Sharing Happiness at the Happiest Place on Earth

Our daughter Sara, who recently finished her degree requirements at Mercer University, is an intern at Walt Disney World in Orlando. Here she is making a happy little girl even happier by trading pins with her.

It's a magical life.

Conversions

Dear Readers,

After much thought and contemplation, I must make four important announcements today.

First, I have transferred my baseball allegiance from the Atlanta Braves to the New York Yankees. I can no longer resist the Dark Side; I'm just not as strong as Luke Skywalker.

Second, I have given up on the Georgia Bulldogs football team and am ready to pledge my devotion to the mighty Florida Gators. Maybe it's because Fitzgerald looks like a swamp these days due to our heavy rains, but I have decided that it is indeed great to be a Florida Gator.

Third,I have decided to stop resisting the All-American urge to embrace and adore celebrity and exhibitionism and thus I am going to replace my previous pledge never to watch "reality" television with a new pledge to watch every "reality" program that I can, even if I have to DVR them.

Fourth, I have concluded that I should turn in my Baptist ministerial credentials so that I can embrace and seek a ministerial role in another, more interesting tradition; I have not decided between Hasidic Judaism, Rastafarianism, Scientology, and Dawkinsian Atheism.

Your fellow traveler,

Michael Ruffin

P.S. Please note the date on which this was posted before sending threatening emails.

A Dog, a Man, and a Well

My Uncle Jack, my late father’s oldest brother, died last year, and as my Uncle Johnny, my father’s youngest brother and his wife Joan went through Uncle Jack’s things they came across a newspaper clipping that had been torn from the Barnesville (GA) News Gazette sometime in the early 1950s, a story that confirmed the historicity of a story that I had heard several times during my growing up years, which commenced a few years later. Here is the story as it appeared in the newspaper:

Firemen Recover Dog and Rescuer From Empty Well

BARNESVILLE, Ga. Nov. 11—Barnesville firemen have been called upon for various duties, but this week the oddest job of their lives needed doing.

Champ Ruffin, who lives in a garage apartment on Atlanta Street, was doing the Good Samaritan act and hunting a little lost dog for a neighbor Saturday night. Champ didn’t see an old abandoned well—the same one the dog didn’t see—and he fell in, practically on top of the pooch.

Fire Chief Milton Roquemore rounded up Gus Hickman, answered frantic appeals from the Ruffin family, and took along a tall ladder. They lowered the ladder into the well and in a few minutes up came man and dog.

Neither was hurt.

Yep, that was my good father.

The newspaper artifact is now in my possession, thanks to my good aunt and uncle, and it resides in a frame in our home study, thanks to my good wife.

It's a good story that prompts good memories of a good man who lived a good life.

A Prayer

We had torrential rains in Fitzgerald yesterday. Our guest speaker this morning was Dr. Bill Hammond, a medical doctor and member of our church who has recently been declared cancer-free after a grueling three-year battle with pancreatic cancer; he is still undergoing chemotherapy.

This is the morning prayer that I prayed:

O God,

After the storm, the quiet.
After the chaos, the peace.
After the deluge, the calm.

It is that way with the weather; it is that way with us.

We praise you because after the storm, after the chaos, after the deluge—there is this day: a day of beauty, a day of blue sky, a day of green grass, a day of clean air.

We praise you because after the storm, the chaos, the deluge in our lives—there is so often the day of beauty, of health, of vitality, indeed, the day of new life.

But Lord, there are those for whom the storm, the chaos, and the deluge of the weather are having a deep and lasting impact. They need your help—they need our help.

And Lord, there are those for whom the storm, the chaos, and the deluge of their lives are still raging and may keep raging until the end—for them (and for some of us), Lord, we ask for new life as well; we ask for grace and peace and mercy and joy and love that they will know just as surely as they would had the storm passed them by.

In the name of Jesus who calmed the sea and who defeated death we pray,

Amen.

On the Road to the Cross: Blinking in the Light

(A sermon based on John 3:14-21 for the Fourth Sunday in Lent)

[Image: Visit of Nicodemus to Christ, John La Farge, 1880]


My promising baseball career ended after my one season in Babe Ruth (ages 13-15) ball, mainly because I decided that I’d rather work after school and on Saturdays at a local grocery store so that I could save money to buy a car, which I did. I had already, though, during that season been confronted with a problematic limitation that made me wonder about my future in the game.

It was a bright and sunny Saturday afternoon and that was the problem. I was one of the youngest players on the team and I didn’t play much, but on that particular afternoon the coach decided to play me in left field and another reserve player in right field. During warm-ups I realized that I had a problem. So I went to one of the coaches and said, “I really think it would be best if you switched Frank and me—left field is the sun field and I don’t think I can handle it.” They made no change. And sure enough, in the top of the first inning, a batter hit a long drive into left field and, when I looked up, all I saw was the sun. Friends, that was thirty-seven years ago and I haven’t seen that ball yet!

Everybody is sensitive to the light but I was hyper-sensitive. When I looked up into that blazing sun, my impulse was to screw my eyes shut or to turn my back on the offending sun. The light revealed one of my shortcomings, which was that I couldn’t stand the light—and so I missed the ball.

Everybody has some sensitivity to the light; the question is, how sensitive to the light are you?

Jesus said, according to the Gospel of John, “I am the Light of the World.” In this morning’s text, John says, “This is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God” (vv. 19-21).

Now, we should remember that John offered those words as part of his follow-up to the encounter between Jesus and Nicodemus. Nicodemus, a Pharisee and a leader of the Jews (3:1), had come to Jesus “by night” (3:2), which in John’s symbolic world indicates that he was at least potentially on the move from the darkness into the light. Haltingly, probingly, Nicodemus approached Jesus with a question, a question that indicated some openness, some hope—and some hesitation.

In other words, as Nicodemus came toward the light, he was blinking already. What was he to make of this Jesus? You know how sometimes a person’s eyes will blink when she is nervous or anxious—that’s the kind of blinking that I imagine Nicodemus doing as he first came to Jesus. He wanted to approach Jesus—he did approach Jesus—but as he did the light made him blink in nervousness, because he knew that this Jesus just might be the real deal and he knew that meeting this Jesus just might make the difference for him but he also knew that the implications for his life were staggering.

What was there in this light, in this Jesus, that drew him to Jesus? What was there in him that drew him to this light, to this Jesus? What in his life made it necessary for him to go to Jesus? What was there in his life that kept him from coming whole-heartedly to Jesus?

After Nicodemus asked his question Jesus answered him with words about being born again or born from above and with more words about the Spirit acting like the wind in that it goes where it will and does what it will all of which led Nicodemus to exclaim, “How can these things be?” (3:9). He’s blinking again, isn’t he? But this time he’s blinking in confusion and consternation because you know how it is with us—we like to be in control or at least to think we’re in control and there was Nicodemus, a smart and important and powerful man, listening to this beguiling rabbi say some very confusing things but things that sure seemed to imply that if he or anyone else was going to be in the kingdom of God it was going to have to be God’s doing and that God’s doing was from beyond Nicodemus and was mysterious and was gracious. That’s what the light of Jesus revealed—and it’s no surprise that Nicodemus blinked.

We blink in consternation and confusion when we realize that a situation is out of our hands, when the light shines on us in such a way that we see ourselves in a situation out of which there is no way unless somebody rescues us and when the light shines on us in such a way that we understand that we can’t understand. It takes quite an adjustment, doesn’t it, when you come out of darkness into light? Perhaps we can imagine Nicodemus now blinking as he tries desperately to adjust to the bright light of Jesus—how much can he stand to let in? How much can we stand to let in?

And that’s when Jesus dared Nicodemus and everybody else who was standing around and everyone who has heard his words ever since to look directly into the light: “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believes in him may have eternal life” (vv. 14-15). The reference is to a story in Numbers 11 in which, because of the people’s sin, God sent serpents into the camp to bite them and then Moses made a bronze serpent and placed it on a pole so that, when those who had bitten looked upon it, they would be healed. Jesus draws two comparisons in this saying; the first comparison is between the lifting up of the serpent and the lifting up of the Son of Man while the second more implicit comparison is between the effect of looking upon the serpent (the stricken are healed) and the effect of looking upon the crucified Son of man (the dying receive eternal life).

“If you’ll look at the crucified Son of man—if you’ll see him and believe in him—then you will have the life with God that God wants you to have,” Jesus was in effect saying to Nicodemus and the others who were listening and so he is saying to us.

Looking into that light is hard and when we do it we will blink again—but now we may blink in wonder and amazement or we may blink in denial and stubbornness.

We might blink in wonder and amazement because we are so astounded that such grace and love and mercy, grace and love and mercy that down deep we just knew had to exist, are available to us. We might blink in wonder and amazement because that hope for life with God that had been a flickering ember within us bursts into a wondrous flame. We might blink in wonder and amazement because we have craved forgiveness and in Christ on the cross we see that we can be forgiven.

But still—we may also blink in fear and anxiety and confusion and consternation because, well, even though we are so gratified to see Christ on the cross and even though something clicks in us that says “Yes!” there are still those things that we’ve done or that doubt that we feel or that pride that we have. It’s ok—a little doubtful and fearful and hesitant blinking is always going to be the case for us; we can’t let that stop us from coming to the light.

But we also might blink in denial or stubbornness. We may not like what the light reveals about salvation—that it is free and gracious and not something that we can earn—and such light might probe into the nooks and crannies where our pride is hiding. We may not like what the light reveals about us—that we are sinners who do sinful things—and such light might focus on our failings and our flaws in such a way that causes us to get our backs up and cause us to say, “Who does this Jesus think he is? I’m no worse than anyone else. I can take care of my own problems my own way. Who needs this?” And so we can turn away from the light, our eyes screwed up and our hearts shut down.

But still—if you’ll just turn around and look again, if you’ll just let yourself blink—we all know how hard, maybe how impossible, it is to look at such light straight on—then the light just might still get into your life so that you will see that God does in fact love you and that God did in fact give God’s only Son for you and that if you will come to the light—albeit blinkingly and haltingly—you will find grace and forgiveness and life.

So come to the light—blinking all the way!

Why the Pope is Right—and Wrong

Pope Benedict XVI, while flying to Africa earlier this week, criticized the distribution of condoms as a way of combating the spread of HIV/AIDS.

According to France24.com, the Pope said that AIDS "is a tragedy that cannot be overcome by money alone, that cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which even aggravates the problems" and that the answer to the AIDS epidemic is to be found in a "spiritual and human awakening" and "friendship for those who suffer."

While a serious matter the world over, AIDS is an especially pertinent issue in Africa. The International AIDS charity Avert estimates that of the 33 million people living with HIV/AIDS worldwide, 22 million of them live in sub-Saharan Africa; they further estimate that 5% of adults age 15-49 in sub-Saharan Africa have HIV/AIDS.

Pope Benedict is correct in his assertion that the best solution to the AIDS epidemic is sexual abstinence before marriage and fidelity in marriage. It’s a no-brainer, really: if everybody would remain celibate before they marry and if everyone would have sex with no one but their marital partner after marriage and if everyone who never marries would never have sexual relations, then the risk of contracting HIV/AIDS or any other sexually transmitted disease would be greatly reduced (you still can’t say that the risk would be eliminated because for a few generations we would have to be concerned about those young people who have HIV/AIDS because it was passed to them by their mother and the possibility that they would pass it to a spouse, even if neither they nor the spouse had ever had sex before marriage.)

The Pontiff is also absolutely right to maintain that at the heart of the AIDS crisis is a spiritual crisis, just as he would be absolutely right if he said that a spiritual crisis lay at the heart of so many moral crises or health crises—alcohol and drug abuse or obesity or our current economic turmoil, for example, at the heart of which are such spiritual problems as emptiness, meaninglessness, anxiety, fear, pride, and greed.

So Pope Benedict is correct to say that the AIDS crisis “cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms” and that the best solution would be a spiritual and moral revival that would cause people to live lives of devotion and fidelity to God and to one another so that they would abstain from pre-marital and extra-marital sex. I believe that such living, when motivated by love, grace, and compassion is the healthiest and happiest way to live.

But Pope Benedict is also wrong. He is wrong to oppose the use of condoms to help prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS and he is wrong to assert that the promotion of condom use is not a necessary part of the solution in waging the war against HIV/AIDS and other STDs. He is wrong because he is not taking reality into account and, so far as I am concerned, taking reality into account is key to dealing with large-scale moral and spiritual issues.

And the reality is that people are going to have sex and the further reality is that some people are going to have sex before marriage and outside of marriage. Now, hear me clearly: it is wrong and they should not. My point is just that such behavior goes back at least to the book of Genesis and it’s just not going to go away.

I do and will preach from my pulpit that God’s way for us is that we wait for marriage to have sex and that is God’s way for us that we be faithful to our marital partner. I do and will preach that sex is meant to be more than sex; it is meant to be making love and making love, which involves the union of body, spirit, mind—indeed, the union of life—is best experienced by a man and woman who are totally committed to each other for life and whose mutual commitment is based in self-giving, sacrificial love.

But there is sin. There are people. This ain’t Mayberry. We believe and live and preach the ideal but we accept and work within the reality.

I’ll never forget the lovely afternoon when, sitting under a tree in our front yard in Nashville, Tennessee, I had “the talk” with our son. I halfway expected us to act out the old joke—Father: “Son, I need to talk with you about sex”; Son: “OK, Dad, what do you want to know?”—but we didn’t. We had a good conversation and I advised him according to best wisdom that I could muster. “Son,” I said, “The best way to live is to wait until you get married to have sex; that’s the best way to live spiritually, emotionally, and physically. It is God’s way and it really is the best way.” Then I drew a very deep breath and I said, “But Son, you may not do that. And if you don’t, I want you to protect yourself and the other person. I want you to do what’s best but if you choose not to do so, I don’t want you fathering a child or contracting a disease.” And I went on to tell him what I thought I needed to tell him.

I think that Pope Benedict’s position is a necessary one for him to take because the acceptance of condom use as a disease preventative would imply the acceptance of condom use, period, and of course another purpose of condoms is to prevent pregnancy. As is well known, the official position of the Roman Catholic Church, as stated in Pope Paul VI’s encyclical letter Humanae Vitae (1968) is,”Similarly excluded is any action which either before, at the moment of, or after sexual intercourse, is specifically intended to prevent procreation—whether as an end or as a means.” So no artificial birth control is sanctioned by the Catholic Church, although it has been reported that the vast majority of American Catholics support a change in that policy.

Still, it seems to me that the Pope’s “pro-life” position may in fact be an “anti-life” position. Is it really more important not to interfere artificially with conception than it is to protect lives that already exist?

So Pope Benedict is right to take the high spiritual and moral ground.

But he is wrong not to see that the use of condoms to inhibit the spread of disease may also be a sound moral position to take.

Dodging the Dagger on the Ides of March

Rather than the traditional children's sermon, here at the First Baptist Church of Fitzgerald we have something called the Happy Club which features the Happy Sack. This practice was instigated by the esteemed Interim Pastor who was my predecessor, Dr. Ches Smith, a legendary South Georgia pastor and a fine minister and gentleman.

I have chosen to try to continue the tradition. We'll see.

It works like this. At an appointed time in the service, the Happy Club members, i.e. the older preschoolers and younger children, come down to the front, one of them bearing the Happy Sack, which he or she received the previous week and in which he or she has placed an object upon which the only limitations placed are these: (1) It cannot be alive and (2) It cannot have ever been alive. I then pull the object out of the sack and have to come up with an object lesson on the spot.

On the plus side, I don't have to prepare a children's message and the exercise gives the children a personal investment in the experience.

On the minus side, I don't have a prepared children's message and I never know exactly what the children have deposited in the sack.

Today, a boy named Taylor handed me the sack and I reached inside it to pull out not one but two objects: a pair of toy binoculars and a plastic dagger.

Today is March 15th. Someone had earlier reminded me that March 15th is the Ides of March. When I saw that plastic dagger all I could think of was the stabbing of Julius Caesar.

And so I heard myself saying that many years ago, even before the children's grandparents were born, a king named Julius Caesar was assassinated--which I explained meant that he was killed--by a group of men who didn't want him to be king anymore, which I said, would not have been terribly surprising to Caesar but I also said that he was surprised--and disappointed--that his friend Brutus was involved, surprise and disappointment which provoked that famous statment, "Et tu, Brute?" which loosely translated means, "With friends like you, who needs enemies?"

I went on to say that our friends count on us and that we should be faithful to our friends; we should not do harm to them but should rather do good to them. I pointed out that Jesus said that people can have no greater love than to lay down their lives for their friends.

I told them that I didn't know how to relate the binoculars to what I was talking about, except to say that maybe if Caesar had been in possession of a pair he might have seen his killers coming and avoided the whole scene.

But I hereby confess that while Julius Caesar could not dodge those daggers on that Ides of March, I did dodge a bullet on this one.

When I pulled that dagger and those binoculars out of that sack, the first thought that came to my mind and that almost came out of my mouth was, "You'd better watch out so your friends don't stab you in the back."

Had I said that, the Happy Sack might now be as dead as Caesar!