Reverent

Dave Kovalow-St. John   V   2/7/10   V   Psalm 84, Micah 6:6-8

It’s time for the sacred act of welcoming one another. Let me ask you to greet someone you didn’t come with and start a brief conversation using that ancient liturgical phrase: “Happy Scout Sunday.” Got that?  “Happy Scout Sunday.”  Let’s give it a try.

The Scout Law

It has been our honor as a congregation to be associated with the ministry of Scouting over the years. We have records of a Scout meeting at our old building on Chicago Street dating all the way back to 1924.  For years now, I’ve enjoyed pointing out:  1924 was so long ago, the Scout Master was NOT Bill Eckert! 

For about a decade, MY part of that proud tradition has been (each Scout Sunday) to take one of the12 points of the Scout Law to see how that point (or trait) is also important for those trying to be faithful to Christ. 

When I started, I thought the plan would last forever.  Other ministers were jealous:  they didn’t know what they’d be preaching on next week.  My sermons were mapped out for twelve years!  Yet, here we are at the end of this ball of twine.  Some would say we’ve saved the best for last, but at the very least, it’s certainly the most controversial. 

The trait for today is “reverent.” 

Scouts strive to be trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and …..reverent.  The Scout Oath calls a scout to do his “duty to God,” and the Scout Law calls him to be “reverent.” 

You might wonder how that could be controversial.  If you want the whole story, look up “Boy Scout Legal Issues” on the internet, but I think I can summarize it.

Early Legal Issues

I started with early speeches by (and articles about) Scouting’s founder, General Robert Baden-Powell.  Interesting guy!  In the early 1900’s, General Baden-Powell wrote a book to train military scouts to do a variety of useful things like live off the land, tie various knots, find your way by the stars, slip through enemy lines.  He was surprised when boys all over England got hold of his book and said, “Cool, I’ve gotta learn that.”

I suspect some parents were excited by this. (“My boy can find his way home by the stars and tie a square knot when he gets here!)”  Others probably were put off. (“He navigated his way to his girlfriend’s house twenty miles from here, and practiced his knot by almost strangling our cat!”)  Whatever happened, Baden-Powell was on to something and Bill Eckert tells me the King of England himself asked the General to organize some kind of boys’ scouting program.

Baden-Powell quickly decided his goal would not simply be to help boys acquire skills.  His GOAL was to turn them into decent and useful human beings.  Our sign outside once said, “EDUCATION WITHOUT RELIGION JUST MAKES A VERY CLEVER DEVIL.”  Baden-Powell would have said, “Amen.” He put it this way: “(We are not after) mere soldiering or sailoring; we have no military aim or practice. (Our) ideal (is) service to our fellow-man. In other words, we aim for the practice of Christianity in everyday life and dealings, and not merely the profession of its theology on Sundays....”

That sounds good, doesn’t it?  How could that possibly be controversial? 

Later, in his book Scouting for Boys, Baden-Powell said, "No man is much good unless he believes in God and obeys (God’s) laws. So every Scout should have a religion....” And religion is “a very simple thing: First: Love and serve God. Second: Love and serve your neighbor."  …Man, what’s not to like about this guy?  He’s talking about nothing more or less than Christianity in action!

Well, here’s where he got into trouble: Baden-Powell thought the important thing was loving God and neighbor.  He forgot about serving the home office and denomination. Bishop Joseph Butt (“B-U-T-T”: is that a great name for an antagonist?  You couldn’t make that up!) – Bishop Butt, auxiliary bishop to the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, accused Baden-Powell of "sweeping with one magnificent gesture the Christian Revelation, Mohammadanism, and all the rest, into a heap of private opinions which do not matter much." And, make no mistake: Protestants were just as upset – ESPECIALLY when the good General invited Muslims and Buddhists to recite prayers at certain scouting events. 

For the rest of his life, Baden-Powell refusal to countenance the exclusive claims of any one religion (though, at the same time, he made increasingly fervent references to “God” in his speeches.

That was the problem 100 years ago.

Today’s Legal Issue

Lately, however, it’s not the ecumenical nature of scouting’s reverence for God that is the issue; it’s the fact that there is any reference to God!  You see, according to their employment policy, "Boy Scouts of America believes that no member can grow into the best kind of citizen without recognizing an obligation to God....”  

Who would dispute that?  Well, atheists. People who don’t think there IS a God. Another church sign we had a few years ago read: 

TO OUR CHRISTIANS FRIENDS: HAPPY EASTER!

TO OUR JEWISH FRIENDS: HAPPY PASSOVER!

TO OUR ATHEIST FRIENDS: GOOD LUCK!

I think that’s the attitude of scouting:  they’re happy to wish everyone well, but they aren’t going to pretend they don’t believe in God.

As near as I can tell, no other trait that scouting encourages has gotten them into trouble.  Scouts want to be clean:  but the “Dirt and Germ Lobby” has never hauled them into court for it.  Scouts want to be thrifty and financially responsible: you’d think credit card companies and any bank worth a bailout would complain about that.  They never have.

But scouts’ desire to be reverent has been a challenge from the very beginning.

The REAL Challenge

Of course, the REAL challenge has nothing to do with offended ministers or the ACLU.  The REAL challenge with reverence is doing it.  How does one go about BEING reverent?  Now, I am a professional minister with a robe, a stole, a seminary degree, and a clergy card that lets me park in a special lot at hospitals. [Although, and I’m not complaining: if you got to Porter Hospital and find that lot, it’s labeled:  “Parking for Handicapped, (comma), clergy, (comma), and clinic patients.”  Unfortunately, the commas are almost invisible; so it looks like the lot is for handicapped clergy.  Again: I’m not complaining.]   The point is:  I’m a PROFESSIONAL MINISTER; so I know that reverence has a lot to do with attending church every Sunday and listening with great respect to the well-crafted sermon a preacher has sweat blood over all week.

Scouts – I love them, but – they do not know this.  In fact, if you look at what passages they quote whenever you pin them down – and I did, I went to all kinds of scouting material to see how they defined “reverence” – you will find scouts do not pick a isn’t-church-great passage like Psalm 84.  It was our first reading, and all kidding aside, it’s a nice passage.  It tells the story of someone who went to church, not to hear the minister, but to worship God.  “Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere, …for blessed is the one who trusts in you.” 

Look at the cover of your bulletin.  That’s a painting by Joseph Csatari, official artist of the Boy Scouts of America.  If you Google “Boy Scouts, Reverence” you will run across that picture a hundred times – it’s a stained glass window, obviously a church!  

Yet scouts know that church is a tool; church is a fellowship that helps you be reverent.  It is a family that enfolds you with God’s love.  Church is a school where you can learn about God.  But one thing church is not is the be-all-and-end-all of reverence. 

True Reverence

True reverence is Zacchaeus in Luke 19.  He is a low-down, conniving, stealing-what-he-can tax-collector until Jesus loves him, accepts him, treats him like a human being.  You may remember that Zacchaeus’ reverence takes the form of justice.  In response to Jesus’ love, he says, “Anyone I have defrauded, I will pay back fourfold.”

True reverence is Christianity in action.

True reverence is the Samaritan in Luke 10, walking along the side of road.  He comes upon a man who has been beaten and robbed, a man who saw himself as an ENEMY of Samaritans.  But instead of seeing his enemy, the Samaritan sees a man in need (perhaps he evens sees the image of God).  As an act kindness, but also as an act of reverence, he stops to help.

True reverence is Christianity in action.

True reverence is a woman who KNOWS she is mightily in need of forgiveness.  As far as she is concerned, she needs major surgery. But she cannot afford surgery, and nobody wants to just GIVE it to her because her wound is self-inflicted. 

By the way, we’re ALL that position, but it takes humility to see it. 

According to Luke 7, Jesus is eating with a Pharisee named Simon.  Simon the Pharisee does NOT feel he needs forgiveness.  Don’t be hard on him. Peter, James, John, and even Judas are probably there, and they don’t say anything about needing it either.  However, this woman comes in.  She’s too humble even to talk.  She simply kneels to clean Jesus feet with her tears, dry them with hair, and anoint them with oil.

True reverence is Christianity in action.

Micah 6

Scouts, at their best know this.  Christians do, too. 

Reverence DOES include participating in a church (or mosque or synagogue).  It also includes paying attention to nature – to seeing the hand of God in an Eagle silhouetted by the moon at Philmont, for instance.  But first-and-foremost reverence includes a passion for justice, a penchant for acts of kindness (a good deed daily might be a place to start); and a willingness to walk humbly with God. 

I mentioned a minute ago: all the material I could find on “Scouts” and “Reverence” STARTED with the same passage.  It’s Micah 6:6-8.  Seth read it for us a few minutes ago. We’re going to prepare for offering and communion by singing it.  Turn to page 661 with me.  We’ll sing this once together; then twice as a round: “What Does the Lord Require of You?”