"God Said it, I Believe It, That Settles It....."

This is actually a followup to my last post.  This morning as I was chatting myself up in the mirror, I was talking about this phenomenon.  (This is a followup to my last post because I was talking about walking with God and my faith walk not being dependent upon any person, place, or denomination).

But the inherent lack of logic in that statement (God Said It, I Believe It, That Settles It) jumped out at me.  First of all, the God I serve still speaks.  If God Said It, I Believe It, and That Settles It, doesn't that sort of close the door on any further conversations with God?  And while this next point is slightly circular in its logic, if the Word of God is Alive and Active, if we serve a God with whom Abram can successfully plead to not destroy Sodom, and with whom Moses can plead to deflect the harm God said He would visit upon the Hebrew people; if we serve a God with whom Hezekiah could plead to change his affliction, then why do we act like His Word is static? The Word of God is ALIVE and ACTIVE.  I don't know -- to me that implies a certain amount of dynamism; it certainly presupposes that the Word of God is contemporary.

I think I got into this discussion (it's hard to say because neither my thinking nor autolocution are linear) -- but I think I got into this discussion after admonishing some students to seriously apply themselves in studying the Word and in realizing the role of the historico-political contexts of the Word.  I let them know that, if they are properly rooted and grounded, delving and digging into the Word will not diminish their faith, but rather will build a broader base from which they can exercise their faith.

As part of that digging and delving, we need to understand some basics.  First, we need to understand that the King James Version of the Bible, the one most of us quote as authoritative or "authorized," was not freely translated from the original texts.  We need to understand that, as beautiful as the prose of the KJV is, that translation was commissioned by King James I.  We especially need to realize that King James didn't send the translators out to search the original texts and mine the truth from them; no, he commissioned them with the task of creating a Bible that would conform to what was being taught and practiced in the Church of England at the time (early 17th century?).  I'm not dissing the KJV like I used to; I'm just saying that the circumstances of its creation do not lend one to believe it was authorized by God, and knowledge of history reveals the fact that it was Authorized by King James I.

Ok.  But the translation doesn't matter so much.  The Word is the Word, right?  Yes. The Word is the Word.  And just like we read a novel differently than we read a TV Guide, just like we read a poem differently than we read a classified ad, there are different types of writing in the Bible.  Before we can convincingly or honestly state that "God Said It, I Believe It, That Settles It," it behooves us to at least have a passing familiarity with what, indeed, God said.

I'm not saying everyone has to be a Biblical scholar.  I am saying that we who profess to be Christian need to understand that rightly dividing the Word is not something left to our Pastor, and is not something we do on Sundays and Wednesdays.  Rightly dividing (or correctly handling) the Word extends beyond the Book.  We need to correctly handle God's Truth in our lives.  If God Said It, I Believe It, and That Settles It, does this conviction show in our attitudes, or only when we want to use the Word to prove a point?  If God Said It, I Believe It, and That Settles It, then are you even reading this, or have you sold everything and given it to the poor as a pre-requisite for walking with Jesus?  If God Said It, I Believe It, and That Settles It, does that mean that neither you nor anyone in your household has any tats, and all the fellas have full beards?  We are America, a country that says it is devoutly Christian, but the Bible says that if you divorce your wife and get remarried, you've committed adultery.  If God Said It, I Believe It, and That Settles It in this country, why do roughly half its marriages end in divorce?  And just for the record, God's Word says that if a female is not a virgin when she marries, the men of the city should stone her to death. If God said it, I Believe it, and that Settles it, are you willing to cast the first (or any) stone there?   I grew up in a state with Blue Laws. You couldn't even buy alcohol in our county; you certainly couldn't buy any on Sundays.  If God Said It, I Believe It, and That Settles It, then how come we work on the Sabbath?

I Believe God's Word.  I Believe God still speaks, which means that I have to shut down the "monkey mind," stop talking, be still, and listen --  really listen -- to what God is saying.  God SAYS it; God still Speaks, God Still Gives a Fresh Word to us, if we only have ears to hear.  It doesn't mean that I filter God's Word for what "resonates with my spirit;"  rather, it means that I adjust my spirit, heart, and actions so they line up with the Word of God.  We have to listen for a Fresh Word from God, and not listen only to hear God co-sign that thinking or those opinions we already hold.  If we honestly believe God can Blow Our Minds, then we have to submit ourselves completely to God. That takes courage, and I just don't think we do that.  I think we fall back on old familiar ways of understanding, and we accept those bits we want of God's Word only so long as they reinforce what we already believe.  I think that we don't allow ourselves -  our bodies, minds, or spirits -- to be CHALLENGED by God's Word.  I'm not so sure that we saints believe that as long as we're on this side of Jordan we will continue to develop spiritually.  Sometimes I think we believe we're so Saved, Sanctified, Tongue-Talking, Fire-Baptized, and Spirit Filled that there's no room for improvement.  We then are qualified to pick and choose what in God's Word will bind us, and what we'll explain or interpret away (and no, this isn't a dig at progressive Christians.  Fundamentalists are as prone to do this as Progressives; whether it's seen or recognized is another matter).

Anyway.  That's what I believe.

2013 has been a helluva Year....

Just before Christmas 2012, an arsonist set fire to our administrative offices.  Given the amount of money we pay to insurance companies, we thought we’d be back in our space by the Spring, and had planned a celebratory party for Memorial Day.

It’s about 50 weeks later, and the space still has not been restored.  Every day is a battle with insurance companies and restorers, none of whom appear to have our best interests at heart.  After playing the "psycho black woman" card on them, it seems they are starting to make some movement and we may be back in our building within a couple of weeks.  For a while we had moved to an empty office next door, but OSHA mysteriously kept getting called about the working conditions, so we decided to close the office down.  I go in to handle essential functions, and was shocked to find the number of bills that had remained unpaid since June 2012.  I’m working with an auditor attempting to a) sort them out and b) create a new system so we never again carry this kind of legacy debt.  Mind you, I’d charged people with this task before, and every month was shown documentation that proved we were current on bills, but meanwhile the AGING bills continued to snowball.

For all of 2013, I’ve been without a viable office space, and for much of the year, have been without fiscal office staff.  This in no way mitigates the needs of the 145 clients and 30+ employees of this organization, though.  Yesterday as I struggled with the decision of whether to trust that our funding will eventually materialize or to simply close the doors and furlough the employees until I had a guarantee they would be paid – in the midst of that an employee randomly inserted himself into my workday to tell me how I’d shorted him by 7 hours and ruined his life. 

But that’s work.  It can be a bit off-putting, but neither my life, livelihood, nor my identity are dependent upon the work I do.  No matter how dreary or discouraging it may appear, or how much it may get under my skin, I am usually able to compartmentalize it and stop if from creeping into my overall emotional makeup.  Every challenge simply bolsters my resolve to the best I can for as long as I can.  The negative factors do, however, serve to add a bit of background to the things that were of significance to me in 2013.

In January, I finally made it to the Pastor’s Conference.  It was delightful, and I got to hang out with some Perry cousins, got to spend some time with my sister in Ministry, Pastor Lavisha Williams, took a cute picture with my mother in Ministry, H. Patricia Jones, and took some interesting photos with a couple of men I admire:  my spiritual Father, Bishop Thomas Lanier Hoyt, Jr., and Bishop Othal H. Lakey, retired Bishop of the CME Church.  I remember chatting with  Pastor Williams about my aunt Bernice, whose health was on the decline.  Shortly after I came back from the Pastor’s conference, I got a call from Pastor Williams letting me know that Aunt Bernice had gone home to Glory. 

So I got in the car and headed down to Chapel Hill and preached my aunt’s funeral.  She was the last of her generation, and we had a great family reunion both at the funeral and about 6 months later.  But who’da thunk I would have preached Aunt Bernice’s funeral?!?!  I remember being in the pulpit trying to make notes on my sermon. I was nervous and my hand was shaking so badly that I literally could not write my notes.  But God showed up, and before the sermon was over, my cousin Sharon had run up into the pulpit to thank me.  So we celebrated Aunt Bernice Home in January.

Within a couple of months, I had officiated at the homegoing services for Mrs. Bessie Oliver, one of the Mothers of Williams Institutional, and a woman who played a very large part in my returning to the fold.  She simply issued an invitation (side note:  I wonder how many people we miss just because we simply fail to issue an invitation?).  I think her homegoing was in March.  I remember that Pastor Jones was struggling with whether or not she’d make it, and I remember that she sent a beautiful resolution that she wanted to make sure I read.  I read it, and nearly choked up as her resolution declared Ms. Oliver’s birthday to be Christian Education Day in Pastor’s District, the Washington-Virginia District.  It was quite moving, as was the entire service. 

Never in a million years would I have imagined that within three months I would be attending and participating in the funeral of the woman who wrote that resolution.  My Mother in Ministry, Rev. Dr.H. Patricia Jones, passed away in June of 2013.  I’m glad that on the way down to North Carolina  for that family reunion I got to stop off and visit with her.  She’d been in the hospital, she’d even been in ICU, but she had slightly hypochodriacal tendencies, and even though it appeared she might really be sick, I certainly didn’t think she was sick unto death.  But she was.  I wrote about here here.

At her repast, which Bishop I remember telling Bishop Hoyt “you can’t get sick.  You just can’t get sick.”  It was part of a larger conversation about how he and she were the only things holding me in the CME Church, and a thinly-veiled reference to the health issues he’d experienced for the last several years, health issues that were exacerbated in proportion to the disarray in the world around him.  Also at that repast, I told Bishop that I wanted to go to General Conference and asked if he’d support my candidacy as a delegate (I’m willfully oblivious to the political realities in our Zion.  I believe that if I ask my Pops for something, I will get it.).  He looked at me with that “what have I done” look he so often gave me, smiled, and went on his way.

Exactly one month later, Pastor Jones’ sister, Brenda, passed away.  Brenda had been an invalid for many years, but I had been privileged to have known her before she took sick.  For most of her illness, even as her mind started to go, she still remembered me.  As with my aunt, even when we couldn’t carry on a long conversation, we were able to enjoy simply being together.  If we chatted about the same thing over and over again, if we chatted in a way that didn’t make sense to others, or if we simply sat with each other, we were able to enjoy being together. 

Which is why I was a bit distressed that so few people were in attendance at Brenda’s funeral.  Her homegoing service was markedly contrasted to her sister’s.  Her sister’s funeral had been full to overflowing; not very many people were at Brenda’s funeral, and no one gave her flowers.  I’m happy I gave her flowers to her while she lived.

A month later we had Annual Conference.  I didn’t get elected a delegate to General Conference. I only got 7 votes.  But a couple of weeks later, I got a call from Bishop asking if I wanted to serve as an orderly.  How appropriate was it that I, with no General Conference experience, would be an orderly, there on the floor, able to move about freely and to take care of people’s needs?  I vainly thought it was because I was able to read Bishop’s sign language and find him some dirt with which to commit Brenda’s body, but the reality was that they’d asked a bunch of other people no one else wanted the responsibility.  Oh, well. Works for me.

Two months after Brenda’s funeral, at a national CME gathering in Houston, TX, my beloved father in ministry suffered a massive heart attack.  When I first heard the news, I denounced the bearer as either uninformed or malicious.  It wasn’t possible. It just couldn’t be possible.  We cried and we prayed and we pleaded with God, but our desires for his physical healing were not in God's will.  God chose COMPLETE healing for Bishop Hoyt, and on Sunday, October 27, 2013, with his wife, two children, and only grandchild standing beside him, Bishop Thomas Lanier Hoyt went on home to be with the Lord.  

And I'm still reeling.  My post on Bishop is below, but if you don't want to scroll down, you can click here.  I went through so many emotions after Bishop passed, and I think it was only after visiting with Mrs. Hoyt a couple of weeks after all the pomp and circumstance had died down, and then visiting with some other people who were close to him -- only then did I come to accept the simple fact that Bishop's transition has left a tremendous hole in all our hearts.  I have no monopoly on grief.  It often seems that walking around in that state of perpetual dysfunctional grief is somehow an expression of the great void he left, but the reality is that Bishop prepared and equipped us to carry on in his absence.  When you look back, he was always preparing people, building people up, putting people in place -- that's what good leaders do, after all.  They don't create followers; they create more leaders.

So as this Advent Season is upon us, as we anticipate the coming of the Christ, I find that despite the residual sadness, despite all the external situations and circumstances that occur, I still have hope, I still have peace, and I still have joy.  I put my hand in His hand, He leads me, and I'm excited to walk with Him.  I don't know which way we are going, but I know Who I'm going with.

I can't help but think that my ancestors, both natural and spiritual, are pleased with the growing I'm doing.  Despite all my protests, I not only continue on as a fourth generation CME,  I continue on as a preacher and a teacher.  It wasn't Pastor Jones and Bishop Hoyt holding me in the CME church.  They absolutely served to anchor, direct, and guide me back to my roots. For that I am eternally grateful.  I stay in the CME Church for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that my walk with God is not dependent upon nor is it a function of where or with whom or even how I worship.  The Body of Christ is One Body, with Many members.  As long as I am with True Worshippers, I'll be OK.

So yes, 2013 was a helluva year.  It's been painful.  It's been stormy.  Going through it has certainly been like going up the rough side of the mountain, and as one of the elders of the church said, "we thank God for the rough side of the mountain, because if it wasn't rough there wouldn't be any footholds."  I thank God for 2013.  Yes, it's been a helluva year, but it has neither conquered nor prevailed.  I thank God that, even at this point in a helluva year, I find myself looking forward with a Hope that has been renewed and restored.