parsimonious – adj. – exhibiting or marked by parsimony; especially : frugal to the point of stinginess. 2. : sparing, restrained. ~ Merriam-Webster Dictionary

Parsons and politicians are the folks we generally associate with this blessing, and I have come to see it as ultimately stingy, selfish and sanctimonious. (You can look up that ‘un yourself.) But it’s not just them. It’s sung, and sung loudly, at sporting events and church services and civic gatherings by the rest of us common folk. A stingy blessing. This is the one I mean:

“God bless America.”

All due respect to Irving Berlin, it’s rattled off at the end of stump speeches and sermons and congregations of all sorts with, I suspect, the merest whiff of intention or recognition of its gravity.

God bless our nation. Us. The U.S. Not anybody else. They can fend for themselves, those godless folk who don’t even ask blessings on their country. Phooey on ’em.

I know it’s not meant that way. However … don’t you think it sounds that way to the folks who aren’t Americans? You know there’s quite a few of them out there. A good number of them speak English … sometimes in addition to their own language(s).

Shouldn’t Americans be concerned about what them foreigners think?

So why isn’t there a pol or a pastor somewhere who’ll close an address with a wider, more generous blessing? Someone who’ll step up and say:

“God bless America. But not just America. May God bless the people of every nation … with good health and prosperity, a greater measure of freedom, a deeper perception of responsibility, a more heartfelt sensitivity to the needs of others, and a brighter hope for the future.

“May God bless all of His children, wherever they live, whatever they have been taught to believe or disbelieve, with a mind and heart more open to His will, the good He wants and intends for them.

“May God bless all of creation with balance and sustainability in every conceivable way, so that all the earth may indeed be reconciled to Him.

“And may those who believe always reflect His glory by living their lives as conduits of His love, light and goodness in His world.

“May God bless America. But not just America.

“May God bless His world.”

I’d vote for somebody who did that.

Their work is often thankless. It rarely can get done within 40 hours a week. It’s comprised of many hours in hospitals, in counseling chambers, in prisons, in study, in preparation, in prayer, in anguish. It’s called for at any hour of the day when someone in the church family has a need. It sometimes takes priority over the minister’s own family needs. It can challenge the minister’s heart, soul, mind and strength … sometimes all in the same day. Sometimes all in the same hour.

It can take the form of wedding the betrothed, consoling the bereaved, burying the dead, baptizing the penitent, mentoring the willing, soothing the suffering, rejoicing with the triumphant, empathizing with the disheartened, seeking with the seeker, reconciling the discordant, persuading the sinner, teaching the curious, leading the lost, following the Savior — all these and many more.

If your minister’s work is burdening, share it. Help with it. Take on the yoke in the Spirit of Christ and be Him for your minister. Pray for your minister — lovingly, wholeheartedly, deeply, frequently.

Your minister is a part of a diminishing breed of believers willing to shoulder that burden for, usually, much less than could be made ministering in another profession. Cherish that dedication. Recognize the honor it gives God.

Don’t deny your minister the refreshment of silence and solitude … of time away on ordinary vacation … of the fellowship of others in ministry and the opportunities to learn and grow at conferences, workshops, lectures; and to speak to other churches and organizations.

Don’t muzzle the ox while treading out the grain! Pay your minister well.

Remember that your card or letter or even e-mail of appreciation and encouragement can make your minister’s day. A compliment on the sermon is nice, of course, but different sermons reach the needs of different people. Be supportive of your minister’s other ministries, family, personal choices, example.

If you must be critical of your minister, let it be in private and face-to-face. Be critical of yourself first. Examine your motives in being critical. If you disagree with your minister, let it be handled the same way. If you must correct or reprove, do so in love … care … concern. Be willing to accept reproof yourself, humbly and without guile. You could be wrong, and this could be an opportunity for both of you to ferret out God’s will together.

And, because it bears repeating: pray, pray, pray.

I’m afraid that’s how I think of them.

One party believes that the answer to America’s problems lies in giving more power to the people who already have power.

The other party believes the answer is to give more money to the people who already have money.

Each has become so ideologically entrenched that they have both espoused platform planks that are clearly absurd — simply for the reason that they are diametrically opposite to the other’s.

We’ve bought into the easy lie that we can hire someone to fix it all and vote them into office and they’ll fix it all … and those who vie for the money and power have been eager to sell us the lie.

Government ain’t the answer to our problems. A government-free economy ain’t the answer to our problems.

We’re the answer to our problems.

Our faith in each other has been shaken by terrorism, the longest war in our nation’s history, natural disaster and failure to respond well to it, outsourcing of jobs and production to other nations, corruption/cheating/scandal among the power-and-money brokers left unpunished, too many years of exorbitant overspending and digging our nation deeper into debt — on the part of ourselves individually, corporately, and governmentally.

And our economy is built upon our faith in each other. Not in gold. Not in silver. Not even in the solvency of our government or the rates set by the Federal Reserve Bank.

Each other.

If we trusted each other to be willing to work hard; produce good products and services; buy them, pay for them what they are worth, invest in them; pay off our debts; have a long-term economic view toward our assets (including our environment and labor force); educate, care for, mentor and look after those who are disadvantaged; not to overinflate prices in order to generate undue profits … well, we’d have an economy that no other nation and no act of terrorism and no force of nature could unseat.

But we don’t, and we shouldn’t expect to.

Because our economy is based on fulfillment of self-interest, and our government is based on fulfillment of self-interest, and we obviously don’t know what is best for the whole country … only what we want for ourselves. We buy what we want and we vote for what we want, personally, with no particular perception of — or concern for — any larger picture.

As long as we fail to see in current and historical perspective the vision that our forefathers foresaw when they wrote our founding documents and laws … built our nation from raw materials, hard labor, innovation and willpower … repudiated wrongs like slavery and injustice and bigotry … well, we’ll just slog along in the same downhill direction, led by the party of power and the party of wealth blindly squeezing at each other’s throats.

So we can vote like we mean it come November … but as long as we don’t see the vision of America long-term, live the vision like it’s our last best hope, and believe in each other as Americans, it won’t matter one mite which party wins and which party loses.

It’s a set of simple but powerful words in the English language that most every school-child of speaking age in the United States knows by heart:

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Our Pledge of Allegiance has an interesting history and has stirred many a patriotic and religiously faithful heart to strong emotions, and sometimes conflict.

I used to be among those reticent to repeat the Pledge, after years of unthinkingly doing so — having been a teen of the querulous Sixties and having forgotten Red Skelton’s exposition of it — on the grounds that it might, in some way, supercede the overarching supremacy of the Kingdom of God, who is sovereign forever and ever.

But I re-examine it these days, and find no such language. It is a pledge of loyalty to the nation into which I was born, which protected and nourished and educated me … which preserved my rights and freedoms and insisted on my responsibilities as a maturing individual … which required my taxes to do so but in doing so returned much more to me as an individual of average income than I could possibly have paid back … which accepted the sacrifices, willing and unwilling, penultimate and ultimate, of many a brave soul on its soil and beyond to assure the rights and freedoms that should be for all people of all nations — blessings which can only be described as priceless.

The pledge does not require that my loyalty to the United States of America supercede my loyalty of the Kingdom of God. To not pledge some allegiance of some measure to such a nation of nurture, of soaring hopes and high ideals, of openness to diversity and dreams, of empowerment to the enterprising — whatever their resources might or might not be — would be the mark of ingratitude.

Whatever shortcomings this nation has (and there are many, for it is comprised of many imperfect citizens), the United States of America remains an ideal to be accomplished … a declaration of independence from tyranny … a constitution for a more perfect union … a quality of equality worth aiming for and worth hitting dead-center with every single attempt.

So I have dropped my qualms about the Pledge of Allegiance. It does, after all, describe a human republic with hopes for many of the same attributes that are realities of the divine Kingdom:

… one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

 

I haven’t blogged recently as much as I normally do. It’s been a challenge to keep up with posting/queuing up the almost-20 articles and reviews and interviews submitted for this month’s New Wineskins edition, “Why I Left / Why I Stay.”

And changes have been taking place in the Brenton household. Not all of them are for public consumption, but this one certainly is:

http://news-prod.wcu.edu/2012/05/angela-brenton-appointed-wcus-new-provost/

My wife, Angela Laird Brenton, has been appointed the new provost at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, North Carolina. Her position begins August 1.

So early next week, our house goes on the market. And this weekend, we’re de-personalizing it — taking down the family pictures and packing away the collectible tchotchkes to give it that “Why, I’m ready for you to live in me!” HGTV-look. In fact, we’re already starting to pare down and pack generally.

We’ll make a trip, hopefully in June, to go house-hunting in the hills of western North Carolina.

I don’t know what I’ll be doing there, but I have a strong feeling that — given what I’ve been doing this weekend — I’ll be doing a lot of unpacking.

Your prayers and good wishes are always welcome.

“The one, simple theological take-away that I want you to get from this is: God is still moving.”

It’s three in the morning, and that is the phrase that I just now awakened with in my head. I’ve just been dreaming that I’ve been blogging. I can’t remember ever having done that before. I also can’t remember what I was writing in the context of the dream, but I know I won’t be able to get back to sleep until I can put this restless thought to rest.

“By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work.” ~ Genesis 2:2

No. It doesn’t stop there. He is no Deist God who created everything and then took eternity off. There’s another verse right after it:

“Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.” ~ Genesis 2:3

He rested one day and He rested specifically from one thing: “from all the work of creating that he had done.”

“Then the angel of God, who had been traveling in front of Israel’s army, withdrew and went behind them. The pillar of cloud also moved from in front and stood behind them …” ~ Exodus 14:19

“For the LORD your God moves about in your camp to protect you and to deliver your enemies to you. Your camp must be holy, so that he will not see among you anything indecent and turn away from you.” ~ Deuteronomy 23:14

He moved to create. He moved to destroy evil, immersing it in flood. He moved with Abram to Canaan, with Joseph to Egypt, to the wilderness with Moses and all of Israel. Whether as a smoking censer, a prophetic dream, a burning bush, or a pillar of cloud/fire … He moved with His people, leading them from the fore and protecting them from the rear.

He moved with them for generations as they moved into the land promised them and spread themselves upon it. He moved away from them when they moved away from Him just as He had warned.

He moved into a zygote and moved to grow and lived among them in the person of His Son Jesus, teaching and moving restlessly about Israel, Samaria and Judah with good news that His salvation had returned. He moved until pinioned to a cross and death stopped His movement cold.

For a day. Two days. Three days.

Then He moved within those who had followed Him, moved His Spirit within them, moved with the good news throughout Asia Minor, Greece, Rome, Spain … throughout the world. He promised He would be with them until the end, helping them move the hearts of men and moving mountains of sin into the depths of the sea and destroying evil by immersing it in the flood of His own blood.

Unless you can somehow prove that the end has come, then He is still moving.

The One who set in motion all creation, who choreographs the stars and planets in their nightly dance, who stills the sun for a day then moves it on, is moving still to lead His people from the fore and protect them from evil from the rear.

Not just on Sunday, but every day. Not just during the day, but while you sleep at night, in every part of the world and universe, moving in the hearts of those tender toward good and love and righteousness.

He is leading to an inevitable Day when He moves among us again, as perceptible then as He is real now, not by faith but by sight.

I lift up my eyes to the mountains—
where does my help come from?
My help comes from the Lord,
the Maker of heaven and earth.

He will not let your foot slip—
he who watches over you will not slumber;
indeed, he who watches over Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.

The Lord watches over you—
the Lord is your shade at your right hand;
the sun will not harm you by day,
nor the moon by night.

The Lord will keep you from all harm —
he will watch over your life;
the Lord will watch over your coming and going
both now and forevermore. ~ Psalm 121

God does not slumber nor sleep.

But I would like to now.

So the one, simple theological take-away that I want you to get from this is: God is still moving.

Monday, I return to the ranks of telecommuters. I’ll be working at home again, concentrating on updating and putting the Web site of my home church into the best possible condition — hopefully, upgrading its Joomla operating system from antiquated version 1.2 to something a little more contemporary.

I’ll come back in to the church office on Tuesdays for staff meeting and to pick up changes for the online church directory and chat with ministry leaders about items that need to go on their Web sites.

I say “return” because I’ve done this before. After we moved back to Little Rock from Abilene, I continued to work as the Content Manager for the Abilene Reporter-News from 2001 through 2003. I retrieved content from the newspaper pages’ pasteup files through a Virtual Private Network connection and reformatted them to post on the Web site. So I’m used to working at home.

I had a personal standard that I tried to keep then and will try to keep now: I will still shave. I will still wear cologne. I will not work in my pajamas.

Or anyone else’s.

I don’t take down a post very often, and never without prayerful consideration.

But I don’t blog in order to tick people off. Provoke people to think, sure. But not to just be ornery.

I’m afraid I may have come off that way, through my inability to communicate or unclarity of thought or even the possibility that I am flat-out wrong.

I appreciate the willingness of Nick Gill and Jennifer Thweatt-Bates (their blogs are linked to the right) to contact me via Facebook and cause me to reconsider. That’s what good friends do!

So this post may or may not reappear after reconsideration and rephrasing.

If not, you didn’t miss nuthin.’

Postscript: After reconsideration and rephrasing, the modified post has been re-posted and should appear below this one on the chronologically-listed pages.

Agin’.

I’m agin’ ’em. Against them, that is, if you’re not from the South. My word about labels is “against.”

Especially labels used within the church of our Lord. “Conservative,” “progressive,” “liberal” — they’re all just designed to facilitate the process of choosing up sides and smelling armpits, as my colorful late uncle Gene Ellmore used to say.

They’re not accurate. There are some who would have you believe that Restoration Movement churches — or at least Churches of Christ — are divided into two warring camps, conservatives and progressives. The more accurate picture of our fellowship is that of a sneeze. You can’t bisect it because it’s all over the place and moving farther apart with every microsecond.

I haven’t said anything about ongoing findings that attendance and membership is shrinking, but I will acknowledge it as researched fact. It is not, of course, just our fellowship but the entire body of believers at large. Labeling each other, calling names, accusing and villifying and pillorying each other is not going to help to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

So I will not use the labels. I will discourage their use. They’re inaccurate and divisive.

(And don’t go quoting “Nicolaitans” at me until you have definite proof who they were and what their beliefs/works were and that they did not call themselves by this name in order to provoke division. Its use in the Revelation is not a license to divide and hate. And by the way, it is the “practices” or “deeds” of the Nicolaitans and what they teach that is hated there.)

There is one body; one church.

We would do well to remember that.

“Preacher? Oh, hi! I’m glad I caught you at a good time. I just had to tell you about my friend at work!”

“The one you’ve been studying the Bible with at lunchtime?”

“Yes! I’m so excited! We finished talking about the gospels today, and he said he believes that Jesus is the Son of God! He’s accepted Christ as his Savior!”

“Did he now? Well, that’s too bad.”

“Too bad? Excuse me?”

“Yes, too bad. You’ll have to stop teaching him now. In fact, you can’t have any contact with him at all. If you see him, turn your head. Walk away.”

“What in the world are you talking about?”

“Are you so dull? Your friend believes that Jesus is the Son of God! You said so yourself! But he hasn’t been baptized. Doesn’t recognize it’s necessary for salvation. He’s just like all of the other denominational church-goers out there who think they’re saved without baptism!”

“Well, then I’ll teach him. We were going right into Acts next …”

“You can’t teach people like that! The best thing you can do for them is shun them! Show them your back! Have no fellowship with them until they learn! Maybe they’ll come to their senses and actually read the Bible and come crawling in penitence to the true church, but if not — and in the meantime — what’s happened to your friend is all your fault!”

“My fault?”

“Yes! You should have started with the plan, just like Peter did in Acts 2! There’s always plenty of time afterward to explain to people about Jesus and who they believe in … the important thing is to baptize them now, before something terrible happens and they’re forever damned in a fiery hell! What in the world gave you the idea to preach Jesus first? — And while we’re on the subject of your ineptitude, have you explained to that hapless sister of yours yet what will happen to her if she doesn’t divorce that second husband and remarry her first one?”