Still At It With Faithful Eyes

Heard some staggering statistics yesterday. In South Carolina 50% of the births are to unwed mothers. In Sumter County, the percentage rises to nearly 70%! What? And what is equally amazing is where I heard the figures - in a happenstance visit with an obstetrician who probably is in her late 70's, and yet who is mounting her own campaign to address this social delimna.

In retrospect, I don't know which had more of an impact on me, the high number of children growing up without a father figure, or the social concern of Dr. B. As for the first, Dr. B. says we talk about a lot of social issues, truancy, gangs, high cime rate, number of males in prison, number of children living in poverty, etc., but we don't talk about the etiology (the causes), because it isn't politically correct. The truth is that we need to put emphasis and incentives into encouraging and preserving stable families. She recommended a 1995 book by David Blankenhorn, Jr. titled Fatherless America (which I have ordered.) How do yo even begin to address this?

Now, for the greater impact, this successful doctor, well into retirement, has a heart for "the least of these." She spoke to a state newspaper reporter about all this and the reporter questioned her statistics. So she went to the state agencies and researched it on her own. She's spoken to several representatives and state senators, and even the governor, trying to highlight the concern. And locally she has been connecting with male African American role models who "can give her insight to the causes."

I left that chance encounter inspired. I personally am not feeling like Elijah, who in his depression complained to the Lord "The Israelites have rejected your covenant, broken down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword, and I am the only one left." (1 Kings 19). But I did think of the Lord's response to Elijah, reminding him that thousands were still faithful. And I thought of Dr. B. as one of God's thousands, with faithful eyes to see what Christ might see, an open heart to care, a sharp mind to seek truth and answers, and the courage to believe she can make a difference. In many amazing ways the Kingdom of God is in the midst of us.

The Passover in 3D

I am doing a summer sermon series on atonement theories, but, of course, I'm not calling it that. I set it up with the question, "How does the death of Christ bring us salvation?" and am using texts from the Hebrew Bible as motifs relating to various explanations.

Today the text I used was Exodus 12, the story of the 10th plague, the Passover. This was the basis for the "ransom theory," Christ paying the price to set us free from our bondage and slavery to sin. I could easily tell the story of Exodus 12 because it was ingrained in me when I was a child of only five years old.

The details of the occasion are fuzzy, but I know that I was sick for several days, as was my older brother. He had to stay home from school. I think we had the measles, but what we had was not as important as what happened.

My mother kept two sick boys entertained by making us recreate the story of the Exodus. We unfolded the sofa bed and there with plastic army men, we established Pharaoh's army and the Hebrew people. We made our way through the plagues, often using sound effects for the things we didn't have: flies, locusts, thunder and hail, etc.

There on the sofa mattress world, the Hebrew people finally escaped the brown blanket of Egypt, but were hemmed in by the blue blanket of the Red Sea. Amazingly, that blanket parted and the Hebrews crossed over on dry mattress to the wilderness.

I don't remember all that we did to create the story, but cotton balls substituted for the cloud of God's presence leading the Hebrews by day, and I do remember striking matches to represent the fiery presence by night. And for scholars who have wondered for years exactly what manna was, I can tell you - manna is crumbled saltine crackers!

These are pleasant memories from a period of sickness a long time ago. They tell the story of a mom who was loving and caring for her boys while wanting to teach them what she values most, God's Word. I just glad she didn't have a Veggie Tale video to make us watch back then. I probably wouldn't have remembered that at all.

Parents can be so wrong sometimes

Yesterday, I didn't hear my daughter Kelsey get up. She's an early riser, like me, so that was odd. Checking on her, she protested she was sick with a horrible sore throat, and while she felt a little warm, it was pushing it to say she had a fever. I was dubious for two reasons, she'd had a busy weekend going to Clemson for the game and an overnight, and she had a big Calculus test waiting on her at school.

But we let her sleep, made an appointment with the doctor for the afternoon, and Cynthia and I went on to our morning tasks. I came home midday to fix the sick meal standard (chicken noodle soup, saltine crackers and ginger ale - it cures anything). Her sister called to made sure she was watching the sick-time movie. Whenever our girls have been home sick, seems they've always watched the Anne of Green Gables series. With all that and the time for the test already passed, I figured I was throwing away good money taking her to the doctor. Wrong.

"Strep throat, and it's good you recognized it early," said the doc. Kelsey cut her eyes to me as a way of saying, "See, I told you I was sick!" Such wonderful parenting moments!

By the way, if you want a good clean movie to watch, good character and story development and well-photographed, let me recommend Mrs. Potter. Cynthia brought it home Saturday night for us to watch. I figured it would just be a chick-flick. But, wrong again. I'm going to have to be sharp this week, I've already got two strikes on me.

Parental Powerlessness

Children are not supposed to die before their parents. Don't know where I heard that, but I thought of it yesterday when I visited the parents of a man who died in our community. I remembered a tombstone from the 1800's I saw in Scotland, that listed six children. When I greeted these parents I sensed a black void of grief lurking in the room, held at bay by their stoic resolve. Our moistened eyes acknowledged the pain, but there wasn't sufficient strength to speak of it beyond my expressing sadness for their loss. Quickly the conversation turned to the blessings of their son's life. And there are many.

Clark Bynum was a successful businessman in Sumter, a basketball standout in high school and college, and gained extensive fame when he and a friend helped subdue a hijacker in 2000. I never really got to know him personally, but from all reports he was a devout Christian man whose complete trust in God blessed others as he lived as a servant of Christ, and especially in these last months as he battled cancer.

I left the Bynum home and decided to spend the afternoon at home, with my daughter, home from school early because of the pain in her wrist. Last week she had to leave tennis practice because of the pain, which the orthopedic doctor thinks is due to a torn cartilage. We'll know for sure after an MRI this week.

I looked at my sleeping daughter and like any other parent, would have gladly traded my healthy wrist for her damaged one. And when I think on this feeling, my thoughts go to parents over the world who endure witnessing their children suffer greatly, many times for preventable reasons, such as hunger and war. We do all we can as parents to shield our children, but when it comes down to it, we are powerless to prevent their pain. Yet our love keeps us vulnerable and in this powerlessness we taste the poignancy of God's love.

I do not understand this deep mystery. Many years ago, theologians like Moltmann gave me concepts and words to talk about an awareness that had grown inside me since teen years. It is a Biblical concept, well known and much written about, but still one that has to take root inside you. That is, that while God is a God of all power and authority, God has chosen to relate to us through God's passion. God's power is known in weakness, and God redeems in the midst of suffering and pain. For God so loved the world that God gave God's own Son to suffer and die, holding back all the power and authority God possesses, to redeem us through the mystery of powerlessness and love.

"My ways are not your ways," God is quoted as saying. And the apostle Paul writes, "the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing" (1 Cor 1:18). I wonder if we come closest to knowing God, not in the moments of estacy or transcendent joy, but when we enter the pain and suffering of others and feel the breath-stealing weight of "powerless love" upon our hearts. And in the mystery of God's passionate presence and redemption we have the assurance, Cast all your cares upon God, because God cares for us. (1Pet 5:7). I claim that promise for myself, for the Bynums, and for all parents today.