"There are some things that drive me
crazy and they don't seem to bother you, but I'm going to keep on thinking
crazy and doing crazy things until they bother you too." (Langston Hughes Afro-American poet)
As I learned last week, this weekly message is really and an attempt to
describe in special grace, or specific grace terms, events and constructs that
are the substance of our common grace, natural world. The most important aspect
of this is the existence of a personal God Almighty, existing in three distinct
persons, but of one substance. This God has taken and made His personality
present and known to all whom He fornew and foretold, before the dawn of time.
Those individuals seek a knowledge of Him. This understanding presupposes a
young creation, however you may define that term, for this personality of God
to be manifest, and is inconsistent with the atheistic man centered dogma of
evolution.
The application of this special grace to natural conditions is quite apparent
in the celebration of the Christmas holiday. The Son of God comes as a baby
born of a virgin, in the village of Bethlehem, in a manger, witnessed by
shepherds. Not really something that appeals to us as sort of a godly thing.
But it is of God never the less. How can we truly expect to play our part if
the whole thing makes no sense to us? That sense comes from God into this
natural world.
Some time ago,while channel surfing, I was apprehended by one of the leaders
of the Christian Right teaching on Genesis Chapter 11. As he was talking he
read verses 6-8: And the Lord said, "Indeed
the people are one and they all have one language, and this is what they begin
to do; now nothing they propose to do will be withheld from them. Come let Us
go down and confuse their language, that they may not understand one another's
speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the
earth.
After a few comments about the verses he then stated something to the extent
that if we all come together and heal our divisions there is nothing that we
can't do. For crying out loud! "Wha! Wha! Wha! What did you just read?" The
Bible clearly says that God caused the division so that we could not do all we
wanted to do. "Just keep sending in those big
checks my partners and we will do wonderful things for God."
This tower of Babel experience was a wonderful example of God's special
grace at work. "Why it makes no sense at all,
we were just doing it all for the glory of God, and God comes and ruins the
whole thing." From the view point of common or ordinary grace, our
God given diversity, is a sign that we are all unique creations and also we are
not, singularly, or in the plurality of our works, God.
A number of years ago a President of a Christian University in Portland,
felt that God would like him to begin to unify the church in Seattle. There
were about a hundred pastors and ministry leaders present, the majority from
within the city. They were of all races, really a unique cross section of the
community. We met in a church near my home and since this leader had made no
preparations for musicians, in the beginning we just sang worship choruses,
from memory, acappella. Maybe there was a possibility after all for some type
of restoration or coming together of the diversity of congregations and
denominations. We all knew the same songs, by heart. The featured speaker at
this meeting was a Pastor of a large church in Washington D.C., he was
Afro-American and he began his speech with the quotation from Mr. Hughes, which
also was the focus of his talk. After lunch I went up to him and ask, after
introducing my self, "I was wondering if
you could give me the exact text of the black poet you, spoke of this
morning."
He smiled and responded that the "Afro-American"
was Langston Hughes, and he proceeded to carefully quote the text for me.
I was raised in rural Eastern Washington, up in our neck of the woods, the
greatest complement that you could give someone engaged in athletics was to
compare him to a colored athlete. I heard it again just a year ago, so the
concept is still alive and well. Now, there was no racial harm meant by these
statements, just a lack of knowledge and no firsthand relationship with anyone
of another race, unless they were Indians, Many of them, were drunks because
they couldn't hold their liquor. One day when walking to lunch, someone made a
comment about one of the local native American athletes, and one of my distant
relatives, stated that this individual was his cousin. After that, I learned, that
it is sometimes not too wise to go spouting off your mouth, for you might find
out that you were talking about family.
Stanley and I played on the same coed church softball team for a couple of
years. After one really difficult victory, in which I normally would make a
statement like, "Man that was really a tough one!" Instead this time
without thinking, it came out something like, "Really, a fight, huh
boy." Stanley took offence, for he was Afro-American. I really felt like a
jerk, it just slipped out, and if the truth were known, in my own ignorant way
it was a compliment from my perspective. I felt so convicted that later I went
to Stanley's's house to ask for forgiveness. Stanley admitted that he believed
I meant no harm, but just wasn't thinking. He then mentioned that the reason it
really irritated him was that he had received a football scholarship out of
high school to play running back for a well known southern university. From the
coaches tower, the coach was always riding his athletes, especially his black
athletes. Some where in his first couple of years, Stanley sustained an injury,
that he said if he had been white, they would have rehabilitated him, but
because he was black, they pulled his scholarship, the coach said, "You're no longer needed here boy!"
While racism does exist in this world, some places to a very high degree,a
lot of that is fueled by cultural and religious differences, and fear of the
unknown. When we look outside of the United States, the first place that comes
to mind is the Middle East. Here thousands of years of division have brought
about troubles, that will one day bring about the end of the world as we know
it. But we English speakers have our own little corner of the world, were
division makes much less sense, actually it makes no common sense, that of
course being Northern Ireland. Six little counties on a small island just a
short boat ride from the English homeland. The people involved are of
essentially one ancestral Caucasian stock, they all speak the same language,
they all call themselves Christian, and they all seem to hate one another for
reasons, no one can quite remember. As an interesting side bar, these two areas
of the world are where Bill Clinton is still trying to create a legacy for
himself, with much the same success that he has had in most of his other
endeavors.
Last week I had the opportunity to watch a video about efforts to bring
peace to Northern Ireland by dialogue between all sides. This presentation was
part of a larger time of discussion with Kim Riley, doing church administrative
and teaching work there. The theme of this secularly produced video was that if
we all get together and talk about our differences, by some magical way, we
will solve the problem, and healing and peace will change the hearts of all. It
struck me that these ideas, are the same ones we hear promoted by all
proponents of common grace healing and integration. If we all come together,
there is nothing that man can not accomplish. For
crying out loud! We have not changed since Babel, we just look to a
world where man controls his own destiny, and there is no room for God. In the
spirit of the season, we have nothing against God so much, as long as he stays
in the stable and does not expect a room in the inn.
However, Christianity is not only an exclusive religion, but also a
communion with the personality of God,through special energy supplied by God
alone. Through Christianity's emphasis on the authority and specific revelation
of the Bible, not all roads lead to God, even though all roads, or religions,
tend at times to promote a moral goodness of common, or ordinary grace. All
fall short of the healing and oneness all seek. The reason, of course, is that
the last place we would naturally want to look for that unity is to God alone
for the specific grace energy required to bring this oneness about.
According to Genesis 11 it is the persons of the Godhead that brought about
the division of man. That special grace energy was an application into the
world of mortal man. We need God to work out the details, of our unity and our
community. That is beyond all religion, even Christianity when practiced
according to man's religious principles. To a certain extent, He brings that
about today, by making and taking people from every tribe and nation and
blessing them with His supernatural, specific grace energy. To these people we
see manifest the unity not of nationality or religion, but of family, how sweet
it is. The reason we do not see more of that manifested is just as it was in
Babel, we still continue to first look to ourselves and our own godliness. But
if we look to God via the work begun,by the birth of a baby named Jesus, in a
stable in Bethlehem, and completed by His resurrection from the dead almost two
thousand years ago, God can then supply the healing and the integration of the
individual and the community we all seek. We need more people in a Godly way to
take the words of Langston Hughes to heart. For if we do not do that, we are
destined to designate a lot more time, for
crying out loud.
This was one of the best Christmas days I can
remember in a very long time. I have taken some steps of faith that definitely
put the outcome well beyond my ability to supply. On Christmas Day I was truly
blessed with hope, more than I can understand in a natural way. While the
financial situation is still in many ways desperate, it all could be solved in
just a brief instant. I in no way know how, or even for sure that it will take
place, but I do have hope that it is so. I see a great opportunity, to use this
message next year to bring hope through Richard Bonds, and other means that
seem to lie ahead. It means first and foremost working in a world in which all
we can sense and control is the common grace energy of which through God's
desire for enterprise symbiosis with His creation, he has made mankind the
steward. Through the Bible we see, after the Babel experience, He continued to
personally manifest His presence to those He chose, a short time ago, just
before time began. Please intercede for that continued manifestation in this
work as well as in your own lives. Amen,