A motivational sermon on risk-taking based on the paralytic lowered through a hole in the roof. A bold move!

Third of Four Summer Sermons-“Daring Faith”

100 wooden crosses, personally delivered to Berean by Roger Hernandez, were temporarily stored in one of the pastors offices. Each represented someone who lost their life last year, a victim of domestic violence. They would be set up in front of the church on Sabbath.

SOUTHERN UNION MINISTERIAL AND EVANGELISM DIRECTOR ROGER HERNANDEZ CHOSES TO NOT MINCE WORDS

The projected four-part summer sermon series at Berean Seventh-day Adventist Church, Atlanta is now 75% completed. What was intended to be a climactic presentation by peripatetic guest speaker Roger Hernandez, a native of Cuba, was delivered on Sabbath, 7/16/2016 to a full house. An impromptu, but essential sermon by Lead Pastor Russell was interposed into the sermon series, resulting in a shuffling of the dates of his three projected contributions to the series. The date for Pastor Hernandez’s appearance was inflexible, however, as it was linked to rally that had been scheduled well in advance.

Pastor Hernandez is comfortable preaching and writing books in two languages, which is twice as many as most of us can preach and write in. Here, as usual, is a link to the ENTIRE SERVICE . The sermon begins at time marker 1:49:18, and ends at time marker 2:37:30. Pastor Hernandez was one of the driving forces behind the rally that would be held later that afternoon, a component of a denomination-wide campaign against abuse and exploitation known as enditnow (lowercase).





Pastor Hernandez not only supplied much of the brains and the oratory for this event (one which attracted around 1,000 participants to Berean SDA Church), but he also supplied a lot of the brawn as well. Over 10,000 bottles of drinking water were hefted from a rented trailer into the large Berean Outreach Community Services refrigerated truck by Pastor Hernandez himself, with the assistance of a few volunteers. He even picked out a nice used car that would be presented to a selected abuse survivor at the end of the day’s program.

His morning sermon tied neatly into the theme of the four sermon series, “Daring Faith.” It will be inadequately described in the following summary (not a transcription, but rather an impression), so in order for anyone to be able to comprehend precisely why the speaker’s remarks were so well received by the congregation and visitors to Berean on this Sabbath, one is obliged to watch the YouTube video. The Hispanic reserve and stoicism that marked Pastor Hernandez as he was laboring on Friday to prepare for the crowded agenda of this busy Sabbath disappeared once he ascended the platform to preach. Dr. Jekyll transformed himself into Mr. Hyde (but in the best way imaginable, of course, and all for the glory of God).

Donald spruces up what Pastor Austin Humphreys refers to as the “Holy Desk” in preparation for the event-packed Sabbath. This rostrum is made of tempered glass, and it takes four people just to lift it.

NOTHING VENTURED, NOTHING GAINED:  “RISKY FAITH”
Here is a paraphrase of Pastor Roger Hernandez’s opening statement: “Turn to your neighbor, and in 10 seconds or less, tell him the last time you took a risk about something.”
If the short dialogue between my neighbor and myself is any indication of the status of the rest of the Bereans, we are not the most intrepid group of people on the planet. Pastor Hernandez would spend most of the next 48 minutes trying to remedy this corporate aversion to risk-taking.

Pastor Hernandez’s scripture for this sermon was Mark 2:1-12. He said that he was using the New Living Translation, as it contained “English I can understand.” Below the image of Desi Arnaz are some extracted phrases from this extended citation.





…Jesus returned to Capernaum… news spread quickly… the house where he was staying was so packed with visitors that there was no more room, even outside the door… four men arrived carrying a paralyzed man on a mat… They couldn’t bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, so they dug a hole through the roof above his head. Then they lowered the man on his mat, right down in front of Jesus. Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the paralyzed man, “My child, your sins are forgiven.” But some of the teachers of religious law who were sitting there thought to themselves, “What is he saying? This is blasphemy! Only God can forgive sins!” Jesus… asked them, “Why do you question this… ? Is it easier to say to the paralyzed man ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or ‘Stand up, pick up your mat, and walk’? So I will prove to you that the Son of Man has the authority on earth to forgive sins.” Then Jesus turned to the paralyzed man and said, “Stand up, pick up your mat, and go home!” And the man jumped up, grabbed his mat, and walked out…  (NLT)

I searched in vain for Rembrandt’s etching (fine art) that depicts the events described in Mark 2:1-12. Here is a 1780 print (some less fine art) by Bernhard Rode.

The story of the lowering of the paralytic man through a hole that his friends made in the roof of the house where Jesus was located, and the subsequent miraculous healing of the man by Jesus, drew this reaction from the onlookers (the last words in Mark 2:12): “We’ve never seen anything like this before!” What nerve! What audacity! What faith! Pastor Hernandez had previously announced the topic of his sermon, “Risky Faith.” He applied this concept to the unprecedented events in Capernaum. Pastor Hernandez asked, “What can we learn about ‘Risky Faith’ from this?” The answers (some of them, anyway) were to be organized into three general concepts, or observations, that would help us to apply the lessons we can learn from this episode to our own lives. To be most effective in our service to God, we would have learn how to be willing to take some risks.

POINT ONE:  “GOD HONORS GOD HONORING RISK”

“As I look around the landscape of Adventism, I don’t see a lot of risk-taking.” As one of the leaders of the Southern Union Conference, Pastor Hernandez is in a good position to see “the landscape of Adventism.” Recent recommendations to provide supplemental Sunday morning worship for non-Sabbathkeepers was mentioned. Whether this represented a positive “risk” that would perhaps entice first-day worshippers in the direction of Seventh-day propriety, or was, rather, an unacceptable violation of not only Adventist dogma, but the fourth commandment as well, was not clearly specified by the pastor. The summarizer's editorial opinion is that church services should (even if it is only in an abbreviated form) be made available every day of the week. Sabbath can be the flagship, and the other six days could compose the fleet.

Huntsville Pastor Debleaire Snell. the “Sunday Worship” guy. He certainly doesn’t look like the Antichrist! From his Twitter page, right HERE.

A recent guest-pastor at Berean came under severe criticism for adding Sunday worship (geared toward first-day folk) to his church’s calendar. Here is a LINK about the controversial move. Here is Pastor Debleaire Snell’s Berean SERMON. The sleeping dog of Sunday worship is allowed to remain asleep thoughout the course of it. The next statement by Pastor Hernandez seemed to place him on the side of the innovators, however. It represented a minor variation on a tune that has been played a great number of Adventist pastors in the last few years. Regrettably, this oft planted seed falls on stony ground (my obsession with form verses content is extremely relevant to this discussion, but for an intransigent old-guard, form IS content). Pastor Henandez’s statement will be isolated, italicized, and converted into a bold typeface. For most, this will probably not enhance its impact in the least:

“We can not minister to a future generation with the things of the past!”

Thus states the head of Ministerial and Evangelism for the Southern Union (but many will doubtless assert that, despite his impeccable credentials, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about). Those with long memories and broad experience might refer to the following event at this point, a reference that may be poisonous to many Adventist ears, but nevertheless a case study in how to avoid becoming marginalized, and also relevant with concern as to how one can stave off (for the moment, at least) mass extinction (always excepting that enduring remnant, of course): “Vatican II.”

Thanks, Getty Images! The fallout from Vatican II had the whole world singing “Kumbaya,” and acoustic guitars kicked mighty Wurlitzers to the curb!

Pastor Hernandez ornamented his challenge: “iPods! Not 8-tracks!” The status-quo came in for some criticism, based upon the atypical incidents described in the Gospel of Mark. “In the Mark story, the men try an illogical, ill-advised, and illegal plan.” But Jesus does not chastise the men for their impetuous actions. He is, instead, said the pastor, “Amazed at their faith.” The pastor observed that one of the reasons that keeps us from engaging in similarly bold actions is our fear of failure, but added that “the deeper our humility, the greater our reward... We cannot live our lives in a fortress,” he proclaimed. “God honors those who take risks.”

The pastor related a story about the courtship of his wife: “Not my wife yet; just someone I really liked,” he added. She made a bold statement to her future husband: “If I kissed you, you would see stars!” He had an instant reply :””Let’s get married!” A decision this precipitous is not the result of caution, or an extended period of quiet reflection. He took a risk. At this point, the pastor made a bold statement of his own, and one not likely to endear him to the prudish (I have to admit that I am one of these): “Many Adventist men are looking for a woman with the spirituality of Ellen White, and the body of Jennifer Lopez.”

The unlikely juxtaposition of a copy of Boethius’ “The Consolation of Philosophy” with the form of a nude woman who is holding it before her face marks a turning point in Toole’s “A Confederacy of Dunces.”

Pastor Hernandez quoted a maxim: “To be brave is not to be unafraid. To be brave is to walk ahead, despite your fears,” The pastor’s next question was directed specifically to me (in my conceit, anyway): “Is there a girl you are afraid to ask? Worse than the pain of failure, is the pain of knowing that you failed to ask!” The pastor revealed that he asked his wife three times to marry him before her defenses started to fail. Five years later, they were married. One’s first question, when confronted with the commencement of an activity, should not be “is this a risk?” It should be, instead, “Is this a risk that God will honor?”  Pastor Hernandez promised that “God does not honor blah-ness! God does not honor a colorless existence!” Dates have become predictable, the pastor noted.

“We eat. We watch a movie.”
“We eat. We watch a movie.”
“We eat. We watch a movie.”
“We eat. We watch a movie.”

“Every now and then, for the sake of variety, we do something different.”

“We watch a movie. Then we eat.” [laughter]

The pastor recommended that we go online, or read the newspapers in order to get creative. “I did not get married in order that I might have a mediocre marriage,” Pastor Hernandez swore. “God did not call you to live on the cutting edge of mediocrity,” he added.

“Jesus honors ‘God honoring risks,'” The Pharisees that were present during the healing at Capernaum questioned Jesus’ ability to forgive sins. This act required a lot of ritual, and trips to the sanctuary, It was complicated and expensive. They beheld the effortless statement Jesus made to the healed paralytic, “My child, your sins are forgiven,” and declared “This is not how sins are forgiven!” Pastor Hernandez summed up point one of his three principle points with the following statement: “But forgiveness is simple, available, and free. I am thankful I don’t have to go to anybody to get forgiveness. Not to Mary. Not to angels. I can go straight to God.” The time had arrived for the introduction of the second point regarding he nature of boldly taking what Kierkegaard undoubtedly would have termed a “leap of faith,” and Neil Armstrong would have called a “giant leap.” The Chinese Communists might have called it a “Great Leap Forward.” Thomas Kuhn would have referred to it as a “Paradigm shift,” and Shakespeare poetically rendered this notion as a “Sea change” (“Enough of that!” my cat informs me).

It took over four hours to sufficiently memorialize recently departed Elder E.E. Cleveland when he fell asleep 5 years ago. In this scene, your GC president takes his turn. Here is a LINK to a video of the tribute.

PONT TWO:  “HEALING COMES BEFORE FEELING”

Someone had remarked to the pastor about the level of racial tension in this country at present. Pastor Hernandez replied that the problem is not racial tension. The problem is racism. Racial tension is merely symptomatic. The root of the problem is racism (Pastor Russell said a mouthful about this topic in the course of presenting this recent  SERMON at Berean). “The Adventist Church needs to address this issue” (crusty and mildly controversial guest pastor Nevilon Meadows recently confided to the Men of Berean that the Civil Rights track record of the Adventist denomination was less than stellar during the golden age of this “paradigm shifting” movement. This is my opportunity to link to an exception to this generalization: E.E. Cleveland ). Pastor Hernandez revealed that he had “gotten into trouble” [sometimes just a euphemism for being criticized by people whose ability to speak transcends their ability to think] for “proclaiming this week that Black Lives Matter.” He amended this revelation by proclaiming that other lives matter, too. A little anaphora (my 2016 “link of the year”) was redeployed at this juncture. Pastor Hernandez strongly urged upon the church and the nation our desperate need to deal with the truths about racism:

“We need to deal with racism in Adventism.”

 “We need to deal with racism in the justice system.”

 “We need to deal with racism in worship styles.” [a sideshow, really]

“We need to deal with a system that shoots first, and asks questions later.” A reference to the pastor’s BLOG, some reasonable assertions that he placed there, and some the moronic backlash this provoked was made [my adjective “moronic,” and not the speaker’s]. Pastor Hernandez further revealed that some black Adventists had recently held a march in Washington, then subsequently had the temerity (more ironic juxtaposition, as in “cutting edge of mediocrity”) to write about it on Facebook. A white commentator opined that “blacks had been privileged to be enslaved, as this made then more 'spiritual.'" The pastor, perhaps less of a cynic than myself, affected to be surprised by this. “These were Adventists!” he said, exasperated by the whole sad tale. A similar (perhaps even identical, in some cases, to the previously noted “white commentator”) source of exasperation came under attack by the pastor, those ubiquitous “church people.” Adventism’s resident population of Pharisees and scribes would again come under scrutiny, a bit later in the sermon. This is the demographic most responsible for the lackluster growth rate of the denomination in the United States. In the rest of the world, this group has got to be less influential, less voluble, less judgmental, and much less meddlesome.

When I was 12, a pair of unkempt hunters entered the back of the snobbish Episcopal church I was attending that Sunday morning. They seemed  to me like fish out of water, but I am sure the adults were less judgmental than I was, as I was an exceptionally stupid kid.

“We argue about who has the keys to the kitchen, or has control of the church property, while 500 Christians are being killed.” More tragic mortality would now be introduced into the sermon, and a apprehensive description of the proposed afternoon “end it now” rally was provided to the congregation. The revelation (to many) that 500 Nigerian Christians had been killed by Muslims was followed by an explanation of the 100 small white crosses that graced the front lawn of Berean Church that Sabbath morning. They represented 106 people who died last year, victims of domestic violence. The pastor now mentioned the forthcoming rally.
“The rally is a risk. I invited the media. At the end of the rally, we are going to give a car to a victim of domestic violence. It has 300,000 miles on it, a gift from the Adventists of Atlanta.” Some admonishments followed this placid and hopeful introductory material. “I have believed for a long time that, as a church, we have had a big mouth and a small hand.” In other words, too much talk, and not enough action, The focus of the sermon had been intermittently directed at the Adventist denomination. For most of the course of point number three, the spotlight would be squarely directed at what might be considered to be purely “Adventist” affairs (but easily adaptable to a more inclusive audience).

Pastor Nevilon Meadows furnished, during the course of his recent week-long visit to Berean, a lot of intra-denominational criticism too. It is a sensitive operation, and it is one that is usually undertaken by relative “outsiders.” Hernandez, not being semi-permanently confined to the immediate environs of Berean, is therefore not subject to the omnipresent wrath of those whose feathers he may have managed to ruffle. Note: all of this internecine debate renders many of the sermons by guest pastors relatively ineffective for the purposes of evangelizing non-Adventists. It was personally gratifying, therefore, to hear Pastor Hernandez later refer to the Adventist message as a “perfect” one. Self-criticism is necessary and productive, and may be the means whereby we can form “a more perfect union” (from the preamble to the U.S. Constitution, and a linguistic absurdity, in the manner of “a little bit pregnant”). But despite its man-made faults, Adventism is still a pretty clean house. I am not at all ashamed to show it to strangers. [My room is particularly tidy, but mainly because there is not much junk in there. Don’t go looking in the dumpster, though!]





The third point was now primed for introduction, having been  prefaced by an overture composed of intra-denominational criticisms.  There would be more to come. The final point would address some of the limitations of a  group that is often referred to as “the body of Christ,” but this body is not always composed of uniformly Christ-like elements. One of the greatest impediments to our willingness to take risks is…

POINT THREE:  “OTHER FAITHLESS CHRISTIANS”

Pastor Roger Hernandez was about to extract a very creative and unexpected analogy from the story in Mark, chapter 2, the lowering of the paralytic down to Jesus through a hole his friends had fashioned in the roof. “What was the reason that the men [who were carrying their afflicted friend] could not get [through] to Jesus? Church Folk!” They were blocking access to Jesus. You may be doing the same thing!

“I’m not talking about this church,” Pastor Hernandez was quick to reassure us. “I’m talking about those other churches like West End,” & etc. This mention of “the competition” (some other Atlanta area Adventist assemblies) provoked an amused reaction. But Atlanta Adventist enjoy access to a range of SDA churches, and many are known to “make the rounds” when it comes to Sabbath worship. They are not wedded to just one assembly. They are “Adventists at large.”

The pastor noted that “one of the best ways to be effective is to align your anger with that of God. God is angry with injustice. Take that out of the Bible, and you have little left.” But Adventists are not as outraged by injustice as God has plainly revealed that He Himself is. Instead, Pastor Hernandez noted that Adventists tend to zero in on peripheral issues like vegetarianism, jewelry, Sabbath School attendance, and makeup. God is not concerned with petty discussion over issues like cheese and chocolate (This would be a good time to retrieve a passage from an old post that described some remarks made by South Atlantic Conference president William Winston in the course of a sermon delivered at Berean, his home church).





 Elder Winston said we should show people what it is to be an Adventist by our good example. We must always “keep Jesus central.” Don’t harp on your hobbyhorses: not veganism, not blue laws, not the Pope, not women’s ordination. What we must make known to the world is this salient feature of our faith: we are children of God! Elder Winston now made a statement that may have come as news to two or three people in the congregation, “Jesus died for the Pope, too.”

Pastor Hernandez validated his own Adventist credentials, but not in a sanctimonious manner: “I am a vegetarian. I believe that the 'Health Message' is a positive one.” But now the whole world has gone after the practices of veganism and vegetarianism. We have had the 'Health Message' for 140 years now. We are using it as a method, and not as a message.” [Berean’s own Elder/Doctor Tracey Wallace is one who combines method and message quite frequently as he speaks before area assemblies, describing the history of, and promoting the unquestioned benefits of the Adventist “Health Message.” Here is a short EXAMPLE.] “There is nothing wrong with chicken,” the pastor stated. “In fact, one of the best things you can do is go home and eat some chicken, because you are mad at those who do! [laughter] I am a healthy, happy vegetarian. How many happy vegetarians have you met?” [laughter]

Pastor Hernandez would now make a proclamation that most who are unfamiliar with Seventh-day Adventist beliefs may contemptuously dismiss as hyperbole. Scoffers are advised to take a closer look at Adventism, in order to determine whether the following assertion by the pastor is hype or not.





“Our doctrine is spotless.” One of the salient points of Adventism, the keeping of the Sabbath (no labor, excepting labor on the Lord’s behalf), was related to the current national focus upon the problems (symptoms) caused by racism (the disease). “The Sabbath is a doctrine of equality,” Pastor Hernandez revealed. During the week, some contribute more, and some contribute less. “But on the Sabbath, we are all the same.”

Pastor Hernandez had no issues at all with the Adventist message. Just issues with the messengers. The principal work of the church is to bring sinners to repentance. “How many times do we come to church, and miss Jesus? Often church is like a coronation without a king.”

One of the several points of the story of the healing of the paralytic from Mark chapter 2 is healing itself, so Pastor Hernandez offered some comments on this topic. A recent visit by the pastor to the Tampa, Florida area was described (as a Cuban-American, Pastor Hernandez may well have visited renown Ybor City, a district of Tampa where many non-Adventists congregate in order to eat pork sandwiches and smoke cigars). The pastor attended an “anointing” service. A lady who had been in an accident was unable to move the toes of her right leg. Anointed in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, she woke up the next morning to discover that her toes could be moved again. Perhaps not a major miracle, but a miracle nonetheless. She now has a testimony. The healing was a major miracle to the beneficiary of it, no doubt.

This image is only remotely relevant. Havana’s crumbling Spanish Colonial architecture is without peer, and it happens to be a United Nations World Heritage Site. You will soon be able to visit this place.

Church should be a transformative experience, and a type of “healing” takes place every time we attend. “The reason that we came to church is [so] we can experience Jesus,” Pastor Hernandez proclaimed, “and Jesus is here! You’ve heard about risks, and you’ve heard about God honoring ‘God honoring risks.’ And this morning, while the band plays, I want to make a special invitation.” The invitation was not general, but specifically targeted to those who might have “something in your stomach, something in your mind, something in your laptop, something in your iPod; you’re here, and you’re thinking about a risk. A venture. A new stage in your life, [but] you’ve been held back because of fear and opposition. But you have to understand that ‘opposition’ is just the sandpaper that God uses to polish the work of art that is within you.”
The pastor promised that whatever venture we may have been contemplating, but were not yet sufficiently motivated to embark upon (dissuaded by naysayers, perhaps), if it happens to be a “God honoring risk,” He will make it happen. “Even if it breaks a system, and a structure to get there. Even if all of the religious people say, ‘it’s impossible. You can’t do it.’ Even if the same people in your house are against you” [an audacious statement the pastor did not further elaborate upon, but his earlier criticisms of some traditional denominational attitudes came to mind].

Problems, however, are endemic to our nation, and have lately seemed to grow worse. Pastor Hernandez’s motivational sermon should not be allowed simply to serve to compel bashful people to work up the nerve to ask that special someone out on a date.  It should even transcend the noble purpose of making Adventism more inviting. Relatively minor denominational issues should not deflect our attention from major societal ills like racism (the 800 pound gorilla in the room). The kind of risks that this sermon should ideally motivate us to take are big risks, ones that (if they succeed) will make the world a better place. But as Pastor Hernandez warned, action will provoke reaction and opposition. There will be many denominational, and societal eggs that will have to be broken in order that, ultimately, an outstanding omelet might be prepared. We all anticipate being able to taste this delicious omelet, yet most of the eggs required for its preparation remain snug in their little styrofoam container, unbroken.

The closing prayer by Pastor Roger Hernandez

“I came to pray for you.” Pastor Hernandez expressed his desire to meet up with us six months or a year from now, and hear our testimonies as to how our dreams, with God’s help, had borne fruit. The speaker himself was a living testimony as to how the Lord can start with nothing, and make something useful out of it. “I believe that God can supernaturally, this morning, help you, and push you over the edge. If you don’t take your risk, you will always have the pain of regret.” Again, the pastor stipulated that his appeal was exclusively for those were both willing and able to take a risk. But when he invited this target demographic to come to the front of the sanctuary, it as was revealed to be not so very exclusive after all. It was highly inclusive, as it included everyone who was capable of walking. The entire congregation pressed forward to receive Pastor Hernandez’s benediction.
The pastor’s prayer was preceded by a rendition of the song “Change” (link is to a scrappy, but lovable version. The Berean version begins at time marker 2:31:30. Here is a “risky” link to the late David Bowie’s similarly themed composition “Changes,” which is yet one more pop cooption of “Pachelbel’s Canon in D Major” ). The partial quotation below is excerpted from Pastor Hernandez’s prayer:

“…give us boldness to walk, despite our fears…”

These 8 indispensable words will serve well as a statement of the principal theme of our guest speaker’s informative, inspirational, and (I know I am not supposed to say this) entertaining 48 minute presentation.

Adios!

An enthusiastic crowd heads for Berean Seventh-day Adventist Church on the afternoon of July 16, 2016 for an “end it now” rally, one  facilitated by Roger Hernandez, who also did a lot of of the heavy lifting.

    

Clean

Babylon

The woman taken in adultery, Martha's sister, and the breaker of alabaster boxes are (believe it or not) all the same Mary.

Second of Four Summer Sermons-“Daring Faith”

Pastor Fredrick Russell on April 28, 2012. This is a detail from the larger official photo by David Stewart, which may be acquired by clicking on this LINK.

THE CURRENT PLAN- RUSSELL, RUSSELL, AND HERNANDEZ

[Addenda 7/13/2016: an emergency sermon on 7/9/21026 has modified the overall sequence of the four sermons in the proposed series to this one: Russell, Russell, Hernandez, and Russell.]

The July 2, 2016 Sabbath worship service at Berean Seventh-day Adventist Church, Atlanta featured the second of four sermons in a summer teaching series entitled “Daring Faith: The Key to Real Life.” Berean Lead Pastor Fredrick Russell delivered the first sermon on June 25. It was based on events described in Matthew 13:53-58 (and also in Mark), the “homecoming” of Jesus back to Nazareth. It was titled “A God with Limits.” It was a warning about the consequences of not having a level of faith that is sufficient enough to warrant the full extent of God’s blessings. Jesus’ early acquaintances did not credit His capabilities, and thus reaped sparingly of the miracles that Jesus broadcast copiously elsewhere.

This Sabbath’s sermon was enigmatically titled “Filling Your Bucket,” but the meaning of the title was soon made clear. Here is a link to the ENTIRE SERVICE. Pastor Russell’s remarks commence at time marker 1:31:00.





As did the first installment in the summer sermon series, this sermon addressed the subject of the blessings that God, and God through Christ can provide. In the previous sermon, a lack of faith marked the half-hearted participation of the Nazarenes in the blessing process. In this second sermon, the faith of Mary Magdalene resulted in the forgiveness of her sinful past. The congregation was urged to fully participate in the blessing process, and not merely as a potential recipients. They were admonished to be disbursers of blessings themselves, via the motif of this sermon, a “bucket” analogy originated by an influential American psychologist.

Jesus, a copious disperser of blessings, is the model we were urged to emulate. There are many examples in the Bible where He improves the lives and attitudes of those who desperately stand in need of improvement. The principal example used for this sermon was, as noted, Mary Magdalene. Jesus wrought miraculous changes for the better in her lifestyle, and also in her future prospects (heaven, we presume). Pastor Russell asserted that when Jesus told her to “go and sin no more,” she literally followed His orders, thus becoming a “new creature.” But just as the Nazarenes in the first sermon failed to credit Jesus with wonder-working power, the people who had known Mary “back in the day” (and this, conceivably, could have been a great number of former customers of the reformed harlot) could not come to grips with the reality of a genuine transformation in her character.

The business about “buckets” will be explained momentarily. Here is a preview. By complimenting the cool backpack the boy at right is carrying, the girl on the left is helping to “fill his bucket” (see the bucket?)

THE MEANING OF THIS BUSINESS ABOUT “BUCKETS”

To describe the content of the metaphorical “bucket” that served as a motif for the sermon as “self-esteem” might be an over-simplification, as there exists many persons who are highly satisfied with themselves for all the wrong reason (or even for no reason at all). Smug complaisance, were it to be symbolized by a metaphorical substance in a metaphorical bucket, would be nothing but metaphorical horse manure. The kind of self-esteem enjoyed by Mary Magdalene, in contrast, is the result of her repentance and subsequently wholesome lifestyle. This yielded a harvest of the “Fruit of the Holy Spirit” as described by Paul. Flattery can serve to fill the buckets of superficial people, but syncophancy is not what is being advocated by either this “bucket” business or Pastor Russell’s references to it. A good filler of buckets seeks to reward virtuous behaviors, and not to just indiscriminately “puff up the pride” of proud people (another one of Paul’s characteristic expressions).

The business about “buckets” is derived from the book “How Full is Your Bucket” (link is to a PDF that picturesquely condenses the basic concepts into 17 simple “PowerPoint” ready projections). Here is a LINK to an “Executive Book Summary” of the work. It restates one of the three concepts to be found in The One Minute Manager, a idea that is also reflected by the proverb “You can catch more flies with honey, than you can with vinegar” (here is an extremely relevant link to a rendition of Johnny Mercer’s “Accentuate the Positive,” as performed by the songwriter himself). The following quote is from an “Executive Summary” about the genesis of psychologist Donald O. Clifton‘s enduring and doubtlessly lucrative “bucket” metaphor:

Moved by horrifying tales of the psychological torture of American prisoners of the Korean War – where there was a 38 percent POW death rate -Clifton and his colleagues in the 1960s wondered: If people can be destroyed by unrelenting negative reinforcement, can they be uplifted and inspired to a greater degree by similar levels of positivity?

Donald O. Clifton was a secularizer of Biblical precepts, sanitizing them for audiences who might be offended by the name of Jesus. He wrote well enough, but was no poet like Lincoln or MLK.

“FILLING YOUR BUCKET”

A few bars of “Oh, How I Love Jesus,” and “Amazing Grace,” sung by Pastor Russell (an infinitely better singer than myself), along with the congregation, preceded the reading of scripture. This scripture was from Luke 7, Verses 36-50. Below are enough sections of it to bring it to your full remembrance (unless you have never read the Bible before, which is a most regrettable omission, and one that must be remedied immediately).

…one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him… A woman…  who lived a sinful life… came there with an alabaster jar of perfume… she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them. When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know… that she is a sinner.” Jesus answered him, “Simon, I have something to tell you… Two people owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he forgave the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?” Simon [the Pharisee] replied, “I suppose the one who had the bigger debt forgiven.” “You have judged correctly,” Jesus said. (NIV- excerpted)

The remaining verses deal with the love of the woman who anointed Him, in contrast to the lackluster hospitality of Simon. Her sins were forgiven her. This was a result of her great faith (“Dairing Faith, Pastor Russell, added, the title of the four part sermon series).

This depiction of Mary Magdalene anointing the feet of Jesus is a very nice one, not to be attributed. A half dozens sites display it, without attribution. I have used it before, also without attribution. It remains a mystery.

The pastor began his sermon with a relation of a four hour meeting he had attended in San Diego on Tuesday. While on this junket, he was introduced to the book “How Full is Your Bucket?” by Tom Rath and Donald O. Clifton. Pastor Russell strongly recommended for all literate members of the church (I can’t use the word “literary,” as this is intimidating. In fact, this statement from the goodreads review lauds the accessibility of the book: “How Full Is Your Bucket? is a quick, breezy read. It will immediately help readers boost the amount of positive emotions in their lives and in the lives of everyone around them. The book is sure to inspire lasting changes in all who read it, and it has all the makings of a timeless classic.”

The pastor offered his own synopsis of the book: “Everyone has an invisible bucket [he produced an actual bucket as an illustration] that is either being filled, or that bucket is being emptied. And everyone has an invisible ladle [a ladle was now displayed] [with which] they are either filling another person’s bucket, or they are taking out of a person’s bucket.” The pastor quoted the book’s authors, who write that people are at their best when their buckets are overflowing. They are at their worst when their buckets are empty. “And those buckets are filled, and they are emptied based on what a person says to another, or what they do to another person,” the pastor informed us. Every interaction between people results in the filling or emptying of their respective buckets. There are situations where both buckets may be filled simultaneously, because when you fill another’s bucket, your own gets filled as well. It is not a Zero-sum game. You need not rob Peter to pay Paul. More esoterically, it is not the spiritual equivalent of the economic practice of Mercantilism. It is, rather,  reminiscent of the miracle of the loaves and fishes. A little kindness can pay compound interest, immediately upon deposit. Conversely, by draining another’s bucket, you also drain your own [unless you are some twisted sadist; summarizer’s comment, as he has encountered this type of person before, frequently.  Far, far too frequently].

Danny DeVito on “Taxi,” emptying everybody’s bucket.

Pastor Russell has studied management techniques [here again is my important link to the tract “The One Minute Manager,” which all leaders must immediately pause to read, if they neglected to do so earlier]. The pastor said that managers who are “bucket fillers” can elicit more productivity from their employees [“I don’t have to be nice to you,” my former employer often said to, molded as he was by his authoritarian Teutonic upbringing]. Pastor Russell provided a case study from the book under discussion to illustrate his point. A gap in the video is immaterial to this illustration, as sound (albeit unsynchronized sound) is restored in time to record the speaker’s citation of the result of using the positive approach with labor: sales at the company described were “Off the chart. Off the chart!” Most employers are not positive, and as a result. most employees are not contented.

Pastor Russell related that when he was a conference president, he never spoke at one of the churches under his charge without saying at least one positive thing about the pastor, even if it were nothing more significant than the beauty of their footwear [I am obsessed with this Johnny Mercer song lately, so here is yet one more golden opportunity to link the 1945 hit “Accentuate the Positive“]. After a few more comments, the pastor directed the attention of the congregation to the helpful “teaching notes” that he usually provides to accompany his sermons. These notes divided the incident involving Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and the Pharisee Simon into two “bucket emptying” concepts (relating to ungrateful and unforgiving Simon), and three “bucket filling” characteristics of Mary. By filling her Redeemer’s bucket with faith and love, she also managed to fill her own.

A obscure reference that will become even more obscure as time passes, one to Frederick Burr Opper’s Alphonse and Gaston, two comic strip characters who vied to see who could best “fill the bucket” of the other.

Pastor Russell opened with some general observations upon what fills or empties our personal “buckets.” A question was asked, “What are those things that happen to you, when it comes to your family and your marriage, or your job and your interactions with other people… that drain your bucket?” He suspected that there were many in his audience whose buckets had been drained all week long. “You can see it on their faces,” the pastor asserted. Spouses, bosses,  associates; they can all bring you down. He noted that there were many who lived “with a perpetually empty bucket.”

Conversely, there are those that live with a perpetually full bucket, as the people who surround them are bucket fillers. and not bucket drainers. Parents, like employers, are in a position to either fill or empty the buckets of their children based on how they interact with them. “What increases your positive emotions?” This second question led to the pastor’s conviction that all of us, at times, require affirmation by others. Those who never offer this necessary affirmation to others (wives, husbands, kids, etc.) are not good bucket fillers. An example of extreme affirmation was offered by the pastor. A child comes home with an “F” on their report card. “What a nice ‘F,'” the pastor says to the fictional young dunce. “I like the way that it is formed!”



General information on the “bucket” metaphor now yielded to specific application of this metaphor to Simon the Pharisee’s dinner party. Pastor Russell commenced this narrower focus by pointing out that Simon was a wealthy man. It is not mentioned in Luke, the pastor acknowledged, but this Simon is the same individual who once had leprosy. Lepers were perceived by Jews of that era as being  forsaken by God. But Simon, a leader of the people, was healed by Jesus. This was doubtless the reason that caused Simon to invite Jesus to his home. Women were traditionally excluded from these gatherings. The account of this gathering in the Gospel of John reveals that the disciples, including Judas, were also on the scene.

Into this setting, imperceptibly, enters a woman. She comes, unseen, to where Jesus is stationed, and begins to weep uncontrollably. “This woman is mentioned three ways in the Bible,” Pastor Russell informed us. “She is called ‘Mary Magdalene,’ and she is also called ‘Mary the Harlot’ in other places in the Bible, depending on the version that you are using. Mary Magdalene was also the sister of Lazarus and Martha.” Pastor Russell continued to unify what many may have believed to be distinct scriptural “Marys.” He added that this was the woman who was thrown at the feet of Jesus, one whom was caught “in the very act” of adultery. Jesus saved her, at that time, from being stoned to death. He wrote the sins of her prosecutors in the dust. They shamefacedly absented themselves, and then Jesus turned to Mary.  “Neither do I condemn thee. Go and sin no more.” This is also the same Mary that the Bible reveals as having had seven demons cast from her. Pastor Russell continued. A former prostitute, and a former demonic. This was a woman whom the male populace had exploited, and  the “churchmen” had condemned to death. Before Jesus entered the picture, “there had never been a man in her life that treated her right,” Pastor Russell said.

“Feast in the House of Simon the Pharisee” by Peter Paul Rubens (1618-1620). It is in still located in the Hermitage, as Stalin did not sell it off (as he had many others) to our astute fellow American Andrew Mellon. He was acquiring art for the USA National Gallery.

Here is a link to Chapter 62 of Ellen G. White’s book “The Desire of Ages,” entitled “The Feast at Simon’s House,” which draws information from, and ties together, data from all four Gospels. Replicated below is a tantalizing note on a PDF of a manuscript page of an Ellen White biography by Arthur L. White. The balance of the page is illegible. At present, it raises just as many questions as it answers. I pray I will have time to further explore the direction that this cryptic inscription points toward. It probably tracks down the source for Ellen White’s combination of the separate instances in scripture where Mary is mentioned. As “Desire of Ages” was composed in Australia, some Australian Bible study guides are noted as having an influence on the book.


Here is an extremely informative LINK to a chapter of an online book that is focused on Mary Magdalene. The topic of the “Identity of Mary” is described by reference to a “monumental” (and this turns out to be no exaggeration) work by Harry Whittaker called “Studies in the Gospels.” These kind of scholarly investigations are, for Seventh-day Adventists, often verified by what is termed the “Spirit of Prophecy,” or insights revealed to Ellen G. White. An example of this is the church tradition that Peter was crucified upside-down, as he felt unworthy to be martyred in a manner identical to that of Jesus. This early church oral tradition was eventually written down by Jerome. It is verified (for those who choose to believe this) by a subsequent revelation to Ellen G. White.

In the “over-ambitious” (the author’s own term) work “Studies in the Gospels.” the discrete Marys are termed (1) “the woman in the city” (the subject of Luke Chapter 7, partially quoted at the top of this post), (2) Mary of Bethany (to be found in John Chapter 13, sister of Lazarus), and (3) Mary Magdalene. Harry Whittaker makes a strong case for the combination of the three Marys. The insights noted by Whittaker lack footnotes (at least in the online version), but are doubtlessly based on some earlier material that was also available to Ellen White, perhaps via the medium of the aforementioned Australian Bible study guides. Many of the points raised by Whittaker in his enormous book, and assertions made by Pastor Russell in the course of his sermon, are identical.

Scholar Harry Whittaker was a member of the denomination founded by this man, John Thomas, the Christadelphians. They deny the Trinity, but like pioneering Adventists, Thomas sought to build a faith that was based solely upon scripture, and not tradition.

Pastor Russell wondered aloud as to how Mary might has gotten into prostitution in the first place. She is believed by the pastor to only be in her early twenties at the time of Simon’s feast. Her parentage is not described in the Bible, but her siblings, Martha and Lazarus, are. She may have been molested as a youth on her way to fetch water. Some smooth talking stranger may have lured her into a situation where she was raped. There was too much shame associated with this act to allow her to simply go home after the violation. “Maybe Jesus knew her backstory,” Pastor Russell mused.

She sought out Jesus at the feast, the one who had exorcised her, and saved her from a stoning at the hands of men who may have slept with her. Perhaps she had even slept with Simon the Pharisee, the host of the feast. She had, after all, managed to slip in to the house without being challenged. These conjectures help to shed some light upon what followed. “She begins to bathe Jesus’ feet. She is weeping. She is crying.” The pastor restated the great blessings that Jesus had bestowed upon her, and that He may well have been the only man to ever treat her with dignity. He did not know her (another euphemism, one akin to “slept with”) in the night, but “disown her in the daytime,” Pastor Russell declared. She wets His feet with her tears, and having no towel, begins to dry them with her hair. Pastor Russell related Simon’s unspoken thoughts in regard to Jesus: “If He were a prophet, He would know what kind of woman this is, and He would know that she’s a sinner.” Her kind are not welcome in polite society. She was (or had been) a harlot. “If anyone should know, Simon should know,” the pastor proclaimed.

Another instance of scriptural harlotry, but it is only pretend harlotry. This is “Judah and Tamar,” by some devotees of Rembrandt  van Rijn. (1650-1660)

“Jesus reads his [Simon’s] thoughts,” said the pastor. “How many of you realize that Jesus knows your thoughts? Some of you sit in this church.  You’re thinking all kinds of ugly thoughts. ‘Oh Lord! I worship you! I praise you! I can’t stand her!'” Pastor Russell digressed a moment in order to lament the prevalence of  hypocrisy not only in the world, but in the church as well (this “Jekyll and Hyde” part of us, as he described it).  An “unholy dichotomy” is all too common, and describes the hypocritical view that Simon held toward Mary.  The Pharisee is entertaining Jesus, and is grateful to Him for healing his leprosy. But as he beholds Mary washing Christ’s feet with her tears, and drying them with her hair, and pouring perfume on Him (“This is expensive stuff; not the Walmart variety. This is the Saks variety,” the pastor reminded everyone), he questions the discernment and discretion of Jesus.

In Disney’s “Follow Me, Boys” a drunken father shows up with melted ice cream at a scout meeting. Jesus is not there to show compassion to him. Later that night the drunk dies The cold reception of the doomed drunk made me cry. The movie was morally bankrupt!

Resuming the narrative, the pastor repeated Simon’s thought that, were Jesus a prophet, he would be familiar with the kind of work that Mary did, a job that starts around 9 pm, and continued throughout the night. She was off during the daylight hours. As noted, Jesus knew Simon’s thoughts, and (in the pastor’s re-creation of the scene) said, “Simon, I’ve got a story I want to tell you.” Pastor Russell remarked upon the perfect relevance of every story that Jesus ever chose to tell. He added, “the stories were always a setup to drive home a deeper point.” The paraphrase of Luke was continued by the pastor.

“There was a banker who loaned money to two people. One… he loaned about $100. The other he loaned about $100,000. And neither one of them could pay. And so he forgave both…. and he said ‘Simon, I got a question I want to ask you, brother. Which one of them would be the most grateful?’ Simon was a logical brother. He was rational. He says, ‘of course, the one who is most grateful is the one who is given most!'” Jesus had healed Simon’s leprosy, but he was very much aware of Mary’s background. He had contributed to her fallen state. Notions as to how buckets get either filled or emptied was reintroduced into the sermon, with relation to the two sinners, Simon and Mary Magdalene, that are the subjects of Luke Chapter 7.

The first two points on the teaching notes that accompanied the sermon, as previously noted, dealt with techniques that serve to empty emotional buckets. “If you want to do it to a person, let me show you how to do it,” Pastor Russell facetiously stated. “This is Example One…” These were the methods that were described, methods used by Simon the former leper (who was also, the pastor added, “Simon the former John“).

In this Thomas Hardy novel a future dignitary gets drunk and sells his wife and child to the highest bidder. He swears off liquor, and subsequently prospers, but his past is ultimately revealed to all, much to his shame.

“Simon kept her [Mary’s] past uppermost in his mind,” the speaker said. “Everybody’s got a past!” The congregation was urged to confess this fact to those around them. “Everyone got a past. Everyone got a dark side,” Pastor Russell continued,” Everyone’s got some stuff they don’t want anyone to find out about. If that’s so, say amen.” Simon would not allow Mary to forget her past, even though he had contributed to its unwholesome nature himself. There exists members of Berean who, when they get upset with another, will drag up events from twenty years ago, the pastor revealed. “How dare you,” he  often says to himself when this kind of nonsense crops up. “Who cares!” People have a way of strategically sandbagging dirt bout one another, just awaiting an opportunity to inflict pain on associates by (as the KJV so eloquently states it) “casting it in their teeth.” All you are doing. when you do this, is “emptying their bucket,” the pastor said. “How can they go on, to move into the future, when you are always reminding them of what they were?”
The Bible reveals that Simon’s attitude toward Mary was in the present tense: what kind of woman she “is,” and not what kind of woman she was. Pastor Russell declared that Simon was not aware of her salvation. Otherwise he would have thought, what woman she “was.” “Look at your neighbor and say ‘praise God for the ‘was,'” the pastor directed.

“Buckle your seatbelts for Number Two: he [Simon] locked her into a space she could never escape.” Luke 7:39 reveals the innermost thought of Simon regarding Mary: “She is a sinner…” “Once a sinner, always a sinner,” the pastor said, emphasizing the intransigent stance of the Pharisee. Ellen White writes this about the former leper: “But it was Simon’s ignorance of God and of Christ that led him to think as he did.” Pastor Russell unleashed a litany of negative statements, an imagined excoriation of some poor victim of another’s inability to conceive of the real and lasting changes that Jesus can make in our lives [this “bad cop” diatribe, when deployed by Joel Osteen in his sermons, effectively sets the stage for a subsequent “good cop” revelation that one is, after all, perhaps not a worthless piece of scum]. Pastor Russell lambasted those who keep people in their lives “locked in a particular space,” thus retarding forward progress. “They can’t move on…” he stated. “All that boy was doing was taking the dipper, and emptying her bucket.”

“Christ in the House of Mary and Martha” by Johannes (Jan) Vermeer, 1654. This is Vermeer’s only known work featuring Biblical subject matter.

A transition from the two negative examples to the three positive examples as to how to enhance our lives by enhancing the lives of others as marked by this statement from the pastor: “Listen everybody. Jesus is not into emptying buckets. Jesus is into filling buckets.”

Example One (positive) was described as a “masterful” instance of Jesus’ ability to fill people’s buckets. Pastor Russell emphasized the intense gratification, and attendant thankfulness of Mary, who had suffered much abuse and degradation prior to encountering Jesus. He was the first to treat her with dignity.  Her devotion was manifest in the act of washing His feet with tears, and drying them with her hair. “How much more grateful can you become?” She had a “spirit of ministry,” the pastor said. Jesus pointed out Mary’s level of gratitude to Simon, whose own level of gratitude fell short of the appropriate mark. Ellen White reveals this about Simon: “He acknowledged Jesus as a teacher, and hoped that He might be the Messiah, but he had not accepted Him as a Savior. His character was not transformed. His principles were unchanged.”

“All of the sinners look at me,” Pastor Russell requested. “The whole audience, praise God,” he jokingly added, He said that the encounter between Jesus and Mary was one of the very first times that Mary had ever had her bucket filled. “Sometimes you may be the only person [another] person has who can fill their bucket,” Pastor Russell declared. This should motivate us to speak to others with caution [Proverbs 18:21 reads “Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits]. We need to be careful how we treat others. We even need to be careful how we look at others. The pastor said that some people we encounter may be poised at the brink of despair, and all it would take to bring them back from the edge is a kind word from ourselves. This is an awesome responsibility, and is, indeed, often a matter of life and death. By showing kindness, we can help fill the buckets of those in desperate need, following the example of our Lord.

El Greco’s version of the “Feast in the House of Simon,” looking a little bit like a mural by Thomas Hart Benton. A Mannerist rendition of the events described in Luke 7.

Example Two (positive) has been touched upon. It is concerned with the subject of gratitude (the moderate thankfulness of Simon, as contrasted with the elevated levels displayed by Mary). Mary’s gratitude was a blessing to both herself and her Lord. Simon, relatively indifferent, and somewhat oblivious to the magnitude of what Jesus had also done for him, continued to sit on the sidelines. He  persisted with attempts to drain the good cheer from other people’s buckets.

Example Three (positive) referred to the “sensitive spirit” that Mary possessed. Negligent Simon had failed to anoint Jesus’ head when He first arrived, but Mary had more than made up for this neglect. She was anointing his feet with costly perfume. Pastor Russell paused in order to tie his various citations into the main theme of the set of four sermons. “This series is called ‘Daring Faith,'” he said. “When she walked into that room, some scholars say, with the exception of the Disciples, she had probably slept with most of those men in that room,” the pastor revealed. “But there was something happening in her heart that was catalyzed by this man Jesus…” Jesus had cast demons out of her life. What Simon failed to realize was that it was the demons who were keeping her tied to a life of prostitution.

The quintessential image of demons plaguing some poor soul, Francisco Goya’s 1799 etching “The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters.” An “Enlightenment” title.

“We have all got our demons,” Pastor Russell assured us. It is not possible to cover up this circumstance. “Everyone around you can tell something’s wrong,” the pastor added. The existence of these demons is not always manifested by Hollywood style dramatics. But the demons are there, “snapping their fingers,” provoking responses so visceral that you do not reflect upon the evil intent and folly of dancing to the tunes they pipe. “You just do it,” Pastor Russell observed. “You lose your cool, you lose your temper, You have ugly language that comes out. And even while you are doing it you say ‘I can’t understand, Lord! Take this stuff from me'”

The Lord heard the cry of Mary, whose body was under the control of evil forces. The pastor detailed Jesus’ exorcism of Mary: “He called not one out of her, but seven demons.” The traditionally piecemeal tale of Mary continued to be knit together. The Mary who was caught in adultery, “in the very act,” was mentioned next, crowned by a paraphrase of the comforting words of Jesus to her, “Mary, you’ve been condemned all your life. Neither do I condemn thee. Go and sin no more…” The visit of Jesus to the home of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus provoked this comment from Pastor Russell: “the only person who went to sit at Jesus’ feet was Mary, because… Jesus was the only one who had actually filled her bucket.” The pastor stated that only one who can fill our buckets over and over again is “the Lord Jesus Christ, and if you’ve got no one else… you’ve got Him.”

Mary pushed through the crowd of men at the feast of Simon, anxious to get next to Jesus. “And at the end f the story,” Pastor Russell continued, “Jesus said, ‘Mary. It is your faith that has saved you.’ The pastor assured us that, no matter how raunchy your  life might have been, nor how decent your life might have been [the pastor interrupted himself in order to remark that are “decent” people in Hell], because [even though] you may show on the outside all of the appropriate ways of living… your heart is so corrupt on the inside.” The pastor stated that, though we may be sitting in church, our thoughts might be wallowing in the gutter. With your family, with your kids, everywhere; it just rolls out of you.” A veneer of sanctimony masks some malicious thoughts, such as “well there goes another person being baptized. When are they going to baptize some decent people?”

“Christ Pantocrator” by Viktor Vasnetsov, a print displaying the standard Eastern Orthodox Church baptism technique- immersion. In the West, this Biblical technique feel into abeyance until the Reformation (some factions of it) revived the practice.

The pastor repeated the lesson extracted from Jesus’ parable about the two debtors. “To those to whom much has been forgiven, those are the ones who are most grateful.” A song was introduced by Pastor Russell, one by CeCe Winans , who currently resides in Brentwood, Tennessee (a most unusual address for a black gospel artist). The song would be revealed to be “Alabaster Box” [my current conceit that all gospel song melodies were actually originated by Stevie Wonder may be indulged by contrasting this 2001 tune to that of Wonder’s 1968 “For Once in My Life“.” But the tune’s pedigree is not that simple. Here is a statement from the Wikipedia article about Frank Sinatra’s 1968 hit “My Way,” a similar melody: “Paul Anka heard the original 1967 French pop song, Comme d’habitude (As Usual) performed by Claude François, while on holiday in the south of France. He flew to Paris to negotiate the rights to the song.” Here is a LINK to the French original of “Comme d’habitude,  but I will perversely continue to pretend that Stevie Wonder was the originator. I do not know who Claude Francois borrowed his tune from].

Pastor Russell revealed that he often cries during worship, for he actually loves God. “I am, obviously, not a perfect person of God- I got my stuff just like everybody else.” He may not have hair, he revealed, but he has tears. “When I heard that song a few years ago… I just began to weep and say ‘God, I get that!'” The main themes of the sermon was recapped, culminating with the statement “those men in the room were the ones who took from her [drained Mary’s “bucket”], and the only man that kept putting back was Him, this man called Jesus. And the room was filled, when she came in… listen to the story…”




The song, “Alabaster Box,” was now performed, and can be located at time marker 2:15:10 on the LINK to the YouTube video of the service. Copyright issues have caused Sony Corporation to remove (temporarily, one would hope) a few recent Berean services from YouTube. It is hoped that this particular service will not suffer a similar fate. This site, homemadegospel, will now potentially violate a copyright by replicating the lyrics to “Alabaster Box.” Reassembled as a narrative, perhaps they will escape the scrutiny of the copyright police:

The room grew still as she made her way to Jesus. She stumbles through the tears that made her blind. She felt such pain. Some spoke in anger. Heard folks whisper, “There’s no place here for her kind!” Still on she came. Through the shame that flushed her face, until at last, she knelt before His feet. And though she spoke no words, everything she said was heard as she poured her love for the Master from her box of alabaster.

And I’ve come to pour my praise on Him like oil from Mary’s alabaster box. Don’t be angry if I wash his feet with my tears and I dry them with my hair. You weren’t there the night He found me. You did not feel what I felt when he wrapped his love all around me, and you don’t know the cost of the oil In my alabaster box.

I can’t forget the way life used to be; I was a prisoner to the sin that had me bound, and I spent my days, poured my life without measure into a little treasure box I’d thought I’d found until the day when Jesus came to me and healed my soul with the wonder of His touch. So now I’m giving back to Him all the praise He’s worthy of. I’ve been forgiven, and that’s why I love Him so much.

And I’ve come to pour my praise on Him like oil from Mary’s alabaster box. Don’t be angry if I wash his feet with my tears and I dry them with my hair. You weren’t there the night He found me. You did not feel what I felt when he wrapped his love all around me, and you don’t know the cost of the oil In my alabaster box.

“Alabaster Box” as performed at Berean SDA Church, Atlanta on 7/2/2016. The elaborate doorway partially visible at right is the same one that is  featured, along with Pastor Russell, in the first image on this post.

There exists a slight affinity between this 2001 autobiographical composition, based on a reference to scripture, and cast into a narrative form, with Dolly Parton’s “Coat of Many Colors.” Dolly Parton was from Appalachia, the rural, white, and vertical equivalent of the “hood,” and wrote another song, one that proved to be the late Whitney Houston’s, and one of history’s, best selling singles of all time (seventh from the top of this Chart).

At the end of the song, Pastor Russell invited “everyone who has a past” to stand. The ladle and bucket were used to illustrate Jesus’ ability to “fill our buckets.” While pantomiming the act of ladling imaginary contents in and out of the bucket he was holding, the pastor observed that “While everyone else is taking from you… He’s never gonna condemn you… all He does is pour into your life.” The case of Mary Magdalen was noted. “He told her… when they were trying to stone her, ‘Neither do I condemn you, but go and sin no more.’ She took it seriously,” the pastor said. “She didn’t turn another trick. She came in the room that night, and all Simon was thinking in his mind was ‘she still is a prostitute…'” The Pharisee denied her the capacity to change. “One a harlot, always a harlot,” stated the pastor, reflecting Simon’s attitude. Jesus pointed out to Simon the heartfelt tokens of Mary’s gratitude that she was displaying toward Him; the tears, and the perfume.

Everyone who “has a past” is standing. Me too! Me too!

The pastor now added that, “without her knowing it, she was filling Jesus’ bucket too… because when you fill another person’s bucket, your own bucket gets filled.” Simon, and also the disciples of Jesus, were passing judgment on Mary, effectively emptying the reformed harlot’s bucket. “All of them,” Pastor Russell asserted, “and the only one pouring into her bucket was Jesus… the only one in the whole room. In the account of the feast contained in the Book of John, Jesus reveals that Mary was ‘preparing my body for death.’ Nobody else got it.”

“Thank you God,” Pastor Russell prayerfully concluded, “that you are always filling us.” Pastor Austin Humphreys was asked to furnish a final prayer. Before this prayer, the pastor made a few last remarks, including a reference to Jeremiah 29:11: For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.” Pastor Humphreys underscored the relevance of the Senior pastor’s sermon by forthrightly stating, in the curse of his prayer, that “that woman reflects us. Oh what sinners we are, wretched and filthy… but we are not who we used to be,” Pastor Humphreys testified. Whatever sins we may have committed, grace is always able to receive us. We can come to God’s open arms and declare (as did Pastor Humphreys), “I need thee, oh I need thee!” He restated to the congregation the necessity of “pouring into other people’s buckets,” as the Lord “first poured into us.” A summation by the summarizer of these remarks is relevant to the case of Mary, and to those that Pastor Russell designated as “people with a past” (everyone, as you will recall). It is Romans 5:8:

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Jerusalem- the YouTube Link

An urgent search for ways to end racism in America is inaugerated in the ATL, birthplace of MLK

The 800 Pound Gorilla in the Room: Racism

The 1969 episode of Star Trek titled “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield” is like an O. Henry story. You cannot figure out why these two characters hate each other so much until the end of the show. The reason is idiotic.

“TRAGEDY UPON TRAGEDY”

Pastor Fredrick Russell of Berean Seventh-day Adventist Church in Atlanta, Georgia  was once again compelled to scrap a prepared sermon in order to respond to recent events, These events ocurred in Louisiana (the death of Alton Sterling), Minnesota (the death of Philando Castile), and Texas (the deaths of Lorne Ahrens, Michael Smith, Michael Krol, Patrick Zamarripa, and Brent Thompson). Predominately improvised Sabbath (7/9/2016) comments by Pastor Russell are embedded in this link to the ENTIRE SERVICE. They commence with the reading by the speaker of some scripture about Noah, and the evil age he lived in, precisely at time marker 1:38:55. The pertinent passages from the Bible, Genesis 6:5-8,  are duplicated below:

The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled. So the Lord said, “I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created–and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground–for I regret that I have made them”

“But! Somebody say ‘but,'” Pastor Russell stated just before providing the third of the three verses…
…Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. (NIV)




A prayer followed the reading of scripture, one which included the following requests to God: “…Lord, we are living in this world, and we don’t live in a monastery, cloistered away from life; we live, all of us, on the front row of life everyday” [a visiting Adventist later remarked to me that the pastor should not be dragging  topical material, such as these recent fatal encounters, into a Sabbath sermon. I badly wanted to reply with a reference to Nero’s fiddle, but remained silent instead. But the Sabbath was, after all (according to Jesus) made for man, and not vice versa]. The Pastor now proceeded to read the names of the dead:

“Philando Castile, in Saint Paul, Minnesota.”

“Alton Sterling, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.”

“And then, on Thursday night, Michael Smith, Michael Krol, Patrick Zamarripa, Brent Thompson, and Lorne Ahrens.”

“All of their lives collided together this past week,” Pastor Russell said. The incident in Louisiana was first to be touched upon. “… With our brother in Baton Rouge, Louisiana; we saw what happened there. And what we cannot do, as a black community, is immediately jump to conclusions. Sometimes we’ve got to wait for it to come out. But when it came to Saint Paul, Minnesota, there was not a lot of second guessing, because we saw Diamond [Reynolds], the girlfriend, calmly, with her hands stable, as the police had his gun trained on her, begin to give the commentary on what was happening at the moment.” The policeman involved in the incident said that he had instructed Philando Castile to put up his hands, but that the victim “did not do it.” Ms. Diamond replies, “No you didn’t sir. You asked him to go for his I.D., and that’s what he did, and you shot him in the arm. You shot him four times.” Pastor Russell said that what Ms. Diamond did not know at that time was that her boyfriend was dying.





Pastor Russell continued. “We saw what happened in Baton Rouge where, in the absence of community policing, community policing being that you know your community you serve in well enough to know the character of the community, what they do on a regular basis, and I would like to suggest if the police had known Alton Sterling, he would not have been shot. They would have known that for years that he had stood in front of that store selling CD’s. And when a homeless brother calls in [to the police] because he is pushing him [Mr. Sterling], just harassing him, he called in and made that false report.” The pastor asserted that, were the police of Baton Rouge less disconnected to  the populace, the officers sent to investigate the complaint would have immediately known, “That’s Alton!”

“This past Thursday, ironically, I, along with a number of senior pastors that you saw on the news Thursday night, were invited to the Carter Center… to a meeting” [Thursday also happened to be the 70th wedding anniversary of President and Mrs. Carter]. Pastor Russell informed us that there were about 300 attendees, a group that included many law enforcement chiefs from the Greater Atlanta area. Out of the thousands of churches that are also located in Atlanta, a few hundred church leaders were present at the meeting. The purpose of this meeting was the “roll-out” of a new initiative called “One Church, One Cop,” [here is a link to a news report about a preceding initiative called “One Church, One Precinct“] where a church adopts a policeman in their area. Pastor Russell clarified the concept of “community policing.” “When policemen get out of their car, and they know their communities, then they relate to the law enforcement responsibilities in a different way…”





Pastor Russell described it as an “amazing meeting.” One of the persons (not a policeman) present spoke of a simulation that they participated in, one that presented some of the unexpected situations that an officer may encounter on the job. Police are often called upon to make “split-second decisions,” the pastor related. Officers are usually family men, and their daily objective is to make it back home safely to their families each evening. Pastor Russell recalled that he himself has been stopped a number of times over the years. He has been “profiled.” The treatment he has received is not like that that his “majority colleagues” would have to go through. The pastor has developed a filter that he utilizes to pattern his behavior, “just like everyone else” [meaning his “minority colleagues”]. The layperson who participated in the aforementioned simulation was presented with several potentially deadly scenarios, ones that involved guns. The participant had previously been very critical of many of the nation’s lawmen, who display an unfortunate tendency to “shoot first, and ask questions later” [1% is the figure floating around the media at present]. But now, under the intense pressure of the simulation, they were making some bad decisions, ones which may have resulted in unintended fatalities were the situations real, and not imaginary. These fatal errors, in reality, are in most cases unintentional, and they can weigh heavily on the consciences of the officers involved in them.

Pastor Russell now observed that there indisputably exists another type of officer. To this unenlightened breed, “Every brother, every sister in the community is suspect.” They not only enforce the law, but can, on occasion, administer the death penalty. They know that they are in a position to literally “get away with murder.” The pastor continued, “When you come at it that way, you are not only prone to make mistakes, people can end up dying…”





The Saint Paul incident was inaugurated as a “tail-light violation.” Pastor Russell noted that he had been stopped before for similar reasons [“pretexts” might be, in some cases, a better word. I have actually heard new gun owners express a strong desire to use their new toys at the first opportunity that presents itself. There actually exists some flawed individuals who, despite he best safeguards, nevertheless manage to enter the ranks of law enforcement. They relish opportunities that allow them to flex their muscles, and can, for a season, operate like renegades and vigilantes. The worst consequence that usually results from fatal shootings by the bad cops are brief periods of “paid administrative leave”].

The victim in Saint Paul, Philando Castile, had done “all of the right things,” the pastor affirmed, in order to not provoke a bad reaction by the officer who confronted him, “Things I taught my own son,” Pastor Russell added. “When you have a police stop, you keep your hands on the wheel. If you are only driving with one hand… put both hands on the wheel. Don’t do any jerks. Don’t do any sudden moves. Just say ‘yes sir’ and ‘no sir.’ If he says to you, ‘can I get your license,’ if it is in the glove compartment… tell him, ‘I am reaching for my license. I am pulling out the wallet. I am taking the license out of the wallet. And here is the license.’ How many dads in here understand we have to do that with our sons?” The responsible fathers in the congregation, which included many accomplished professionals, and was replete with law abiding citizens, all raised their hands.

Philando Castile

The late Mr. Castile of Saint Paul was in legal possession of a firearm. He cautiously advised the police officer of the existence of this gun. Pastor Russell noted that “if he were checking the boxes, he would have checked all of the boxes. And he is still what, everybody? Dead.”

The pastor was up at 2 am, preparing to shift the focus of this sermon. A member of the church who happens to be an attorney emailed him about 3 am, This led to the inauguration of a phone call between the two at this exceptionally early hour. From 3:20 am to 6 am, the two of them talked. They concluded that the “overarching” and “undergirding” dynamic for all of this insanity is the subject of race,”

The issues that have affected our nation are considered from different viewpoints, depending (not exclusively, the pastor qualified, but predominately) upon the race of the person who is wrestling with these issues. Black and white views reflect the “polar opposites of the racial divide,” Pastor Russell observed. Pastor Russell does a lot of work outside of his home church (which is predominately African American) in the white community. A few weeks back, a Caucasian friend of the pastor called and made the statement, “Freddie, I am so angry. I don’t like what’s happening in this country, and based on what I’m seeing, I’m beginning to hate!” The white speaker was ready to lay the blame for all of this on President Obama, as if the Commander in Chief were directly responsible for all of the racial animosity that is fouling the atmosphere at present. Pastor Russell interrupted his friend’s subsequent list of grievances to remind him that when Barrack Obama assumed office, there were already racial challenges in this country. They were not his creation at all. But the pastor added that “What happened, with a brother becoming president of the country… it pulled off the covering of what was already there.”





The covering being now removed, the unsightly contours of our nation’s zeitgeist is fully revealed. Pastor Russell said, “What you’ve got now is just a real ugliness, and we are literally, in this country, on a precipice.” It is a precipice we must take care not to go over. Pastor Russell keeps up with the news [conceivably even on the Sabbath]. He also checks the reader comments upon the news [a bully pulpit the silent majority often forsakes, but nuts, who in some cases might actually be the uninhibited harbingers of the majority opinion,  are irresistibly drawn to these little comment boxes]. A white commentator recently opined, “Don’t worry about what happened in Dallas. This is good, because we are about to do a racial purging in this country, and we are going to end up in this country, in about two years, where it is all white again.” Reasonable responses by other readers to this statement questioned the sanity of the commentator (Russians once loved to subject their Jewish population to destructive and meaningless “pogroms,” as anyone who has seen “Fiddler on the Roof” is aware of. I could now drag in Nazi attitudes toward racial persecution and “cleansing,” but I got into too much trouble the last time I made this obvious, apt, but also highly incendiary analogy].
The pastor continued. “We have a political candidate right now who is saying ‘we need to go back to America the way it was” [I am reminded of Reagan’s slogan “It’s Morning Again in America”]. Pastor Russell offered a brief history lesson to his listeners. “Some of us see ‘America as it was’ in a different light.”





There undoubtedly exists in this country a racial divide. Pastor Russell once again qualified the presumed solidarity of the majority opinion by asserting that there exists some Caucasians who see things in a different light. But most of the white audiences that the pastor addresses are weary of talk about race. Many of these groups seen to have an implied contract with the pastor. He is welcome to speak to them, as long as he does not speak of racial matters. They appreciate that Pastor Russell’s usual world-view places primacy upon God, rather than race. They inform the pastor that other black speakers “always bring up the racial stuff, but you didn’t.” Pastor Russell has a new reply to this questionable appraisal: “But I will this afternoon.”

But Pastor Russell fully intends to address the topic of race from a Christian perspective, because “…it is the 800 pound gorilla that sits in this county.” When events such as those that have happened in the last week occur, everyone goes off and sits in what the pastor designated out “tribal corners, and we peer at each other until you get the ugly speech on all sides [a Sunday commentator on CBS observed that, though we may retreat to opposite sides of the room, we are nevertheless still in the same room]. Every action brings about a reaction, and every action is not always positive.”

“And so we see a single brother, a gunman, get on a rooftop…” The police arrive to protect people who are not demonstrating against the police themselves, but against the suspicious circumstances surrounding the incidents in Minnesota and Louisiana.  The protest is a peaceful one, and the relations between the protestors and police are amicable. “That’s when the brother [Micah Xavier Johnson] gets on the rooftop… and he begins to ‘execute’ [a termed used by the media, noted the pastor] policemen who have families to go home to. That was real. And yet, what happens sometimes in the cars, when brothers and sisters are stopped, sometimes that turns out to be an ‘execution’ also.” The racial divide brings out a sense of moral opposition when these ‘executions’ are considered. Saint Paul and Baton Rouge draw this reaction from the black community: “What is this? What is going on? This is such an outrage! And the majority community [whites] is silent,” Pastor Russell noted.

Micah Xavier Johnson

But when an event like the one that occurred in Dallas comes along, the pastor declared that “We ourselves, sometimes, have been silent. The fact we are talking about, everybody, is that life has been taken away from all of them.” The problems had been described. Pastor Russell would now proceed to search for solutions.

He strode back toward the pulpit. “Here are some things I’d like you to know this morning.” He took possession of his Bible, an object wherein solutions to all of life’s difficulties may be discovered.
“There is the issue… not only of the idea of ‘equal protection under the law,’ … but there is ‘equal value of life.’ And if, as a ‘Christian,’ I continue to define the value of a life based upon the color of a person’s skin, or the color of the person’s uniform, or the color of anything else, then I do the exact same thing that I am skewering others over. There is a Christian way through all of this…” He revealed that the Christian church (not just Adventists, for “God is using a lot of folk right now”) has an important peacemaking role to play at this time. “But when the church remains silent, then we join with the masses; we respond like everybody else.” As a Christian. the pastor proclaimed that he, for one, could not respond like everybody else. When he heard of the deaths of the brothers (Castile and Sterling), his heart broke. When he was apprised of the additional deaths in Dallas on Thursday night, his heart got broken all over again.

Pastor Russell revealed the wellspring of his sensitive responses to “tragedy upon tragedy.” He asserted that “our hearts break because, at the end of the day, we know  that it has nothing to do with race. Ultimately, it is a Sin issue that we are dealing with in this culture right now.” In the Word it is revealed by the Lord that “prior to my coming,” He will slowly, again [a reference to the days of Noah] withdraw His Spirit from the earth.” Pastor Russell now revealed the results of this withdrawal. “You will see an increase of hatred, and the love of many will do what, the Bible says? Wax cold!”

A second image from John Houston’s 1966 epic “The Bible: In the Beginning…”

“As I mentioned the last time something like this happened [link is to yet another impromptu sermon, but not the one the pastor now cites], that I spoke to in the Charleston event, is that if we’re not careful in this country, we are headed towards a race war.” Pastor Russell reminded everyone that when a war similar to this [albeit a “tribal” war] happened in Rwanda some years ago {1990-1994], “it was ‘Christians’ who were killing ‘Christians;’ Christians in quote-marks.” Our response as ‘believers’ [my quote marks] may begin to reflect the same attributes as everyone else. The pastor continued, “And if a race war occurs in this country, if we’re not careful as Christians, we become a part of it out of a sense of protecting our ‘tribe'” We will begin to hate the very people that Jesus died for, he predicted.

Pastor Russell has a characteristic expression that he frequently employs when he is seeking to emphasize a point. He now employed it as a preface to his next remarks. “Look at me, everyone.” The brother who died in Baton Rouge, and the policeman who took his life; Pastor Russell revealed this fact: “Jesus died for both of them.” The policeman who “pulled the trigger” on the brother who died in Saint Paul; Pastor Russell noted again that, “Jesus died for him also, and Jesus went to the cross for him.” And the “brother who got on the rooftop on Thursday evening, on the parking garage… the Lord also died for him.”

“David Handing Over a Letter to Uriah” by Pieter Lastman (1619). Murderer and victim may become reconciled, assuming that they both  end up in heaven.

“And so, does the Christian community, even as we speak strongly to these things, do we respond to it with the same vitriol, and same reactive and ugly language, beginning to hate our brothers in the majority community? And do Christians in the majority community begin to hate people in the minority community” And  when you’ve got hate on top of hate, what have you got, everybody?” The question was asked again. The answer was provided by the church. Pastor Russell ratified this by exclaiming, “Hate! That’s all you got.” The strategy for countering hatred, as commanded by Jesus, is so well known to all that the pastor left it unstated, at least for the present. What would come next was a pragmatic, tactical proposal, a means whereby the members of Berean, along with a large number of anticipated regional members of the Adventist denomination who will be in Atlanta next Sabbath, Christians at large, law enforcement officials, and (hopefully) perhaps even the proverbial “man on the street,” might come together to be a part of the solution to our nations  abiding malady, the sickness termed racism.

Pastor Russell had managed to do a lot of thinking, considering that he had only been active since 2 am that morning. He spoke to his intentions: “So on next Saturday evening… as you know on next Saturday afternoon we will be having an “End It Now” rally… [against domestic violence and human trafficking]. But at seven o’clock… we are going to leverage the racially mixed group [expected] on this lot… we’re going to talk about, in this sanctuary, about what happened in this last week. We will have law enforcement people here who will talk about it through their eyes. Other who will talk about it… with law enforcement.” The pastor had consulted with some of the church leadership. The question of the hour, relating to recent developments, was this: “How do we create some positive steps coming out of this?” The church is not interested in just having “people talking at the mics and out on the plaza, just talking.” But rather, “What do we do as a community?”





Representatives of the new “One Church, One Cop” initiative will be present. Pastor Russell quoted Atlanta Chief of Police George N. Turner with regard to the intensive training that the members of the Atlanta Police Department receive in the art of “de-escalating” a situation. The Thursday meeting at the Carter Center that the pastor attended was focused on ways to prevent Atlanta from becoming another Cleveland, or as he noted, “my old city of Baltimore.” As the police get out of their cars in the metropolitan area, and as they get to know and relate to each other, when potentially explosive situations  occur the police and the citizenry will not just be “peering at each other across the blue line,” the pastor prayed. Instead, they will say, “We know this cop. We know these people. We know this community.” The projected meeting will be an inclusive one, with all races and denominations invited to attend. It is not to be limited to a discussion of the “things that happen, and constructive ways to deal with it, but here is the chance we’re going to take on this one,” Pastor Russell proposed, “and this is where you need to pray, because anytime you talk about race, its so real to everybody that sometimes its difficult to get through.”

“We’re going to bring up the ‘elephant in the room’ [a.k.a. the ‘800 pound gorilla’], and that is how we all view each other, and understanding that we view each other over the racial divide. That we cannot [at present] have a healthy response when things happen to each other.” The congregation, and the online viewers, were urged to fill the church next Saturday evening, and not to arrive in a state of anger. Again, Pastor Russell mentioned that the “overarching,” and “undergirding” theme of it all will be “how do we talk openly, and in a healthy way, about the racial divide that we have. As long as people can talk, they can work through anything. But when they cannot talk, then everyone gets upset, and we see each other in the worst light.” The conclusion of the sermon was now at hand, but the healing of our nation lies, unfortunately,  just a bit farther down the road.





“How many of you are Christians in this room?” There was a show of hands. “How many of you know that our white brothers and sisters, they are not our enemies?” The same hands reappeared. Some whites may feel that they are enemies, but Pastor Russell vowed that the members of Berean were enemies of none. Racism is excluded. “…We are Christians first,” he assured one and all, black and white. A third question was asked: “How many of you know that, as Christians, that when people do you wrong, God still commands of us that we love them? {this attitude, implied earlier in the sermon, was now unambiguously stated here at the end.] All hands were raised in affirmation of this unambiguous and uncompromising belief.

The tale of the Flood was revisited. God had repented that He created mankind. Noah, by distancing himself from the evil that pervaded the age he lived in, escaped from the condemnation of the majority. A statement by Pastor Russell at this time reflected a traditional Adventist belief: “In every generation, there are those who maintain their loyalty to God, and in every generation there are people who represent God, even though the rest of the culture may go against God, and how they act, and what they do.” Noah was such a soul. He stood “flat-footed,” and despite all of the evil that surrounded him [evil that is becoming increasingly prevalent in our own age]. Noah stood in opposition to the spirit of his time and place. He remained unspotted. God revealed His attitude towards Noah’s exceptionality in Verse 8 of Genesis, Chapter 6, which now bears repetition: …Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. Noah would endure, while the evils surrounding him were to be extinguished.





The pastor prayed that, even if Berean SDA Church had to stand alone, they were going to deal with the issue in a straightforward manner. It would not be “covered up.” The congregation of Berean is in a good position to make a difference. Pastor Russell was not attempting to flatter the congregation when he made his next statement. He was merely noting a fact: “I know there is one church in this city, I am convinced of, that I know most of the folks in that church are Christians”. There may be others, but he hoped that God would one day look down upon the present congregation and inform them that they had succeeded in finding grace, and favor in the eyes of the Lord.

“We not gonna hate nobody, because if everything works out, maybe, just maybe, some of these folks who got killed got a chance to call upon the name of the Lord.” The pastor added that it was possible that those who had been the unjust killers also got a chance to call upon the name of the Lord. As he had noted years ago, Pastor Russell again revealed that “The most wonderful scene that will take place in heaven is when the murderer, and the murdered, can stand hand in hand, shoulder to shoulder, worshiping, loving on, and praising the same God.” Pastor Russell has not only been praying for the victims and their families this week, but also for the perpetrators and their families. He has also been praying for our country, and that he may be used as a catalyst, despite all of the hatred, to help bring about a powerful Christian response of love, “Because it is true: love trumps evil all of the time. And as Dr. King, quoting Schopenhauer, said… ‘The arc of the moral universe is long, and it always bends toward justice.’ Because when Jesus shall come, all of this will be over, and all of those who have chosen Jesus Christ as Savior will be saved.”

Quotable Arthur Schopenhauer, like Gandhi, was an inspiration for Dr. King, but he did not extend his compassion to members of the fairer sex.

The arc of the moral universe comes to rest in the Book of Revelation. Pastor Russell alluded to the last chapter of this last book in the Bible, Chapter 22, which he paraphrased in the following manner:

And God shall wipe away all tears. No more crying. No more dying: that stops. No more killing police. No more police killing this person. No more hatred. But the Bible says, “the former things be passed away,” and God says, “you won’t think about them ever again.”

“But we’re still here right now. And the fact is that our response as Christians will always be one that represents God, because I’m not loyal just to my country, and just to my family, and just to my ‘tribe.’ But ultimately, I’m loyal to the God in heaven, and at the end of the day, that’s the One that we are trying to please.” A short prayer concluded the impassioned forty minute improvisation. It was preceded by a song, Here I am to Worship. The summarizer of these remarks will link an additional, one less meditative, and more motivational. Here is a 1978 recording of James Cleveland singing “On the Battlefield for My Lord.” In the Old Testament, Hebrews had the quaint custom of shipping the dismembered body parts of the victims of some outrage or other to distant kinsmen as a type of “call to action,” whereby combined forces might join together in order to help to correct some temporary deviation in the proper trajectory of the “moral arc of the universe.” Pastor Fredrick Russell’s impromptu sermon was an equally urgent “call to action.” We can be apart of the solution to the “overarching” and “undergirding” problem of racism in America, and in the world. We can do this by simply behaving like Christians. The unmistakable sign of faith is works. There is much work to be done. Now is the time for everyone to get busy.