Showing Up: Worship as the First Work of the Faithful

The Orangeburg Series

Readers of past posts may recognize sermons in this series. To anyone who may be disappointed to see a "rerun," I apologize. I dare say, however, that for a preacher, revisiting familiar sermonic ground is as delightful an experience as a walk in a familiar wood or a stroll on a favorite beach.

October 9, 2011
Isaiah 6:1-8; Romans 12:1-2

One book in the New Testament has been responsible for more revolutions, reformations, revivals, and conversions than any other book in the history of the Christian faith.

For example, in September of the year 386, a young professor of rhetoric at the university of Milan sat despondently in a garden. Through tears of frustration at his confusion over the character and quality his life—or the lack thereof—he read the verses, “Let us conduct ourselves becomingly as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, nor in quarrelling and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.” The young professor wrote this about his encounter with those verses: “No further would I read, nor had I any need; instantly, at the end of this sentence, a clear light flooded my heart and all the darkness of doubt vanished away.” His name was Augustine, and he went on from that experience in the garden to became the first great theologian of the Christian faith—and a saint, no less.

Fast-forward to the early 1500s. An Augustinian monk and university professor was reading the same New Testament book and struggling with a particular expression in it: the “righteousness of God.” He wrote, “Night and day I pondered until . . . I grasped the truth that the righteousness of God is that righteousness whereby, through grace and sheer mercy, [God] justifies us by faith. Thereupon I felt myself to be reborn and to have gone through open doors into paradise. The whole of Scripture took on a new meaning, and whereas before ‘the righteousness of God’ had filled me with hate, now it became to me inexpressibly sweet in greater love. This passage . . . became to me a gateway to heaven.” From reading this book, Martin Luther launched the Protestant Reformation and changed the course of the history of the Christian church.

One more example. Two hundred years after Luther, on an evening in May in 1738, an Englishman in his 30s sat in a church on Aldersgate Street in London and listened to the Preface to Luther’s commentary on this book read out loud. He wrote in his journal about that evening: “About a quarter before nine, while [Luther’s Preface] was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for my salvation; and an assurance was given me that he had taken my sins away, even mine; and saved me from the law of sin and death.” From this “Aldersgate conversion” in which his “heart felt strangely warmed,” John Wesley went on to found the Christian movement that became the Methodist church, and once again this one book was responsible for a revolutionary new course in Christian faith and practice.

It is no wonder that the great British New Testament scholar F.F. Bruce wrote in the introduction to his commentary, “There is no telling what may happen when people begin to study the Epistle to the Romans.” Paul’s letter to the Romans is responsible for more revolutions, reformations, revivals, and conversions than any other book in the history of the Christian faith.

This morning, we’re only looking at two verses from Romans, but as we saw in the case of Augustine, it only took two verses to put a university professor on the road to sainthood! So “there is no telling what may happen,” even if we read only two verses. Romans 12:1-2 mark a new beginning in the book. In chapters 1-11, the apostle Paul lays out great ideas of the Christian faith: the righteousness of God, justification by faith, the nature of sin, the nature of grace, the nature of the gospel, the work of Jesus Christ in salvation, and many more. But in Romans 12:1-2, Paul turns from great ideas to great and faithful living in the light of those great ideas. After all, what good are great ideas if you don’t put them into practice? That’s what Paul calls us to do beginning in Romans 12:1: put the faith we profess into practice.

According to Paul, putting the faith we profess into practice begins with worship. “I appeal to . . . you, brothers and sisters, . . . to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” So the first work of the faithful is worship. We gather in this place in the morning of every first day of the week to worship God, because in our work-week, as it were, our first work is worship.

Maybe you’ve heard the conventional wisdom that “90% of success is just showing up.” “90% of success is just showing up.” I have to admit that I usually consider that statement not conventional wisdom but conventional stupidity. It takes a whole lot more to succeed than just showing up. But this morning, at the risk of attracting the ire of preachers and pastors and teachers and employers the world over, I’m going to endorse the conventional stupidity that “90% of success is just showing up.”

Here’s why. First, if you don’t show up, you can’t possibly succeed, so “just showing up” is in fact the foundation for success. Second, the first thing the apostle Paul says when he turns from talking about great theological ideas to talk about great and faithful living is “prez-ent your bodies.” Prez-ent. Be there. Now, I know as well as you do that the correct pronunciation is “pre-zent.” But you cannot pre-zent anything if you are not prez-ent.

When it comes to worship, the common stupidity turns out to be pretty wise. 90% is prez-enting “your body as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” Congratulations. You are 90% there just by being here. If you are listening on the radio because you can’t get here, you are 90% here by being there where you can participate by hearing. But none of us, no matter where we are, is where we need to be yet.

But before we move on from where we are to where we need to be, let’s take a moment to look at here. I cannot tell you how important it is to see and to understand that according to Paul we don’t come to worship “to get something out of it.” We come to worship to give something to God. The something we come to worship to give to God is ourselves: “present your body as a living sacrifice . . . to God.” If you came to worship this morning in order to get something out of it, then you came here putting yourself ahead of God, and that’s idolatry. When God said in the Ten Commandments, “You shall have no other gods before me,” that includes the god of self who comes to worship thinking that worship is about what I get out of it instead of about what I give to God first, foremost, and forever.

In a famous description of worship that I’m sure you’ve heard before but that we can’t hear often enough, the great Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard characterized worship as a play on a stage with actors, prompters, and an audience. The actors in the drama of worship are everyone in the congregation gathered to “exalt God” as the mission statement of this congregation says of worship. You are the actors in worship prez-enting and pre-zenting “your bodies as living sacrifices . . . to God.” That’s what you are doing right now. The leaders in worship—the preacher, the praise team or the choir, the deacons, the ushers, whoever reads Scripture or leads in prayer—are all merely prompters, people whose job is to prompt you the actors as you act out your part and deliver your lines for the audience who is God. The music that is sung or played in worship is not sung or played for us as though we were the audience. It is sung and played as an offering to God who is the audience. The sermon is not offered to you for your approval or disapproval. The sermon is offered to God for God’s approval or disapproval and as a prompt—a prompt for you to respond to God by offering yourself to God.

Look at the drama of worship in Isaiah 6 that we heard read this morning. If you have a Bible with you, open it to Isaiah 6. In Isaiah 6, the prophet Isaiah is present for worship in the temple in Jerusalem—Isaiah has done his 90%. But the more import presence than the presence of Isaiah in the temple is the presence of God: Isaiah “saw the Lord, sitting on a throne, high and lifted up,” verse 1 says. The audience—God—is present, and the drama of worship begins in v 3 with the praise of God in a Hebrew praise chorus: qadosh qadosh qadosh adonai tzebaoth melo’ kol ha’aretz kebodo, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.” That song of praise wasn’t sung for Isaiah; Isaiah wasn’t the audience. It was sung for God; God is the audience and the object of praise in worship.

The praise of God in verse 3 is followed by a confession of sin in verse 5: “Woe is me,” says Isaiah, “I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips.” Any time we catch even the slightest glimpse of the holiness and the glory of God we cannot help but recognize our own unholiness. But by God’s mercy and by God’s grace, “If we confess our sins, God who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness,” as 1 John 1:9 says. And so the confession of sin in Isaiah 6:5 is followed by the forgiveness of sin in verse 8: “your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out,” Isaiah is told.

After praise and confession and forgiveness, worship continues with a word from God, in this case, a question that is a call: “Whom shall I send, and who will go?” comes the word. And worship is not complete until the worshippers respond: “Here am I! Send me!” Isaiah answers in response to the word that he has heard. Praise. Confession of sin. Assurance of forgiveness. Proclamation of the word. Response to the word. That’s the movement of the drama of worship, and 90% of it is getting yourself here on stage to play your part for God. Congratulations! But even if showing up is 90% of success, it’s only 90% of success; and the other 10% makes all the difference.

Look at verse 2 of Romans 12: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.” The other 10% is being changed by God, being “transformed,” being renewed, being revolutionized, being reformed, being revived, being converted. Did you come here to be changed today? Did you come here to be transformed, renewed, revolutionized, reformed, revived, converted? I did. I walked into this room to offer myself to God—that’s the 90%—and I walked into this room to be transformed, re-formed, re-newed, revived, converted by God—that’s the 10%, the difference that makes a difference in my life and yours.

When we give ourselves over to God as a living sacrifice, God never fails to give our selves back to us, changed, converted, revived, renewed, re-formed, transformed, in the direction of God’s will, which Paul defines as “what is good and acceptable and perfect.” Remember what F.F. Bruce said: “There is no telling what may happen when people begin to study the Epistle to the Romans”? Well, there’s also no telling what may happen when people begin to worship, when people begin to prez-ent and pre-zent themselves, body and mind, “as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God.” Because when we do, God changes us.

I don’t happen to know what kind of change needs to happen in your life this morning. Maybe you are like Augustine, disappointed or despondent in the character and quality of your life, and you need an entirely new direction, a fresh new start. What you need this morning is for “clear light” to flood your “heart and all the darkness of doubt” to vanish away. Maybe you are like Luther, struggling with something that just doesn’t makes sense to you. And what you need is to feel yourself “reborn . . . so that the very thing that is filling you with confusion or pain or anger or hate can become to you “a gateway to heaven.” Maybe you are like Wesley, needing your heart to feel “strangely warmed” by the assurance that Christ has taken your sins away, even yours.” Maybe the change that needs to happen in your life this morning is not Augustine’s or Luther’s or Wesley’s or anyone else’s, and maybe only you and God know what it is. You are 90% of the way there just by being here.

Open yourself now to the other 10%, and ask God here and now for the revolution, the transformation, the reformation, the renewal, the revival, or the conversion that you need. 90% of success is showing up. The other 10% is opening up: opening yourself up to God to be changed today and every Lord’s Day in worship.

Copyrighted © 2011 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.

Evidence of Grace: Hope

Romans 5:1-4
February 23, 2011

A few weeks ago, Irv Welling passed along what is said to be a Cherokee story he heard recently at an awards dinner. The story goes like this. One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people. The grandfather said, “My son, the battle is between two ‘wolves’ inside us all. One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority and ego. The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.” The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf wins?” The old Cherokee replied, “The one you feed.” The one you feed.

It occurred to me when I read that story that it could stand for our entire MidWeek series on virtues as evidences of grace and vices as obstacles to grace based on Steve Shoemaker’s book The Jekyll and Hyde Syndrome. It all depends on which wolf we feed. Tonight, I’m talking about feeding hope. Not having hope; not finding hope; not needing hope; but feeding hope.

In the Bible, hope is presented as something God gives. The prophet Jeremiah wrote to the people of Jerusalem who had been exiled to Babylon, “I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope” (Jeremiah 29:11). God gives hope, Jeremiah says. As that verse from Jeremiah implies, hope is always about a future with God that stands somehow in contrast to or in tension with the present. Whatever the circumstances of the present may be, hope holds out an alternative future in the plan of God for welfare and not for evil, for shalom and not for ra‘, the Hebrew text says.

The apostle Paul calls God “the God of hope” who will “fill you with joy and peace in believing so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope” (Romans 15:13). Shoemaker points out that “In the New Testament, hope is always a noun [or a verb], hope, never an adjective, hopeful, or an adverb, hopefully; [because hope] is far more than some subjective feeling we conjure up. It is a power given us by God, the God of our hope” (Shoemaker, p. 174). Hope is a power given to us by God. It is like a wolf inside us—if we will feed it.

God is our hope, the source of our hope and the object of our hope. “Hope in the Lord,” says the psalmist (Psalm 130:7; 131:3). “I hope in the Lord,” says Paul (Philipians 2:19). Hope is not some vague, wishful and wishy-washy feeling that “everything will be O.K.” Hope is a persistent and tenacious conviction of the soul that God really is at work in all things for good (Romans 8:28), even when you and I cannot see the good for which God is working. After all, Paul reminds us in Romans 8:24-25, “hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.”

Ah, patience. There’s the rub. In an era of fast food, fast cars, fast facts, fast internet, fast money, fast games, fast answers, fast weight loss, fast living, fast-acting, fast and furious, we do not hope for what we do not see because we wait for nothing with patience. The problem with the hope that comes to us from God is that it does not come as a gift on a silver platter to privileged and entitled people who are impatient and in a hurry. “Lord, give me patience, and give it to me right now.”

Hope comes, says Paul in Romans 5:1-4, from the long, slow work of the cultivation of our character which comes from the expansion of our endurance which comes from our experience of suffering. God sows hope like seeds in the dirt of our lives, seeds that must lie in the dark, underground, in order to germinate and sprout, to be cultivated, watered, fed, weeded, trimmed and pruned only eventually to be harvested as ripe and full-grown hope. The quote from Steve Shoemaker's book that has been at the top of our MidWeek order of worship for this series speaks of all of the virtues and of each of them. So, hope “is a gift from the Creator, an evidence of natural grace, and [hope] is also a habit, a discipline consisting of difficult choices and the day-by-day, step-by-step determination” to choose hope. In other words, to “have hope,” we must “feed hope.”

We must day-by-day and step-by-step determine to choose hope among the many options we have for relating to ourselves and to God and to others and to the world. I say to myself, “In this situation, I can choose cynicism; I can choose despair; I can choose apathy; I can choose anger; I can choose retribution. I have many choices, and I choose hope. I am going to feed hope.”

Ezekiel saw a vision of a valley of dry bones, the bones of Israel in exile, who cried out, “Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost!” But in that valley of dry bones, Ezekiel heard God say, “I will put my Spirit within you and you shall live!” That’s the voice that gives us reason to choose hope. Whether the valley is exile or illness, a broken family or a broken heart, a lost job or a failed test, God puts God’s spirit within us for life. In Egypt, Israel cried out to God under the murderous oppression of Pharaoh, and God raised up the voice of Moses, who demanded for God of Pharaoh, “Let my people go!” That’s the voice that gives us reason to choose hope. Whether Pharaoh is a political tyrant or an exploitive workplace, an abusive parent or spouse, or homelesseness or hunger or poverty, God’s spirit is always on the side of liberation. In the Easter story, we, like the women who were there, are asked, from the empty tomb, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?” (Luke 24:5). That’s the voice that gives us reason to choose hope. Whether the tomb is in a garden or a graveyard or a failed marriage or a faded dream or an addiction or a dead end of one sort or another, God’s spirit is always on the side of life.

That’s the voice that gave Martin Luther King, Jr., the spiritual fortitude to announce on the night before he was assassinated, “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord. . . .
With this faith I will go out and carve a tunnel of hope from a mountain of despair.” We are all in the business of carving “a tunnel of hope from a mountain of despair.” Carving a mountain of hope from a tunnel of despair takes a tenacious faith in God that God is working for good regardless of how things look at any given time or place. It takes passionate confidence that in the end, God’s kingdom will come, God’s will will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And it takes faithful listening to the voice that gives us reason to choose hope.

Which wolf in you will win? The one you feed. So feed hope.


Photo by sometimesong. Used under license of Creative Commons. http://www.flickr.com/photos/sometimesong/

This material is Copyrighted © 2011 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 jeff.rogers@firstbaptistgreenville.com.

Bread for the Journey: Proofing the Dough (Or: Lightening Up)

Matthew 13:24-33
The Second Sunday after Epiphany 2011

Note: I confess that I am a preacher who is always suprised whenever I discover that someone actually listened to what I say. So you can imagine my surprise when this morning, as I walked out the aisle during the singing of the Doxology, several paper airplanes flew toward me--and from adults, no less! Priceless!

We all know that before we begin a trip, no matter how short or how long it may be, we always “buckle up.” A month or so ago, as I prepared to back out of the driveway of the home of Demauth and Bea Blanton down in Union where I visited them, Demauth stood at the end of the drive giving me a hand signal that I didn’t recognize for a minute. And then I realized that I hadn’t yet buckled my seatbelt, and he was signaling me to buckle up before I started back to Greenville. But this morning, as we continue on the journey of the stewardship of our lives, I want to suggest that in addition to buckling up, we need to lighten up. Lighten up.

As our nation pauses on this long weekend to remember the legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., I am reminded this time around of how often and how deeply the metaphor of the journey appears in Dr. King’s understanding to the Civil Rights Movement, in Dr. King’s understanding of the movement of human history, and in Dr. King's understanding of his own life.

His first book, published in 1958, was titled Stride toward Freedom. In that book, King laid out what he called his own “pilgrimage [or journey] to nonviolence.” The intellectual side of that journey this pilgrimage began, he said, his freshman year in college when he read Henry David Thoreau’s Essay on Civil Disobedience. Thoreau’s idea of “refusing to cooperate with an evil system” fascinated him, he wrote (Stride toward Freedom, p. 73).

Several years later, in 1950, when he was in seminary, King heard the Baptist pastor and university president Dr. Mordecai Johnson speak of a recent trip to India and of the life and the teachings of Mohandras K. Gandhi. Having read Thoreau and having heard Johnson, King became committed to “the Christian doctrine of love operating through the Gandhian method of nonviolence” (Stride toward Freedom, p. 79).

Five years later, King put his intellectual commitment to nonviolence into direct action for the first time during the Montgomery bus boycott that began with the arrest of Rosa Parks on December 1, 1955. As King articulated it, the idea and practice of nonviolence contained “six key principles. The first principle is that is possible “to resist evil without resorting to violence.” The second principle is to seek always “to win the ‘friendship and understanding’” of one’s opponent, not to humiliate him or her. Third, nonviolence opposes “evil itself, not the people committing evil acts.”

Fourth, persons “committed to nonviolence must be willing to suffer without retaliation as suffering itself can be redemptive.” Fifth, “nonviolent resistance avoids ‘external physical violence’ and the ‘internal violence of spirit’ as well.” As King put it, “The nonviolent resister not only refuses to shoot his opponent but he also refuses to hate him” or her. And sixth, engaging in nonviolent resistance requires “a deep faith in the future” grounded in the conviction that “the universe is on the side of justice.” That’s the framework of the journey of the Civil Rights Movement that King sets out in Stride toward Freedom.

In the final public address of his life the night before he was assassinated in Memphis, TN, King framed his own life and ministry in terms of the biblical image of the ancient Israelite journey out of Egypt and through the wilderness when he said, “I’ve been to the mountaintop. . . . And I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people will get to the promised land. And I’m happy, tonight. I’m not worried about anything.” There’s a journey worth taking. Surrounded by threats on his life (evidently with a premonition of his own death), surrounded by fractures and competing factions in the movement he was attempting to give leadership to, and surrounded by resistance to his work not only by white people but by some black people who accused him of moving too slowly, too indecisively, who accused him of cowardice for his unwillingness to take up arms to end oppression, King was able to say, “I’m happy, tonight. I’m not worried about anything.” There’s a life worth living. There’s a journey worth taking.

It is unfortunate, I think, that King’s legacy of nonviolence is too often analyzed as a method for social change and not often enough proclaimed as a way of life, a way of living and being. On the other side of the horrific incident the week before last in Tucson, AZ, as I have listened to some of the public reactions, especially in the political arena, I am saddened to watch and to listen to how little we have learned from King. We have a holiday in King’s honor, but our nation has yet to learn the most basic and most important lessons King taught and preached and lived.

I, for one, have been glad to hear the calls for “civility” in the political arena and in the public square. But I tell you, “civility” is sterile and lifeless compared to King’s call for friendship and understanding with one’s opponents. Wisely crafted and Constitutionally grounded policy for the licensing and controlling firearms is worth debating, but it pales by comparison compared to King’s call to avoid “an internal violence of spirit” as well, not only refusing to shoot one’s opponent but also refusing to hate her or him. That’s what we need to hear in the political arena and in the public square. Adopting a King holiday means nothing if we don’t adopt King’s journey as well.

In this morning’s gospel lesson, Jesus tells a story about a field that a householder had planted with wheat. But weeds sprang up among the wheat, and the immediate impulse of those who were watching over the field was to pull out the weeds. But the householder in the story surprised everyone by saying, “No, don’t do that; for in rooting out the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. Let both of them grow together until the harvest.” Do you see the nonviolence of that parable?

The late Dr. Foy Valentine was the long-time Executive Director of the Southern Baptist Christian Life Commission. When he died in January 2006, he was characterized by a Dallas newspaper as “a white Texan who, during the 1960s and ’70s, forced fellow Southern Baptists to confront their denomination’s racist past and move toward integration.” The last time he was here at First Baptist Greenville, two years before he died, Foy told me that during that era, one of the most famous Southern Baptist missionaries of the twentieth century stood up on the floor of the Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting and made a motion that the staff of the Southern Baptist Christian Life Commission be “eliminated.” “Eliminated?” Foy asked. “Terminate my employment, that’s one thing. Fire me, fine. But eliminate me?”

It is not only politicians and partisan pundits who use extreme language that reveals an internal violence of spirit. It happens in the church as well, whenever we fail to put “friendship and understanding” ahead of opposition, whenever we are unwilling to suffer without retaliation, whenever we don’t refuse to hate our opponent, whenever we give up our deep and abiding faith in God’s future regardless of the circumstances of the present.

Now if all that sounds like too big a thing for you and for me to accomplish, take a look at the two short parables that Jesus tells after the parable of weeds. All it takes is a tiny seed, Jesus says, to produce a large tree. All it takes is a pinch of yeast to leaven an entire loaf. That second short parable in Matthew 13:33 suggests to me that proofing the dough, allowing the yeast to ferment, allowing the dough to rise is a too-often ignored metaphor for the kingdom of heaven and the work of the Holy Spirit. If you don’t stop working the dough long enough for the yeast to ferment, you end up with flatbread, not a loaf. And a lot of what we are living these days is flatbread because we are unwilling lighten up and proof the dough, just let it alone and let it rise. Lighten up.

“I’m happy tonight,” King said. “I’m not worried about anything.” Who among us can say that even when we are not surrounded by threats on our life, faced with a premonition of our own death, and surrounded by fractures and competing factions and resistance in the workplace, at home or in school. So this morning, in effort to help us all lighten up on the journey, I’d like you to hear another parable, a contemporary one. It’s the parable of Throwing Paper Airplanes in Church. Becky Ramsey wrote this parable from a real-life experience. Becky wrote. . . .

Don’t tell anyone, but someday when I’m in the building and dressed for it and no one is looking, I just might try it myself, just to lighten up. Just to remind myself that the kingdom of heaven is never so serious that it fails to include children of God of all ages at play under a tree under which Christ's stories are told. King told us that. The kingdom of heaven is where “little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers.”

Congregations such as ours are called to be the leaven in the loaf. We are called to cultivate friendship and understanding even where there is opposition. We are called to set aside the internal violence of the spirit and to refuse to hate. We are called to suffer without retaliation. We are called to sustain a deep faith in the future. That’s the journey we’re on. And every once in a while, it just might require throwing a paper airplane in church and taking the secret slide. So let’s lighten up. Let’s lighten up.

This material is Copyrighted © 2011 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 jeff.rogers@firstbaptistgreenville.com.