The Bosque Boys

Tomorrow our denominational assembly will vote on whether or not to adopt the Belhar Confession provisionally for a period of two years. After the two years we would vote on whether to adopt it as part of our church constitution. The Belhar confession comes from the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. One of our Reformed sister communions adopted this statement, that elevation of origins or differences to an absolute status is wrong and contrary to the Gospel.

Today, in large measure due to the efforts of Christian leaders in South Africa, the nation has been able to end apartheid without a bloodbath. Thanks be to God.

Sometimes things work out better than we hope. God is at work in our everyday, in the messy events of history. And sometimes we see signs of the coming kingdom.

At our denominational meeting--and we do not use quotas, each classis (local group of churches) sends delegates--I have met and talked with African Americans, immigrants from India and Taiwan and Brazil and the Dominican Republic and the Caribbean, Korean-Americans, all elders or ministers of Word and Sacrament in our denomination. Thanks be to God.

Our outgoing president spoke concerning God's future, and the need to anticipate it and work for it now. He closed his remarks with a poem by Langston Hughes, written in 1940.

When I get to be a composer
I'm gonna write me some music about
Daybreak in Alabama
And I'm gonna put the purtiest songs in it
Rising out of the ground like a swamp mist
And falling out of heaven like soft dew.
I'm gonna put some tall tall trees in it
And the scent of pine needles
And the smell of red clay after rain
And long red necks
And poppy colored faces
and big brown arms
And the field daisy eyes
Of black and white black white black people
And I'm gonna put white hands
And black hands and brown and yellow hands
And red clay earth hands in it
Touching everybody with kind fingers
And touching each other natural as dew
In that dawn of music when I
Get to be a composer
And write about daybreak
In Alabama.

Audacious hope in 1940, closer to reality today. Thanks be to God.

I know a woman who has three children. From the time she was a young girl she wanted to be a mother. By her teens she had added to motherhood the goals of becoming a science teacher, and a pastor's wife.

She first became pregnant at 21, when her husband was in his first year of seminary. After the birth of a daughter, she went back to work in the accounting department of a savings and loan. Leaving the daughter with a sitter. That lasted about six weeks. She just could not stand to have someone else raising her child. So the young couple worked on their budget: with some changes--making meals from scratch, sewing her clothes and the baby's, her husband taking a new position as student pastor of two small churches as well as working some evenings as a night watchman--they were able for her to be a stay-at-home mom.

The second pregnancy began during the last year of seminary. She stayed home with the two children the next year while her husband worked as a school teacher and a pastor. Then she went to work part-time as a bank teller to help them afford a new car, but her main energy went to the children. Then came the third child, three more years as a stay-at-home mom, then part-time as a bank teller again. Her career decision took second-place to her children

Finally, when the youngest was in second-grade, she began teaching high school science full-time. But the children always were first, and no matter how busy she was, or how she felt, she made time for them.

The children are away from home now. They've turned out OK. I married well; this woman is my wife.

Yesterday evening, Wednesday, was beautiful--spring temperatures, green grass from recent rain, and only light breezes (for which Okies give thanks). The town was full of people walking in the streets, often arm-in-arm. (We don't have a lot of sidewalks, but also not a lot of traffic.) Many were headed uptown to view the chalk art on the sidewalks (we do have sidewalks there)drawn by local high-school students. Until dusk settled people sauntered past the storefronts, heads down, looking at the drawings. Many paused before the street and vacant lot where the carnival was setting up.

We do this every year, just before Rattlesnake Festival, our big town celebration. In the hills west of town, and further afield, rattlesnakes are caught during the weeks before the Festival. If long enough, they will be butchered, and their meat sold (cooked or raw to take home with you) on main street. Many will be kept in a cooler to be brought out into a pen in the street for shows. Our local "snake man" will stand inside the pen Friday and Saturday and Sunday, ankle deep in rattlesnakes all rattling furiously, and tell the crowd what wonderful creatures of God these snakes are. By this time the snakes are warm and active and not in a good humor. Some he will pick up and hold. Some he will milk the venom from. Even though he wears high-topped boots he has been bitten three times over the years. Antivenom is kept in a refrigerator nearby.

Vendors today were setting up their stands on the roped-off main street. Yard sales have sprouted around town, giving a sort of gypsy-camp look to the place. The ladies of our church are preparing for an all-you-can-eat free-will donation breakfast on Saturday. One of our church members is in charge of the Festival Pow-Wow and is even busier than usual as she makes sure that everything goes well. Dancers both local and from out-of-town will dance, drum, and sing. Early on Sunday morning I am to conduct a church service uptown before the stands and carnival opens--rather than my usual congregation of local Indians I'll be leading vendors and carnies in worship. (more below)

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This excerpt from the President's remarks at Cassell Coliseum on the campus of Virginia Tech yesterday are worth noting:

THE PRESIDENT: Yesterday began like any other day. Students woke up, and they grabbed their backpacks and they headed for class. And soon the day took a dark turn, with students and faculty barricading themselves in classrooms and dormitories -- confused, terrified, and deeply worried. By the end of the morning, it was the worst day of violence on a college campus in American history -- and for many of you here today, it was the worst day of your lives.

It's impossible to make sense of such violence and suffering. Those whose lives were taken did nothing to deserve their fate. They were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Now they're gone -- and they leave behind grieving families, and grieving classmates, and a grieving nation.

In such times as this, we look for sources of strength to sustain us.

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Today is the anniversary of the first perfomance of The Messiah done in Dublin April 13, 1742; music by Handel, words by Jennens. Story here.

Doubting Thomas was convinced by the wounds (or scars) on the risen Christ. When I am tempted, because of the worldliness of the church or the unChristian actions of Christians, to doubt the faith, I think of those men and women who have faced persecution bravely. They embody the truth that God works in the lives of human beings.

Today we can remember Watchman Nee, the most famous modern Chinese Christian martyr. Through years of imprisonment the communists failed to break him. Story here.

Johnny Hart, of BC and Wizard of Id fame, died recently. Here is an interview done a few years ago by the Presbyterian Layman. You'll need to follow the link to the article.

He lives! From Death's long uncontested place
The Son of God comes forth in regal grace. G.E. Hoffman

Near the dawn Mary went,
Grief-led, to serve the Dead;
Though the Miracle seemed spent,
Ye stricken know why Mary went.

Through the dawn Simon came,
For him, the mock of a distant cock
Coiled anew a lash of flame;
Ye faithless know why Simon came.

Down the dawn angels sped,
Radiant flight out-winging light.
"Christ lives!" they sang. "He that was dead!"
Ye deathless know why angels sped.
Miriam LeFevre Crouse

From Mileto of Sardis (2nd century)

"For as a sheep he was led to the slaughter" but a sheep he was not; and "as a mute lamb," but a lamb he was not. For the figure is past the the truth has been revealed: in place of a lamb it is God who has come, and in place of a sheep, a man. And in this man, Christ, who contains all. Thus the immolation of the sheep, and the rite of Pascha, and the letter of the Law are accomplished in Christ Jesus. For the Law has become Logos, and the old has become new, coming from Zion and Jerusalem. The commandment has become grace, and type has become reality, and the lamb the Son, and the sheep, a man, and the man, God.

From The St. John Passion by J. S. Bach.

No. 11 Aria
From the bondage of transgression to give me freedom is my holy Saviour bound;
From all taint of deadly sickness fully to heal me, doth he bear this grievous wound.

From the Heidelberg Catechism (1563), the questions covering that part of the Apostles' Creed "suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried

Q.37 What do you understand by the word "suffered"?
A. That throughout his life on earth, but especially at the end of it, he bore in body and soul the wrath of God against the sin of the whole human race, so that by his suffering, as the only expiatory sacrifice, he might redeem our body and soul from everlasting damnation, and might obtain for us God's grace, righteousness, and eternal life.

Q38 Why did he suffer "under Pontius Pilate" as his judge?
A. That he, being innocent, might be condemned by an earthly judge, and thereby set us free from the judgment of God which, in all its severity, ought to fall upon us.

Q39 I there something more in his having been crucified than if he had died some other death?
A. Yes, for by this I am assured that he took upon himself the curse which lay upon me, because the death of the cross was cursed by God.

Q40 Why did Christ have to suffer "death"?
A. Because the righteousness and truth of God are such that nothing else could make reparation for our sins except the death of the Son of God.

Q41 Why was he "buried"?
A. To confirm the fact that he was really dead.

Q42 Since, then Christ died for us, why must we also die?
A. Our death is not a reparation for our sins, but only a dying to sin and an entering into eternal life.

Q43 What further benefit do we receive from the sacrifice and death of Christ on the cross?
A. That by his power our old self is crucified, put to death, and buried with him, so that the evil passions of our mortal bodies may reign in us no more, but that we may offer ourselves to him as a sacrifice of thanksgiving.