Monday Morning Music Ministry

11-28-22

I was with friends for Thanksgiving, and one of the activities after the dinner was the teens getting their violins, violas, and cellos out, to play some Classical music and hymn tunes. Musical scores for choruses from Handel’s Messiah were passed out – one of the area churches will be performing it at Christmastime – and singing that supernal music.

Hmmm, I thought; not typical American teens, nor typical playlists of youth today. Another box checked in my mind: maybe there is hope for America.

But a thought came to my mind about that great oratorio Messiah, which I know quite well. I am like many people who know it and love it: we tend to play it, and hear it in malls, or on radio stations, or at church concerts… around Christmastime.

Yet Georg Friedrich Händel composed it (and Charles Jennens wrote the lyrics, incorporating Scripture) about the entire life of Christ. (In 45 days, be the way. A miracle on its own!) Not just His birth, but the prophesies. It closes not only with His death on the cross, nor the Resurrection, nor the Ascension, but promises of believers’ salvation, and the Millennium. The entire life of Christ; the entire scope, and point, of the Bible.

All of which would make it appropriate to listen to Messiah at Easter, too, or in August. In fact I sometimes think in these messages of posting some Christmas carols in Springtime or around the Fourth of July. Why not? Easter hymns around New Years!

My point is that the story – the Truth – of Jesus’s Incarnation is vital for us to think about every day of the year, not what Hallmark says. Even more, the Message of the Cross, and the power of the Resurrection, is essential to our faith, and should be in our thoughts every day.

This mode of thinking is really a plea for us as Christians, and also as citizens, to stop compartmentalizing everything in our lives!

Christianity is more than holidays!

Citizenship is more than elections!

Parenting is more than rules!

Education is more than quizzes!

Charity is more than tax deductions!

A profession is more than a job!

Marriage is more than a handshake!

Love is more than sex!

Life is…

Well, here, more than any other word in or out of the Bible, love has meanings, and nuances, and definitions, and suggestions, and poetic allusions, even more cynical aspects, than almost any other word. I cherish Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s reflection:

Life is real! Life is earnest!

And the grave is not its goal;

Dust thou art, to dust returnest,

Was not spoken of the soul.

To me, the point that suggests itself here is that we ought to appreciate everything we can in their larger contexts and fuller implications:

Remember that Jesus’s suffering, death, and Resurrection were not merely His duties, or His assignments… but so we don’t have to bear the penalty for our sins.

Martyrs of the Faith died not only for their beliefs… but so that we don’t have to suffer persecution as they did.

In an American context, those who have gone before – patriots and soldiers – sacrificed their “lives, their fortunes, their sacred honor”… for us. People they never would meet, to live as we do today..

… to live as we do today? Is America worthy, today, of those sacrifices? What would those patriots and military servicemen think of the America they died for? Corruption, crime, abuse, drugs, deviance, consumerism, selfishness, hate, abortion…?

America… is more than that.

Martyrs of the church suffered persecution, torture, and death, so that the post-Modern church can distort Scripture to please sinners, instead of converting souls to salvation?

Christianity… is more than that.

Jesus died on the cross so that humankind can be saved. He offers salvation, yet we can reject it, and millions, sadly, do. The Message of the Cross, and His Resurrection and Ascension, are not squares on calendar pages. Except when they prompt us to meditate upon these things.

Jesus… IS that living sacrifice.

So please do not be “glad that Thanksgiving (or Christmas, or Easter) is over for another year.” They are “evergreen” – relevant every day, every moment of our lives.

Timing is everything.

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Click Video Clip: He Took Your Place

11-21-22

Occasionally around this time of year I challenge friends, or groups to whom I speak, to take notice of something and keep informal tallies of something related to Thanksgiving.

Have you noticed that “thank you,” as a phrase, is on the way out? To say “thank you” is not quite formal or stuffy, so not yet obsolete; but listen for the numbers of “thanks,” “thanks a lot,” and substitutions like “I appreciate it,” are taking its place. We all do it; and on TV and radio a forced informality has taken hold. And that’s why it takes an effort to notice it.

But more interesting is how “You’re welcome” seems consigned to the Endangered Species list. See: say “thank you” – or even “Hey, thanks!” – to someone this week, and see how many of these replies are returned:

“No problem.”

“No prob.”

“You got it.”

“Sure thing.”

“You bet.”

So on and so forth. An odd thing, really. Personally, I would prefer replies that we often hear turned into jokes… but should not:

“Thank you!” “No… thank you!”

This little exchange – depending on what is being exchanged or acknowledged, of course – gets to the essence of what’s behind the social and conversational convention. Thanking someone, and saying so, indicates gratitude and praise, in fact a very civilized way of sharing outreach of some form. And “you’re welcome,” (and even more so “thank you”) in a little way seals a bond of mutual respect and good will. It is what we call a social grace.

And it has a spiritual aspect too. The origin and observance of Thanksgiving is peculiarly American as a national holiday. From the first days on these shores, Pilgrims who sought religious freedom designated a day to thank God for their protection and the harvests that sustained them. As part of the tradition handed down to us, Native Americans participated too, of course in a spirit of gratitude for provisions, but as well the spirit of amity that was established with the new settlers.

That spirit survived and thrived through the establishment of other Christian communities; the guiding principles of the foundation of the Republic, and – after Abraham Lincoln, who first named and proclaimed a National Day of thanksgiving, praise, and prayer – presidential proclamations until recently have sounded more like sermons than political documents.

In Lincoln’s first proclamation, he wrote: “I desire to be observed by all my fellow-citizens, wherever they may then be, a day of thanksgiving and praise to Almighty God, the beneficent Creator and Ruler of the Universe. And I do further recommend to my fellow-citizens aforesaid that on that occasion they do reverently humble themselves in the dust and from thence offer up penitent and fervent prayers and supplications to the Great Disposer of Events for a return of the inestimable blessings of peace, union, and harmony throughout the land which it has pleased Him to assign as a dwelling place for ourselves and for our posterity throughout all generations.”

In my own prayerful study I have been moved to see Thanksgiving as more than a one-way path of rendering thanks to God. As with every Holy Day, commemorations are on particular days of the Church calendar, of civic anniversaries, etc. But without exception they ought be observed throughout the whole year, to be remembered on every day. Celebrated; contemplated; revered. Not allowed to become taken for granted.

Further, a thought about Thanksgiving in general and the first Thanksgiving that inspired all subsequent Thanksgiving Days. I have said it should not be a one-way affair. Giving thanks to God, of course, is essential. But I think we can have a richer appreciation of Thanks-giving as a concept if we consider that maybe God inspired Christian Pilgrims to receive thanks as well as the heavenward offerings.

That is, the bountiful harvests and safety and amity wherewith God blessed the Pilgrims might plausibly have been His grace and gratitude extended to a people who honored Him, who dedicated a new land and their individual communities, to Christ. To their burning desires to worship Him in a place of freedom. To the incorporation of Biblical principles into the early governing documents of the settlements, colonies, and country.

Isn’t it possible that the blessings for which the Pilgrims were grateful were bounties and gifts that were one of God’s ways of expressing thanks to His faithful people? It happens… when we serve and honor God.

“Thank You!”

“No… thank you!”

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Of many hymns and songs about Thanks, this classic Ray Boltz songs always brings tears to my eyes. Especially so because, mirroring the lyrics, my own daughter was around eight when missionaries visited our little church and she promised God that she would pursue missions work. She eventually served in Africa, Russia, and Northern Ireland.

Click Video Clip: Thank You

11-14-22

The history of humankind proceeds not on a straight line but in waves and bursts, progress and regress, prosperity and misery, exploration and stasis, freedom and… the yearning for freedom. It is interesting to trace history through topics and not calendar pages: the effects of history’s many epidemics, for instance. The search for gold, riches, a Fountain of Youth. The extent to which food and agricultural items have shaped the course of nations – the “routes” and wars over sugar, spices, tobacco, cotton, opium.

The cycles hold true for ideas, too. Do not dismiss this view. The imposition of mere loyalty to flags and rulers – changing peoples’ minds – has resulted in constantly changing borders and uncountable lost lives. The appetite for Communist hegemony among its police-state borders led Stalin to liquidate – he embraced the term – millions of people, including a virtual depopulation of Ukraine. The “Cultural Revolution” in China annihilated an estimated 60-million people. Pol Pot in Cambodia slaughtered an estimated million peasants, and he was proud of the mountains of skulls he displayed.

The battles for hearts and minds have been as consequential (and often bloodier) to “progress” than wars for riches and treasure.

Thank God, there have been intellectual movements that have proceeded more peacefully. Among these has been the spread of the Gospel. I will save correspondents their ink and electrons by noting that Christianity sometimes engaged in “imperialistic” and fratricidal conflicts. Often, doctrinal disputes morphed into persecution and death. Much of the spilled blood also was in defense of the faith against fierce attacks by such as Islam, Communism, and state-secularism.

But thanking God further, many of the Christian movements affecting world history have been bloodless. Missionaries to minds, bodies, and spirits were beneficial in many lands. During the Reformation, not every reformer was challenged by Catholic Inquisitions. With notable exceptions, the followers of Luther and Calvin, as well as Pietists and Anabaptists were unmolested. With exceptions, again, Methodists and Quakers in England increased their numbers of adherents.

… and when they were persecuted, at vital inflection-points in history, they said farewell to their fractious societies and sailed to the New World. Eventually in the Colonies and the United States, these faith traditions enjoyed for virtually the first time in human history freedom of thought and freedom of conscience. Freedom to worship.

These movements have labels: everything from conquest to imperialism to trade wars to military hegemony. And “the spread of Christianity.” In America, especially as we look forward to Thanksgiving, the unique exercise of religious freedom was not a static thing. Rather than retreating, liberty grew and reaffirmed itself. Some of those growth spurts resulted from revivals, evangelism, and missionary work.

But they often were labelled – and are better understood now because we need another wave today – Awakenings.

“Great Awakenings” were major factors in the establishment of the American nation. The nurture of civic virtue; patriotism in the early days of the Republic; the impetus behind the movement to abolish slavery; the inspiration of social-reform movements in the Industrial Age – all were not populated by leaders who happened to be Christians. They were, rather, by-products of massive waves of evangelism and revival, conversions and commitments to the Gospel — positive movements led by Christians.

In Colonial America a man named William Tennent established The Log College whose graduates spread into the frontier, converting red and white people to Christ. In his history The Winning of the West, Theodore Roosevelt described week-long revivals and camp meetings on the frontier.

The most famous person associated with any of the Great Awakenings was Jonathan Edwards. A powerful preacher (Yale graduate and eventually president of Princeton College), his sermons sometimes lasted four hours, delivered to rapt congregations and large assemblies. His many books influenced the Founders.

George Whitefield was a preacher who toured the Colonies in the years preceding the Revolution. It is arguable there might not have been the Declaration of Independence or a movement to secede from Great Britain without Whitefield’s effect on the population of American towns and cities. From the disparate strains of Christian faith, he wrought unity of fellowship and purpose. His listeners in the streets and parks of Philadelphia numbered as many as thirty thousand at a time. Among them, every time, was an admiring Benjamin Franklin.

The next Great Awakening commenced around 1803, led by Timothy Dwight, grandson of Edwards and president of Yale. He led half the student body to Christ, which inspired transformations at other colleges. Charles G Finney was an attorney who was converted to Christ and thereafter converted thousands of others. He held a revival in 1830 that spread and lasted, uninterrupted, for more than a decade. By many reports, where he preached, bars closed, churches opened, and crimes decreased.

These movements resulted in more than folks being nicer or changing their social customs. America practiced widespread piety and charity. When the Frenchman Alexis deToqueville visited America at this time he was astonished (by more than anything else) at the bedrock Christian faith, the number of churches, and the moral standards throughout American cities, towns, and frontier villages.

“America is great because America is good.”

The life-changing effects were of course manifested in social reforms, the conscience of a population. In 1857 the businessman Jeremiah Lanphier inaugurated weekly lunchtime prayer meetings near Wall Street. The sessions grew in attendance, and soon more than 10,000 people joined daily prayer meetings across New York City. A few years later the Civil War commenced, and it was widely acknowledged that the millions converted during this Great Awakening accelerated the urgency of Abolitionism.

Since then there have other waves of revival, evangelism, street preaching, media ministry, Pentecostal and Charismatic renewals; and popular, effective preachers like D L Moody, Billy Sunday, Aimee Semple McPherson, and Billy Graham. It is tempting, however, to see these latter-day movements as blessings somewhat more modest in scope than earlier Great Awakenings.

At a time when many believers behold a nation fallen far from its spiritual moorings and Biblical foundations, another Great Awakening is essential. Our society has become hostile to Christianity. Its new standards are sexual immorality, a drug culture, crime, abuse of children and women – and not only acceptance but the promotion of such.

The recent elections have exposed the unfortunate fact that many Christians have put disproportionate faith in the political system, and less in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Widespread apostasy in American churches has clouded the vision of well-intentioned Christian patriots.

Set your alarms. America needs less Woke and more Awake – a new Great Awakening. Everything, including politicians and elections, is futile without another such move.

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From a 1995 Promise Keepers event (my son and I were in attendance):

Click Video Clip: Amazing Grace

11-7-22

Revolutions come and revolutions go. Thomas Jefferson noted – and implicitly advocated – that political and social revolutions need happen every generation, and their Trees of Liberty be watered by the blood of patriots.

It was an extreme prescription, but his was an era of extreme distress; of discontents, panaceas, and actions in the New World, in France and other boiling pots across Europe. Oftentimes revolutions are followed by counter-revolutions, as in France but mercifully not in the United States; and those counter-revolutions often are as bloody as the initial revolts.

When historians look back in the “come and go” mode a cynicism may be inferred; or a discounting of the issues and import of violent revolts. But in truth we must avoid such attitudes, not the least because we might become inured to the legitimate urgency of imminent revolts in our own day.

There are two main reasons we tend to dismiss the earthquake-aspects of earlier revolutions. One, the passage of time dilutes the details of history-bending events: we tend to classify them in the same way we record floods and plagues and migrations. More important, the changes wrought by revolutions, good and bad, settle into the reality of subsequent eras. Old complaints seem less legitimate when revolutions succeed.

When revolutions succeed in varying degrees, when the contending forces do battle and either claim victory or lick their wounds, revolutions routinely are reclassified by history as Revolts. Another truth about history’s revolutions and revolts is that they never occur spontaneously, nor without a host of factors long fermenting and brewing.

But what we call these days “perfect storms” summon the inevitable flash-points. Such was the case in Martin Luther’s time (as we recently marked Reformation Sunday, the anniversary of his nailing 95 Theses to the door of Wittenberg Church)… and is the case today. Let us be aware.

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Some people think that the Protestant Reformation began when the monk Martin Luther, upset with the corruption of the Papacy and the heretical selling of indulgences (in effect, paying a priest to elevate the dead into Heaven) aimed his challenges at the entire structure of the Church. And that Germany, and much of Europe, spontaneously erupted in flames.

In fact it was no such thing, and Luther meant no such thing… but, given time, it was close to what happened. Theological opposition to Roman (Catholic) authoritarianism was at least 200 years old when Luther acted. Rebellion – sometimes as innocent as wanting the Bible to be translated into the language of their people – stamped out clerics like John Wycliffe in England. Jan Hus in Bohemia, and William Tyndale in England. By “stamped out” I mean excommunicated. But so rabid was the hatred of the Catholic Church that Wycliffe’s body was exhumed and burned; Hus was merely burned alive; and Tyndale was strangled to death and then burned.

As often happens in revolutions, those sorts of flames of immolation result in firing up further rebellion.

So Luther had the examples before him: of ecclesiastical dilemmas, an intransigent establishment, and examples of protest – and martyrdom. But those Theses he announced were meant as a call to debate. An agenda for meetings. Topics for discussion. Posting such notices was one of the traditional purposes of that church door.

On the other hand, Luther courted disaster by alleging (with increasing fervor) the sins of the papacy (popes and their edicts and their mistresses and such), and the corruption of the Bible (man-made rules that supplanted Scripture). The Vatican and the Holy Roman Emperor dug in their heels.

Finally, the eye of Perfect Storm settled over the city of Worms in Germany, on the occasion of a Diet (an assembly of religious and secular leaders). Luther was detained; called before it; and, with his many books and sermons spread on a table before him, was ordered to denounce and renounce all he had written.

A Perfect Storm? With the Trees of religious liberty, freedom of thought, and the rights of citizens and Christian individuals watered by the blood of martyrs, Luther’s defense was a thunderclap, a nexus of history:

Since your most serene majesty and your highnesses require of me a simple, clear, and direct answer, I will give one, and it is this:

I cannot submit my faith either to the pope or to the council, because it is clear that they have fallen into error and even into inconsistency with themselves. If, then, I am not convinced by proof from Holy Scripture, or by cogent reasons… I neither can not nor will not retract anything; for it cannot be either safe nor honest for a Christian to speak against his conscience.

Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me. Amen.

Luther assumed he would be tortured and burned to death. In Washington’s Museum of the Bible is a letter he wrote the night before his defense, calmly commending his soul to God and discussing the disposition of his worldly belongings. But instead, that Perfect Storm swept him away, “kidnapped” by friendly princes, hidden for a time (during which he translated the Bible – horrors! – into the everyday language of the German people), and finally emerging as the putative leader of many things.

Those things, across the landscape of Western Civilization, included personal relationships with Jesus; access to Scripture; literacy; the respect for individual liberty; political empowerment; the Enlightenment. Assisted by the invention of printing and a political revolt of princes against the Holy Roman Empire, Protestantism (Protest-antism) spread. To some things Luther disagreed, or would have. He chose to reestablish, not tear down. The Modern Age began with the Reformation, and Luther rejected Modernism. In fact he characterized Reason as the enemy of Faith.

Yet – contrary to many of history’s evolutionary moments – his Reforms, the Reform-ation, had truly revolutionary effects.

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I referred to “today” above. How is our time like Luther’s?

We are at an inflection-point in history. Viewed large, there has been a conflict brewing – across many “hot” and “cold” battlefields – between the Individual and the Establishment. Since the Reformation and then the American Revolution, it has been the Individual on one side, and the power of the State on the other. The State has taken many forms: the Church; “royalty”; finance capitalism (as opposed to Free Enterprise); dictators; Communism behind many masks.

“Macro,” the Individual has fought and survived by the devices of Republican Democracy in civic life… through the Free Market in social life… through fundamental Christianity (whose center of gravity increasing moves south of the Equator). And the oppressive Establishment has with relentless acuity and insidious subterfuge waged war upon us through seductive appeals to sinfulness and selfishness… through attacks on traditional values and standards… through arguments in favor of secularism.

“Micro”? The great storms and tides of history are mirrored in the lives of each of us individuals. The sanctity of our families and the protection of our children are the battlegrounds of today – they are not separate, but essential to, the preservation of our Republic. Our culture turns more rotten by the day.

No battlefield – no squall of that storm – is too little or too local. Martin Luther, after all, when he made that history-bending defense, still saw himself as a lonely monk wanting to register some complaints, hoping that the Establishment might mend its ways. He had little realization that he stood atop a volcano, much less called down that Perfect Storm.

In our own “assemblies,” even with few people watching (except angels of Heaven and God Himself, remember) we must see clearly… decide to fight… act with integrity… and embrace truth.

Here we stand. We can do no other. So help us, God. Amen.

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I never fail to weep at the power of Luther’s words in his “Battle Hymn of the Reformation”:

Let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also;

The body they may kill: God’s truth abideth still –

His Kingdom is forever!

Click Video Clip: A Mighty Fortress

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An award-winning movie about the life of Martin Luther:

Martin Luther | Full Movie | Niall MacGinnis |