A CUSSING KING

Warning.  This post contains a fully spelled out curse word, but it’s not me cussing. 

Inspired by former NFL quarterback Colin Kapernick, several NFL players elected to protest police brutality and systemic racism by kneeling during the national anthem.  President Donald J. Trump said:

In fairness to the president, this is not the first time a national leader went all potty-mouth in public.

Read 1 Samuel chapter 20.

Saul, the first king of Israel, had been chosen by God (1 Samuel 9:15-17), anointed by the prophet-priest Samuel (1 Samuel 10:1), and publicly selected in a national election in which the outcome was predetermined (1 Samuel 10:20-22).

In the first year of his administration, the new king solidified a fiercely loyal and enthusiastic base. 

So all the people shouted and said, “Long live the king!” (1 Samuel 10:24)

He inspired an opposition movement that questioned his qualifications for the office. 

But some rebels said, “How can this man save us?” So they despised him, and brought him no presents. But he held his peace. (1 Samuel 10:27)

And his supporters took violent action against their leader’s critics, which Saul actually, definitively condemned.

Then the people said to Samuel, “Who is he who said, ‘Shall Saul reign over us?’ Bring the men, that we may put them to death.”

But Saul said, “Not a man shall be put to death this day, for today the Lord has accomplished salvation in Israel” (1 Samuel 11: 12,13).

They had high hopes for King Saul until he started saying stupid stuff and issuing cool-sounding orders that made no sense.  Like, in 1 Samuel 14, when Saul cancelled all meals for the army and threatened to execute anyone who  ate or even drank water.  And this was while the army was in the middle of major combat (1 Samuel 24).  The king appointed David to his staff, but then he got mad because David was doing his job right, so he turned on David and tried to destroy him (1 Samuel 18; 19).

Around this time Saul contracted potty mouth.  Suspecting that his son and 2^nd in command, Jonathan, was not sufficiently enthusiastic about having his best friend and colleague David murdered, 1 Samuel 20:3-33, explains: Then Saul’s anger was aroused against Jonathan, and he said to him, “You son of a perverse, rebellious woman! Do I not know that you have chosen the son of Jesse to your own shame and to the shame of your mother’s nakedness?

“You son of a perverse, rebellious woman!” Translation, You, son of a b****!

The “shame of your mother’s nakedness” is either a reference to Jonathan’s birth, or a callback to the euphemism “uncover the nakedness of”  in Leviticus 18.  It's a euphemism for "have sex with."  The former interpretation means Saul said Jonathan had been a disappointment since the day he was born.  

The second interpretation, which I think is correct, means Saul said: “Jonathan, you son of a b****! I knew you’d chose that mother-f****  David over me!”

Now, where was I going with this?

Oh, yeah.    Three points: 

1) There’s going to be a lot more yelling, and cursing, and twitter-spear throwing before this term is over.

After all that cussing, Saul continued to be  king.

People asked David to remove Saul from office, but nope.    

Look, this day your eyes have seen that the LORD delivered you today into my hand in the cave, and someone urged me to kill you. But my eye spared you, and I said, ‘I will not stretch out my hand against my lord, for he is the LORD’s anointed’ (1 Samuel 24:10).

The cussin’ king had a long, full term as leader of the nation. For 4 decades, he decided military action, tax policy, immigration law.  During that time the political climate was characterized by infighting, betrayal, military resources wasted on strategically pointless personal vendettas and a steep degree of moral and psychological decline so bad that Samuel literally came back as a ghost to tell Saul that he was an idiot (1 Samuel 28:13-19).

But he was in office for a long, long, long time.   

2)  A verbally filthy leader indicates a spiritually unprotected nation. 

Unrestrained speech shows that the spirit of the leader is  unrepentant and un-redeemeed. Oh, the king/ president can go up to the temple and make the sacrifices/ take the communion and say all the right churchy words, but if he can't control his mouth,the Bible says that his faith is powerless at best, and insincere at worst. 

Read 1 Samuel 15. 

Saul’s unraveled, public profanity came after God had withdrawn His favor on the anointed, elected leader. 

Samuel said to Saul, “I will not return with you, for you have rejected the word of the Lord, and the Lord has rejected you from being king over Israel” (1 Samuel 15:26).

3)  A nation following a leader who is leading outside of God’s favor, is a nation on the verge of getting its butt kicked by somebody and/ or something.

The next major military action led by Saul ended in humiliating defeat for his nation and a series of murder suicides that decimated the royal family (1 Samuel  31:1-13).

When a proclaimed Christian acts without restraint, it means that God had stopped restraining him/her.  If God has withdrawn His restraint, then God has also withdrawn His FAVOR (Acts 7:42-43; Romans 1:24-25). 

A nation outside of God's favor that thinks it's still God's chosen people, a spiritually unprotected people whose think they're still the America that God shed his grace on ----- that's a nation about to have a very unpleasant surprise. 

---Anderson T. Graves II   is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church in Fairfield, Alabama;  executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO);  and director of rural leadership development for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).

Subscribe to my personal blog  www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com .

Email atgravestwo2@aol.com

Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves

Follow me on twitter @AndersonTGraves 

Click here to support this ministry with a donation.  Or go to andersontgraves.blogspot.com and click on the DONATE button on the right-hand sidebar.

Support by check or money order may be mailed to 

Miles Chapel CME Church

P O Box 132

Fairfield, Al 35064

THE PURPOSE & POWER OF A PRAYING MOTHER

Scripture is filled with the true, complicated stories of blended and broken families in the midst of corrupted cultures and unsafe communities.  Through these stories, the Bible shows how things can change for the better.  God shows how His people can produce leaders who turn the hearts of their communities back toward the Kingdom. 

Today we look at two of those stories:  Samuel in the Old Testament and Timothy in the New Testament.  From their lives, we learn how women of God have always played a crucial role in the Kingdom will of God. 

Today we consider THE PURPOSE & POWER OF A PRAYING MOTHER.

Listen well.

If you can’t get the audio on your device, visit the main podcast page at http://revandersongraves.podomatic.com/

The podcast is on iTunes at https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/anderson-graves-podcast/id918990482

---Anderson T. Graves II   is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church in Fairfield, Alabama;  executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO);  and director of rural leadership development for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).

Subscribe to my personal blog  www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com .

Email atgravestwo2@aol.com

Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves

Follow me on twitter @AndersonTGraves  #Awordtothewise 

You can help support this ministry with a donation. Or, by clicking the DONATE button on the right-hand sidebar.

Support by check or money order may be mailed to 

Miles Chapel CME Church

P O Box 132

Fairfield, Al 35064

WHO'S THAT TEMPLE FOR?

Why do we build churches?  What kind of church does God want us to build?  How can we be sure?  What happens if we’re wrong?

These are the questions that fundraisers in the CME church face.  These are the questions that believers have faced since the days of King David.  The right answers can elevate a ministry.  The wrong ones can tear a church apart.

In a message originally delivered to missionaries in the CME Church, Rev. Anderson Graves takes us back to the original church building project and digs deep for God’s answers.  The message is called: WHO’S  THAT TEMPLE FOR?

Listen well.

If you can’t get the audio on your device, visit the main podcast page at http://revandersongraves.podomatic.com/

The podcast is on iTunes at https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/anderson-graves-podcast/id918990482

---Anderson T. Graves II   is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church in Fairfield, Alabama;  executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO);  and director of rural leadership development for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).

Subscribe to my personal blog  www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com .

Email atgravestwo2@aol.com

Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves

Follow me on twitter @AndersonTGraves  #Awordtothewise 

You can help support this ministry with a donation to Miles Chapel CME Church.

You can help support Rev. Graves’ work by visiting his personal blog and clicking the DONATE button on the right-hand sidebar.

Support by check or money order may be mailed to 

Miles Chapel CME Church

P O Box 132

Fairfield, Al 35064

THROWING ROCKS AT THE SAME GIANTS

“We’re all throwing rocks at the same giants.”

I was at the Montgomery Job Corps center waiting to talk to the students on behalf of SAYNO.  The other end of the conversation was staffer for MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving).  The students hadn’t arrived yet, but some of the instructors, counselors, and administrators had all come in.  The conversation between adults had turned to the different kinds of red tape between public schools, non-profits, and in–between groups like Job Corps.

It was one of those I-can’t-do-this-but-you-can’t-do conversations.

The words came from somewhere (rather, Some One) deeper than my brain.

I said, “We’re in this together.  We’re all throwing rocks at the same giants.”

When young David of Bethlehem killed the 9 foot tall champion of the Philistine army it inspired the Israelite troops. After 40 days of being too scared to move, they rushed the Philistines and beat them all the way back to Philistia.  (1 Samuel 17)

But.

When you knock down a giant problem, you soon realize that there are a lot more where that came from.   You can only wade so far in the infinite tide of new giants before fatigue overwhelms you.  You can get burned out.

It happened to David. 

When the Philistines were at war again with Israel, David and his servants with him went down and fought against the Philistines; and David grew faint. (2 Samuel 21: 15)

You can’t do it all.   But guess what?

You were never supposed to.

God knew how many giants there were when sent you to take on the first one, and he made arrangements for those problems to be solved as well.

See, our job isn’t just to slay giants.  It’s to inspire, to instruct, and to connect with other giant-slayers.

The Lord didn’t send David against Goliath just to remove that one big sweaty obstacle.  God sent David against Goliath to teach Israel something they had forgotten since the days of Joshua and Caleb (Joshua 14): Giants can be killed. 

  

Eventually David became king and commander of his own elite team of  warriors---- a team of giant killers.

Then Ishbi-Benob, who was one of the sons of the giant, the weight of whose bronze spear was three hundred shekels, who was bearing a new sword, thought he could kill David. But Abishai the son of Zeruiah came to his aid, and struck the Philistine and killed him. ( 2 Samuel 21:16-17.)

David’s men were so confident in their giant-slaying skills that they asked David to retire from active combat and take a desk job.   

Then the men of David swore to him, saying, “You shall go out no more with us to battle, lest you quench the lamp of Israel( 2 Samuel 21: 17.)

David, the monarch, agreed.  He sat down, and his men proceeded to continue kicking gigantic butt!

Now it happened afterward that there was again a battle with the Philistines at Gob. Then Sibbechai the Hushathite killed Saph, who was one of the sons of the giant.  (2 Samuel 21:18)

Yet again there was war at Gath, where there was a man of great stature, who had six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot, twenty-four in number; and he also was born to the giant. 21 So when he defied Israel, Jonathan the son of Shimea, David’s brother, killed him(2 Samuel 21:20-21)

Seek out and embrace others who fight as you fight, even if their agencies and approaches are different.   Don’t hog the spotlight.  Recognize.  And celebrate victories in which you had no part.  

And learn how to sit down and let somebody else do their thing.

After all, we’re all throwing rocks at the same giants. 

---Anderson T. Graves II   is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church in Fairfield, Alabama;  executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO);  and director of rural leadership development for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).

Subscribe to my personal blog  www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com .

Email atgravestwo2@aol.com

Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves

Follow me on twitter @AndersonTGraves 

#Awordtothewise

You can help support this ministry with a donation to Miles Chapel CME Church.

You can help support Rev. Graves’ work by visiting his personal blog and clicking the DONATE button on the right-hand sidebar.

Support by check or money order may be mailed to 

Miles Chapel CME Church

P O Box 132

Fairfield, Al 35064

PARENTING & COLLATERAL DAMAGE

In February in Ohio, a man got into an argument with his wife and threw a coffee mug at her.  He missed and hit their 2 month old son.   He wasn’t aiming for the boy.   He was mad at his wife.

Their son died.  (Link to article.)

In 2 Samuel chapter 11, King David committed adultery with Bathsheba and had her husband killed to cover it up.  In the next chapter, God sent the prophet Nathan to David with this message:  Because by this deed you have given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, the child also who is born to you shall surely die. (2 Samuel 12:14)

Neither David nor Bathsheba aimed their sin at their innocent child, but that is who absorbed the brunt of consequences for their sin.

I live in perpetual fear of scenarios like these. I’m scared that I will do something unrelatedly stupid that will ricochet onto my children, so I pray, “Lord, please don’t let them hurt because of me!”

But here’s the truth stated by the Bible and reinforced by current events: as parents, our choices --- positive and negative ---- affect our children, even when the choosing has nothing to do with them.

What I do with my money, my money that I’ve earned, will expand or limit the options my children have as they enter adulthood.

The way I treat people, especially my wife, will forever shape what my daughter and my son expect from and give to every significant relationship they have.

My walk with God in accord with or in contrast to the Scriptures I claim to believe: that’s the filter through which my children and the grandchildren who look to them for spiritual guidance will process every theological idea that pops into their heads.

When I was a kid in early elementary school, my father and I were watching a pro football game.  I remember  that the Dallas Cowboys were playing.  Pops made an out loud comment to himself  about how stupid the game was and how the players didn’t know him, didn’t care about him, and it didn’t make sense for him to care about their stupid game.  He kept watching the game.  Heck, he wasn’t even really talking to me, but to this day I have no interest whatsoever in professional sports.  I don’t even watch the Superbowl.

What we throw out hits them even if they’re not the ones we’re aiming at.

That’s what I think it means when God says that He visits the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children to the third and the fourth generation. (Exodus 34: 7b)

The rule inthis life is that what we throw out as parents WILL ricochet onto our children.  Ricochet and reverberate for generations.

And the only reason the accumulation of ancestral idiocy hasn’t rendered us all too screwed up to function is that God in the same breath declares Himself to the God who keeps mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin. (Exodus 34: 7a)

Because God is merciful, He has interceded so that my children are on track to growing into better persons than I was and am.  He is answering my cry, “Lord, please don’t let me screw them up!”

But because I understand the rule, I am still very careful about what I throw.  I’m more and more mindful and intentional with money decisions.  I try (I tryyyy) to treat everybody like my kids will review the interaction on youtube.  I live and pray and fail but never surrender in pursuit of the holiness to which every believer is called. 

I can’t predict when my kids will step into the path of the words, actions, and example I toss out into the world.  Neither can you.    But we can order our lives according to God’s Word so that whatever touches them from our hands raises them up and doesn’t lay them low.

---Anderson T. Graves II   is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church in Fairfield, Alabama;  executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO);  and director of rural leadership development for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).

Subscribe to my personal blog  www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com .

Email atgravestwo2@aol.com

Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves

Follow me on twitter @AndersonTGraves 

You can help support this ministry with a donation to Miles Chapel CME Church.

You can help support Rev. Graves’ work by visiting his personal blog and clicking the DONATE button on the right-hand sidebar.

Support by check or money order may be mailed to 

Miles Chapel CME Church

P O Box 132

Fairfield, Al 35064

MY TWO SALVATIONS

When they crucified Jesus, the  Romans placed Him between two thieves.  Each of those thieves asked Jesus to save him.  The Lord only saved one. 

I’ve been both of those thieves.

When I was 21, I was sitting on the top back step of an upstairs-downstairs duplex trying to figure out how to get the huge metal desk my father had given me out the back door and down the steps without dropping it, falling, or being crushed to death by it.  My roommate and I couldn’t take the desk down the much wider front steps  because we were breaking our lease and sneaking out of the apartment.

My life was a mess. 

I’d dropped out of school, lost both of my full scholarships, completely screwed up all of the important relationships in my life, and now I was a fugitive from a ghetto landlord, and there was a giant grey desk jammed into the kitchen doorway behind me.

I plopped down on the steps and prayed.  I asked God to forgive me for my sins.  I asked Jesus to be my Savior.

Nothing happened.

I don’t just mean that there was no spectacularly miraculous or emotional display.  I mean nothing happened inside me.

I was not convicted of sin.  I did not feel the assurance of salvation.  It was not the beginning of a new life.  My heart was not strangely warmed.  No new birth.  No regeneration.  I…I know I was not changed.

I had prayed the sinner’s prayer, but I wasn’t  saved.

For a few minutes I sat, waiting.  Then I abandoned the desk and stuffed the rest of our stuff into my car.  The landlord caught us pulling out of the driveway. (Our downstairs neighbor had snitched.)    I lied.  We left, and I kept right on sinning the sinful sins I had sinned before.

I was still the first thief.

The first thief on the cross next to Jesus cried out, “If You are the Christ, save Yourself and us.”  (Luke 23: 39)  

He didn’t regret his actions; he regretted the consequences. He didn't believe Jesus was the Messiah, but he thought it was worth a shot.

But, the Lord does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7)

God knew that what I wanted on those steps was a rescue not a relationship. God knew I wasn’t humbled.  I was hustling like a thief trying to escape execution.

About a year later I was engaged and a few months out from the wedding. I had tried “getting myself together” but I felt myself falling apart.  Around 2 A.M., alone on the 3^rd shift at a convenience store off I-85, I locked the doors, fell on my knees between the snack food aisles in front of the beer cooler and gave my life to Christ. I confessed everything.  I surrendered everything.  I submitted to whatever God wanted me to do, go through, or become. 

I’ve never cried so hard in my life. 

I was absolutely broken.  I was whole for the first time. And I have never been the same.   That night Jesus saved my soul like He’d saved the other thief crucified next to Him.

The thief on the other cross rebuked his friend and said, “Do you not even fear God, seeing you are under the same condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds; but this Man has done nothing wrong.” Then he said to Jesus, “Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom.” (Luke 23:40-42)

His prayer wasn’t very well constructed.  It missed several  crucial theological benchmarks. Dude didn’t even say, “Amen.” 

But the Lord looked at his heart, and Jesus said to him, “Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise.” (Luke 23:43)

On the floor of that gas station, God looked at my heart and assured me that I would be with Him in Paradise.

A personal relationship with Jesus is a relationship between your spirit and the Holy Spirit, a heart-to-heart connection between you and God.  If you give the sound of your words to Jesus but not your heart, you’re stuck on the steps, hanging on the first thief’s cross, still doomed. 

You can fool me, your mama, and the entire church, but you can’t hide your heart from God.

The flip-side is that you don’t have to get yourself together.  You don’t have to memorize an eloquent liturgy of repentance.  You don’t have to speak in tongues or first give a sacrificial seed-offering.  You don’t have to be in the right place nor do you have to wait for the right time.

All you have to be is sincere. You just have to be honest with God and yourself.  You just have to let go, and let Him.

Jesus knows your heart, and He still wants you for Himself.

He received a condemned thief.  He received me.  He’ll receive you. 

Give your heart to Him.

For real.

---Anderson T. Graves II   is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church in Fairfield, Alabama;  executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO);  and director of rural leadership development for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).

Subscribe to my personal blog  www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com .

Email atgravestwo2@aol.com

Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves

Follow me on twitter @AndersonTGraves 

You can help support this ministry with a donation to Miles Chapel CME Church.

You can help support Rev. Graves’ work by visiting his personal blog and clicking the DONATE button on the right-hand sidebar.

Support by check or money order may be mailed to 

Miles Chapel CME Church

P O Box 132

Fairfield, Al 35064

THE REPENTANCE CLAUSE

Saul and David were the kings of united Israel.  They were alike in many ways.  Yet, one of them died a tragic failure at the end of his royal dynasty while the other concluded his life in triumph and peace.  What made the difference?

The answer isn’t what you might think.  Discover how to recover from an epic fail.  

Learn the lesson of THE REPENTANCE CLAUSE.

Listen well.

If you are unable to get the audio on this page, click here.

---Anderson T. Graves II   is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church in Fairfield, Alabama;  executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO);  and director of rural leadership development for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).

Subscribe to my personal blog  www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com .

Email atgravestwo2@aol.com

Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves

You can help support this ministry with a donation to Miles Chapel CME Church.

You can help support Rev. Graves’ work by visiting his personal blog and clicking the DONATE button on the right-hand sidebar.

Support by check or money order may be mailed to 

Miles Chapel CME Church

P O Box 132

Fairfield, Al 35064

MOVING THE WALL (The Separation of Church and State)

In 1 Samuel 8, the people of Israel demanded a king.  In doing so, they divided authority and influence in Israel between the priesthood and the kingship, effectively erecting a wall of separation of church and state.  It worked pretty well----- for a while.

In 1 Samuel 9, God chose Saul of the tribe of Benjamin to be the 1^st king of united Israel.  Saul was anointed by Samuel, the great prophet and priest.  In 1 Samuel 10, Saul was filled with the Holy Spirit and confirmed the hand of God on him by prophesying alongside the sons of the prophets.  In chapter 11, Saul showed decisive leadership and a heroic heart by bringing the tribes together to rescue the besieged town of Jabash Gilead.  He even showed a merciful heart by pardoning a hardline group who had initially refused to recognize his right to the throne (1 Samuel 11: 12,13).  By this demonstration of mercy in the midst of military power Saul even won over Samuel, who had been anything but enthusiastic about this whole make-us-a-king thing.

Then Samuel said to the people, “Come, let us go to Gilgal and renew the kingdom there.” ^ So all the people went to Gilgal, and there they made Saul king before the Lord in Gilgal. There they made sacrifices of peace offerings before the Lord, and there Saul and all the men of Israel rejoiced greatly. (1 Samuel 11: 14-15)

The king was doing good things on his side of the wall, and the church (the priesthood) was doing good things on its side of the wall.  The system was working just fine.

But, then.

When we get to chapter 13, Saul reaches over the wall of separation and takes it upon himself to offer a sacrifice that only the priest could offer.  (Think of it like an unordained state governor deciding to offer communion or a line of presidents dictating Christian theology.)

The state just up and occupied territory that was supposed to belong to the church.  The state moved the wall and pushed the church farther back.

But there was a reaaaally good reason:  it was a matter of national security. 

And Samuel said, “What have you done?”

Saul said, “When I saw that the people were scattered from me, and that you did not come within the days appointed, and that the Philistines gathered together at Michmash, ^then I said, ‘The Philistines will now come down on me at Gilgal, and I have not made supplication to the Lord.’ Therefore I felt compelled, and offered a burnt offering.” (1 Samuel 13: 11-12)

See?  Saul HAD to (he felt “compelled”) take a little more control of the religious establishment because he was losing public support for a military campaign.

Thank goodness, that kind of stuff doesn’t happen in modern America.  [Insert emoticon for sarcasm here.]

In chapter 14, King Saul declared a fast in the middle of battle and then accused the people of sinning when God didn’t immediately answer his prayer for direction in battle (1 Samuel 14: 24, 37, 38). 

So, King Saul, head of state and commander-in-chief, was about to kill his own son Jonathan for eating a spoonful of honey without permission.  And this was despite the facts that (a) Jonathan didn’t know about his father’s stupid order to fast while running around in he desert fighting Philistines; and (b) Jonathan had overrun an entire Philistine base with only his armor-bearer as back-up; and the armor-bearer didn’t even have a sword. (1 Samuel 13: 22; 14: 1-14)

Oh, and if you read chapter 14 carefully (verses 31-33), you’ll see that EVERYBODY broke the fast and Saul knew it.   So, the only reason he was tripping about “sin” was that he was embarrassed and angry that GOD had the audacity to keep him, the freakin’ king of all Israel, waiting on the answer to a prayer.

The state pushed the wall back a little further.

In chapter 15, Saul just flat out disobeyed God.  Why?  Because it was better for the economy.

^Thus says the Lord of hosts: “I will punish Amalek for what he did to Israel, how he ambushed him on the way when he came up from Egypt. ^Now go and attack Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and do not spare them.”

 But Saul and the people spared Agag and the best of the sheep, the oxen, the fatlings, the lambs, and all that was good, and were unwilling to utterly destroy them. But everything despised and worthless, that they utterly destroyed.  (1 Samuel 15: 1-3,9)

And then, with a straight face, Saul declared this his DISobedience was actually what God wanted.

Samuel asked Saul, “Why then did you not obey the voice of the Lord? Why did you swoop down on the spoil, and do evil in the sight of the Lord?”

^                        And Saul said to Samuel, “But I have obeyed the voice of the Lord, and gone on the mission on which the Lord sent me, and brought back Agag king of Amalek; I have utterly destroyed the Amalekites. (1 Samuel 15: 18-20)

By what possible logic could the king conclude that doing the opposite of what God had said was the same as having obeyed the voice of the Lord?

Saul/ the king/ the state decided that public opinion determines what God REALLY means.  The state/ the culture decided that when the expressed Word of God conflicts with the opinions, economic interests, or national security priorities of the state then they can just change what God’s Word means.

And they push the wall back farther and farther.

What was meant to be a wall of separation between the church and the state inevitably becomes a wall of confinement around the church.

When the state can outline the constraints of speech in the pulpit but the pulpit has no right to speak in state facilities or on matters of the state, then the wall between church and state has become a wall around the church---- a very, very small and continually shrinking wall.

And don’t misunderstand what or who “the state” is.  The state is not just the collective of duly elected and appointed officials.  The state is the nation, the country itself.

Look around and you’ll see that the church is being shut out from the life of the country itself.  And where the church or churches do have great influence, it is often as mere mouthpieces for the political agenda of other “parties.”

Let me make it plain.

T(And oh, the theological acrobats used to try to make the capital gains tax into a crucial heaven-or-hell spiritual issue.)

Whatever.  I’m right. 

November 2011 Mormonism was a cult. January 2012 when Romney was about to win the nomination, suddenly the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints was just another Christian denomination of our brothers and sisters.

And.

The progressive, urban (Black) church hasn’t composed an original thought on social issues since Reagan’s 1^st election.  We have parroted the Democratic party platform even when candidates’ positions and personal morality was so absolutely the opposite of what God’s Word says.

We have been so afraid to divide the vote that we wrongly divided the Word of Truth.  And now, we have the audacity to do, say, and endorse the opposite of what God expressly said, and do it all in Jesus’ actual name.  (Yes, I’m talking about homosexualty, but doggone it, I’m talking about a whole lot of other stuff too.)

The American church in all its various branches has become institutionalized behind our tiny wall.  We have developed spiritual Stockholm syndrome, and allied ourselves with the very forces that have pushed Christianity to the fringes of American society.

Wake da’ crap up, church! 

Ya’ll been locked up too long.

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me,

     Because He has anointed Me

     To preach the gospel to the poor;

     He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,

     To proclaim liberty to the captives

     And recovery of sight to the blind,

     To set at liberty those who are oppressed;

To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.” (Luke 4: 18-19)

Stop begging THEM to pull down the wall.  Climb over it. 

Put down the talking points and get back to the Word of God.  Speak truth to power, beginning with the power for which you usually vote.

Or, don’t.

But I guarantee you this because this is the way it’s always been: the state will not stop shrinking the wall, not until they have completely crushed you with it. 

^Then King Saul said to the guards who stood about him, “Turn and kill the priests of the Lord, because their hand also is with David, and because they knew when he fled and did not tell it to me.” But the servants of the king would not lift their hands to strike the priests of the Lord. ^18 And the king said to Doeg, “You turn and kill the priests!” So Doeg the Edomite turned and struck the priests, and killed on that day eighty-five men who wore a linen ephod. ^19 Also Nob, the city of the priests, he struck with the edge of the sword, both men and women, children and nursing infants, oxen and donkeys and sheep—with the edge of the sword. (1 Samuel 22: 17-19)

---Rev. Anderson T. Graves II   (email:  atgravestwo2@aol.com )

Anderson T. Graves II is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church (5220 Myron Massey Boulevard) in Fairfield, Alabama;  executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO);  and director of rural leadership development for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).

Read my blog at www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com  

Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves