Pastor Humphreys: “He Still Covered Me!”
ANOTHER DYNAMIC PRESENTATION BY AUSTIN HUMPHREYS
The April 23, 2016 Sabbath worship service at Berean Seventh-day Adventist Church, Atlanta, featured a sermon by Pastor Austin Humphreys. It was based on Luke 15:14-24. This portion of the Parable of the Prodigal Son describes his decision, after squandering his fortune, to had back home. He anticipated a serious loss of status and standing with his father, and had resigned himself to assuming the condition of a servant in his father’s house. But rather than abasing, the hitherto “lost” son abounded. These verses do not include the incensed reaction of the Prodigal’s brother to their father’s magnanimous and forgiving attitude in regard to the returned wastrel. The disgruntled brother exhibits the same bad kharma that Jonah did, in the wake of God’s forgiveness of the populace of sinful Nineveh.
Here, as usual, is a link to the ENTIRE SERVICE. The sermon, “He Still Covers Me,” commences around time marker 1:24:22. As is the case with every instance of Pastor Humphreys’ anointed preaching, it does not translate perfectly into words alone. Previous attempts to summarize his sermons have displayed some of the attributes of musical scores. Pastor Humphreys frequently employs the rhetorical tool of Anaphora (what I naively used to designate as the “repetitive device”), which looks best on paper when it is faithfully reproduced, in full.
Berean’s own CaraMia offered up a song just prior to Pastor Humphreys’ sermon, one to be found at time marker 1:18:00. David Trofort (a frequent collaborator with the singing/songwriting twins) directed the Berean choral ensemble “Open Praise.” He was not wearing his distinctive white robe this Sabbath, but was as animated in his direction as he usually is. The choir added some emphasis to the performance by the featured twins. The title of the song was “That’s When You Bless Me” (the link is to a 2003 version by the L.A. Mass Choir).
Pastor Humphreys inaugurated his remarks by calling for a brief reprise of the preceding praise song. The pastor inquired of the congregation, “aren’t you glad He did just what He said He could do?” The germane verses from the Parable under scrutiny were read by the pastor. Here is a condensation of Luke 15:14-24:
The Prodigal Son spent everything, and he was in want. Feeding swine, he even considered sampling their slops. “How many hired servants of my father’s have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before you.” His father saw him, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him. His father said, “Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him, and bring here the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry: for this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found!”
Pastor Humphreys remarked that his mother did not “play games” She was generally tolerant, but not when it came to “back talk.” As a child, he was given some tasks to do by his mother. The pastor (in a momentary lapse of reason) informed her that he did not care to undertake these tasks. “I’ll do it later,” young Austin informed her. But, even though he was bigger and stronger than his mother, he suffered instant correction, courtesy of her “swift backhand.” “Boy! Have you lost your mind?” She worked two jobs to keep her son in Christian education (“it ain’t cheap,” the pastor stated). The only proper response to her request would have been “yes mam!”
But correction from his mother was always followed by repentance, and acceptance back into her good graces. He compared the forgiving nature that his mother displayed to that of the father of the Prodigal Son. Pastor Humphreys noted that, “when you have reached the bottom, the only way to look is up!” The story was paraphrased at this point by the preacher. The pastor said that the errant son had lost most everything in the “far country,” but had retained enough common sense to find a way out. God always leaves us a little something to work with. Pastor Humphreys related the oft told story of a Berean member who had not only lost both of her eyes, but had one of her legs amputated as well. While in the hospital, she had recently twice experienced a state of clinical death, and had to be revived. Pastor Humphreys, apprised of this, rushed to the scene. The convalescent testified to the pastor that, though she had lost much, and endured much, she was nevertheless grateful to God for what He had left her with. Pastor applied this wisdom to his own circumstances. “Sometimes you have to use what you’ve got left, to get back what you’ve lost,” Pastor Humphreys remarked.
The Prodigal, just prior to his return home, had to come to an awareness of just how broken he was. Sometimes God has to “break” us, in order to get us to where we need to be. But some of us (even “church folk,” the pastor revealed) don’t want to admit to their brokenness. “I’m blessed and highly favored!” This platitude can, at times, irritate Pastor Humphreys when he hears it. Though it is often simply praise for smooth circumstances, it can also be indicative of a complaisant obliviousness to personal shortcomings that stand in need of correction. The pastor related a tale of a person who had neglected a broken arm for a few months. When he finally paid a visit to the doctor, the latter gave him a distasteful prognosis: the only way he could fix his badly mended arm was to re-break it. Pastor Humphreys said that “anything that God breaks, He ends up blessing.” A reference to the “breaking of the bread” prior to the miraculous feeding of the 5,000 by Jesus was provided by the pastor (“this is my body,” also comes to mind). “Let God break you, so He can fix you, and make you whole!”
The son discovered that “restoration” is experienced subsequent to the “breaking” process. Filthy, and weak from malnourishment, the Prodigal comes to his father’s house. The pastor mentioned Luke 15:20, which notes that while the son was still far off, his father saw him. The pastor drew an analogy to God’s constant oversight. “Every day the father waited for the son to come back home. “Aren’t you glad that, even when others forgot about you, others wrote you off, and others dismissed you, that God has been peeking through His window, looking for you, trying to find exactly where you are?” The father ran to the son. He did not greet him with accusatory questions and statements, Instead, he directed his servants to “bring him the best robe.” This robe served to mask the filthiness of the son. The pastor stated, “when you make your way back to God, be grateful that you don’t look like the Hell you just came out of!” You become a new creature.
The ring that the father then placed upon his son’s finger was revealed by Pastor Humphreys to be a symbol of authority for powerful clans in days gone by. The truant had lost this authority when he departed. As an example of the process of “restoration,” the pastor remarked that the father had now given to the son “exactly what he lost.”
Why did the father not await the son’s arrival in the house? It was considered a compromise of one’s dignity to run, were one a man of influence in ancient societies. Pastor Humphreys said that “the father is not just running to show compassion. He is running to show protection.” The pastor now (in the manner of Lead Pastor Fredrick Russell) enlisted David Trofort and a crew of Elders in order to create a tableaux that illustrated his point. “Don’t miss this,” he said, “cause I don’t really do stuff like this,” referring to this rare (for Pastor Humphreys) foray into the field of theatrical production. The action starts at time marker 1:47:15 in YouTube VIDEO. The pastor prefaced the action by noting that in Deuteronomy 21, there is a provision that states “if a son disgraces a father, he is banned from his homeland, but if the son returns home, he is to be sentenced to be stoned to death.”
The son may not have been aware of this, but the father surely was. There existed a chance that some Elders (portrayed, in this recreation of the scene, by actual Elders) might spot the son before he reached his metaphorical “city of refuge,” and honor the letter of Mosaic Law by executing him.
The father “covers” the son, so if any stones should be thrown at the son, they would instead fall upon himself. Pastor Humphreys made plain to his listeners the meaning of this metaphor for God’s protection of us all. The Cross was invoked: “He came to you, and He covered you!” We are covered by the blood of Jesus. “Stone throwers are people who do not celebrate you when you succeed,” the preacher said. The Elders would enlist the whole community to assist in throwing stones. “The father could not send a servant out to the son to protect him,” Pastor Humphreys revealed. The only one who could advertise the fact of the ‘forgiveness’ of his son to the community had to be the father himself.
The last instant bequest by the father to the son (more “restoration”) was a pair of shoes. The son’s intent had been to assume the position of one of his father’s expendable “hired servants,” In ancient times, only hired servants and slaves went barefoot. The provision of shoes represented a third token of the esteem that the father bestowed upon his son. “I know there are in life some things that I don’t deserve,” Pastor Humphreys said, but added that all would be well as long as we remained “focused and secure” in our “Daddy” [I have avoided interjecting much personal material into this summary. I have to pause to note that I lost my terrestrial father when I was just 19. The loss was not repaired entirely until I fully accepted a heavenly surrogate 30 years later]. The returned son received shoes, as it was not his father’s intent that he assume the condition of a slave, whatever the young man might have thought that he deserved. “Because you are my son,” the pastor said (speaking for the father), “you are going to get all of the riches, and the glory, and the position that I have for you!” As a free man, Pastor Humphrey asserted, nobody can tell him “how to be, where to be, what to do, as long as I am focused and secure in my Daddy! I am royalty to Him!”
A personal experience was used to illustrate of the final points Pastor Austin Humphreys had to make, prior to a general appeal to those present to either accept Jesus for the first time, or rededicate their lives to his service (I will give away the ending by revealing now that this was a very effective appeal. I was sitting one row behind the pews that served as receptacles for the newly converted Christians. They were squeezed in very tightly, due to the remarkable quantity that responded to the pastor’s invitation).
“We’re almost ready to go home. I recently had to switch over [to] new car insurance.” The pastor did not select a premium plan, as he was “cheap.” He just needed basic coverage. All week long a tire on his car had been running with low pressure. The pastor neglected to address this problem. On the hospital to visit a parishioner, the tire had a blow-out. He pulled his car over, thinking “Lord have mercy! I didn’t add any roadside assistance” [to the new insurance policy]. He got on the phone to a lady at the company (“she was a sister, praise God”), and described his plight to her. He requested help. The lady replied that she must check his policy first (“oh Lord, thought Pastor Humphreys, aware of the inadequacies of his new coverage). “She blew me away,” the pastor revealed. “She said, ‘sir, don’t worry. It’s covered.'” The pastor was unsure of the nature of this unanticipated response, and felt that there must be a qualification to it lurking about somewhere. The lady informed the pastor that “when you came to us, we were running a promotional.” To express their appreciation for the new business that he had thrown their way, the pastor would enjoy the benefits of a premium plan, even though he was just paying for garden variety coverage. Help was just ten minutes away. In a jiffy, Pastor Humphreys was back on the road.
“The good news today is that God says that when you decide to leave from where you used to be, and join on to Him, God says, ‘you’re covered!'” The Hammond organ, trusted adjunct to many of the pastor’s Sabbath presentations, now made it’s first appearance (I wonder if anyone has ever transcribed any of the notation of these sprite-like musical punctuation marks?). Here a little Anaphora (repetition) was employed by the speaker. “God says that, just because you got on with me, I got you covered! And so…”
- “I praise God that He covered my mistakes!”
- “I praise God that He covered my wayward ways!”
- “I praise God that He fixed my needs!”
“I can’t get stuck up, and pretend that I am better than anyone else, cause all I have to do is look under my robe, and I realize how filthy I am!” (at this point in Pastor Humphreys’ sermons, it is inevitable that many will rise to their feet, prompted by the infectious enthusiasm of his delivery technique). A “sample” of “Amazing Grace” was appropriately inserted at this point, as the means whereby God “covers” the filthy rags of our righteousness:
- “Amazing grace…” (stop)
- “How sweet the sound,” (stop)
- “That saved a wretch like me!” (stop)
- “I once was lost…” (stop)
- “But now am found,” (stop)
- “Was blind, but now I see!” (extended flourish)
“I am so glad that he covered us with His Blood. And I want you to know that His Blood still works.” The pastor’s tentative appeal to those who sought to renew their faith was now broadened to include anyone and everyone. “All you have to do is make one decision,” Pastor Humphreys urged, “and that is ‘God, I’m coming home to you today.'” The lyrics began to be sung behind the verbal appeal: “The Blood, that Jesus shed for me…” “If that’s you, I just want to invite you to the altar. If you need prayer, if you need to get in that watery grave…” The harvest was plenteous, for the reaper is a precocious adept when it comes to wielding a sickle.
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