The Park Road Pulpit

Apprehend God in all things, for God is in all things. Every single creature is full of God and is a book about God. Every creature is a word of God. If I spent enough time with the tiniest creature – even a caterpillar – I would never have to prepare a sermon. So full of God is every creature.

Forgive us our sight, O God, for our world is filled with perverse images and violence against your children – and we cannot take our eyes away. And our world is filled with children, starving and alone, and often we cannot bear even to look, much less to lend a hand. Give us the sight of the saints, O God, that we might learn through their eyes to see you, even now, in the land of the living. Amen.

In the early 1970's Claude Broach, Carlyle Marney, Ed Echerd and Charlie Milford were attending the annual meeting of the North Carolina State Baptist Convention. This foursome positioned themselves, predictably, on the back row of the auditorium to hear the convention President’s message. The elected officer rose to give his address, and began with the stately and pompous salutation, "Brethren, I stand before you today, clothed in robes of humility…" Wordless glances darted quickly along the back row, and then in unison, four men stood, and left the building!

At a coffee shop across the street Marney said, "I think we should organize a 'Humility Club.' It should be comprised of Baptist preachers who are humble enough to be proud of it." The group began meeting on Fridays at noon at the S&W Cafeteria, and for many years these, and a number of other Baptist preachers, renegades who dared to speak a word against the ever-rising tide of religious conformity and popular piety, gathered for discussion. There were no minutes taken. No dues collected. No bylaws, officers or agenda. The only guiding principle for the meetings was a commitment to absolute freedom of thought and expression. Along with this came the unspoken promise that any idea presented would be quickly torn to shreds while, yet, its presenter would be upheld with honor and respect.[1]

On one of his first Sunday's at Myers Park Baptist Church, Gene Owens descended that royal pulpit and walked through the congregation soliciting names for a petition against the death penalty. With this act, Gene’s membership in the Humility Club was secured – well, this and the fact that he knew he was humble, and he was proud of it!

Three years ago Charlie resurrected the Humility Club meetings, which had ceased some years ago, and in doing so, his first call was to Gene. It was in this setting that we met him. It was in this setting that we came to understand his widely known iconoclastic and controversial reputation. It was in this setting that we came to know and love Gene Owens as a friend. It was in this setting, this no-holds-barred, fend for yourself, nothing is sacred, theological and political free-for-all, that we began to glimpse the world that Gene, a self-proclaimed “religionless Christian,”[2] saw.

It is a world that the peddlers of common religion would find strange, probably offensive. A world in which everyone is regarded a child of God.[3] A world in which, paradoxically, everything becomes sacred. [4] A world in which God, the Great Mystery, is revealed not through dogma or doctrine, morality or magic, sentimentality or sensationalism, but through the human heart, purified by a vision of reality that can come only from God. Gene was uncomfortable to speak of a God of the birds and trees, God in the stars of an infinite universe. He would scoff, “Ahff – and how would we know that?” What Gene knew and attested so vigorously was the God within.[5] So says Percy Ainsworth, “The more like God we become, the more of God we behold.”[6]

Today, I do not see as Gene saw (not exactly), but his vision has opened my eyes more clearly to behold a God who has transcended my once-simple, always-religious world. For me, Gene Owens is saint, for this is what saints do. Saints see. And saints offer their sight to others.

In an essay entitled, "The Holiness of Winter," David Rensberger suggests that a winter world (the natural world stripped of the appealing "eye-candy" of leaf and bloom) can be particularly revealing to us about the hidden and complex-but-simple nature of God.

It is folly, and dangerous, to suppose that what filters through our civilized technology is all the reality there is, or even that it is reality at all. We do not know the world until we turn off our false illuminations, let artifices go, fall silent. Then, stripped as the trees (in winter), we discover a reality within ourselves [that is utterly] unexpected… Then we can know what is, and be what is, and attend to God.[7]

Have you seen God? What saints have helped you along the way? Such blessed vision will not come through the façade of any religion, the rules of any morality, the guilt of any penance you can offer. The vision of God appears only to the human heart, stripped of hostility and fear, guilt and shame. The vision of God comes to those who want to see. The vision of God comes to those who are willing to see.

Jesus saw what most could not see. Jesus saw what most would not see. Jesus was not swayed by popular opinion, by religious precedent, by a fear-filled pressure to conform to a belief system, which was considered “orthodox.”[8] Jesus followed his vision of God with such single-minded purpose that it led to his death, a death has become the centerpiece of a Christian understanding of God. So convincing was his compassion that twenty centuries later followers still affirm his words as recorded in John’s Gospel, “If you have seen me, you have seen God.”[9]

Like Jesus, Gene Owens, was willing to see – and he was filled with the courage to trust his vision, and the conviction to make his unorthodox view of this world the guiding Truth for his life. My friend, Emil Mialik, has commented that Gene, perhaps re- presents Christ, more than anyone he has ever known. For Emil, too, Gene Owens is saint, for this is what saints do. Saints see. And saints offer their sight to others.

On this day of “All Saints” celebration, we come to honor the memory of those now physically departed from us, who, in the broadest sense of the term, are the “Saints of God.” The text from John’s revelation vividly pictures a heavenly gathering of those who have been through the “great ordeal,” that is, those who had been martyred. Today’s remembrance was originally a celebration martyrs, but over time was broadened to include thanksgiving for who have died.

The afterlife was a somewhat frequent subject in our gatherings, and Gene was famous among us for his stated belief[10] that there is no “subjective consciousness” after this life. (This is all there is.) Theology was an utterly serious matter for Gene, but as for all of us who gathered to chew on it, a somewhat playful thing. So when Amy learned of Gene’s recent, untimely death, her first comment was made with a smile. “I wish we had worked out a sign. We should have worked out a way for Gene to let us all that he was wrong about heaven! Wouldn’t you have loved to see the look on Gene’s face when he saw those pearly gates and golden streets!”

The world that Gene saw might just have been the very Kingdom of God, on earth.[11] It was a vision that he happily[12] shared with all who would listen. It was a blessed vision that has changed my life. But today’s sermon is not entitled, Seeing As Gene Saw. Perhaps the title itself is one final argument with my great, white-haired friend, the statement of my belief that though Christian faith is about life, here and now, there is more. Just as Jesus’ empty tomb reminds us that too often, “we give up one day too soon,”[13] I believe the biblical vision called “heaven” is a reminder that the God, whom Isaiah says is “always doing a new thing[14]” is in fact always doing a new thing.

“Heaven” should not be the focus of our faith, but neither should the future be removed from our vision of God. (Indeed, I believe it cannot be.) The very name of God implies promise, unexpected grace, indeed, the transformation of all that we know. Faith is no easy “pie in the sky” escapism from the struggles of this life, but a justified hope that love will be the last word.[15] Again, the words of Percy Ainsworth

The last words in life are always left to the heart to speak. In every difficult and painful passage of experience we reap not the harvest of our learning but the harvest of our love. We gather the fruitage of our hearts - confusion if our hearts be impure, but if pure, then confidence and peace and the vision of God."[16]

I bent over the bed of another saint, recently, on the day that she died. As I always did, I kissed Lura Kester on the forehead, and I woke her, “Lura… How are you feeling?” She looked at me, and as she always did, smiled, and said very clearly, "I understand." Lura had seen something!

Today, I can still see Gene, that fiery white hair, and I can hear his voice, booming from eternity, “Blessed are the pure in heart… for we shall see God.”

As is our tradition, we light a candle in memory of these saints, who have helped us to see…

[1] This story was recounted to me by Charlie Milford.

[2] Gene Owens, Confessions of a Religionless Christian, Abingdon, Nashville, 1975.

[3] The current Mission Statement of Park Road Baptist says, “We, as a family of Christian faith, affirm all persons as the people of God…”

[4] Ironically, I learned of the sanctity of life, the mystery of God, the potential holiness of every moment and the presence of God in every single thing, in this paradoxical setting – “nothing is sacred” means that any question, fear, doubt, ambivalence is accepted, even welcomed, and in such freedom the possibility of the sacredness of everything becomes an open possibility.

[5] In May of this year, Gene Owens, Emil Mialik, Ed Stallworth, and Russ and Amy Jacks Dean gathered at the mountain home of Charlie Milford for a two day discussion of our own “credos.” Charlie had given us instructions for writing a brief theological statement concerning various components of a “systematic theology.” On the porch/deck one afternoon, we argued over the transcendence/immanence of God. Gene would not agree with Emil’s view, from Process Theology, that God is in “all things,” even in the birds and stars. The “otherness” of God was not in Gene’s vocabulary – only the God “within.”

[6] Percy C. Ainsworth, “The Vision of the Clean Heart,” Weavings, November/December 1996, p. 31

[7] David Rensberger, “The Holiness of Winter,” Weavings, November/December 1996, p.39.

[8] Just as he was an adversary to the prevailing orthodoxy of his day, I am certain that Jesus would critique the hypocrisy and arrogance of the “orthodoxy” of contemporary Christianity.

[9] “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” John 14.9.

[10] With Gene, one could never be sure what he really believed, and what he advocated for the sake of adding a little color to the discussion! Gene did clearly emphasize, though, the priority of Christianity as faith for the “here and now.”

[11] From the Lord’s Prayer, “…thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven…”

[12] The word “blessed” in the beatitudes can also translated “happy.”

[13] From Kyle Matthews’ latest recording, “Sing Down,” the song is entitled “I’ll Meet You There.”

[14] Isaiah 43.18-19, “…I am about to do a new thing…”

[15] 1 Corinthians 13.13, “…faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.” (Is Paul implying that love shall abide even when faith and hope have failed, or have come to pass?!)

[16] Ainsworth, p. 32.

[17] Again, from the Lord’s Prayer, “thy kingdom come… on earth.”