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Pastor David Hewitt
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Pastor David is Associate Pastor of King of Glory Lutheran Church and blogs these devotionals. He invites your comments which will be considered for posting for a period of 5 days from each blog entry date.
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Thursday, 29 July 2010
The headline caught my eye, "Abraham Lincoln was Born a Muslim, Says Film Maker." Okay, now I've seen it all. Lincoln has been claimed to be secretly black, Jewish, Catholic...for some old Abe is secretly the son of Senator John Calhoun, the man who first threatened to lead the South out of the Union...for others, Abe is secretly the grandson of George Washington or Thomas Jefferson, or some other member of the "Planter Elite of Virginia." But a Muslim? I've got to read this.
"Abraham Lincoln was born a Muslim, says Faruq Masudi, producer and director of the new Islamic movie, 'Quran: Contemporary Connections.' Faruq Masudi said, 'According to the Quran, everybody is born a Muslim. It is only by his own free will that a man chooses a different course for himself.'" Masudi goes on to say that he believes Lincoln was such a good person that he must have been a Muslim. "He chose to live by Islamic edicts like abolishing organized slavery; establishing equality of all human beings, democracy and accountabiliity to God and Man -- all core Islamic concepts as propounded in the Holy Quran."
At first I thought this was a very "liberal" (too liberal) view of Islam and its teachings. But I was wrong. It is not in the Quran, but in another of Islam's holy books that we read of a "hadith" which says, "The Prophet Muhammed said, 'Every child is born with a Fitra [a true faith in Allah; a natural inclination to worship only Allah]. It is his parents who make him a Jew or a Christian or a Polytheist."
There are some interesting implications in this statement. First of all, just as what we see in many Muslim-majority countries is that it's a grave crime to "convert" a Muslim into a Christian or Jew or some other religion, so also in those same Muslim countries it is easy to imagine Muslims being equally angry at, say, Christian parents for "converting" their own children from following Islam into following Christianity instead. Remember, Muslims believe all babies are Muslim, at first.
Secondly, along with being born Muslim, Islam teaches that no babies are "born in sin." This reminds me of what I found a few months ago, when I was surprised to find that in Judaism, as well, there is no such thing as "original sin." What does it mean that, of all the religions, only Christianity believes in original sin? Is that important, or not?
I tell you why I believe it is an important fact. I'm reminded of what the Apostle Paul once wrote in his letter to the Romans, chapter 7. He wrote, "For we know that the Law [of God] is spiritual; but I am of the flesh, sold into slavery under sin. I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now," Paul goes on, "if I do what I do not want, I agree that the Law is good. But in fact it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells in me." (Romans 7:14-17)
Here Paul is describing original sin and its effects. No matter how hard we try, we cannot escape sin's mastery over us. While other religions (even Judaism and Islam) say directly or indirectly that we can free ourselves from sin, the Christian witness disagrees. Other religions may agree that we cannot save ourselves without God's help - -but they still say we must save ourselves. They may say "submit to God" or "let God help you," but the bottom line is -- "save yourself."
Meanwhile, Paul relies totally on the grace of God. He uses the term "rescue" -- "Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!" Only Jesus saves. Only Jesus can.
Maybe that's why you don't hear Christians say that everyone is "born Christian." Maybe that's why only the Christian Scriptures testify to the depths of our difficulties -- why only our Scriptures are not surprised that all human projects to create goodness are bound to at least some failure -- why only our Scriptures command and plead a total reliance on God's forgiveness, mercy, and grace. That, my friends, is our cross to bear -- thank God!!!
David Hewitt
Wednesday, 14 July 2010
In an e-devotion last Spring I used a chapter in historian David McCullough's set of essays, "Brave Companions." In that chapter, McCullough describes travelling with a noted Midwestern photographer, David Plowden, as he went south from his home, a suburb of Chicago, to the prairies that lie two hours south of there, "South of Kankakee" (the title of the essay).
There are a lot of little towns dotting the prairies south of Kankakee, McCullough (author of the popular Truman biography) notices. One of them my wife grew up in first, Gilman. She and her sister are in Gilman today, on its only Main Street, to see the funeral director and plan my mother-in-law's funeral.
The photographer, Plowden, loved taking pictures of the cornfields and little towns of east central Illinois. He and McCullough particularly liked Gilman (this was thirty years ago). McCullough writes, "Half an hour later we are in Gilman, again on the Illinois Central Gulf [railroad], and he [Plowden] has already made several shots from a spot beside Jed's Yazoo Mowers ("Sales and Service"), where Main Street crosses the tracks. There is more to Gilman than Chebanse. A James Bond movie, For Your Eyes Only, is playing at the Palace up the block. There is a Ben Franklin, a Montgomery Ward."
Well, one of the problems with this paragraph is, there no longer is a Ben Franklin or a Montgomery Ward in little Gilman, nor nothing like it there anymore. In 1982 the Palace Theater no longer showed movies but became "The Pizza Palace."
But that's all right with Plowden. He takes photographs in part, he says, to preserve dying structures for all time. "You know," he says to McCullough, "what I really love about doing this? In a sense I preserve this little place -- I caught it, and it won't disappear. It's been held."
Yes, it's been held in a photo, but even that photo can get lost, deteriorate, and die. Nothing on this earth will last forever. It's hard for us to accept that. Even memories can fade. It's hard to watch someone with Alzheimer's forget the name of one of his or her closest friends. In reaction against change, we can invest in our history a romanticism, wish that we were back there, say that those were better times, and, through nostalgic actions, escape into that fantasy realm.
But that is not the way of the Spirit. To this day many Jews mourn the loss of the Temple in Jerusalem, and wish it to be reconstructed, not realizing what dangers might crop up if they ever tried. Some sit day after day after day along the "Wailing Wall" of what's left of that building, chanting and rocking back and forth, oblivious of the opportunities God gives us to do His will NOW. When the Samaritan "woman at the well" tried to compare her mountain temple with the Jewish one -- implying hers was better - Jesus replied, "Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem," and He later predicted the Temple's destruction.
But Jesus didn't mourn excessively that destruction. He saw in it the start of a New Era in the life of the Spirit of God. "God is Spirit," He told that woman a little bit later. "and those who worship God must worship Him in Spirit and in Truth." (John 4:16-26) And we, too, when unwanted change occurs, can look ahead not in sorrow, anger, or fear, but in joy -- joy that, in any case, God is leading us and guiding us along a journey that eventually will lead us to a New Heaven and a New Earth.
So what is a funeral? I am about to be a part of one, as a mourner, not a pastor. Yes, we "mourn" the loss of a loved one; that is well and good. But is that the most important thing at a funeral - what we lost? The Spirit always impels us forward, as we continue our Adventure with Him. St. Peter calls us (1 Peter 2:11) "aliens and exiles," those who are sojourning to another, more promising land, a far country. As the lead singer of Switchfoot sings, "I don't belong here."
For my mother-in-law, it is definitely the beginning of a New and Most Glorious Day, beyond our fathoming. May the afterglow of that Spiritual truth for her light up this and every other funeral that claims to be Christian. "Because He Lives, I can face tomorrow."
David Hewitt
Tuesday, 13 July 2010
My wife's mother died yesterday. We as a family are seeking, with God's help, to be supportive of one another.
Speaking for myself as her son-in-law, It's kind of hard to believe that this person, who has been a part of my life for over twenty-five years, has gone. Or, I should say, gone away -- gone away to heaven.
Roma had a very strong faith, a very dutiful faith. She rarely missed a Sunday of public worship. She enjoyed everything about worship: the preaching of the Word of God, singing, the liturgy, and communion. She seemed to find solace in her faith-life, her life in Christ, in times of turmoil and grief, such as when she lost her first husband, Ronald, from lung cancer. She once told me that, when she returned from the hospital after Ronald's death, she sat in a big, comfy chair at home and felt like she would never leave it, she felt so weak. But she relied on God at that moment. She mourned and cried and slept away her grief in that big chair.
And then she moved on.
She was never anyone's fool -- not if she could help it. She did not like to waste on fool's errands any of the money or resources God had given her. That would be a waste of God's benificence. On that score, I would think she would like it when Jesus said once, "Do not throw your pearls before swine." (Matthew 7:6) She was often quite perceptive about the underlying selfish motives people had for doing things. She was concerned that the world was ignoring the concept of "sin."
I was never comfortable calling her mother or mom -- I already had one. Yet there was no doubt that, over the many years, she became a kind of a mother to me, and I am grateful for it. She helped to take care of Diane and me and the whole family. Above all, she gave our family a great example in being totally devoted to the mission of the church, and the hope of salvation. Following Luther, there was never any question in Roma's mind about life after death. One day, through God's grace, she knew that she would go to God in His heaven, and see again her parents, her first husband, her daughter, and other loved ones, and, through Christ, that she would be waiting for us.
She just knew it. There was never any question. Nor, for the rest of us, is there one now. That is the legacy of the faith of a Mother.
David Hewitt
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