remembered, how he gave thanks., etc.,. Or maybe he was just using that phrase to describe his attempts at consistency. After all, Paul also struggled with sin like the rest of us. Maybe even a single, strange, repeating kind of sin (See Romans 7:15-24, 2 Corinthians 12:7-9).

My wife likes to pray when she is alone driving the car. This is when she prays out loud. (Do a bit of that myself.) But she doesn’t drive the car just to pray. I mean, she doesn’t get in the car and drive aimlessly around the neighborhood just so she can pray. I love to listen to my wife pray. She is one person who knows how to connect and talk with God. Repetitively ritualizing religious exercise is just the kind of thing Jesus told us not to do. If we actually prayed, or praised seven times a day, owing to our proclivity for weakness, it would become nothing more than a religious calisthenic. Such things are no mark of true spirituality. If you actually do something like this, you should be careful. It will likely become a source of great spiritual pride.

I mean, who else do you know that prays seven times a day? Probably not many. Doesn’t that make you feel more “spiritual?” A more committed servant of God? I mean, look at you! Doesn’t this make you some kind of spiritual super-hero? Like Superman? Captain Marvel? One of the Incredibles? Is that how you would like others to think of you? Seven times a day? Wow!

Trust me, we’re all impressed.

Even if David wasn’t lying to himself or to God, I have no desire whatever to emulate him. I do not see his ritual, or his habit, as something that is appropriate to a relationship with God. I find it hard to believe – no, impossible to believe – that God has any interest at all in how many times a day we pray or praise him.

What is needed here is a totally different tack . . .

Want a measure of how close you can get to God? Ask yourself how much you love that homeless, smelly guy on the street, or the annoying neighbor next door. Ask yourself how much you care about people whose lives are disrupted by natural disaster, or how much you care about the mother of a child crying on the airplane, or how much do you care when a friend loses a loved one, or the government employee who treats you badly at the DMV. Ask yourself how much you love someone in the other political party – and the actions you take because of it. Our actionable love for others, or for the “least of these,” more than any other measure, will tell us how close we are to God.

Actionable love? As you might have heard, there are two primary words for love in the New Testament, agape and phile. After my analysis of these two words, I concluded that since they are used interchangeably, there is not “a dime’s worth of difference” between them. When R.C. Sproul read this, his response was, “not even a dime’s worth?” I had to laugh.

I laughed because this respected Bible teacher and theologian agreed with me – although nervously. He was right, of course. There is “more than a dime’s worth” of difference between the two words. Agape is used three times more in the NT than phile. In my analysis, I concluded that agape was, indeed, actionable love, while phile focused on the feeling or emotion of love (something with roots way back in the Old Testament). However we are constrained to realize that both words are used to refer to the same reality, whether it is love for another person, or God’s love for us, the two words are indeed used interchangeably with equal importance and with equal force.

This love, whether phile or agape, is the one, the only true and authentic signature that we belong to Jesus. Not our creed or our doctrine, or our sacraments, as important as these are, or how consistently we follow “God’s standards,” or how consistently we perform our religious traditions and habits.

Only our love.

Just our love.

“By this all people will know that you are My disciples: if you have love for one another.” – Jesus (John 13:35)

“The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.” -- Morrie Schwartz

It’s the most critical thing anyone can know about us.

It is my earnest prayer to God that these thoughts will help us see mechanical ritualism and traditions for what they are. And, dear God, may your emotional and actionable love in us cause others to see Jesus and experience His love.

-- PDM

LOST AND ALONE

“I have strayed like a lost sheep. Seek your servant, for I have not forgotten your promises.” (Ps. 119:176)

Ever felt lost? Alone, all tangled up in the morass of your mistakes and wrongheaded decisions? Feeling really, really stupid and small?

Maybe the eraser on the end of your pencil is so worn down that you feel and hear its metal encasement scrape against the paper of life. You’re mistake prone, you feel out of step, alienated and alone.

Well are you?

That, my friend, depends on who’s looking.

SUPPOSE IT’S YOU? Suppose you are the one looking. How hard is it to amp up self-condemnation? Not very. Not very hard at all. You say, you are your own worst critic; a cliché designed to mollify the huge negative, emotional impact of thinking of yourself as nothing more than a dipstick for a rusted tractor sitting unused in a field for the past forty years. Somewhere along the freeway, you just up and stepped out of the car, and life went on, leaving you spinning on the pavement. Or,

SUPPOSE IT’S SOMEONE ELSE? Someone has rejected you, provided input that makes you feel like a pile of cockroach excrement. Personal criticism, getting fired from your job, etc. I can’t think of anyone who looks upon mean-spirited, hate or ridicule-driven accusation and criticism, as something to be coveted. The ancient ditty about “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never harm me,” is so wrong that it could be a Superbowl half-time show. All of us know people whose lives have been utterly destroyed by destructive, harm-intended words.

BUT SUPPOSE IT IS GOD? Now. This is the all-consuming light-sabre that splits you from crown to crotch. If you think that God has rejected you, if you believe that God loves others, but not you; somewhere in this storm called human existence, you surely must have committed the big ‘U,’ (the ‘unpardonable’ sin.) These thoughts will destroy not only one’s life, they can destroy one’s soul. You are lying on life’s path wounded and bleeding, and unlike the good Samaritan, and far more like a self-righteous priest, God looks upon you with disgust, turns away, and crosses the street, just to pass you by.

You are a lost sheep indeed. Caught, lost and alone in the thorns of self-loathing, accused and condemned by others, so much so that even God turns away from you.

Touched a nerve?

Struggle, if you must, with your agony, with your pain. But if you can disengage just for a moment. Yes, disengage from all the abuse living in this world has brought upon you and all the abuse you bring upon yourself. Just for a moment. You can do that. Come to stillness and you may hear, you just might hear -- footsteps coming in your direction. You just might feel the nearness of His love. You just might feel the thorns being removed from around your body, from around your head. You just might see the stinging insects of hate and derision fly away. You just might feel the oil of the Spirit being poured into your wounds. You just might feel yourself lifted, caressed, comforted, forgiven . . . loved.

You will become aware that there is no more pain.

And you will know that you have been found.

-- PDM

THE GREATEST HUMAN NEED

When I was a boy, I attended Fifth Avenue Baptist Church, in Decatur, Georgia. This came about because of the Smith’s, who lived next door. Mrs. Smith insisted I go with them. Her boy, John Wesley, older, and a bit of a hero to me, also wanted me to go. That did it. I went and joined the “Royal Ambassadors.”

Each year the church held a revival. There were services each night of the week, a special preacher preaching. An altar call every night. Souls were saved. Me, too -- several times – or, so I thought. Fifth Avenue Baptist Church is gone now. The building itself, however, has a claim to fame. It was used in the movie, Driving Miss Daisy, as the church to which Hoke drove the elderly widow.

The “going forward” at the revival invitations may not have meant much. I began to get that idea when later, during the week when the church building was empty, me and Howard McClung and G.C. Bradshaw, decided to consume a pack of Lucky Strikes in the baptismal tub. They discovered the cigarette butts crushed out on the bottom, but they never knew who it was that did it. Later, as a teenager, I dismissed God entirely and decided he didn’t exist.

After all, I proved he didn’t exist when as a young soldier I stood on the launcher doors that housed Nike guided missiles underground; rain falling, lightning bolts being hurled from the clouds, thunder crashing in deafening roars, I screamed into the heavy raindrops driving into my face, “I know you don’t exist! If you are really there, strike me dead! Go ahead! Do it! I dare you!”

A huge streak of white fire began somewhere in the darkness above, coiling through the boiling clouds and snaked its way to a tree, a power pole, a flag standard or some high ground, maybe a mile or so away, instantly followed by a stupendous crash of thunder.

MISSED!!! I screamed. In the silence that followed, I could have sworn I heard a chuckle. The storm continued, however, despite my taunts.

I think deep down I wondered whether a lightning bolt just might vaporize me. Well God didn’t strike me dead. What a disappointment. My melodrama did prove one thing: I walked back to the barracks thoroughly confirmed in the belief that God did not exist. How could he have resisted such an opportunity?

________________________________________
I spent my entire military career of two incredibly long years in South Carolina, Arkansas and New Jersey. When I returned to Atlanta, I stayed a couple of months, then moved to Long Beach, California and stayed with my sister and her family. I got a job with the Long Beach Independent-Press Telegram as a copyboy, making $39/week. I had four bosses: Wylie, Stan, Burt and John. All of these veteran newspaper men would impact my life, but none like John. Or, perhaps I should say, John and his wife, Eva, as well as their fifteen-year-old daughter, Leemay, and their black cocker spaniel.

It happened like this: I was depressed. Not sure why. All I can say now after 23 years as a psychotherapist, I was definitely clinically depressed. Suicidal thoughts persisted. One night about midnight, I couldn’t sleep. I got up and walked out to the front porch of my sister’s house and lit up a Chesterfield. I looked up into a clear night sky with a full moon. As I gazed at that bright, silver disk in the sky, I said, “God, if you are up there, I need your help.” Quite a different experience from missile launcher doors in a thunderstorm.

Next day. I swear. Next day John, searching for some misplaced copy, ventured out to my desk where I maintained a constant haze of Chesterfield smoke. I was chain-smoking three packs a day at this point. The man mentioned something about God. I don’t remember what else he said about the misplaced copy, all I heard was the name, “God.”

“God?” I replied.

He looked at me funny. “Yes, God,” he said. “God loves you, son.”

“God loves me?” dripping incredulity.

The exchange ended with my accepting an invitation to have dinner at his house. After dinner, Leemay went to do her homework, and John retrieved his Bible. “Uh-oh,” I thought. I prepared myself for a Bible-thumping.

Didn’t happen.

Instead, these two wonderful people enveloped me in love. They made me see that Jesus’ suffering on the cross was an expression of God’s love for me. I cannot explain what happened next. All I can say is that I left that home that night feeling cleansed, a new person, a new creation. That was 66 years ago.

________________________________________
Twenty-two years later I stood in front of a hundred or so inmates at Lompoc Federal Prison facility in California. I was doing a seminar for Prison Fellowship, Chuck Colson’s newly formed ministry. It was crammed with two lectures in the morning and two in the afternoon, starting Monday and going through Friday. In between the lectures, we sandwiched small-group sessions.

At the end of one of the lectures, I noticed a disheveled young man, long hair, pimples, dirty T-shirt sitting about two-thirds the way back on the left side of the chapel. He was weeping. I couldn’t take my eyes off him. Making my way through the crowd at the front, I sat down beside him. His weeping increased in intensity.

In my shirt pocket was a Campus Crusade tract entitled, Four Things God Wants You to Know. I contemplated taking it out and walking him through its pages. I resisted the impulse, and in doing so learned one of the most important lessons of my Christian experience.

I asked him, “What’s going on, guy? Why all the tears? I’m here for you if you need me.” He had to get himself under control from the sobbing. After a moment of catching his breath, these words fell out of his mouth, “Jesus just came into my heart.”

St. Francis said it best, “Preach the Gospel always. If necessary, use words.” I learned that day that the Love of Jesus does not need words. I learned that the Holy One is alive and well. He needs nothing beside Himself to form Christ in the deepest reaches of the human soul.

Good doctrine is important. It instructs us in spiritual policy. It shows us how be guided in our lives. Didactic reasoning and propositional faith has its place. But it has never, nor will it ever substitute for a person to person, heart to heart, real-time encounter with God. As I heard a southern preacher proclaim one day, “A Holy Gaw'ud cain’t meet up wif' a sinful crittur’ w'thout sum’body feelin’ sumthin!’”

“The letter kills,” said Paul, “but the Spirit gives life.”

The reality I learned somewhere along way of my own spiritual journey is that the deepest of all human need is to feel loved. The deepest need of the human heart is to feel loved unconditionally, and the only Person truly capable of and credentialed for that is the One who gave us life -- through His death.

-- PDM

THE CULT OF USELESS EFFORT

Every day, it seems, there is another person or organization attempting to free mankind from biblical faith. “Freedom from religion” has become their mantra. If it really were mere religion of sacrament, tradition, or religious protocol, perhaps they have a point.

But it is not.

The malevolent concentration and focus of those who want to rob faith of its biblical foundation –and intimacy with Jesus Christ is none other than Christ Himself. He is the target.

In China, Muslim and other countries, Christians are repelled, beaten, and murdered. This for no other reason than they have chosen to worship and follow Jesus.

Since, for the moment at least, that kind of thing is not acceptable in the United States, believers are ridiculed and persecuted verbally by people who are given a platform. The attitude of those who attack faith is almost always condescending and dismissive. Those who accept biblical teaching are considered to be primitive, bigoted and repressive idiots.

Perhaps it always will be like this.

But that is nothing new.

When these things happen, many believers become defensive. And many will rise to the occasion, or to the bait – depending on one’s perspective.

While we should take every opportunity to make a stand for the faith, let us remember one of the most stark statements our Lord Jesus ever made: “I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”

No matter. Violence or persuasion, evil energy expended, evil voices raised. They will all fail miserably.

We Christian believers have a unique talent for mutilating the shape and expression of our faith. That is because we confuse faith with a belief system. Some actually accept the notion that their faith is, in fact, a belief system.

When we do, we err – massively!

Christianity is NOT about how we construct our beliefs or the mechanisms of how those beliefs are expressed. We seem to have lost the truth that salvation is wholly and completely an operation of God alone. He chose us to be His on the basis of the shed blood of Jesus Christ and what He knows of our receptivity and sensitivity to it.

The reason the true Bride of Christ cannot fail is due to the Source of her strength. That Source is none other than Christ Himself. An individual who is “in Christ,” has no choice but to stand rigid and unyielding.

It is a faith which does not find its origin in human imagination, but comes directly from God as a gift. Because of this, true faith is impervious to any conceivable threat. Those who think they are brilliant enough to challenge this belong to a Cult of Useless Effort. -- PDM

THE TEMPTER AND THE WORD

Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. Mt. 4:1

He had not eaten for forty days and nights. His body starved, physically weak, he reclined on the barren earth of the mountainside, under a dead tree by the mouth of the cave where he spent his nights. His body emaciated, the shape of his bones clearly visible under his skin, his bowels had ceased to move and were it not for a cool pool of water recessed in one of the inner corridors of the cave, he would be dead of thirst, if not starvation. So how long do you think you could last without food?

The duration of survival without food is greatly influenced by factors such as body weight, genetic variation, other health considerations and, most importantly, the presence or absence of hydration. At the age of 74, and already slight of build, Mahatma Gandhi, survived 21 days of total starvation, only allowing himself sips of water. Well-documented studies report survivals of other hunger strikers for 28, 36, 38 and 40 days.

Such starvation as Jesus endured brings with it weakness and a monumental sense of exhaustion. Humanly speaking, Jesus was in no shape to be dealing with Satan, who thought of himself as Lucifer, angel and star of light. The deck was stacked. The field of battle was tilted heavily in Satan's favor. The Son of Man, drained of energy and effort; Satan at his zenith.

It is said that Martin Luther, the great reformer, considered the epistle of James to be an "epistle of straw." Yet we find in this little epistle the simple but powerful truth . . .

Resist the devil and he will flee from you. -- Jas 4.7

. . . which is exactly what Jesus did. Somewhere, somehow, in his emaciated condition, he summoned enough strength from his Father to resist this monstrous creature three times.

He won!

The last words we read are . . . "the devil left him, and angels came and attended him." A Personal Story

The story is told of a servant of God, a man, -- like the rest of us -- a disciple with feet of clay, who lay in the operating room of a large hospital. His surgery had gone south. This was now the third time the surgeons had him back in the operating room on an emergency basis, in the space of a little over a week. He was dying. He tells the story like this . . .

"I was in intense pain; pain the like of which I had never felt before. Medical professionals often ask, 'On a scale of 1-10, where is your level of pain?' The abdominal pain I was experiencing was off the charts. I couldn't imagine that pain could be this terrible.

"Everything was dark. I guess I was hallucinating, but I saw a valley which I thought was maybe the "Valley of the Shadow of Death," from Psalm 23. The walls of this valley were moving, each wall in an opposite direction. There were teardrop-shaped eyes in each wall, moving in the direction of their respective walls. The eyes were accusatory, making me feel guilty and ashamed. Frightened and helpless, I felt an evil presence, its hands wrapped around my ankles pulling me down, down . . . I cried, 'No! No! . . . there . . . there is now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.' Instantly, the hands around my ankles released and I was lifted by my arms into the presence of Jesus."

The Incredible Power of the Written Word

The writer of the epistle to the Hebrews speaks of this power . . .

"For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. -- Hebrews 4:12

Jesus used this power of the Scripture in the wilderness when he was tempted by Satan -- in the weakest possible condition a human can experience.

Shortly after my conversion to Christ, a dear man of God took me under his wing and taught me how to memorize Scripture. I can't begin to tell you now, 60 years later, how that has helped when I faced daunting experiences; experiences that I could never face had the power of Scripture not been in my heart.

CORDUROY KNICKERS AND THE FACE OF GOD

Tuesday, October 20, 1942, around 11:30 a.m., I sat in Mrs. Sharp’s first-grade class at East Lake Grammar School in Atlanta, Georgia, with my head buried in my arms splayed akimbo on the varnished children’s table in front of me. In my dark brown, corduroy knickers squished between the oak chair and my posterior, there resided a substantial accumulation of reeking poop.

I was two weeks into my sixth year of life on this earth. Across from me sat Beverly Ann Taylor, with whom I was madly in love. She sat there with her blue eyes, light-brown hair cut into a cute page-boy, sniffing the air. Bunky Allen sat next to me on my left. Suddenly Beverly Ann Taylor’s hand shot up into the air. “Miz Sha-arp? Miz Sha-arp?” intoning a musical Southern drawl.

“Yes, honey?”

“Miz Sharp, sump’n smells awful ‘roun here.” I was bowliskied!

Beverly Ann Taylor, the love of my life, had, without shame, shucked me f’sho! Miz Sharp, dressed in her flower-print teacher’s coat, came ambling over to our table – on my side – sniffing! She stopped right behind me and sniffed. I didn’t move a muscle, head buried in my arms on the table. She leaned over. I imagined her coiffed, brown-red hair and spectacles perched on her nose, looking at me, and then she sniffed again. Right there, hanging over my reeking rear-end, she sniffed.

“David?” Pause. I didn’t stir. I ain’t sayin’ nuthin.

“David, honey pot? Is that you?” Well, that’s it. The jig is up. I’m busted. No way I’m gonna get outta this.

“Yes’ m.” I heard Miz Sharp muffle a snigger.

“Well, honey pot," sez she, "What did you do?”

The tears came. “I went to the bathroom in my britches,” I wailed. Bunky started to snigger and held his nose. I almos’ pol’ axed ‘im right there in front of ev'r-body.

“Well, sweetie,” she said in a sweet-holding-back-her-side-splitting-laughter kind of voice, “what do ya’ll wawn't t’ do?”

I wiped the snot, which was considerable by this time, onto my sleeve and tried to speak, “I-I don’t know whut t’ do, ma’am.”

“Do you want to go to the bathroom down the hall?”

“No’ma’am!” said I with finality.

“Well, why not, David? You have to clean yourself up.”

“The big boys are in the bathroom. They’ll laugh and beat me up.”

Miz Sharp considered.

“Hmmm. Well, honey pot, you wawn't me to send you home?” Amazingly smart woman. How did she know that very thing was a'buzzin' in my noggin?

“Yes’m.” I whimpered.

“Kin’ I go wid’ im?” from Bunky. I looked at Bunky, grinning from ear to ear. Bunky had the face of a rodent. I swear -- brown, beady eyes close-set, a button of a nose with a tiny brown mole on it, and lips; look lak’ he been suckin’ on a crabapple all day long, at which, with that chasm between his two front teeth, he was no doubt the bestest in the whol’ wide worl.’

“You want Bunky to walk home with you?”

Nodding my head which was back buried in my arms on the varnished first-grade table, “Yes’m.”

“I ‘spose it might oughta' be aw-right,” said she. And with that, Bunk scraped back his chair on the asphalt-tile floor, and Miz Sharp pulled mine back as I stood up, wet condensation on the little wooden chair; damp, dark spot on the bottom of my brown corduroy knickers.

* * *

The walk home was four-blocks long. I turned to Bunky who was a lot shorter than me and said, “I think the dookey is a-slidin’ outta my drawers.”

“Oh no!” cried Bunky. “Is it dropped all the way down?”

“No, not yet.” I realized, of course, that since the knickers ended mid-calf with elastic holding them tight against my leg, that it just might slide all the way down, git stuck at the bottom -- my leg a'sloggin' it back and forth as I walked. I was so mad and embarrassed, I could spit green blood. We reached the gravel road that wound into the cemetery. Three mo’ blocks to go.

Bunky asked again, “Is it dropped yet?”

“It’s a slidin,’ Bunky, it's a slidin,' an' it feels bodacious slimy.”

“It stinks bodacious awful, too,” laughed Bunky. I balled up my fist and smacked him on the arm.

“Hey, that hurts,” he yelled.

“I’m gonna whup yo' ass, you laugh agin!” I threatened. We came to the familiar corner of Boulevard Drive and Fourth Avenue, where the patrol-boy usually stood. There was no patrol-boy because school wasn’t out yet. Later, when I got to fifth grade, me and Billy Rocker became patrol-boys at that very corner. By then, I had forgotten this dreadful day.

“Is it dropped yet?” asked Bunky again.

“Yeah, it’s sho ‘nuff dropped. It’s slid down on my leg now.”

“Where is it”?

“Right there.” I pointed to the soft bulge in the lower reaches of my knickers.

Two mo’ blocks of painful mis’ry. Half-way up what seem’ lak’ a hundred-mile trip on Boulevard Drive, between Fourth Avenue and Third Avenue, there was that dawg. He warn’t a big dawg. Jes’ a little ‘ol dawg. I remember when I tried to pick him up and got bit right on my cheek. They put the po’ dawg in sumpthin’ called “quarantine,” tel’ they figgered out if it had rabies. He was a yappy little dawg. As we passed his yard, I could see’im laying up on th’ front step. He jes’ eye-ballin' me. He ain't come out yappin’ his fool head off lak’ he always does. Sometimes I think dawgs jes’ know when to leave a body alone.

In what seem’ lak’ several years, we drag’ ourselves through the las’ block and finally arrive at my house at 32, 3rd Avenue. We walked past the magnolia, crabapple and sweet-gum trees in the front yard kicking at the cockle-burs and the fallen magnolia leaves. Past the big front porch with the swinging settee on it, and on up the steps of the smaller porch to the front door on my side of the house.

Lizzie Mae met us at the door. The school had already called her. She swung the screen door open and said, “You come on in here Mr. Davitt, (David is my middle name. Folks call' me that when I was a chile.) honey-chile, an’ les git you cleaned up.”

“Kin’ I come in, too?” asked Bunky.

“You git on home now, boy. I got enough to scratch here wid’out botherin’ wid’ you.”

Bunky Allen could not possibly have known whut was a goin’ on in my head. I could not have felt more embarrassed or ashamed. I reeked more of humiliation than anything else. Pooped in my pants, right there in front of Beverly Ann Taylor an’ all. Walk’ all the way home with that stuff a slidin’ down my leg. When I saw that sweet black face of Lizzie Mae, the tears erupted again.

Bunk knew better’n t’cross Lizzie Mae, so he back’ away and disappeared. Lizzie Mae took me into the house, sat down on a chair and began to unbuckle the military-web-belt holdin’ up my knickers. When they fell to the floor, there was a brown streak down the inside of my left leg. “Whooo Boy! You is a sho’ nuff mess!” said she. I just bawled.

Then something wonderful happened! Something that took away all the pain and humiliation and made me stop crying in an instant. Lizzie Mae took my six-year-old tear-streaked face in her brown hands, with my poop-stinkin’ to high heaven, and said to me, “You be proud, boy. You ain’t done nuthin’ wrong, jus’ a little accident, thas’ all. You be proud an’ you’ll grow into a real man.”

I don’t know if I ever made it into what Lizzie Mae or anyone else, might call a real man, but she made me feel like one, from that day until this. I’m grown up now. Well, maybe not. In any case, I often still feel that lump of smelly stuff a-slidin’ down my leg. I look at the corduroy knickers of my life and I don’t see much difference between what I see, and that smelly lump. But when these humiliating and self-abusing thoughts assault my brain, I try to see Lizzie Mae’s beautiful black face. And when I do, I think I catch a tiny glimpse of
. . . the Face of God.

"ACCEPTING JESUS"?

Last night, while struggling with disciplining my thoughts so I could go to sleep, I asked God to make it happen. It seemed that as soon as I did, other thoughts came. I was impressed with the possible error (if not error, then possibly the misconstruing) of the idea of "accepting Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior." There appears to be more than adequate biblical evidence for such an idea, yet the construct just doesn't ring entirely true. This is intellectual acceptance and possibly faith. Both are affirmable, especially the faith part. But something is missing.

Something is wrong with this doctrine.

What struck me is that it might not be an individual "accepting Jesus," but, instead, Jesus "accepting that person." I thought, if so, how does that come about? What are the dynamics that make this happen?

It reaches all the way back to the creation of humankind. Knowing full well that they would disengage with God, why did he do it? Knowing that having given us "free will," and that we would turn away from him, why did he go ahead and create us anyway? There is a passage in Justus that may answer this question:

The scene -- Jesus and the disciples were vacationing at the house of Simon the Tanner, on the white beaches of the Mediterranean near the city of Joppa. They were seated around a campfire in the sand, the afternoon fading into darkness . . .

"There was a time beyond the way men measure time,” he began, “when I and my Father lived together on the other side of the stars . . .”

What can I say to them? How can I speak to them of love that transcends their capacity to comprehend? How can I tell them that they, each of them, are both the objects and consequence of that love? That they, and they alone, are the objects of the deepest stirrings, the deepest feelings in heart of him who is Omnipotent, of him who is all-knowing, of him who is everywhere present, of him who cannont change, of him who is eternal?

“We considered what you might think imponderable. Our love for each other . . . infinite, eternal, and absolute. I and my Father are One. It is beyond the reach of reality for us to be anything else. Yet, in all the endless realms of omnipotent possibility, there was something we did not have and could not possess.”

“What could that be?” from Matthew, the intellectual among us. If any of us besides Jesus could wear the mantle of ‘theologian,’ it was this tax collector. The irony, as well as the curiosity was lost on none of us. “How could God, who is wholly contained in himself,” Matthew asked, “How could God not have something, anything he could have wanted? How is it that an omnipotent, infinite Sovereign lack anything he desired? If he lacked something, how could he be all-encompassing? How could he be God?”

Jesus smiled. It was the question he wanted. “One cannot have what is not his to own.”

“And what is there amongst all of reality that does not belong to Yahweh?” Matthew looked at Peter to his right and James to his left as if seeking their concurrence and support. He got it. The intense interest in their expressions compelled an answer.

“Your love,” said Jesus simply.

A breeze, or something like it, provoked the flames and they leaped slightly higher, illuminating faces. The puzzlement on each face evidenced profound lack of comprehension. “Simon,” he said, “You are a tanner of hides. You create fine leather for king’s houses. You love the work of your hands, do you not?” Simon thought of the end product of his labors, its softness, its rich fresh leather aroma and smiled in affirmation. “Tell me, Simon,” Jesus continued, “does your fine leather love you back?”

Simon’s eyes averted, “Well, of course not, but . . .”

“It may please you, but the pleasure is of your own creation. It cannot think or feel to love you back, yet you cherish its beauty and think it is love. It is not. Love that responds from the object of one’s love is not something that can be generated by the Lover—even if the Lover is the Sovereign God. The love of which I speak is not a mere decision, as if it were something one can move, shape or discontinue, as if it were something that can be shut off and on. Love, true, authentic love must come because one feels it deep within himself and expresses it because he cannot contain it. To "make a decision to love," is pure nonsense. You can decide that you can treat someone in a loving way, but that is a decision to control behavior in a certain way. It is not love. Such a decision does not require passion. It means that you have decided to be nice. Something you should have learned as a child. No! Love must spring, irresistibly, from the well of one’s being. That is why you have being. You were created in order to love, freely and confidently.”

"Do you think the Father and I, do you think the Holy Spirit of God, do you think that we do not feel heartfelt love and compassion for each one of you? Do you not know that when you suffer, we suffer? Do you think we, ourselves, would not empty our life for you, or die for you? Do you think we just "decided" to love you, like one decides to move a stone from one place to another, in a children's game? No, we are touched deeply and emotionally for you. We want you in our life and we want you to know it."

“It is not possible to love without the force of its power within you. You have no power to choose to love, you have the power to choose whether to express it. If it is there, you have the power to repress it. If it is not there, you cannot generate it or choose to express what does not exist.”

* * *

The shadows on our faces flickered with the flames. They were covered by consternation and seeking to understand—no, to appreciate what he was saying to us. “The Father has placed within you the capacity, the power, to irresistibly love him, yet you have the choice to release that love or not. You also have the power to determine by what measure it is released. You are free—free to release love or repress it. You are the only creatures on earth with that power.” Was he saying that we were created so that the Father would have someone to love him because we chose to give it to him, or withhold it from him? Such an inscrutable thought was too high for us.

“My Father and I wish that more than anything your minds can imagine,” Jesus continued. “Look above you.” Our heads lifted to behold a canopy of brilliance spread like a glorious, sparkling belt across a field of velvet darkness. “Can you count them? What you can actually see is an infinitesimal slice of what your eyes cannot see.” I thought about that. How could there be heavenly bodies that we could not see? If they were there, why could we not see them? “Before these,” Jesus said, “there were angels. Like you, they were created with the ability to love or withhold it. Those that loved were confirmed in their love. Now they love the Father because the thought that they could not would never occur to them.”

It did not occur to me then, on that lovely, starry night, but on reflection I realized that what Jesus was giving us was the very rationale for creation. Moreover, he was telling us why he had come.

“Yet, even they were not created supremely. They were not created in the Image of God.” He paused only for the briefest of moments, just enough to create a hunger, an anticipation for his next words. “You were,” he said. “You were created more like God than you can now comprehend. Of no other living being can it be said that it was created in the Image of God.” It was too much. Our minds were reeling. We needed closure and Jesus seemed to sense that. “That Image has been corrupted. I have come,” he said, “to give the Image of God back to you so that once again, you may freely love the Father and his Son, whom he has sent. There is much to say; there is much to teach you, but this much is enough. For now it is all you can absorb.” With that, he rose and shook the sand from his garments. “This day has ended. Let’s get some sleep.” He turned and walked toward the house. The twelve and most of the others followed. I remained. I needed to think.

It is clear to me now, that the notion of "accepting Jesus" does not entirely grasp the meaning of genuine engagement with God. Jesus desires to accept us. And the only thing -- the only thing -- that creates the venue for that is our desire to love him. If he senses, or knows, that we love him, that is all that is his acceptance requires. Changes in behavior (repentance) are not a part of this requirement. That may, or may not, come later; and if it does, it comes naturally, borne and energized by our love for him, but it is not a part of our acceptance by God. It is true, he already knows whether or not we will love him. That is the premise upon which the biblical teaching of predestination is built. So that when we come to love him, we discover that he knew it would happen all along. And, given our proclivity to evil as evidenced by our sorry lives, that stuns and amazes us. But the core issue is not predestination, it is the plain and simple fact that Jesus, God the Father, God the Holy Spirit are simply hungry for our love. It explains the reason for the cross, and since he first loved us, comes the full circle of his love for us, forgiveness of our sins and the rest of eternity in his blessedness.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. The apostle Paul -- 1 Corinthians 13:13