I am thinking of Robert Preston, but only after the fact. Some of my readers are old enough to remember how, in The Music Man, he sang, “We got trouble. Right here in River City. With a capital “T,” that rhymes with “P” and that stands for… ‘pool.’” (That stands for pool!)
What made me think of Robert Preston, however, was a stray memory of Granny Sherrill, who made sure they had trouble, I mean lots of trouble, at the Riva Lake Baptist Church, in Winchester, TN.
When she discovered that members of the Riva Lake youth group and their parents had somehow secured a pool table for youth meetings in the youth building, Granny. Sherill. Went. Berserk. A pool table?! Those kids might as well have been playing cards! (Granny Sherrill boasted that she had never had a deck of cards under her roof!)
And if they were playing pool and cards, who knew but what they were using Ouija boards and 8-balls!
Granny Sherrill maintained that a pool table was an open door for the Devil, and the youth (and their parents) had let Satan into Riva Lake, who had taken up residence… and now they had trouble, I mean, REAL trouble, all on account of that pool table!
I was called as Riva Lake’s pastor a few months after the church split over the pool table. And by the time I got there, there was no pool table. There were no youth or youth parents, and not many other folk, either. But Granny Sherrill was still there.
I wonder if you knew Granny Sherrill growing up, or someone like her.
I wonder if you grew up with her kind of “Thou shalt not!” moralizing, or that kind of “Thou shalt not!” preaching—individualistic, prohibitive: Thou shalt not drink, or smoke, or chew, or associate with those who do!
Thou shalt not play cards, pool… Thou shalt not dance!
But, why those particular things? Have you ever wondered?
Even though the Bible says nothing about pocket pool. Or playing cards. The Bible says that dancing is a way to praise God, for goodness’ sake. And wine? Wine is a sign of God’s abundance. Ask the groom at Cana! Ask Isaiah and Micah!
Not to hear my preachers tell it, though.
And it was odd how, the more I learned, my preachers growing up preached on a lot of things they called sin, that the bible never does. Meanwhile, they ignored things the Bible does name as sin, but they couldn’t be bothered.
Idolatry, for instance. Not least, political idolatry.
As seems to be rampant among us again. But I didn’t hear much preaching on scriptures such as those found in Jeremiah 17: “Cursed are those who trust in mere mortals and make mere flesh their strength—whose hearts turn away from the Lord…”
Who ignore the plain command of scripture, in other words, who defy the will of God, and instead put their trust in the words and will and policies of flawed and failed human beings and forget that as we do to the least of these our brothers and sisters, and our veterans and health care workers and hungry school-age children…
We seem to be in one of those times when false prophets, like Aaron, are advancing an idolatrous theology and politics: “these are your gods, who brought you out of slavery” (Exodus 32:4). More grievously, we are in danger like unto that of the people of Tyre and Sidon—looking upon a crazed and contemporary “Herod” and, in order to curry favor or escape wrath, cry out, “Behold, the voice of a god and not of man” (Acts 12:22).
(Nor does the current Herod seem familiar with that Herod and his fate.)
Yeah, but I didn’t hear any sermons on that.
I never heard a word, in my all-white Southern Baptist church, about the sin of racism. We may have sung, “Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world! Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight…” but we never, as it were, did the “motions” to that song.
I never got a visual reminder (or more than a cliched verbal one) that people different from me and my kind, are still my brothers and sisters because they are children of God.
I am sure I must have heard sermons on the Good Samaritan, but never as a call to reach across racial, religious, or partisan lines in order to practice Christian mercy and godly hospitality… though that parable is surely about such things.
Why did I never hear that kind of sermon? Why did I have to learn about sin for myself on the street corners and in college and seminary?
Turns out, there is a reason, and its the same reason most evangelical Christians have an absurdly inadequate understanding of sin.
Later this week: Uh, Miss Kitty? What are you doing upstairs?
