Men Most Pitied

The Late Easter Homily, 2015

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Men Most Pitied

I positively hate, and all the more as I get older, holiday Sunday services. Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Memorial Day (which I learned as Decoration Day), Labor Day, Veteran’s Day/Armistice Day (Commemorates the signing of documents ending WWI), et al. There is only so much to be said, Scripturally, for any of these days.

Actually, it is more the Hallmark holidays that give me fits. Ever go to a congregation on Mother’s or Father’s day and went through the thing of having the oldest, the youngest, the one with the mostest, the newest mother or father having to stand to be recognized? Oh, that’s fun!

There is something to Veterans’/Armistice Day and Memorial Day. I can NOT get through the reading of the Gettysburg Address without balling my eyes out. When I get to Lincoln’s, “...that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion…” I just lose it; tears, crying like a baby, can’t talk.

Similar thing when reading a list of battles/battlefields where Americans have shed their blood, given their last full measure of devotion. If I go in chronological order I generally lose it at about the Battle of Leyte Gulf, Leyte Gulf, Philippine Sea, the Philippines, WWII.

If I include The Bataan Death March though, I am definitely gone by then. The March occurred in April of 1942. 60,000 to 80,000 American and Filipino troops and civilians, after the surrender of Bataan province to the Japanese were marched 60 km to a POW camp. It was a forced march in the hot tropical sun with almost no food, water or medical care/medicines and brutal, sadistic guards.

Not expecting to ever surrender themselves, I think the Imperial Japanese Army really didn’t expect anyone to surrender to them - either die fighting or commit suicide. But when they enveloped defenders of the Bataan peninsula, on the northwest side of Manila Bay and beat them, the Japanese were unprepared to deal with the survivors who honorably surrendered.

The War Department did not report the atrocities - which resulted in a number of very high Japanese officers being convicted of war crimes and either hung or shot by firing squad after the war - until January of 44 to arouse anti-Japanese fury at home. And it did.

You can read about the march here (Wikipedia). Within the same article General George Marshall, the Army Chief of Staff publicly, if not somewhat obliquely, threatened the Japanese people as a race with genocide; total annihilation such was the outrage.

I get emotional reading King Harry’s speech, the St. Crispin’s Day Speech, of Shakespeare’s Henry V. It’s the speech from whence we get the term “band of brothers:” ...we few, we happy few, we band of brothers—for whoever sheds his blood with me today shall be my brother. However humble his birth, this day shall grant him nobility.”

But I digress.

I am strangely dispassionate about Easter, the highest holy day of the Christian calendar.

Perhaps one reason for my coolness, is the loss of tradition surrounding Easter. As a child I always received a new suit. When I was at my grandparents’ home in Girard, Kansas, my grandfather a minister, Good Friday virtually shut down the country seat of Crawford County, at least for an hour or two as everyone, of whatever denomination, attended Good Friday services. Easter Sunday meant Sunrise Services to coincide with the rising of the sun, emblematic of the Resurrection.

Who does that anymore? Rather, it seems the activity de jour for the Republi-Christians/ritual Christians is raging against the paganism of Easter Eggs.

A second, more personal and closer reason, was the gross sin committed against myself and those I felt spiritual responsibility for at the former Country Hills Christian Church. When our pastor resigned, I filled in as an associate while the congregation sought a new minister. I was an elder and also ordained a minister of the Gospel by the eldership there before the craven acts were committed.

It was around Easter, 1997 or 1998, that the shameful, heretical acts put in motion by a handful of craven men came to a head as the congregation voted to essentially dissolve so that another congregation could have our building and property and force its heretical teachings on those of us who were long Christians. (Some day I’ll tell you how I really feel about that.)

While virtually every craven instigator and collaborator of this sin is certainly no longer with the congregation that usurped ours and those in the current congregation certainly have no remembrance or knowledge of the sin committed to allow them to be where they are, I still have dreams. I see Martin Luther approaching the Wittenberg Castle Church and nailing his 95 Theses to the door - the opening act of the Reformation. And then I see myself, stealing across the church lawn in the middle of the night, ala John “Bluto Blutarsky” Belushi, with my charges against the offenders and a pneumatic nail gun - or a roll of duct tape. Maybe a can of spray paint.

Everyone from my minister to my shrink has told me I have to let it go, for crying out loud! And intellectually I know it. But in my heart and spirit burns a great offense and a great guilt at my inability to prevent it. And no matter how much I try to forgive and forget, I cannot find closure.

So, Easter.

First, I would encourage everyone to read I Corinthians 15. The apostle Paul is reminding the Church at Corinth about the whole reason for their faith. And he says in verse 1, if they had forgotten or departed from the gospel he preached then their faith is in vain.

THE Easter Question: Why are you a Christian?

Why do you “go to church?”

Why do you believe certain things that cause you to behave certain ways?

Why do you submit to the possibilities of ridicule and hatred?

Why do you deprive yourself of certain things in this life that being a disciple grants you if you wish to have/use them?

Why do you do the opposite of the unbeliever? Love those who hate you, wish them well, pray for their blessings? (Been praying for the blessings for ISIS? Hmmm?) Do not demand justice when wronged? Do not demand retribution when wronged, restitution when stolen from?

WHY ARE YOU A CHRISTIAN?

In the movie “Absence of Malice,” (1981, Paul Newman, Sally Fields, Bob Balaban) in the climactic scene, as tempers are starting to flair, Federal Organized Crime Task Force Attorney, Elliot Rosen (Bob Balaban) asks U.S. Attorney James Quinn (Don Hood), what motive Michael Gallagher (Paul Newman) would have for framing Quinn. And by this time it is clear to everyone in the room what Newman’s motive is except Balaban.

U.S. Attorney Quinn: (vehemently) To get even, you dummy!  

So what’s your motive?

Your answer, reduced to it’s simplest expression, should be: Because God sent His son to die for our sins and God raised Him from the dead on the third day.

Paul says, verse 19, if you’re only being a Christian for this life, if you only have hope in Christ in this life - because of something you see in this life under the label of Christ - then we are really dummies. We’re stupid. We’re morons. The world should pity us above everyone else because we are so absolutely clueless. We are to be men most pitied.  

I think the reason that Paul’s - the Holy Spirit’s - exclamation that we are to be men most pitied doesn’t have the emotional, spiritual impact that it should is that we really aren’t living that differently from the unbelievers among us; that we really don’t think about, consider our ability to have life after death is entirely dependent on the events of Easter. Possibly it’s that we may not even care about being resurrected.

The Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection of the dead and yet they followed Torah law. Why in the wide, wide world of sports! would anyone want to follow such onerous ritual that GOD imposed on HIS people in the Old Testament if you did not believe in an eventual payoff in another life?!

I don’t have the first clue. And I don’t have the first clue - aside from fear of death - why anyone today would submit themselves to a Lord, to live as He directed, to aspire to be a disciple of a dead, phony god. Do you?

I will tell you this: While the new atheists (Dawkins, Maher & Co. and their disciples) busy themselves with ways to try to figure out how to commit the new holocaust against anyone of any kind of faith, they take time out occasionally to attempt to disprove Pascal’s Wager. The new atheists’ leisure time is wasted and in retrospect, I find Pascal’s whole rationale offensive.

Pascal essentially says, hey, if there’s a God, the believer gains everything. If there isn’t, what has the believer lost? Nothing. Conversely, for the unbeliever, if there is a God, they’re in big trouble. If there isn’t, they’ve lost nothing.

Pascal’s idea is cold, calculating logic. An eternal fire insurance policy. A pox on him!

If there isn’t a God, if Christ was not resurrected by GOD, the apostles preached a lie, we accepted and have lived a lie. Our faith has indeed been in vain. We’re fools!

If Christ is not risen then we have lost everything!

So, one last time: why are you a disciple of Christ or someone who plays at religion in the name of Christ? What’s your motive?

Something to think about. Maybe it’s time you stopped the charade, free up some time without having to make excuses for why you can’t do this or that for the cause of Christ.

Or, maybe it’s time to get convicted about walking the narrow road. About being a disciple who does love and good works, not because a rule book says they should but because they are passionate about their Master, wish to be like Him out of Love for Him because He is real and risen!

Until next time…(I have some Peeps - you know the marshmallow chicks & bunnies - to eat!

May the Peace of Christ be With You,

† Scott, V.D.M., ev

A note about Francis Schaeffer:

I mentioned in Who Are You Really? that the American Church took a hard right in the 70’s via the late Rev. Jerry Falwell and Rev. Pat Robertson, largely with the help of the late American theologian Francis Schaeffer.

According to Frankie Schaeffer, Francis’ son, in a 2008 interview with Terry Gross on NPR’s Fresh Air, on his father’s return to Switzerland to the L’Abri Community he founded in the 50’s, Francis began to have a crisis of Faith about what he had helped unleash within the Evangelical Church in America. I do not remember from the interview if Francis repented of his association with Falwell and Robertson and the nascent pro-life movement but I do remember his son saying his father was increasingly troubled by the movement. Frankie’s crisis soon followed.

If you want to see the grossly destructive heresy of pre & post millennialism on the Church of Christ (potentially, in my estimation, a greater threat to souls than the Arian and the Gnostic heresies combined) you have only to look at Francis Schaeffer’s work from a frame of reference as a premillennialist that is then vociferously criticized and condemned by postmillennialists/totalitarian/neo-fascists such as the late R.J. Rushdoony & Gary North who were and are, in my spiritual estimation, active (in North’s case) agents of Satan and I cannot condemn their teachings strongly enough. Their disciples should have no part in a disciples fellowship for they all deny Christ!! But, as Jesus teaches, they should be treated as a disciple treats a pagan or a tax collector. (Matthew 18:17)

Rushdoony and his disciples along with North and his have made the death of Christ a mockery and yet they have either openly or secretly insinuated themselves into the “Christian Right” and Republican politics (hence Republi-Christians).

If it were not for their mutual hatred, Christian Reconstructionists - all postmillennialists - I believe would be philosophically quite comfortably at home and eat at the same table with the Sunni Muslim Caliph of the Islamic State and the Ayatollahs of Shia Iran - all seeking a radical theonomy to rule over the earth with a terror most of us have yet to experience, that we cannot begin to mentally or spiritually fathom. It is far beyond the premillennialist's view of the Great Tribulation. (I haven't checked of late but Tim LaHaye was at one time a reconstructionist despite his premillennial beliefs.)

Francis Schaeffer, I believe, sincerely tried to mediate between the totalitarian, anti-Christ beliefs of the postmillennial/reconstructionists and that of his Calvinistic background. Ultimately I believe he failed. But whereas I condemn, without reservation, any “Christian” who would espouse postmillennialism and reconstructionism as vile demons and mockers and deniers of Christ, I believe Francis Schaeffer to have been a true disciple with a sincere heart for Christ despite his heretical premillennial beliefs.

Schaeffer was the first “theologian” I was ever exposed to at Bible college. He made me think. He did influence me politically, which influence I have since renounced as being anti-Christ. Still I felt very deeply in the spirit when I learned of Schaeffer’s crisis of faith. Despite his theology, his discipleship, I believe, demonstrated the life of Christ. And many people throughout Switzerland, the Continent and Britain were influenced by his Christ-like actions.

I look forward to seeing Francis Schaeffer and talking with him in Paradise. Just wanted to make that clear.

I do not anticipate seeing Mr. Rushdoony or Mr. North in Heaven, nor any of those who accept their blasphemous teachings as anti-Christ disciples, thereby denying Christ! North spoke at a Ron Paul event in 2013. To what effect.

May GOD have mercy on the souls of all those under Satan’s dominion through these blasphemous, heretical teachings of Rushdoony, North and others and their disciples.

Be on guard, beware, lest you fall to the seduction of this blasphemy.

† Scott, V.D.M., ev