chappelltemple

His family called him “M.L.” when he was growing up, his wife called him “Martin” and he called himself am “ambivert,” that is a combination between an extrovert and an introvert. But what we should actually call him was simply a prophet. For like those heralds of old, Martin Luther King dared to speak up for God, and his message was one which has stood the test of time and proven its enduring worth.

Both by his words and the example of his life, for instance, he reminded us of the reality and power of what Reinhold Neibuhr, one of his principle influences, once called simply “collective evil.” His first brush with the ugliness of racism came when he was just five years old and the parents of his closest playmate, a white child who lived nearby, told him that their son and M.L. could no longer play together, just because he was black. Later on, he won an oratorical contest as a junior in high school, speaking on the Constitution and all of its promises, but then, simply because of the color of his skin, he had to stand on the bus all the way back to Atlanta making him, so he said, “the angriest I have ever been in my life.”

And still later, when white ministers failed to support him and the aims of the Montgomery bus boycott, he lamented over again the fact that it wasn’t just the children of darkness whom he had to fight, but that the contagion of hatred had even infected the children of light, as well.

But Martin Luther King refused to give into those forces for as powerful as he understood evil to be in this world, he believed fervently and completely in an even greater force called love. In fact, armed with that understanding, he believed that a “minority of one honest man” could set into motion a moral revolution and so that’s just what he did.

His eloquence was, of course, stunning, for Dr. King not only loved words but he understood how to use them with power and impact. Even in college, he impressed folks with his rhetoric, once replying to a simple inquiry as to how he was with the response, “Cogitating with cosmic creation, I surmise that my physical equilibrium is organically quiescent.” And later on, more substantially, he would enjoin the church to stop mouthing “pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities and start concerning itself with the creation of a world in which all barriers of caste and color are abolished.”

But then, of course, it was not mere rhetoric that Dr. King used to translate his faith into action. Instead, he used the power of love to convince others that true peace is not merely the absence of tension—it is the presence of justice. As Gandhi had done before him in India, his goal became not simply to defeat his enemies, but to redeem them through love so as to avoid a legacy of bitterness. “The chains of hatred must be cut,” he said, “for when it is broken then brotherhood can begin.”

All of which is why if we only come together this weekend to remember Dr. King and to celebrate his life without putting into practice the principles for which he gave that life that our services will be shallow and our words will be as nothing. For even faced with the bitter and acrimonious climate that has captured our country in recent years—a condition that has led many to conclude that we are hopelessly divided, both as a church and a culture–we should remember another observation which Dr. King once made, namely that “the is-ness of something does not imply the ought-ness of it.”

Perhaps leaning upon the same God who raised up Martin Luther King, Jr., we too can learn the way of love and overcome those powers of darkness. Even if you’re not an ambivert.

Dear Jed,

Welcome to our world! We were beginning to think you would never get here, but like those fabled Wise Men of old, you showed up at last for the celebration of Epiphany yesterday on January 6. And so, now that you are here, you may be wondering what comes next.

Well, first off, it’s time for your mom and dad to get a little rest for like many babies, you decided to begin your journey here in the dead of the night. So for the next few days, at least, your Gram and Obi will be hanging around your house to help out, giving your parents whatever snatches at sleep which they can grab.

After that, however, your main job is going to be one of adjustment to this world which admittedly can sometimes be a bit demanding. You came here, after all, woefully unprepared, with almost no defenses against whatever myriad forms of mayhem you may encounter.

But then, that’s kind of how Jesus did it as well, which is what makes the Incarnation (which you just missed celebrating with us) incredible and even unimaginable. For when God invaded this world two thousand years ago, He showed up here in the most vulnerable form possible, relying not upon His own strength or even all the forces of heaven, but simply upon the love and protective impulses of two practically powerless parents.

Fortunately, your mom and dad have a few more resources and safeguards than Mary and Joseph, who were forced to take their newborn and flee the country just to keep him safe. (But since you were born in England I would like you to go ahead and get your U.S. passport all the same, just in case!)

Once you’ve gotten used to us here, however, then your task is going to be to try to change us. For the truth is, we need a few more good individuals in this world who can remind us of how God intended for us to live, and as a friend or beloved of God– which is what your name means, Jedidiah, just as God gave that blessing name to Solomon long ago– you would seem to be a good candidate for that work.

Most of all, I hope that in the days and months and even years ahead, you will grow not only in your stature– and starting out at nine pounds and six and one half ounces is a great beginning– but in the wisdom and knowledge of God, as well. That will be the prayer which your Gram and I will have for you all the days of your life, even as we’ve prayed that for your cousin Bryson and, before that, your parents and uncle as well.

In the meantime, whenever you need a little extra spoiling, we’ll be here, for that’s one of the very best jobs which grandparents get these days. Just tell your folks you want to Facetime or Skype and we’ll show up as close as the newest smart phone or iPad.

We’re glad you finally made it, Jed, and can’t wait to see all that the Lord has planned for all those who love Him. Even a little guy as defenseless right now as you.

Your Obi (yes, as in Obi-Wan Kenobi–you’ll understand this more when you’re older)

(The following was written in 1986 while serving as the pastor of Lindale United Methodist Church. Since that time, numerous individuals in a variety of congregations have kindly tried to convince me that I simply have not ever had a really good sample of the item described in my poem. While I appreciate all of their efforts, I’m afraid that my opinion stands as originally expressed. And now that fruitcake is simply 26 years older…)

I hope that I shall never make
A food so awful as Christmas fruitcake.
All full of nuts and fruits and such,
But all stuck together, much too much.
In fact, it’s quite a puzzle why
With all that sticky, the thing’s so dry!

Oh, I know all about its making,
All the chopping, all the baking
And though they say it’s made with love,
They come from below, and not from above.
Despite the claims that this be manna,
We all know it’s from Corsicana.

In fact, a little doubt persists
That only one such cake exists
In all the world, and every year
It’s passed around to stifle cheer.
To ruin tastebuds here and there
And upset stomachs everywhere.

From house to house that ONE cake’s sent
(For no one really likes its scent)
From friend to friend it goes around
Until it’s crisscrossed all the town,
And every Christmas, it’s one year older
Its sticky pungency all the bolder.

So tell me, friends, be honest now
And speak the truth– come, take your vow:
Of all the things you REALLY hate
Is there anything worse
Than Christmas fruitcake?

If he were living today I have a feeling he might have been the president of Syria, or at the very least, the often heavy-handed commissioner of the NBA.  For like Bashar Assad, who has shown no hesitation to kill his own people, or even a bit like David Stern, who recently fined the San Antonio Spurs a cool quarter of a million dollars simply for not playing four of their stars in Miami, Herod the Great was a man who broached no rivals and demanded that everything go his way.

His building skills were legion, of course, and all across the Roman province of Judea you could see the monuments to his own outsized ego.  From an impressive manmade harbor at Caesaria Maritima, where he built his palace on a promontory jutting out into the sea– to a fortress outside of Bethlehem (modestly known as the “Herodian”) which was built by lopping off the top of one mountain and piling it onto the hill beside it to make his building visible even from Jerusalem–to the expansion and reconstruction of the Second Temple in the Holy City itself, Herod left his mark wherever he went.

Likewise, Herod had the trust of his superiors in Rome where, because of his tenacity, the Senate even conferred upon that ambitious Idumean (or son of Edom) the misapplied title “King of the Jews.”  Unfortunately, however, Herod’s vision and ambition were matched in scale only by his ruthlessness and paranoia, leading him to mercilessly slaughter any and all whom he saw as a threat, including his own sons and wives.

When the rumor reached him therefore of the impending birth of a potential rival—even one who might reign only years after Herod himself was long gone—the royal rage roared once again.  For to make matters worse, the wise men who came from the East were none other than Persians, the same group that Jewish loyalists had tried to solicit thirty years before to drive the Herodian clan from power.  Thus Herod the Great did the only thing that he knew how to do:  he turned to violence and murder in a desperate attempt to hang onto power that ultimately was not his to keep anyway.

And as another Christmas approaches, it would seem that the neighborhood around Jerusalem, and indeed around the world, has not really changed all that much over the centuries. For you don’t have to be in Syria to see that wherever you are, there is still the temptation to do whatever it takes to maintain control and have our own way in life, no matter what the collateral damage to others, even our own families, might be.  In contrast to both Herod and Assad, however, the king that was born in that tiny burg of Bethlehem showed us a different way altogether.

If you’re looking for a way to really celebrate that king’s birth, therefore, here’s a suggestion:  Stop insisting of having your own way and start thinking about how to follow the King who did not come to be served, but to serve others.  You don’t even need to worry about the big stuff for now, in fact—just let someone else go ahead of you in traffic and that will be a start.  Likewise, forgive whatever slights—real or imagined—others may do to you this month, remembering that holidays can be the most stressful times of all for some.  And if you should happen to meet up with any Persians, don’t take it personally if they ask you how to find someone who’s better than yourself.  Likewise, if they choose to go on home rather than spend another night on the road, try not to fine them vast sums of money just because you can.

In short, try to embody at least some of the characteristics of the future king who was born in the meanest of circumstances so long ago, rather than the king at the time who was simply just mean.

After all, it’s not your birthday and it’s not about you.  Truth is–it never was.

Every grace,

Chappell Temple

I have to admit that I’m not very good at it.   For when it comes to waiting, to paraphrase the Bard, I may be “as poor as Job, my Lord, but I’m not so patient.”  In fact, my attitude is probably more like that of Abraham Lincoln who once noted that “things may come to those who wait—but only the things left by those who hustle.”

When it comes to this time of year, however, it’s probably a good thing that, try as I might, I can’t really rush the season of Advent.  For almost like those uneven and irregular southern steps which led up to the ancient Temple in Jerusalem, Advent seems to be designed to make us slow down and take stock of all that is around us.  It’s the ultimate time of waiting, in fact, not just for the annual celebration of Christ’s birth, but for the time when He returns, as well, to usher in a new heaven and a new earth.  All of which makes it a little odd that folks have reduced this season to the “hap, happiest time of the year.”  For shouldn’t the notion that God is returning to lay claim to this rebellious planet—and to us– put at least a little shiver of fear in our bones, as well as a weary anticipation that soon and very soon all that is wrong with the world will once again be made right?

Oh, don’t get me wrong.  When it comes to celebrating Christmas, I’m all in.  I still can’t wait to see what’s in my stocking on Christmas morning, even if I’m the one who stuffed it myself.  (Fortunately, it’s easy to forget what you’ve done after spending a full day and evening in worship services, ending well after midnight.)  And when it comes to catchy carols, no one has ever been able to beat that dynamic duo of the eighteenth century, Isaac Watts and G.F. Handel, who gave us “Joy to the World,” though the sweetest sound of the season is still the squeal of children’s voices when they see what Santa has brought them.

But Advent itself is something altogether different, acting almost like a speed bump on the road to our rejoicing.  For it points us to the importance of patience in a patently impatient world.  Likewise, the season reminds us that when it comes to what really matters in this life—sublimely symbolized by the birth of a baby—we have no real choice but to wait, for in the end, it doesn’t depend on us at all.

From his prison cell in Nazi Germany, where waiting was a fact of life, Dietrich Bonhoeffer understood this idea as well as anyone ever has, I suspect.  Writing to his best friend Eberhard Bethge in the days leading up to Christmas 1943, Bonhoeffer observed that “life in a prison cell may well be compared to Advent—one waits, hopes, and does this, that, or the other—things that are really of no consequence.  For the door is shut and can only be opened from the outside.”

Advent takes us to the moment when God did precisely that through the coming of the Christ into this world.  If it takes us a little longer than we might like to get there, thus, perhaps that’s the point.  After all, what do you think the prophets of old imagined as they waited centuries for Immanuel to come?

Every grace,

Chappell Temple

I have to admit that it caught me by surprise.  So as soon as I heard the stunning announcement that the bakery that has made Hostess Twinkies for the past eighty-two years has crumbled, I knew I had to taste that spongy little yellow cake with the creamy white filling at least one more time.  Apparently, however, I was not alone.  For after stopping at eleven different stores on a Friday night, including three groceries, five gas stations, and three pharmacies–yes, we have an exciting social life indeed– my quest for the quintessential snack food turned out to be a fruitless one.

To be sure, the young cashier at Kroger’s seemed surprised as well when I informed her that her snacking shelves were empty.  “But I’ve never even had a Twinkie,” she lamented, and like the friends of Job at first, I didn’t really know what to say.  Nor could I answer the question which one convenience store clerk posed when I stopped in at her place either:  “But what will they deep-fry at the Texas State Fair?”  After all, Big Tex is gone too, having been deep-fried himself in a fire this fall.

“No more little Ho Ho’s?” quite literally cried a man facing the empty shelf at Wal-Mart, and I had the sense he might have already been drowning his sorrows with more than just a glass of milk.  And the manager at the gas station seemed clearly suspicious, if not conspiratorial:  “I thought it was very strange when the truck didn’t come today,” he reported in almost hushed tones, and he wasn’t even talking about a fuel shipment.

Others were more stoic, of course.  “Little Debbie’s are better anyway,” the employee of another Wal-Mart tried to assure me.  “She makes them fresh,” she argued, and I had to admit that I’d never thought of Debbie as such a dedicated supplier. And at the Walgreen’s the clerk somewhat sheepishly confided that I’d missed buying the last pack by only about an hour or so, though she did confess that she was still holding back two packages for her boyfriend, prompting me to ask just how serious they really were.

It was a manager at HEB who gave me the real skinny on the serious snack cake shortage, however.  “People have been buying them up all day to sell them back on eBay,” she told me. And sure enough, when I got back home and checked my computer, there they were–just $99.99 for 15 fresh double packs.

All of which is enough to remind me that what most folks want the most is anything that they can’t easily have, even if it’s not all that good for them.  For filled with preservatives and fructose, and with 150 calories in a single four-inch cake, you have to walk 42 minutes just to counter the effects of one moment of weakness and unrestrained indulgence.  And don’t even get me started on the Ding Dongs or Suzy Qs.

But then, isn’t that the way sin works as well?  For even when we know that something isn’t healthy, the allure of the forbidden fruit is still an incredibly powerful one. Genesis 3.6 reminds us, for instance, that it was when the woman saw that the fruit of the tree from which God had told her not to eat was good for food and pleasing to the eye, as well as desirable for gaining wisdom, that she took some and consumed it anyway. And that should come as no surprise to any of us.  For if sin wasn’t so darn attractive who in their right mind would ever fall for it in the first place?

There is an antidote, however, and it’s simply learning how to thank the Lord for what we do have rather than obsess over what we don’t.  What’s more, Thanksgiving would seem to be a great time to remember that.  For even without a Twinkies fix, if you have enough to eat this holiday you are among the blessed. Likewise, if you have a job, you have something which the 18,000 now former employees of Hostess Bakeries will not have as we enter this special season.  And if you have a family or friends to share a meal with on Thanksgiving, then you have been given one of the greatest gifts of all.

With the end of Twinkies, we may indeed have gone over the “fructose cliff” in our country.  Fortunately, there’s no shortage of God’s grace, however, and if we are willing to trust in Him, we’ve been assured that He will provide for all of our genuine needs even before we know enough to ask Him.

The Rolling Stones were right:  you can’t always get what you want.  On the other hand, maybe it’s really about being grateful for what we’ve received, realizing that it all has come from the hand of God.  “Give thanks in all things,” said St. Paul long ago, “for this is the will of God concerning you.”

All things.  Maybe even those Little Debbie posers.

Every grace,

Chappell Temple

(The following thoughts were shared at the annual Church Conference of Lakewood United Methodist Church in Houston held on November 13, 2012.)

The Thanksgiving holidays always make me think about them.  For though everyone knows the story of those first Pilgrims and their celebrated Thanksgiving meal, what is usually forgotten is that most of those Separatists who came to America to establish a religious colony here didn’t actually start in England—they began their historic voyage in Holland, where they had fled because of opposition to their religious beliefs in their homeland.  Leaving the rest of their congregation and even their weeping and praying pastor behind, they boarded a ship called the Speedwell in Delfthaven, Holland, on July 22, 1620, sailing for four days to Southampton, England, where they met up with the Mayflower that had just come down from London. That ship had a number of other passengers from England whom the Pilgrims did not really know—some were friends, and others, investors that had become interested in the voyage while the Pilgrims had been trying to raise enough money for it.  Like a lot of church fundraising projects, however, those Pilgrims fell a little bit short of meeting all of their expenses and so they had to sell off most of their oil and butter before they could leave Southampton.  After doing that, thus, they left for America on August 5, but they got only a short way into the English Channel before they were forced to land at Dartmouth because the Speedwell was leaking.  It took a couple of weeks to fix the ship, but on August 24, 1620, they finally started back on their voyage again and this time they got nearly 300 miles from Lands End in Cornwall out into the Atlantic before the Speedwell began to take on water once more.

They turned back again, thus, landing in Plymouth where it was finally determined that the Speedwell was not seaworthy enough to make the rather dangerous cross-Atlantic voyage and that further repairs would take too long and put them well beyond the safe season for sailing.  About twenty passengers had already had their fill of adventure and decided to just go on home.  But the remaining dozen or so passengers and cargo were transferred from the Speedwell over to the somewhat larger Mayflower which finally put back out to sea on September 6, with 102 passengers on board, three of whom were pregnant women, along with a crew of about 30.  The first half of the trip went well, with good winds and weather.  One of the pregnant women, Elizabeth Hopkins, had her baby, whom they named Oceanus.  But the smooth sailing came to an end about a month into the voyage when the little ship—just 25 feet wide and 106 feet long– was hit with so many storms and crosswinds that it began to leak as well.  One of the main beams of the ship bowed and cracked and they had to use a great iron screw to try to raise it back into place.  One of the passengers, a young boy named William Button, died while on the two-month trip.  But finally after going some 2,750 miles, at an average speed of just two miles an hour, they spotted a spit of land which turned out to be Cape Cod, and there, on November 11, 1620, they finally landed, and the rest, as you will know is history.

But whatever happened to the Speedwell, you may wonder?  Well, back in England it was repaired and fifteen years later, in 1635, it finally made the trip to Virginia, leaving Southampton and bringing 59 people with it, led by the owner and captain of that ship, a man named John Thomas Chappell.  I know of him because he was one of my direct ancestors.  Indeed, some will say that John Chappell set the family pattern for us way back in 1620 when he missed sailing into history alongside of those on the Mayflower.  In some ways, thus, those in our family have missed the boat ever since!  But on the other hand, maybe it’s not so much about getting into the history books that matters as it is simply being faithful to whatever task it is that God may place in front of you.  For if your life has ever seemed like a rocky voyage, you’ve probably figured out that in the end, it’s all pure grace anyway. It’s the grace of God that we have a church at all, for instance, much less that He enables us to do the clearly incredible ministries which take place in and through us.  It’s the grace of God that we have found such a sweet season of peaceful purpose as a congregation, as we carry out our vision of being a place where all can live, learn, and love.  It’s the grace of God that has enriched each of us with the gift of each other.  And it’s the grace of God which will carry us forward into yet another new year of serving Him as we begin to reach out to whole new communities around us.

Oh, we will no doubt come across some storms along the way, just as those folks on the Mayflower did.  And like them, we may feel a little stretched and seasick every once in a while.  Our sails may split and our masts may creak and even break.  Just like on that boat, some will die, but others will be born.  And just like was the case with the Speedwell, we may not get to our destination exactly when we planned to.  But, my friends, if we stay the course and stay together, stay in love with God and in love with each other, we will get there.  For the truth is that it’s not the pace but the race that matters as we run with perseverance the course that has been marked out for us (Hebrews 12.1). Or to put it another way, the operative words for us are not “speed well,” but “God speed.”  May God speed us all thus in the days and weeks ahead, even as we all look to the Captain of our Faith and the Lord of our lives.

Every grace,

Chappell Temple