Our Values, the Boy Scouts of America, and a President

An Essay by the Reverend Ben Alford

(Note from the writer: although this essay was inspired by my reaction to the President’s Speech to the Boy Scout Jamboree and I refer to the President and the Boy Scouts briefly, the essay is about you, me and how our values are formed.)

I have been thinking a lot about values lately: how we form them, where they come from and why they are important for survival, our survival as individuals and nations. I began to reflect on these things as I watched The President of the United States address over 45,000 scouts and leaders at the National Boy Scout Jamboree.  Any speech to a group composed mostly of boys 12 to 15 years old that begins, “Who the hell wants to talk about politics when I can be with the Boy Scouts of America,” cannot end well, and it did not. I have written about the speech elsewhere, all 38 minutes of it, so I have nothing to add here other than, “in my opinion it was extremely inappropriate and an abuse of presidential power.”

What I want to write about is how we as individuals and society acquire our values and how our values change the world, for better or for worse. I will explore the search for meaning through my own life’s journey and how my values where formed and how they have formed me. As you walk with me on my journey, I hope you will get excited about looking again at your own journey. This has been an exciting, frustrating and enlightening three days as I have looked again at the forces which have shaped me into who I am. So, put on your mental hiking shoes and your imagination and join me.

The primary forces and sources that have shaped me and allowed me to grow as a human being are my parents, the Christian Church, the Boy Scouts of America, Civitan International, the people who have been a part of my life, and last, but not least, lots of time spent in the great outdoors, much of it alone. As I look at each of these groups I will outline their teachings, oaths, creeds and missions that have changed my life and by which I live. I guess this negative experience of the President and the BSA has had the positive effect of turning my thoughts inward so that my life can move outward.

As for all of us, my first teachers, by word and example, were my parents. Bennett and Eunice Alford gave me life, loved me, fed me, cleaned me up, introduced me to a larger family and took me to church. They did a good job, not a perfect job, as they were human, but their love held all things together, as St. Paul reminds us in Colossians. I remember the simple things, like trusting Daddy enough to fall back blindfolded into his arms, knowing he would catch me, and of after school Fig Newtons and milk with Mama, talking and talking and talking. Mama took me to church on Sunday Evenings and Daddy was my Scoutmaster. They also gave me, for better or worse, three younger brothers and all the lessons that come with siblings.

In the church we learned the Golden Rule, the First and Great Commandment, the Beatitudes, both Matthew’s and Luke’s versions and later the Creeds and the Baptismal Covenant.

The Golden Rule: “In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets.” (Matthew 7:12) 

The First and Greatest Commandment:

When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. ‘Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?’ He said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. (Matthew 22:34-40)

The Beatitudes (Matthew’s Version)

 

When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:

 ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

 ‘Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

 ‘Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

 ‘Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

 ‘Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.

 ‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

 ‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

 ‘Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

 ‘Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. (Matthew 5:1-12)

 

Blessings and Woes (Luke’s Beatitudes)

 

 Then he looked up at his disciples and said:
‘Blessed are you who are poor,
   for yours is the kingdom of God.
‘Blessed are you who are hungry now,
   for you will be filled.
‘Blessed are you who weep now,
   for you will laugh.

 ‘Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man .(Luke 6:20-22)

 

Note that when we put the two versions side by side, we see that Jesus seems to care about our physical, earthly needs as well as heavenly needs. This was an important lesson for me to learn, altering the way I look at the world.

 

The Baptismal Covenant

Will you continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, the breaking of bread and the prayers?  I will with God’s help

Will you persevere in resisting evil, and, whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord? I will with God’s help.

Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ? I will with God’s help.

Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?

I will with God’s help.

Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being? I Will with God’s help.

The message and the values I have gained from these proclamations of faith over almost 70 years of worship and study and life are: that God loves us and created us to love one another, friends and enemies alike, and to love ourselves; that we are to look for Christ in all persons created by God, showing our love in our actions as well as our words. One of the most important values and most difficult for me to fulfill is to strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being? We truly are called by God to be instruments of God’s peace, as we learn in the Prayer of St. Francis.

Perhaps one of the most important aspects of being part of a religious community is that we consciously join together in worship and service with all sorts and conditions of people: old and young; conservative and liberal; red and yellow, black and white, and people of every nation, faith and creed. My faith and its values have shaped my values as I do my best to relate to all people as God’s children. These relationships also allow me, or perhaps force me to look at the world through their eyes as well as my own.

As I followed my father’s footsteps into the Boy Scouts, the values I learned based on the Scout Oath and Law supplemented and built on what I had learned and continue to learn in church and family to this day.

The Scout Oath

On my honor, I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country and obey the Scout Law; to help other people at all times; to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight.

To always do the best of which I am capable, to do my duty to my country, while always putting duty to God higher than even my duty to my country. At times duty to both God and country can be difficult because standing up for God’s people who may be mistreated or persecuted by some of the laws of our nation can put God and Country into conflict. Jesus is the greatest example of this, standing up against the mistreatment of God’s people by the Religious and Civil authorities. This cost him his life, but he did it anyway because it was the mission God sent him into the world to carry out and his duty to God was more important than his duty to his country or even to his religious institution.

       The Scout Law

A Scout Is: Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful, Friendly, Courteous, Kind, Obedient, Cheerful, Thrifty, Brave, Clean, and Reverent.

Like the Baptismal Covenant of the Episcopal Church, some of the 12 points of the Scout Law can be difficult to accomplish or keep, but like the First and Great Commandment of Jesus, they state values that if followed, even if we sometimes fail, will change our lives and the lives of all those around us. There is always the fear, and sometimes the realty, that if we live by these values, that less scrupulous people will take advantage of us and even try to destroy us as they did Jesus. Just as Jesus’ life and values changed the world, even though he appeared to have lost the battle, we see in his resurrection the spread of the values for which he lived, died and rose again. All who share his values of love, justice and peace will have the same impact on the world as He did, even if we, at times, suffer some of the same persecutions he suffered

.

Civitan International, a civic group founded in Birmingham, Alabama in 1917 and dedicated to “Service above Self” is one more major force in the formation of my life and values. My connection with this organization goes back to the 1920’s when my Grandfather Alford joined the Albertville Civitan Club. He was later followed into the club by my father and after that my Uncle Bill became a Civitan as well. Boy Scout Troop 71 (now 4071) of which I was a member and my father Scoutmaster was and continues to be sponsored by the Albertville Civitan Club. In fact, the Troop is the longest continuously Civitan Sponsored Boy Scout Troop in the United States. My life has been personally touched and changed by Civitan through family and personal experience as a Boy Scout in a Civitan Sponsored Scout Troop.

My Civitan connection continued as a Junior Civitan at Albertville High School, and I first became an Adult Civitan in Montgomery, Alabama in 1983. In 2010 I became a charter member of The Greater Wetumpka Civitan Club and over the years served as Chaplain, Board Member, President-elect and President. When my wife and I moved to Albertville, Alabama in 2016 we both joined the Albertville Civitan Club, thus bringing me back to my Civitan roots established by my grandfather, and by Boy Scout Troop 71.  I share now the Civitan Creed which weaves in and out with the teachings of Jesus, Holy Scripture and the Boy Scout Oath and Law.

The CIVITAN CREED

Our Creed is unique among service clubs, being the most completely developed ethical statement set forth for a service club and serving as a challenge to every Civitan. Originally written in 1922 by Champ Andrews of the Chattanooga, Tennessee, Civitan Club, it has been modified over the years, most recently in 1984.

It reads as follows:

I AM CIVITAN as old as life, as young as the rainbow, as endless as time.
MY HANDS do the work of the world and reach out in service to others.
MY EARS hear the cry of children and the call throughout the world for peace, guidance,

                  progress and unity.
MY EYES search for others to join in the fellowship and service of Civitan
MY MOUTH utters the call to daily duty and speaks prayers in every tongue
MY MIND teaches me respect for law and the flag of my country
MY HEART beats for every friend, bleeds for every injury to humanity and throbs with joy at

                    every triumph of truth.
MY SOUL knows no fear but its own unworthiness
MY HOPE is for a better world through Civitan
MY MOTTO builders of good citizenship
MY BELIEF do unto others as you would have them do unto you
MY PLEDGE to practice the Golden Rule and to build upon it a better and nobler citizenship.

The Creeds and Covenants and practices of family, faith, friendship and fellowship form a tapestry made of threads of different textures and colors. The tapestry becomes a rich picture of a foundation for life built not on sand, as Jesus said, but on a rock, so that when the winds come and the rain pours, the house will stand, it will keep us warm and dry and will be a place of refreshment and peace from which we go into the world rejoicing in the power of the Holy Spirit to seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbor as ourselves, and striving for justice and peace among all people and respecting the dignity of every human being. What an exciting journey to be on. Glad you are on it with me.

Change, an Invitation to Life: Surely the Lord is in This Place

Change, an Invitation to Life: Surely the Lord is in This Place: I love the story found in Genesis 28:10-19 of Jacob’s ladder, of Jacob’s dream, of God’s presence with Jacob, with us, whether we know ...

Surely the Lord is in This Place

I love the story found in Genesis 28:10-19 of Jacob’s ladder, of Jacob’s dream, of God’s presence with Jacob, with us, whether we know it or not. To summarize, Jacob is travelling through the desert on what turns out to be a “vision quest,” when he finds a campsite and settles in for the night. He finds a comfortable stone and puts under his head for a pillow and settles in for the night.

And then the fun begins. Jacob dreams. He dreams that there is a ladder reaching from the earth on which he lays to heaven, and that the angels of God are ascending and descending: from earth to heaven and from heaven to earth. And then God is standing beside him and speaks. “I am the Lord, God of Abraham your father and Isaac, and the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring.” And, by the way, “all the families of the Earth will be blessed in you and your offspring.” Just for a moment, put yourself in Jacob’s place and imagine your reaction had this vision, this dream come to you.

The dream continues, the conversation with God then continues with a promise, as these conversations often do. “Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land.” And then comes God’s ultimate promise to Jacob, and really, to us as well: “for I will not leave you until I have done what I promised you.” “Then Jacob woke from his sleep and said, ‘surely the Lord is in this place and I did not know it. This is the house of God, the gate of heaven.’

“Surely the Lord is in this Place!” This is God’s message to us today as well. And, like Jacob, we often to not know it, we often do not recognize God’s presence, even though we have spent most of our lives looking for God: at least most of our lives, off and on, looking for God. Often on our journey we give up, we doubt, we tire, and if we are lucky or blessed or both, we try again.

Also, like Jacob, we find that God was always here, wherever here is! Remember the account of Jesus’ resurrection in Mark 16:6? The women arrive at to grave to find the stone rolled away, Jesus missing and a young man sitting there. He says to them, “Do not be alarmed, you look for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised, he is not here. Look at the place they laid him. But go, tell the disciples and Peter, he is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.”

So, wherever your there is, wherever your Galilee is, God will be in that place. And he will be there ahead of you. So that place where you and I go, where we are, will be, as it was for Jacob, the House of God, the Gate of Heaven. And, if we live in the house of God, if we live at the Gate of heaven, it is important for us to remember two things: “Thy kingdom come, they will be done, on Earth as it is in heaven.” And, “God will not leave us until he has done what he promised us.”

And what has God promise us? He has promised us abundant life, to be with us always, to give us the words to say when we are brought up before councils (when we live as Jesus calls us to live). And last but certainly not least, “that all the families of the Earth will be blessed through us and our offspring.”

Knowing this, then how shall we live? We live by loving the Lord our God with all our heart and soul and mind and strength and loving our neighbor as ourselves. We live by feeding the hungry, clothing the naked and welcoming the stranger. We live like Jesus lived.

Surely the presence of the Lord is in this place.
I can feel His mighty power and His grace.
I can hear the brush of angel's wings,
I see glory on each face.
Surely the presence of the Lord is in this place.

(Song by Lanny Wolfe, 1977)

Good Soil/Bad Soil: Hearing and Living the Word of God

Most of us are familiar with Jesus’ parable of the farmer sowing seeds, which is found in Matthew 13. A farmer scatters the seeds over his whole property and some fall on the path, some on rocky ground, some among thorns, and yes, some of the seeds fall upon good soil. The twelve Disciples who are with him don’t understand his message so when they are alone they ask him to explain.

Jesus patiently explains the meaning of what he had hoped they might understand:

When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what is sown in the heart; this is what was sown on the path. As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet such a person has no root, but endures only for a while, and when trouble or persecution arises on account of the word, that person immediately falls away. As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the lure of wealth choke the word, and it yields nothing. But as for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty. (Matthew 13:18-23)

The bad soils are the temptations that lead us astray, the things that are more important to us than the word of the Kingdom, the things that suck the life out of us. These are the things that make wealth, power, principalities more important to us than the Word of God, than the Kingdom of God, that make it tempting to ignore evil. It is often easier and safer to go along to get along, to avoid rocking the boat.

In this way we avoid the pain and persecution that often come to us when we do what is right. All we have to do is look at Jesus and his life to see what can happen to one who puts God above all else. Years ago, when I was going through a conflict with some very important people in a church in another state and, feeling persecuted, I complained to my wife. In her wisdom, and trying to help, she replied, “just remember what they did to Jesus. My response to her was, “that’s not helpful.” Not helpful, but true, and we do our best to follow Jesus, no matter what.

Those who are like good soil, Jesus says, “receive the seed and it grows.” They follow Jesus, no matter what! And they often pay a high price. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was hanged in a German prison when he was 39 years old for fighting against the oppression and evil of Hitler and the Nazis; Martin Luther King, Jr. stood up the systemic racial oppression in the United States and was accused of being a communist, thrown in jail, and later assassinated when he was 39 years old. There are many others throughout the world, in cities, towns and villages who have followed the Master and paid a price in prestige, persecution and sometimes even death. And yet they did it anyway—no matter what!

If we choose to follow their example, if we choose to follow Jesus, how do we become good soil? We do as they did.  We do as Jesus teaches us: We continue in the apostles teaching and fellowship, the breaking of bread and the prayers. We seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbor as our selves, and we strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being. (Book of Common Prayer, p. 305-305)

No Matter What!

Becoming good soil also means that we strive to have friends who will be honest with us, who will tell us what we need to hear and not what we want to hear. We learn to talk with and respect people with whom we disagree and we learn not to dismiss those of different denominations, religions or political persuasions as sinners, evil, stupid or liars. It will not be easy, but being like good soil, following Jesus, never is, it’s just worth it.

We are called to be like Jesus, even if they do to us what they did to Him.

God has called us to be Good soil, to hear the Word and to understand it, to “bear fruit and yield one hundred fold, sixty fold and thirty fold.

Change, an Invitation to Life: Abraham on Trial, a Text of Terror

Change, an Invitation to Life: Abraham on Trial, a Text of Terror: I borrowed the title for this column from a friend of mine, The Rev. Evan Garner, who shared a story on his blog about an opera by the ...

Abraham on Trial, a Text of Terror

I borrowed the title for this column from a friend of mine, The Rev. Evan Garner, who shared a story on his blog about an opera by the Title, “Abraham on Trial.” Evan tells of having seen this opera in Cambridge, England when he was a seminary student there. Apparently he was not impressed by the singing or scenery, but shared that the story influenced him profoundly. The opera compares Abraham’s call from God to sacrifice Isaac as a burnt offering to God, with a modern father who truly believes God has called him to kill his own son. Evan shared that “the only meaningful difference between the two murderous attempts was the lens through which the modern day believer judges the actions of the parents. We praise the faithfulness of Abraham and we condemn the lunacy of his contemporary analogue. Why? Because the Bible is the lens and the Bible says so.”

So, let’s look at what the Bible says in Genesis 22:1-14. “God tested Abraham and said, Abraham. And Abraham responded, ‘here I am.’ Then God tells Abraham to ‘take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go and offer him there as a burnt offering.’”

As Abraham and Isaac are climbing the mountain, Isaac calls out to his father who answers, “here I am.” Do you notice a pattern? Isaac continues, “we have the wood and the fire, but, where is the lamb? Abraham responded, “God will provide a lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” Abraham builds the altar and lays the wood for the fire and then binds Isaac and puts him on the altar. As he raises the knife to kill him, the Angel of the Lord stops him and says, “do not lay a hand on the boy or do anything to him. Now I know you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son from me”. Most of us know the rest of the story: Abraham looks up, sees a ram caught in the brush and sacrifices him instead of Isaac.

So the story ends well, but I have to ask: how many of you gasped or had knots in your stomach or were very angry when you read that Abraham was about to kill his son, on God’s command? I have to admit that every time I hear or read this story, my stomach is tied in knots and I almost become physically ill. This truly is a Biblical Text of Terror, God’s Terror, and it brings up lots of questions to faithful people. Many of these questions have no answers or, at best, unsatisfactory answers.

Some of the questions that come to my mind are: what does it mean to believe in a God who would ask someone to murder his or her own Son; do you or can you believe in a God who would ask this of a parent; why would a loving God do this.

To become more personal, would you do this? Would I do this? I cannot answer for you but I can answer for myself, and my answer is a profound No! I do not possess the faith of Abraham.

Whatever happened on that mountain, whether it happened this way or not and whether you and I believe it happened or not, what can we learn from this powerful story? What can we learn about ourselves, about God? I believe we see in this story a pattern of faithfulness in both Abraham and Isaac that leads us to embrace a pattern for our own faithfulness. The questions it presents us are where the lessons are to be found. As my friend, Evan, asks, “where was God in each moment?”

We must ask ourselves the same question. Where is God in each moment of our lives? In those moments when our children are in pain, when our friends are ill or dying, when our burdens are heavier than we can bear, when our most important relationships are broken. I believe that like Abraham our first answer, no matter the question, should be, “here I am.” Once we establish that relationship we can, with God’s help, deal with our selves, family, friends, powers and principalities and even death. Like Abraham, we do not have all the answers. Like Abraham we may be tired, worn, burdened and afraid.

And like Abraham we will do the best we can to do what we believe God wants us to do. And finally, like Abraham, we will continue to believe, to know and to proclaim, “The Lord Himself will provide!”