Outrunning Ourselves: Requiesce in Pace

A friend of mine died today.

Some years ago as she was moving to a smaller home, my friend gave me several books. They were written by a person we mutually admired, Carlyle Marney.

Dr. Marney was a pastor and a Southerner and a Baptist and a liberal. He drank and smoke and admired the classicists and put up with little bullshit. He believed in ecumenism and preached in favor of integration long before Brown v Board of Education. He preached like a prophet and a poet and a scholar, and his liturgical druthers leaned high church.

When I got word of my friend's death, I took several of Dr. Marney's books off the shelves and flipped through them, pausing over this phrase or that, and thinking.

In the middle of my mulling, I came across these words...

“We are outrunning life….

For example, we have outrun a really concerned and informed citizenry….

We have outrun a vital valid religious faith; we simply sandwich in our religious lives between runnings here and yon….

We have outrun the world of literature and music and drama and art. We saturate ourselves with quick doses; we buy little condensations of important new writing in order that in our bridge clubs and other places we can say with that animated expression peculiar to literary discussions: “Oh yes, I read it last week.” We didn’t read it last week; we read somebody’s hashed up version of it last week.

I am saying we have outrun the fundamental verities of our culture.

We have outrun true education and—tragedy of tragedies—we have outrun the highest and deepest of personal relations. A person’s own family goes by so fast that they become a blur…

We have outrun personalized Christian service by canning up what we do for our neighbors under the name of great worth-while projects. We have lost the tremendous spiritual impetus of one person doing for the person who is nearest to them.

And perhaps most tragic of all, we have outrun the meaning of work and what work ought to be and mean in a person’s life. The work that is made by integrity, character, and honest to goodness stick-to-it-iveness—the creativeness that ought to come out of a person’s personality…. 

What are we outrunning? Life itself. Everything important.

I can’t tell you how to stop. I am not sure I can find out how I can stop; but I am becoming more and more concerned with what I am going to miss if I don’t learn how to quit outrunning myself.” *

Dear God, I thought... (and I meant that phrase both in the sense of sacred prayer and of profane curse...) Dear God, I thought, he wrote that in 1960. (It was actually probably earlier; that's just when the book was published.) 

In 1960, Dr. Marney thought we were outrunning ourselves. Sweet Lord, what would he say about us now?

Requiesce in pace. Rest in peace, I say to my newly deceased friend who gave me her Marney books. But really I say it to us all, Rest in peace. Requiesce. Rest.

* Quotation is from "Outrunning Ourselves," found in Beggars in Velvet, published by Abingdon Press, 1960. I have altered the language in paragraph's 6 and 8 for gender inclusivity, changing "man" to "person." I like to think that Marney would approve of my minor edits.

Who Speaks for God? Some Thoughts on Donald Trump, North Korea, and Preachers

On Wednesday, Donald Trump threatened North Korea saying, 

"North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States. They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen."

Before that day was over, a megachurch preacher had chimed in to say that, 

"God has given Trump authority to take out Kim Jong Un.”

The preacher is Robert Jeffress. He's the pastor of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, which has 12,000 members. Jeffress has a trail of controversial statements. He referred to gay persons as "filthy." He said that Mormonism is a cult. And he compared Donald Trump's plan for a wall between the U.S. and Mexico to the prophet Nehemiah's city wall around Jerusalem.

I have friends who go to the First Baptist Church of Dallas. They like it. I have a colleague who has done TV appearances with Jeffress. I've heard he's amiable. He once appeared on "Let's Make a Deal" dressed as a banana. So there's that.

In explaining Trump's divine okay to take out Kim Jong Un, Jeffress referred to a chapter in the Book of Romans. (For those of you who don't know much about the Bible, Romans is a letter written in the first century CE by the Christian missionary Paul to an early group of Christian in Rome.) 

In Chapter 13 of that letter, Paul wrote a paragraph saying that Christians should "be subject to the governing authorities." He indicated that governments are "instituted by God." He also said that rulers can "execute wrath on the wrongdoer." From those words, Jeffress infers that Trump can take out North Korea's leader.  Jeffress also said "the government" can use "assassination, capital punishment or evil punishment to quell the actions of evildoers."

Jeffress also pointed out that while Chapter 12 of Romans--which encourages pacifism by saying, "Do not repay evil for evil"--was only for Christians, Chapter 13 was for governments. (Though the text itself never says that.)

There are so many problems and questions with this mean-spirited, war-mongering language.

First, if governments or authorities are instituted by God, isn't North Korea's government just as God-approved as the U.S. government? After all, Paul was talking about the Roman Empire which was brutal, so God doesn't come across as very picky. 

Second, how much credence do we give to Paul's writing? In other words attributed to Paul he says women shouldn't braid their hair or wear gold jewelry. Paul urges people not get married. In some places Paul seems to support slavery and in other places he seems opposed to it. Do we follow all of Paul's teachings without question? Does Jeffress? And should 21st century international policy be based on the writings of a 1st century tent-maker?

What about the Bible's contradictions? Okay, maybe Romans 13 can be interpreted the way that Jeffress says. But Romans 12 offers a different view. Jeffress wiggles out of that by saying that Chapter 12 is for the Christians and Chapter 13 is for the governments. But he's making that up. The text itself doesn't say that. That's just his view. And what about the Prophet Isaiah's words about not hurting or killing people? What about beating swords (an presumably nukes) into plowshares? What about the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus says, "Blessed are the peacemakers?"

Jeffress has found a way to excuse those by saying they only apply to limited groups while the bits he likes apply to the United States president. But again, those are his views. And only his views. Sure, he has a congregation of 12,000. And he has the ear of a newspaper reporter. But that doesn't make him right.

It's tempting for me, as a Christian and as a pastor, to say, "Robert Jeffress is a dunder-headed dolt who likes power and violence and doesn't understand the ways of Jesus." And maybe that's correct. But if I say that, then I fall into his trap. While its tempting to speak with certainty for God, I don't know that that's helpful. Or possible.

Here's what I think: Understanding the Bible is very hard work. Being a Christian is very hard work. Being a human is hard work.

The Bible is collection of dozens of books written by dozens of people over centuries. It not a uniform theological or political how-to manual. 

There are something like 2 Billion Christians in the world. With differing views on liturgy, the purpose of baptism, the meaning of communion, the nature of Jesus, and more. Not to mention differing views on Paul's writing. 

There are 7 Billion humans on the planet. We vary on food preferences, eye color, clothing styles, and languages. And politics.

We've got a lot of work to do to figure out how to sort out these differences and how to get along.

So how about this in the meantime? Let's not kill each other. Lets not threaten anybody with fire and fury. Let's not claim that God allows us to "take out" anyone. Let's struggles with all of these differences of religion and politics. And as we struggle, let's live in peace. How about that?