Opening New Doors: Keys and Key Stories (A Dedication Sermon)

(Photo by Henry Mitchell)

Opening New Doors (Sheep Gate 2)
Wood, Keys, Construction Detritus, Micaceous Oxides, Acrylic
48 x 50 x 5 in.
Henry Mitchell, 2009

Commissioned for the dedication of the Activities and Youth Ministry Center of First Baptist Church, Greenville, S.C., on August 23, 2009,this construction by Greenville area artist Henry Mitchell contains the three New Testament Scripture passages for the morning's sermon. It is exhibited prominently at the "bridge entrance" to the new facility. The dedication sermon was a collaborative effort of FBC staff members Jeff Rogers and Kyle Matthews. Audio can be accessed at http://www.firstbaptistgreenville.com/media/sermonaudio.html.

1 Kings 8:22-30,41-43
Revelation 3:8
Colossians 4:3

Revelation 3:20

Verse 1: “The Door That Christ Has Opened,” Kyle Matthews

“Look, I have set before you an open door,” says the Lord (Revelation 3:8). It is Christ who opens doors. Whenever and wherever a door opens on faith, hope and love; on forgiveness and reconciliation; on justice and on mercy, it is Christ who opens the door. “Look, I have set before you an open door,” says the Lord. There are 20 new external doors on the Activities and Youth Ministry Center we dedicate today. There are glass doors and metal doors, doors for coming in and doors for going out. Doors that swing open and a door that rolls up. And every one of them is a reminder to us that Christ opens doors. All kinds of doors.

Christ opens doors for some of us through music, and Christ opens doors for some of us through silence. Christ opens doors for some of us through prayer, and Christ opens doors for some of us through mission-action. Christ opens doors for some of us through suffering, and Christ opens doors for some of us through healing. Christ opens doors for some of us through preaching and teaching, and Christ opens doors for some of us through creation. Christ opens doors for some of us through our success, and Christ opens doors for some of us through our failure. Christ opens doors for some of us through fellowship and recreation, and Christ opens doors for some of us through solitude and reflection. Christ opens doors for some of us through art and literature, and Christ opens doors for some of us through science and mathematics. We open new doors at First Baptist Greenville because doors are for opening, welcoming, admitting, including: “The door that Christ has opened Is not for me to close. It is not mine to know The limits grace can reach” (Kyle Matthews, “The Door That Christ Has Opened,” v. 1). “Look, I have set before you an open door,” says the Lord.

Verse 2: “The Door That Christ Has Opened,” Kyle Matthews

“Pray for us, that God will open to us a door for the word” (Colossians 4:3). The Scripture that Gina Brock read this morning from 1 Kings 8 is an excerpt from the prayer of Solomon on the dedication of the temple in Jerusalem. I’m going to leave it to God to answer how it happened that on the day we scheduled the dedication of the Activities and Youth Ministry Center (AYMC) at First Baptist Greenville, the Old Testament Lesson in the Revised Common Lectionary being read in churches all over the world this morning just happened to be a prayer of dedication for a building. I’ll leave that to God to explain.

To be sure, the AYMC is not a temple. It is one of the great errors of our time and culture that we spend more money to build athletic arenas than we spend to build hospitals; we spend more to build stadiums than we spend to build shelters for the homeless and abused persons; we spend more to build coliseums than we spend to build affordable housing. We entertain ourselves to death, while others are dying of hunger, illness, and exposure. There are those who would say that we have simply repeated a great and condemnable error of our time in the construction of so beautiful and expensive a structure. And I will agree with them—if the building we dedicate today turns out to be dedicated to mere entertainment, to mere religiosity, to distractions, barriers and impediments to the gospel of Jesus Christ instead of to the ministry and mission of Christian hospitality and inclusion; the cultivation of healthy bodies, minds and spirits formed in Jesus Christ; and the preparation for sending out in mission and ministry, not just drawing in.

Solomon’s prayer of dedication reminds us that God cannot be contained in a building that we have built (1 Kings 8:27). But Solomon’s prayer also reminds us that a building we have built can be a witness to God’s steadfast love and faithfulness (1 Kings 8:23), as long as we do not let our buildings become closed so that the poor and the needy are kept out, so that strangers and foreigners are turned away. Instead, every building that is built and every door that is opened and every mission and ministry of this congregation must have as its dedicated purpose, as Solomon prayed, “that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and [worship] you, so that they may know that your name”—not ours—is spoken in this place (1 Kings 8:43). It is to the purpose of a witness to God in Jesus Christ that all that we do and all that we have and all that we are is dedicated to the word that is the gospel of Jesus Christ which is always and everywhere a word of faith, hope and love; a word of forgiveness and reconciliation; a word of justice and of mercy. “Pray for us, that God will open to us a door for the word.”

Verse 3: “The Door That Christ Has Opened,” Kyle Matthews

“Listen! I am standing at the door knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me,” says the Lord (Revelation 3:20). In this place, all that we do and all that we have and all that we are is dedicated to Christ Jesus who comes beside each one of us and says, “It was for this one I gave my earthly life” (Kyle Matthews, “The Door That Christ Has Opened,” v. 3). What that means is that the story of every life that is touched by Christ is the story of the gospel. Every story of a door opened by Christ and opening to Christ is the story of the gospel. When Opening New Doors began in 2005, we were all invited to bring a key as a sign and symbol of our congregation’s efforts to open new doors for the gospel. Hundreds of keys came in.

We don’t know the stories of all those keys, but we know some of them. One of them was the key to the front door of the home of Emma and Leon Latimer, given by their granddaughter and grandson-in-law. Leon Latimer was the pastor of First Baptist Greenville from 1934-1952. Emma and Leon Latimer’s story is the story of hearing the Lord’s voice and opening the door. Another key was given “in honor and memory of the 14 Baptist churches” where a couple in this congregation and their family were members through 58 years of marriage. The husband wrote, “All of these churches accepted us and made us an essential part of the church. These experiences allowed us to serve the Lord and it became an important part of our life. Each church opened new doors and nurtured us through our journey of faith.”

Another key was from a clock and accompanied by this note: “At 77, I know how quickly time is passing, and I cherish the time I have spent at FBC.” There is a key to an apartment “where I moved at the of a ‘chapter,’ a marriage that fell apart. God used that time for me to be available to my parents during my mother’s terminal cancer and my father’s transition to living alone. It is a symbol to me of how God provides and [how] God uses even the most disappointing periods of our lives to minster to others and bring [God’s] good from it.” A couple wrote, “The key for us coming into the fellowship of First Baptist was through our precious Grandchildren. Attending many church activities with them [. . .] allowed us to meet many friends at the church. This has been a Blessing for us and opened many opportunities.”

For the final story, I just can’t remove the names and the story be the same. “Our key belonged to our old Ford station wagon that Shirley drove back and forth to work at East Greer Elementary when Edgar was driving his ’57 Volkswagen to Furman. The key is memorable because it had an uncanny capacity for hiding. It was seldom where it was supposed to be except on those several occasions when it would be in the car, but alone, with all the doors locked. Once or twice, in fact, it even managed to be in the ignition, with the motor running, with all the doors locked. Luckily, Edgar had a well behaved sister key with a similar shape that would come to the rescue. . . . Shirley says this key symbolizes ultimate, unmerited love, the kind one often finds at First Baptist.” Ultimate, unmerited love. To that end, we open new doors today and every day. “Listen! I am standing at the door knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me,” says the Lord.

Verse 4: “The Door That Christ Has Opened,” Kyle Matthews

This material is Copyrighted © 2009 by Jeffrey S. Rogers. It may be copied or disseminated for non-commercial use, provided this notice is included. The author can be contacted at jeffrogers110@bellsouth.net.

Welcome to the Well!

Genesis 24:42-49,57-67
Matthew 10:40-42

Years ago, when I was no more than six or seven, my father took me on a walk through the small town in western Pennsylvania where my great-grandparents had lived. As we walked, he told me stories that his grandfather, my great-grandfather, had told him as they had walked many years before. We walked to a place near the center of town where a metal pipe came out of the ground, and out of that pipe flowed a constant stream of cold, fresh water from a spring in the mountains above the town. That pipe was called “the spout,” my father said, and in my great-grandfather’s day, nearly everyone in that little town would come to the spout at one time or another during the day. Some would stop by for a drink. Others would fill a jug or two to carry home. Still others simply stopped to talk—it was the town’s version of Headline News Network.

Everyone was welcome at the spout. The mine owner and the mine workers alike made their trips for water early in the morning before the whistle blew to signal the start of the working day. Protestants and Catholics met together and talked at the spout, even though they were not welcome in each other’s churches. Even the prisoners in the town jail were represented, because each morning a trusty with a big galvanized bucket would come to carry the day’s water back to the jail. The wealthy who could afford membership in the country club and the poor who could barely afford shoes met and drank and talked at the spout, with its cold, fresh mountain water bubbling free for everyone. The ground around that pipe was the most democratic place in town. It was the one place where everyone came and mingled and talked and dropped their pretenses and their prejudices, even if for only a few minutes in the day. People of every walk and station in life enjoyed together the goodness of God in the form of a drink of cold water.

It was to just such a place that the servant of Abraham is said to have come in Genesis 24. He had journeyed from Canaan, the land to which Abraham had moved at the call of God in Genesis 12. He came, we are told, “to the well of water” outside “the city of Nahor.” Thousands of years removed from the origin of this story, we can’t be sure of some of its particulars. For example, we can’t be certain of the location of this particular city. Ancient texts from the city of Mari in Mesopotamia mention a city of na-hur in northern Syria, located east of Haran, where Abraham is said in Genesis 11 to have lived before he set out for Canaan. It is possible that the narrator is referring to that ancient city. But it is also possible, since this is a family story, that “the city of Nahor,” is not the actual name of a place at all, but simply refers to a city in which Abraham’s brother, whose name was Nahor, resided. “The city of Nahor,” then, might mean simply, “the city where Nahor lived.” Thousands of years removed from the origin of the story, it impossible for us to know for sure what city the narrator had in mind.

Many of the particulars of this story are lost to us, and some others, no doubt, have been added in, as happens to family stories as they are passed along. For example, the servant is said to have brought with him ten camels, a truly impressive entourage. But these camels pose a problem in the particulars. Everything we know about camels in the ancient Near East indicates that the camel was not domesticated until centuries after the time that Abraham is said in the Bible to have lived. So, either Abraham lived a lot later than the Bible suggests, or those camels trotted their way back into the story a lot later than Abraham. Several years ago I came across a sermon in which I had told that story of my walk with my father in the small town in western Pennsylvania where my great-grandparents had lived. And much to my surprise, in that particular sermon, as I had told the story, the “mill owner” and the “mill workers” came to the spout to draw water. But there were no mills in that little town. There were mines, but there were no mills. In the North Carolina town of my upbringing, there were no mines, there were mills. And so it happened that as I passed along this family story of mine, I inadvertently altered its particulars in relation to my own experience and the experience of the people to whom I was speaking. Genesis 24 is one of those family stories that was embellished and elaborated on as it was passed along. Thousands of years removed from its origin, many of the particulars are open to uncertainty and dispute, but there are universal lessons in the story that we can learn from, whatever we might make of its particulars.

One of those universals is the well, the most democratic place in town, a place where people can come and mingle and talk and drop their pretenses and prejudices, even if for only a few minutes in the day. Our physical need for water that the well satisfies is a sign and a symbol of social and spiritual needs that we all share as well. The well outside the city of Nahor is a free, unbounded space where friends and strangers, women and men, young and old, residents and travelers, rich and poor, lowly and powerful, meet and interact on the common ground of their shared human need. When people meet in the city square (or at a town hall, if I dare to mention such a thing these days!), their interactions are encumbered by social and political and economic protocols. But when they meet at the well, their shared need for water “levels the playing field” and alters the landscape of their interactions.

Wells are important places in the Bible’s stories. In Genesis 24, the young woman Rebekah provides water from the well for the stranger and his camels. In Genesis 29, it is the traveler Jacob who draws water from a well when he meets and falls in love the young woman Rachel there. In Exodus 2, it is the stranger named Moses who waters the flock of the daughters of the priest of Midian. And in the gospel of John in chapter 4, it is the stranger Jesus who asks a Samaritan woman for a drink at a well. The well that satisfies the physical reality of the shared human need for water is a sign and symbol of our mutual dependence on forces we cannot control. It is a sign and a symbol of our interdependence on each other for safe access to those essential things that we need most in life to survive. And it is a sign and symbol of the profoundly spiritual need for free, unbounded spaces where people of every walk and station in life can meet and interact, can extend hospitality like Rebekah, can fall in love like Jacob, or discover that they are loved like the Samaritan woman.

If I had to choose one and only one image from the Bible for the Christian church, I just might choose the image of the well, where everyone is welcome on the level playing field of human need, where pretenses and prejudices are set aside, the most democratic place in town, where hospitality is extended and received, and where to love and to be loved are the community rules. That would by my image of the church. Isaiah 12:3 says, “With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation,” and in John 4:14, Jesus says, “Those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will given them will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” Welcome to the well!

A second universal in this story of uncertain particulars is that matriarchs matter. Matriarchs matter. For a long, long time, Old Testament scholars and teachers called the stories in Genesis 12-50 the “patriarchal narratives,” the stories of the fathers. But the truth of the matter is, as the book of Genesis tells it, the matriarchs of ancient Israel were at least as interesting and influential as the patriarchs. Genesis 24 is Rebekah’s story, not Abraham’s or Isaac’s. In Genesis 24, it is Rebekah on whom the blessing of innumerable offspring—and powerful ones capable of overcoming their foes—is pronounced (verse 60). When the servant of Abraham asks Rebekah’s family “to obtain the daughter of my master’s kinsman for his son,” look at what her family says: “We will call the girl, and ask her” (verse 57). It is Rebekah who decides how her life will turn at this crucial juncture of her story and the Bible’s the story. She is no shrinking violet, this woman. If you are looking for “the weaker sex,” don’t bother looking at Rebekah and her cohort, the matriarchs of Genesis.

In traditionalist preaching and teaching we hear plenty about Abraham and his faithfulness to answer God’s call to set out on a journey to an unknown destination. But his wife Sarah must have chosen to answer that call every bit as much as Abraham did because she went too! Sarah, in her own time and in her own way, must have answered the very same question that was put to Rebekah in Genesis 24:58, “Will you go with this man?” Rebekah answered, “I will.” It is the very same question that that the sisters Rachel and Leah must answer in chapter 31 after their scheming husband Jacob and their conniving father Laban have a falling out. Traditionalist preaching and teaching champion the patriarchs, but in the book of Genesis it is the matriarchs who answer in every generation the so-called “call of Abraham”: Sarah leaves her country and her kindred and her father’s house, and Rebekah leaves her country and her kindred and her father’s house, and Rachel leaves her country and her kindred and her father’s house. Abraham moves one time and gets all the attention, but if you look closely at the stories in the book of Genesis it is the women who every bit as much as the men exemplify Abraham’s faith in each successive generation.

Rebekah’s story in Genesis 24 reminds us that we must constantly be on guard against the selective and prejudicial memory of those authorities in the church, both ancient and modern, who continue to perpetuate the lie of subordination and domination and exploitation of women. I would call your attention to a curious rhetorical twist in this chapter that comes a little earlier in the chapter than the excerpts we heard read this morning. The stranger at the well asks of Rebekah, “Is there room in your father’s house for us to spend the night?” She answers, “We have plenty of straw and fodder and a place to spend the night.” Then, we are told, “the girl ran and told her mother’s household about these things” (verses 23,25,28). The old man asks about her “father’s house,” but the narrator is quite clear that it is her “mother’s household” in which the story plays out. That doesn’t leave too much question about who “wears the pants” in Rebekah’s family, does it? And lest you think this curious twist on things is an anomaly, notice that at the end of this story, when Isaac and Rebekah finally meet, we are told that Isaac brought Rebekah “into his mother Sarah’s tent. . . . she became his wife; and he loved her. So Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death” (verse 67). It is not Abraham’s tent or Isaac’s tent but Sarah’s tent where the two became as one, and he loved her. Matriarchs matter. Welcome to the well!

A third universal lesson in this story of uncertain particulars is that everyday human activity shapes the future (Fretheim, NIB I.512). Every day of our lives in the everyday things we say and do we shape how the future will unfold. A young woman named Rebekah extended the simplest hospitality—a drink of water—to an old man, and by doing so she shaped his future and her future and the futures of innumerable others whom she would never meet, including us thousands of years later. She extended to him the hospitality of lodging, and she changed the unfolding future of the world. She said, “I will,” and she created the future of countless families to come. And the most remarkable thing about it is that there is nothing remarkable about it at all! A drink of water, overnight lodging, a decision to marry—it’s the stuff that happens every day in our world, and people’s lives are changed and their futures are altered and shaped.

Rebekah’s story in Genesis 24 reminds us that we must never underestimate the power and the importance of the everyday and ordinary things we say and do. Our words and our actions, even the everyday ones, have real power because they affect the way our lives and other people’s lives will play out. Bankers, realtors, retailers, physicians, accountants, attorneys, sales reps, retirees, teachers, secretaries, homemakers, college students, youth and children, people of every walk and station in life, all of us, create and limit futures every day. At work and at home and at school and at church and at play, even the routine things we say and do shape our own future and the futures of people we know and love and the futures of untold numbers of people we will never meet. Genesis 24 makes it very clear that God is present and active in the everyday of our lives and that the everyday activity of our lives makes a difference not only here and now but for the future also. Welcome to the well!

A fourth and final universal in this story of uncertain particulars is the importance of family stories. Genesis 24 shows us that the story of the gospel from its origin in the Old Testament to its birth in the New Testament all the way to its present expression in our worship this morning is a succession of one family story after another. Stories of children and parents, sons and daughters, mothers and fathers, grandparents, great-grandparents, aunts, uncles, nieces and nephews, our family stories are the stories of God present and active in the everyday of our lives. Not all our family stories are happy ones or healthy ones, to be sure. Not all of them narrate triumph and success. But still we need to tell them, because beyond the particulars, all of them proclaim the universal of God’s constant care and provision for us in this life and in the life to come. Tell them, retell them, laugh at them, cry at them, embellish them, elaborate them, get them wrong, even (remember those camels in Genesis 24 and the mill owners and mill workers in my story!). Because even when the particulars are uncertain or in error, the universals will carry the day. The story of the gospel of Jesus Christ is the story of family after family after family who met God and each other on the common ground of shared human need and who shaped and continue to shape the future in the everyday and the ordinary of faithful living and faithful worship. Welcome to the well!


This material is Copyrighted © 2009 by Jeffrey S. Rogers. It may be copied or disseminated for non-commercial use, provided this notice is included. The author can be contacted at jeffrogers110@bellsouth.net.

Touched by an Angel: A Communion Meditation

1 Kings 19:4-8

Angels were in the news last month. All around the world in newspapers, on television, radio, and the internet, there was a buzz about angels. It all happened because of a light-hearted comment by Pope Benedict XVI, who after he fell and broke his wrist suggested that his guardian angel had, well, dropped him. The news media, it turns out, were far more interested in the topic of angels than they were in the pontiff’s broken wrist, and stories about angels abounded for several days.

A Baylor University Religion Survey revealed that 55% of Americans say that they have been protected from harm by a guardian angel. What that means is that about 55 out of each 100 people worshiping here this morning believe they have been touched by an angel. What that also means is that 45 out of each 100 people here this morning believe the other 55 are just plain touched. A guardian angel? What’s up with that?

I had a guardian angel once. When I was in college, I was dating a girl from my hometown. One evening when we were together—we were in the library studying diligently, I’m sure—she said, “I hear that Beverly Hudson is coming to Chapel Hill Friday and that you are having dinner with her. What am I supposed to make of that?” “Make of it?” I said. ““Make of it? Nothing! Bev and I have been friends since the fifth grade. Bev’s like, well, she’s my guardian angel.” As soon as I said it I tried to figure out what it meant. I had never even thought of it before. My “guardian angel”? Two years later, I married my guardian angel. And she’s been wishing ever since that she had dropped me while she had the chance.

I don’t know if the prophet Elijah believed in guardian angels. But this morning’s OT lesson from the Revised Common Lectionary says that he was “touched” by an angel. An angel, it says, woke him from his sleep and encouraged him to eat to keep up his strength for the journey. The text doesn’t call this angel a “guardian angel.” It simply says mal’ak, “angel,” not mal’ak shomer, which would be “guardian angel.” But this morning’s Scripture passages shows us exactly what a guardian angel is for the 55% of us who believe in them—and for the 45% of us who do not. A guardian angel is a manifestation of the provident and personal care of God.

The provident care of God is God’s provision for us in our time of need. “The Lord will provide,” says Genesis 22:14, and God provided Elijah with food in the wilderness. The personal care of God is God’s provision of what each one of us needs in our time of need. For Abraham, God provided a ram in the thicket. For Elijah, God provided sustenance for the journey. For Mary the mother of Jesus, God provided her kinswoman Elizabeth to be a companion with whom to share the joy and the fear, the laughter and the tears of her unexpected pregnancy. For Mary Magdalene, God provided the sound of her name being called on the breeze in the garden. All of us have experienced the provident and personal care of God, whether we recognize it or not, whether we acknowledge it or not, whether we experience God’s care as manifested in a “guardian angel” or not.

Our culture at large already calls provident and personal care an “angel.” Outside the Bible, outside the church, outside religious and theological circles, “angels” abound. Maybe you have heard of “Angel Flight.” Angel Flight is an organization of volunteer pilots who offer their time, their expertise, and their planes to fly financially distressed people to and from critical medical treatment. Angel Flight does not provided free air transportation to any of us and all of us wherever we want whenever we want to go there. But Angel Flight provides a way for people who cannot otherwise afford it to get to the treatment they need. That’s provident and personal care, and we call someone who provides it an “angel.”

Perhaps you have heard of the “foreclosure angel.” Her name is Marilyn Monk, and she lives in Texas. In November 2008, a neighbor’s home was being foreclosed on. Marilyn Monk felt like she had to do something to help, but she had no idea what to do. So she did the only thing she could think of. She showed up at the auction at which the mortgage company unloaded her neighbor’s home, and she bought it herself. And then she turned right around and sold it back to her neighbor for what she bought it for—the steeply discounted price at which the bank had dumped it into the market but wouldn’t let the owner pay for it to stay in it. Ever since then, Marilyn Monk has been working to arrange for others to buy back their homes at the low price the bank will accept—as long as someone other than the person living in it will pay it. She doesn’t try to arrange for all of us to reduce our payments and stay in our homes at a steeply discounted price. She tries to provide for those who are most in need: that’s provident and personal care, and she is called an “angel.”

Don Ritchie is an 82-year-old retired insurance salesman. His home is next to a park called The Gap outside Sydney, Australia. The most prominent feature of The Gap is high cliffs overlooking Watsons Bay. Over the years, those beautiful and imposing high cliffs at The Gap have come to attract people who have decided to end their lives by throwing themselves off the top. For the last 45 years, Don Ritchie has been talking people off the narrow ledge above the bay. He hasn’t succeeded with everyone he has tried to save. But hundreds of times he has managed to help them decide for life instead of for death. He has invited them into his home for breakfast or lunch (or a beer), and he has become the angel of The Gap. He doesn’t invite all of us in for breakfast or lunch or an adult beverage, but he does invite people he comes across in their time of need. People have seen in Don Ritchie provident and personal care, and they have called him an “angel.”

There are angels all around us, and there are angels among us. Whether you are among the 55 out of a 100 people who say they have been touched by an angel or among the 45 out of a 100 people who say they haven’t, you have experienced the provident and personal care of God. And every one of us who has received the provident and personal care of God is capable of sharing it with others. In ways that are small and ways that are large, we are all called to be bearers of God’s provident and personal care to the world—to neighbors and friends, to family members and strangers.

The central Christian symbol of God’s provident and personal care for each one of us is right here on this table in the bread and the cup of Communion. Every time we eat this bread and drink from this cup we are reminded that “the Lord will provide.” In and through the life and work of Jesus Christ and the continuing presence of the Holy Spirit, God provides for us in our time of need. So, come now and eat and drink, or the journey will be too much for you. And when we are finished here, we will go out from this place and share what we all have received: God’s provident and personal care.

This material is Copyrighted © 2009 by Jeffrey S. Rogers. It may be copied or disseminated for non-commercial use, provided this notice is included. The author can be contacted at jeffrogers110@bellsouth.net.

The Gospel according to Harry Potter

With the recent release of the movie “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” a PulpitBytes reader asked that I make available again a sermon I preached the weekend the first Potter film was released. Here it is, from November 18, 2001.

Song of Solomon 8:6-7
John 15:12-13

It’s all the rage right now. Even before it opened in theaters this weekend it was turning up on television and in the newspaper. Children were talking about it at school, at basketball practice and at soccer practice. Wherever two or more were gathered, it was the topic of conversation. “It,” of course, is the movie “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.” It is a thoroughly astonishing and wonderfully entertaining two-and-a-half hours of family-friendly-fun-filled hilarity, lavish and enchanting scenery, and lots of scary stuff to keep you on your toes.

Not everyone likes Harry Potter, of course. For one thing, the books are long, as children's literature goes. In fact, they are written for middle-schoolers, but elementary school kids are reading them in droves. And the books get harder to read, and they get darker and rougher in language and in content as the series progresses. They are not for everyone.

For another thing, this Potter character just doesn’t ring everyone’s bell. A year or more ago a columnist in Gentleman’s Quarterly called Harry Potter “an effeminate little twit.” I didn't think that was a particularly gentlemanly thing to say. I guess some guys are just more attracted to Stallone and Schwarzenegger. Harry doesn’t have bulging biceps and pecs. There’s nothing macho about him. He’s a heckuva Quidditch player, but without his Nimbus 2000 or his invisibility cloak he wouldn't stand a chance on a football field or a wrestling mat or in a tough-guy competition. For some reason, some guys just need more “manly” heroes than others do. And besides, as every girl who has read the books or seen the movie knows, if it weren’t for Hermione Granger, Harry Potter would be a goner. For example, he would not have survived the attack of the 12-foot mountain troll in the girls’ bathroom if it hadn’t been for Hermione. Don’t ask me what he was doing in the girls’ bathroom; read the book or see the movie.

And finally, of course, among those who don’t like Harry Potter are the theological thought police who have appointed themselves the defenders of the orthodoxy of your faith and mine. In 1999, there were more formal attempts to remove the Harry Potter books from school and public libraries than any other book or series. They contain and promote witchcraft, the thought-police contend. It’s a good thing these intrepid detectives don’t read the Bible, or we would be in trouble.

Certainly, they must never read 1 Samuel 28. 1 Samuel 28 contains an intriguing little story set after the death of Samuel, the last of the great judges and the first of the great king-maker and king-breaker prophets who were also advisors to ancient Israel’s royalty. Not long after Samuel died and was buried in his home town of Ramah, we read, “Meanwhile the Philistines had mustered and pitched camp at Shunem. [King] Saul mustered all Israel and they camped at Gilboa. When Saul saw the Philistine camp he was afraid and there was great trembling in his heart. Saul consulted the Lord, but the Lord gave him no answer, either by dream or oracle or prophet. The Saul said to his servants, ‘Find a woman who is a necromancer for me to go and consult her.’ His servants replied, ‘There is a necromancer at Endor.’ And so Saul, disguising himself and changing his clothes, set out accompanied by two men; their visit to the woman took place at night. ‘Disclose the future to me,’ he said, ‘by means of a ghost. Conjure up the one I shall name to you.’ The woman answered, ‘Look, you know what Saul had done, how he has swept the necromancers and wizards out of the country; why are you setting a trap for my life, then, to have me killed?’ But Saul swore to her by the Lord, ‘As the Lord lives,’ he said, ‘no blame shall attach to you for this business.’ Then the woman asked, ‘Whom shall I conjure up for you?’ He replied, ‘Conjure up Samuel.’ Then the woman saw Samuel and, giving a great cry, she said to Saul, ‘Why have you deceived me? You are Saul.’ Then the king said, ‘Do not be afraid! What do you see?’ The woman answered Saul, ‘I see a ghost rising up from the earth.’ ‘What is he like?’ he asked. She answered, ‘It is an old man coming up; he is wrapped in a cloak.’ Then Saul knew it was Samuel and he bowed down his face to the ground and did homage.” And then comes my favorite line in the whole story: “Then Samuel said to Saul, ‘Why have you disturbed my rest, conjuring me up?’” I love it. Poor old Samuel has just gotten good and comfortable in the hereafter, and along comes Saul to stir him up and force him into making an encore appearance as his advisor. “Leave me alone!”

It’s a fascinating little story, and my point in pointing it out is this: if we are going to ban books that include witchcraft and wizardry, we’ll have to start with the Bible. Where do you think all that devil stuff came from in the first place? The Bible, for heaven’s sake. So along with Harry Potter, we will have to throw out the Bible, William Shakespeare’s Macbeth, John Milton’s Paradise Lost, King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table (remember that old guy with the pointy hat, Merlin?), “Hansel and Gretel,” “Snow White,” The Wizard of Oz, and while we’re at it let’s get rid of Peter Pan—that boy is too old to be flying around in tights. You don’t have to be a civil libertarian to recognize that these people are a menace to society—and even to themselves. They don’t have the sense to think clearly enough about their crusade to recognize that if they succeed, they will end up banning their own Scriptures from school and public libraries!

But not all conservative Christians are so easily frightened by a little imagination and fantasy and magic. A year and a half ago, no less an authority on right thinking on the Christian right than the magazine Christianity Today published an editorial titled “Why We Like Harry Potter,” in which it described the series as “A Book of Virtues with a pre-adolescent funny bone” (June 10, 1999). The editors of Christianity Today were quite correct in their assessment. The virtues of friendship, trust, teamwork, diligent study, compassion, not judging people by appearances, and standing up for what is right are all displayed throughout the series and in the movie too.

But there is more, much more, than virtue alone. For those with eyes to see and ears to hear, there is the gospel. Now, just in case you find it unsettlingly unorthodox, perhaps even heretical, to think that a Christian preacher might find the gospel reflected somewhere outside the Bible, somewhere outside the church, somewhere others find paganism and idolatry reflected, let me call your attention to the book of Acts, chapter 17. In Acts 17, the apostle Paul is in Athens, preaching the gospel. Listen to the beginning of his sermon on the Areopagus, high above the Athenian marketplace, along the Ceremonial Way that leads to the great stairway to the acropolis on which stood the majestic Parthenon, the great temple to the goddess Athena, among other pagan sanctuaries. “Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, ‘Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, “To an unknown god.” What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.’” Do you hear what has happened here? Paul finds a pagan altar that he can use as a vehicle to proclaim the gospel. However unorthodox, however heretical the contemporary theological thought police might find it, Paul fearlessly proclaims that the God of the gospel of Jesus Christ is present and witnessed to even in the most pagan of environments, even in the most pagan of shrines, even in the most pagan of literatures, as later on in his sermon he quotes with approval a Greek philosopher and a Greek poet. Paul was not afraid to find the gospel already present and proclaimed among pagans, outside the Bible, outside the church. So in the tradition of the apostle Paul, I am committed to proclaiming the gospel and celebrating its presence no matter where in the world I might find it. Even in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.

In case you are unfamiliar with the basics of the story line in the first volume, let me tell you a little something about it, and then I can tell you the story of how I first heard the gospel according to Harry Potter. At the outset of the story, Harry is a ten-year-old orphan living with his detestable aunt and uncle, Petunia and Vernon Dursley, and their spoiled, lazy and obnoxious son, Dudley. His aunt and uncle make Harry live in a closet under the stairs in their home. They have brought him up to believe that his parents died in a car crash. But on his eleventh birthday, Harry discovers that he is no normal orphan at all. Instead, he is a wizard, quite a famous wizard actually, the son of wizard parents. As an infant, he had been placed on the Dursley’s doorstep the night his parents were killed by an evil wizard named Voldemort, the most fearsome and malevolent dark wizard of his time. According to the story, Harry’s father died resisting Voldemort’s rise to power, and Harry’s mother died attempting to protect Harry from Voldemort. Harry alone survived the attack; and somehow when he survived, Voldemort’s power was broken, a development which made “Harry Potter” the most famous and celebrated name in all of wizardry. But Harry knew nothing of this, until his eleventh birthday. And the rest of the series of books is the unfolding story of how young Harry Potter comes to learn who he really is, what his enormous gifts are, and how he can use them for good with the help of his friends and teachers.

Now here’s the story of how I first heard the gospel according to Harry Potter. A couple years ago, one of my sons, then seven years old, brought home Harry Potter and Sorcerer’s Stone, having ordered it—at a considerable discount, I am happy to say—through the Scholastic Book Club. You parents are familiar with those forms that come home from school hawking all manner of books and computer software, all of it entirely educational, of course. I was more than a little curious, having read of the controversy. And so, one evening after he went to bed, I picked up the book to read a little of it, and I couldn’t put it down. Not since I read J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy in high school had I had so much sheer fun in reading. And from that night on, I read along with him, and we talked about what we read as we progressed together through the series. Sometimes I would be ahead of him and sometimes he would be ahead of me, and occasionally we would warn each other about certain chapters not to read before bedtime because they were just too scary.

One day, well into the second or third book, we were discussing who was the most powerful wizard of them all. He was holding out for Albus Dumbledore, the old gray-beard who is headmaster at Hogwarts School. I, on the other hand, was championing young Harry himself. After all, he had survived the attack by Voldemort, and when he could not kill Harry, Voldemort’s powers were broken. Hoping to cement my case for Harry’s power, I asked, “Well, why do you suppose that Voldemort could not kill Harry?” He was quiet for a moment, and I thought I had him stumped. But then he announced: “Because Harry’s mother loved him so much and Harry loved her so much that Voldemort’s evil could not defeat their love.” Did you hear that? A seven year old said, “Because Harry’s mother loved him so much and Harry loved her so much that Voldemort’s evil could not defeat their love.” It was a priceless moment. The shingles fell from my eyes as I realized that the theologically trained father was in analytical shackles, in a spiritual straightjacket fashioned by nineteenth-and twentieth-century intellectual giants from Nietzsche to Foucault, fixated on the analysis of power. But the theologically authentic child proclaimed the gospel: it is not power but love that is the greatest deterrent to evil.

In the movie, Voldemort reveals himself to be the personification of nihilism when he attempts to lure young Harry into becoming his ally with the quintessentially Nietzschean line: “There is no good and evil; there is only power.” But Harry does not fall for that hollow and cynical analysis of human existence and the world, and at the end of the book and the movie alike we learn why. It’s on p. 299 in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. As Harry lies in a hospital bed recovering from injuries sustained in a battle with Voldemort over the sorcerer’s stone, Dumbledore explains to Harry why he has survived yet another encounter with the evil one. Dumbledore says, “Your mother died to save you. . . . love as powerful as your mother’s for you leaves its own mark. Not a scar, no visible sign . . . to have been loved so deeply, even though the person who loved us is gone, will give us some protection forever.” “To have been loved so deeply. . . . will give us some protection forever.”

Right there is the heart of the gospel. The heart of the gospel is the unfathomable depth and saving grace of the love of God. The heart of the gospel is the proclamation that you have been loved so deeply by God through Jesus Christ that you are protected by grace forever. “She sacrificed herself for you,” Dumbledore says to Harry in the movie, a simplified version of his statement in the book. “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends,” says Jesus. Jesus’ death and resurrection are the signs that we have been loved so deeply with a “love [that] is strong as death, [a] passion fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, a raging flame. Many waters cannot quench [this] love, neither can floods drown it.” Dumbledore is right: love that powerful “leaves its own mark. Not a scar, no visible sign.” But it is the “seal upon your heart,” as the Song of Solomon says, that marks you with the love of God.

In the face of senseless and often faceless evil in our world, where commercial jetliners are turned into bombs and a happy trip to the mall last Sunday afternoon left a lovely and vivacious Greenville grandmother dead from a drive-by purse snatching, we are reminded that we do not have the power to forestall death or to avoid it. We do not always get to choose the trials and the troubles that we must face in life. But we do get to choose how we will face them. We can face them with fear and despair. We can face them alone and in isolation. Or we can choose to face death and trouble with the seal of love set on our hearts and on our arms, in a community of caring and a fellowship of love with one another and with God as revealed to us in Jesus Christ. “This is my commandment,” Jesus says, “that you love one another as I have loved you.” To love and “to have been loved so deeply” will indeed protect our hearts and minds and souls forever. And that, my friends, is the gospel, no matter where in the world you find it. Amen.

This material is Copyrighted © 2001 by Jeffrey S. Rogers. It may be copied or disseminated for non-commercial use, provided this notice is included. The author can be contacted at jeffrogers110@bellsouth.net.