From Simple Faith to Living Faith

Moses heard the people weeping and complaining. “If only we had meat to eat.” Frustrated, he complains to God: why do you treat me so badly? Did I conceive all these people? Did I give birth to them. If this is how you plan to treat me, just kill me now. 

So, the Lord said to Moses, gather for me 70 elders of Israel, and the Lord took some of the Spirit that Moses had and put on them, and they prophesied. But two of them, Eldad and Medad, remained in camp, and the spirit was on them as well, and they also prophesied. Joshua Moses’ assistant said, ‘My lord Moses, stop them! Moses said to him,” “Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit on them!” (Numbers 11:4-6,10-16,24-29) 

Jesus had a similar experience: John came to Jesus and told him, “We saw a man casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he is not following us.” Jesus, like Moses, was confronted by the fact that some of his followers seemed to believe they were part of an exclusive club, and others were not allowed to share in that blessing. So, Jesus said to John, “Do not stop him, for anyone who does a deed of power in my name will not soon say evil about me. Whoever is not against us is for us.” (Mark 9:38-50)

Jesus and Moses knew God could and would pour the Spirit upon all God’s children. 

I believe these two stories are reminders to those of us in our day who would limit the Holy Spirit. It is God, who controls the Spirit, and the Spirit goes where it will. These stories witness the work of the Spirit, and recognize the gifts possessed by other Christians and by people of other faiths. 

In 2001 while attending a Conference on Religion and Globalization I met Bishop John Shelby Spong of the Episcopal Diocese of Newark, New Jersey. He was a courageous Bishop willing to be honest about the evolution of his faith, accepting that no religion has all the truth and that every religion possesses part of the truth. He became known as the priest to the “Church alumni Association,” able to speak to the thousands of people who left organized religion but still felt a yearning for the presence of God in their lives. He presented a paper entitled “Getting past your own Dogma to experience the Glory of God.” This presentation changed my life and opened my ministry to all of God’s Children. It also got me into a good bit of trouble, but it was worth it. 

All of us are on a journey with God. On my journey I was looking for a simple faith with all the answers. What I am finding with the help of many mentors: Christian, people of other faiths, and no faith, is a life-giving faith that has more questions than answers, and a joy that I want to share with others.

I leave you with the words of Vietnamese Buddhist Monk Thich Nhat Hanh from his book, “Living Budda, Living Christ.” 

“I do not think there is much difference between Christians and Buddhists. Most of the boundaries we have created between our traditions are artificial. Truth has no boundaries. Our differences may be mostly differences of emphasis. 

You are born in your tradition, and naturally you become a Buddhist or a Christian. Buddhism or Christianity is part of your culture and civilization. You are familiar with your culture and appreciate the good things in it. You may not be aware that in other cultures and civilizations that there are values that people are attached to. If you are open enough, you will understand that your tradition does not contain all truths and values…” (Page 155) 

No single tradition monopolizes the truth. We must glean the best values of all traditions and work together to remove the tensions between traditions in order to give peace a chance.” (page 113) “Understanding and love are values that transcend all dogma.” (page 198) 

Like Moses, we can proclaim, “Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit on them!” (Numbers 11:4-29)

             

 

 

 

 

 

Christ Church Blessings

I have been blessed to spend most of my Sundays over the past ten months at Christ Episcopal Church in Albertville, Alabama. This was definitely not my plan for the past year. As a retired Episcopal Priest and former Rector/Pastor of Christ Church, I enjoy worshiping in this faith community. But I also enjoy spending some Sundays in what I call “Megachurch,” the great outdoors, kayaking and hiking. When our current Rector’s husband had a sever heart attack, spending many months in hospitals and rehabilitation centers, before sadly dying, I knew that my calling was to lead worship at Christ Church as long as necessary. 

My time at Christ Church turned out to be a blessing to me. I was able to preach and teach and worship together with many old friends and to meet the many new people who had come to Christ Church since my retirement. I also got to know more about the amazing ministry to our community that our Rector and the congregation were carrying out in our community. Jesus told his followers that “whatever you do to one of the least of these my brothers or sisters, you did to me. (Matthew 25:40-45) 

And truly the people of Christ Church, new and old, were doing so much in the community it made me proud and joyful. They were feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, caring for orphans and widows, and standing up for those being discriminated against for any reason. 

They feed the hungry once a month through the Beans and Rice ministry, twice a month through the Food Pantry sponsored by Reclaiming our Time. Along with North Broad Street Church of Christ they provide a night out for foster parents by caring for their children once a month so they can spend some adult time together. During the winter months they partner with Iglesia Casa de Fe and Room in the Inn to provide overnight lodging and a hot dinner and breakfast to people with no other place to sleep. 

Christ Church is truly living out the message of the song, “Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world, red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight, Jesus loves the little children of the world. 

The people of Christ Church not only believe, but live Jesus’ First and Great Commandment: Love the Lord your God with all your heart and mind and soul and strength; and love your neighbor as you love yourself. 

Now that our Rector, Mother Shari Harrison is back with us, I look forward to her inspiring sermons and being a part of the continued ministry of “loving and serving our Lord and all of God’s children. 

Thank you, Christ Episcopal Church, for blessing me as much as you bless our community. 

Ben Alford, Rector Emeritus, Christ Episcopal Church, Albertville, Alabama

Who Is My Neighbor?

 

Faith, if it has no works, is Dead. 

As all who live in Albertville and read the Sand Mountain Reporter know, we are a city of immigrants. The past month in this city that we all love, has been one of confusion, misinformation, lack of information, efforts at reconciliation as well as words of anger, hatred and hope. If all goes well, and with conversations, some easy, some difficult, that we have with friends and neighbors, employers, city officials, and all our residents, new and old, we will come out stronger and more Christ like. 

As I have reflected on our city and our current situation, and the scriptures, my thoughts went back to another situation that I hope and believe sheds some light on our current situation. I share this with you now in hopes that it may be a part of the conversation that will guide us to a stronger, happier and holier Albertville. 

In the second chapter of his letter to the churches (James 2:1-17), James the brother of Jesus, gives us some good, but difficult guidance: “If a person with gold rings and in fine clothes comes into your assembly, and if a poor person in dirty clothes also comes in, and if you take notice of the one wearing the fine clothes and say, ‘Have a seat here, please,’ while to the one who is poor you say, ‘Stand there,’ or, ‘Sit at my feet,’ have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts? My brothers and sisters, do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ?” 

I have been blessed over the years to serve churches that not only sing, but believe, “Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world: red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight…” I have seen these churches welcome God’s sons and daughters of all shapes and sizes and races and incomes and beliefs and political persuasions. I have also seen how difficult this can be to live into as we strive to do what Jesus would do. 

James continues, “God has chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him.” I believe James is reminding us that we all have something to learn from one another. He is reminding us that we are to work for justice and peace for all people, rich or poor, and to fight oppression wherever we find it. 

James is reminding us that Christianity is not a Jesus and me kind of religion, but a community joined together by Christ, called to “love our neighbor as ourselves.” 

“What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So, faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.” (James 2:1-17) 

All this sounds good, but how do we live it? I share one such experience with its challenges, failures, and blessings, and invite you to reflect on our own experiences. 

For twelve years, I was the Pastor of St. George’s Episcopal Church in the middle of New Orleans, Louisiana, a city with a tremendous diversity of people. The church is on St. Charles Avenue, a boulevard with mansions under the trees as far as one can see. Four blocks away we enter neighborhoods with much smaller homes and in some cases very poor families inhabiting them. The church is also just a streetcar ride from the French Quarter and therefore easily reached by street people, beggars, and those who dance in bars and sometimes moonlight as prostitutes. 

For several years we had a wonderful midweek book study held in the homes of various members who lived near the church. The studies were open to all, usually involved a light lunch, and were an important and enjoyable part of our life together. And then they were not. Two of our French Quarter members, a man who sold books on the street and his friend, a bar dancer and sometimes prostitute showed up for the study at the home of one of our wonderful uptown ladies. And she truly was a wonderful person. The two “new” people were also wonderful, if somewhat dirty and smelly and, to say the least, different from most of the people in attendance. This woman came to me and said that she did not want these two people in her home. I understood, so we moved the book study to church, which I believed would be an acceptable solution for all. As in so many situations in which theory and even scripture become practice, the simple solution was not as simple as we believed it would be 

The woman quit the church, she truly wanted to host the Book Study in her home, but with restrictions. She later returned, remained a friend, thanks be to God, but it was touchy and ugly for a while. This is what happens when we commit to live a Gospel without favoritism, loving one another as Christ loves us: it is not easy, but worth it. It is what I believe Jesus would do.

 

 

You are no longer Strangers and Aliens, but Members of the Household of God

 Author’s Note: I wrote this on July 15, 2021 during another stressful and challenging time in our country. This appeared in my Memories today and I believe it can be helpful to us in navigating our current situation in the United States. I pray it will be helpful to all of us a we seek God’s will for our nation and the world. Blessings and Peace. 

You are no longer Strangers and Aliens, but Members of the Household of God

 

So, Jesus came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; for through him both of us have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then, you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God.

The title for today’s reflections comes from Ephesians 2:12-22, written by Paul or one of his followers in the 50’s or 60’s A.D. as instructions to both Jews and Gentiles, on how to live together as God’s people, and perhaps even like each other and cease being hostile to one another even though they come from different backgrounds and spiritual traditions. This letter celebrates the author’s vision for the church and how the life, death and resurrection of Jesus brought together a new and unified community. When it was written it expanded the vision of God for both Jews and Gentiles, giving to all a greater understanding of the “bigness of God and of God’s inclusive Kingdom.

I believe we today can learn from this timeless writing how we, like those in Paul’s day, continue to put God in a box, limiting, not God, but ourselves. As we open our boxes and let God be God to us, God will open our hearts to see God’s universal love for “all the Children of the World.”

The more I read the Christian and Jewish Scriptures on which I have been nourished from my youth, the more I realize I am not qualified to determine “who is in and who is out” of God’s kingdom based solely on their religion or lack thereof, or their politics and whether they agree with me or not. I do believe that our allegiance to God comes before our allegiance to country, and that being first a citizen of the Kingdom of God will give us the vision necessary to be a citizen of our country of birth or choice as well as a citizen of the world. Jesus gives us an example of how this might work in the following passage from Mark’s Gospel.

“And the Disciples and Jesus went away in the boat to a deserted place by themselves. Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they hurried there on foot from all the towns and arrived ahead of them. As Jesus went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.

When they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret and moored the boat. As people recognized him, they rushed about that whole region and began to bring the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was. And wherever he went, into villages or cities or farms, they laid the sick in the marketplaces, and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak; and all who touched it were healed.” (Mark 6:30-56)

My prayer for all of us today is that, like Jesus and the early disciples, wherever we go and whatever we do, that all whose lives are touched by us will be healed.

 

 

 

Jesus People and Violence in America

 Time Present and time past

Are both perhaps present in time future,

And time future contained in the past.

                                                         --T.S. Eliot 

Note: This column was first published July 13, 2016, and republished on July 14, 2020. In light of our continuing struggles for Justice and Peace in America, it seems appropriate to republish. This should up on my Facebook Memories this morning, July 14, 2024, 17 hours after former President Trump was attacked at a rally in Pennsylvania. So today, July 14, 2024, I publish for the third time in eight years. I pray that I will not have to publish again on July 14, 2028. May God guide us all to show mercy to one another. 

As a Christian and a Preacher called to proclaim the Good News of the Gospel in good times and bad, the past two weeks have been a challenge. Two Black men, Alton Sterling and Philando Castile were killed by police officers, one in Baton Rouge Louisiana and the other in a Minneapolis suburb. Then before we as a nation could come to grips with these tragedies, five police officers in Dallas, Texas, Brent Thompson, Patrick Zamarripa, Michael Krol, Michael Smith and Lorne Ahrens, were killed by a sniper near the end of a peaceful demonstration by the group “Black Lives Matter.” 

We also know that there were others in America who died violently last week in situations which did not make the national news and which were less politically charged. These losses of life were no less important to the loved ones of those who died. 

How do we who are followers of Jesus, “the wonderful counselor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace,” respond to these actions and the divisions they either cause or point out in our nation? 

I want to begin looking for an answer by looking at the Gospel which was read at Christ Episcopal Church in Albertville, Alabama, and many other churches this past Sunday. 

We read in Luke 10:25-37, that a lawyer stood to test Jesus, and asked him, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” We know the story, Jesus asks him what is written in the law, and he responds, “you shall love the Lord your God, with all your heart, and all your soul, and all your strength and all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” When the lawyer tries to justify himself by asking, “who is my neighbor,” Jesus tells him and the crowd the story of the ‘Good Samaritan.” 

He then asks the man, “who then was the neighbor to the man who fell among thieves?” To this he responds, “the one who showed him mercy.” Jesus then challenges him to “Go and do likewise.” So this is my beginning: as Jesus People, as Christians, we begin with scripture, and we open our hearts to that scripture together. This is not always the starting place for people today. Often, we begin by choosing sides. We either choose the police, or we choose “Black Lives Matter.” I believe Jesus would choose both, just like he chose Samaritans lives matter and lawyers lives matter. 

As many others are doing, I have been watching Dallas, Texas to see if there are lessons we can learn from them. I have seen police and civilians of all races embracing one another and supporting one another. I have read of Sergeant Ed Trevino, a part of the “Heroes, Cops and Kids Community Campaign,” that works to build better relationships between police and civilians by sharing concerns and listening to one another. His advice to all of us: “communicate and make sure you have all facts before deciding who is right and who is wrong.” 

Dallas has strengthened my belief that we are all in this together: police and civilians, black, white, yellow, brown, Christian, Moslem and Jew. If not, we are in deep trouble. As Sergeant Trevino says, “the vast majority of people out there are good people, and we have to band together rather than divide. 

Our world is not simple, there are competing philosophies and ideas, and it is important to hear the words of others and try to understand where they are coming from just as it is for them to hear and try to understand us. Will this be easy? No. Can we with our human wisdom and knowledge alone solve the problems of violence and division? Probably not. But if we build our foundation on the solid rock that is our God and on the foundation of the Prince of Peace, then there is truly hope that we as human beings will find the “peace that passes all understanding.” 

Addendum July 14, 2024: Today as we await more details of the incident in Pennsylvania, I see people jumping to conclusions, looking for someone to blame. I also see many others in leadership calling for patience, calling for love of country and of love of one another. Now is the time to pray for each other and for our Country, to allow law enforcement to find the facts. Now is the time to follow Jesus’ teachings and example. 

May we “love the Lord our God with all our heart and mind and soul and strength, and LOVE OUR NEIGHBOR AS WE LOVE OURSELVES.

Today, I believe Jesus is asking us the same question and giving us the same answer he gave the lawyer: 

“Which one was neighbor to the man who fell among thieves?” “The one who showed him Mercy.” 

May we “Go and do likewise!”

Good News, Bad News, Good News

The Good News about the Episcopal Church is that there’s room for everybody. The bad news about the Episcopal Church is that there’s room for everybody. The Good News of the Gospel is that it can teach us how 2 live with everybody, even if our faith leads us to see the world differently from one another. In the Gospel of Luke 10:1-11, 16-20, we see Jesus send out the seventy disciples two by two throughout the land to invite people into a relationship with God and with one another. He sends them out with these instructions: “the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few, so pray that the Lord will send more laborers into the harvest.” Then Jesus admonishes them to be those laborers, and to “travel light:” “Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals; and greet no one on the road.”

“Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; cure the sick who are there, and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.' But whenever you enter a town and they do not welcome you, say to them, ‘the kingdom of God has come near to you.' Then go out into its streets and say to them, ‘even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off in protest against you.'” So, whether the people welcomed the disciples or not, the Kingdom of God had come near to them.

The following prayer from the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer sums up this Gospel in one small Paragraph. “O God, you have taught us to keep all your commandments by loving you and our neighbor: Grant us the grace of your Holy Spirit, that we may be devoted to you with our whole heart, and united to one another with pure affection. Amen.” 

How can we live out the Gospel and this prayer in a church where there is room for everybody? How do we, the Body of Christ, proclaim this good news in a country where there is so much division, even among those of us who follow Jesus? Answer: refer to the above prayer! 

This a statement not about politics, but about faith, about how the good news of the Gospel of Christ can shape our politics and our relationships. As we look at political actions and relationships, we first remember the words of Jesus that “the Kingdom of God has come very near you. 

Having said that, I want to reflect on politics and on our responses to the many decisions handed down by the Supreme Court over the past two years. Decisions affecting abortion, gun rights, carbon emissions, immigration and presidential immunity among others. The reactions by the citizens of our country and the members of our religious communities have been quick and emotional and diverse. Many people have been thrilled and excited and joyful. Others have been disappointed, angry, hurt and heart broken. Many of the people on all sides of these important issues are people of faith, who have made their decisions based on their faith and their life experiences, just as you and I have come to our decisions based on our own faith and life experiences. Many on all sides are members of your faith community.

This piece is not about who is right and who is wrong about any of these decisions, even though I have my opinions about that and I will work faithfully towards those ends. No, this piece is about how we as people of faith relate to God and to one another. So, I do not leave you with answers to difficult questions at this point, I leave with a prayer that I hope and pray will lead us into right relationship with God and one another in our churches, our country and in a world where “there is room for everybody.”

“O God, you have taught us to keep all your commandments by loving you and our neighbor: Grant us the grace of your Holy Spirit, that we may be devoted to you with our whole heart, and united to one another with pure affection. Amen.”

Yes, “the Kingdom of God has come very near to us!”

 

           

 

 

 

“All You Need Is Love”

 Since human speech developed poets, prophets, preachers, and performers have been talking, singing, and proclaiming love. In the 1960’s: “All you need is love, Love is all you need;” “I love him, I love him & where he goes I’ll follow, I will follow him.” 

Even the Bible: Micah: “do Justice, love mercy, walk humbly with your God;” Jesus: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.”

 About 100 A.D. a teacher from the Johannine School wrote his first letter which includes the following verses.

 “Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.

 

God's love was revealed among us in this way. God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.

 

Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us….

 

…. God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world.

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do    with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love.

We love because he first loved us. Thos who say, "‘I love God,’ and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen

 

Th commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love

their brothers and sisters also. (John 4:7-21)

SO, who are my brothers and sisters? Who is my neighbor? The following story will help answer these questions.

 In the late 1960’s, one of my Mentors, the Rev. Bob Gilbert, a Methodist Circuit Rider in the mountains of East Tennessee, was invited to preach at a Ku Klux Klan Rally. He accepted the invitation because he believed God had called him to do this. His wife, Dot, on the other hand thought he had lost his mind.

 Bob met a group of people at the mountain church he pastored and was blindfolded and carried by car to the dirt path that led to the rally site. The blindfold was removed as the cross was lit and he was introduced as the chaplain for the evening. Bob began to tell a modified version of “the Good Samaritan Story.” In Bob’s version a Black Man was driving from Knoxville to Chattanooga when his car slid off the road breaking the front axle. A Baptist minister and a Methodist minister both passed by without stopping, on their way to win souls for Jesus. Finally, Bob said, “a Klansman on his way to this very rally stopped, bandaged the man and flagged down a tow truck.

 At this point all the Klansmen began booing and calling Bob names. Bob shouted, “Quiet, how dare you interrupt the Word of God when it is being preached!” He then completed his story, the Klansmen extinguished the fire, blindfolded Bob, and left him in the forest by himself. Bob removed the blindfold and slowly found his way to the paved road where a church member sitting in a pickup truck offered him a ride back to the church and his car.

 So, in the eyes of Jesus, who is my neighbor? Or, as Blues and Rock legend Bo Diddley wrote in his 1956 song of the same name, “WHO DO YOU LOVE!!”