Holy Places and Days

W. Carl Ketcherside

[Page 145]

     It is significant that Hebrew has one word to denote work, service and worship; in Biblical thought there is no watertight division between daily work and the adoration of God --R. Martin-Achord in "A Companion to the Bible," page 472.

     I remember the house where I was born. It was a two room miner's shack with a summer kitchen at the rear. The summer kitchen was a small building, not attached to the house, where food was prepared in the hot days of midsummer to keep the house from becoming unbearably warm. I can also remember how the family lived in those faraway days. There were but four children then, the other two came later. I was the oldest of the lot.

     Our mother came from immigrant stock, and had never gone to English school. My grandfather was from Copenhagen, my grandmother from Schleswig-Holstein. They lived in a tightly-knit Lutheran colony where only German was spoken. My mother met my father when she visited her married sister. He was a tall, devil-may-care young blade who had gone underground as a miner before he was sixteen years old. What caused this reserved Lutheran girl to be attracted to this youthful skeptic who laughed at God no one could ever tell. I think he was relatively considerate of her feelings since he regarded religion as being more adapted to women, most of whom did not care to drink and fight anyhow, and were entitled to some diversion. And their marriage did take her from the fields where she had been plowing, harvesting, and spreading manure from the cattle shed since she was twelve.

     It was a long walk to the Lutheran church edifice but as we came along mother carried us in her arms and had us christened, and was very careful about the selection of a godfather and godmother for each of us. But she could not carry us all, and as a new baby came along, the others were forced to stay home with our father. This was much more fun because we would go for walks through the woods looking for paw-paws (the poor man's bananas) in season, or he would make a kite and help us loft it into the sky, or spin tops or play marbles. All of this came to a grinding halt, however when our father was converted.

     I was almost six when it happened, and I recall seeing him immersed in the pond behind the shaft where he went down each day to mine out the ore. He gave away his shotgun with which he always won every shooting-match from which they did not debar him, and also disposed of the violin on which he used to fiddle for dances (shindigs, he called them), and threw his sack of Bull Dur-

[Page 146]

ham and little book of cigarette papers in the heating stove. The living-room (which was also the bedroom) smelled like a tobacco factory for a little while, and this gave our mother, who was angry because he had "joined the crazy Campbellites," a chance to vent the Teutonic spleen which was deeply buried, and after it had burst out, always left her in a flood of tears.

     Life was altered for all us. Now we got up earlier on Sunday and had to wash with special care, because our ears had to pass inspection. We had to don clean clothing and be otherwise uncomfortable. We had our meetings in the front room of an uncle's house, and to get there we walked up the road past houses where the more fortunate youngsters hung on the fences and stuck their tongues out at us as we passed by. This required making mental notes of those to fight on the next day, for we had already learned that you did not fight on Sunday. On especially good days the list grew quite long by the time we reached our destination, and we knew we'd have a full day of activity on Monday.

     I remember the meetings. All of those present were relatives except one or two. The Lord's table was simply the library table with the kerosene lamp pushed back for "the emblems." At first we just used a biscuit left from breakfast for the bread, but later someone came through and objected that it was leavened, so after quite a discussion as to what should go into it we began to use "unleavened" bread. I say "we" instead of "they" because it was just sort of a family and all of us seemed to belong. The little rug with the big shepherd dog woven into it, which lay in front of the table, was the same one on which we wrestled during the week if our aunt was gone.

     Too, there wasn't any "preacher," and when an occasional one came and was "given the time" it wasn't nearly so much like a family gathering. Generally he talked louder and stood up. We ordinarily sat and read and talked about the Bible like we visited at Thanksgiving or birthdays. Only when the time came to "wait on the table" did one arise and remind us that this was the real reason we had gathered. When summer came the room was too hot and crowded and the meetings were transferred to a walnut grove and held under the open sky. This was a most interesting experience for a little lad. There were dung beetles to watch on the ground, or squirrels chasing each other through the trees. Occasionally a soaring vulture set his wings and caught a thermal current and was wafted heavenward with no apparent effort. It was years later before I came to know and to love poetry and to learn that, "The groves were God's first temples."

     I've written all of this to tell you again that any place where God touches a human life is holy ground, and that no place is a sanctuary merely because it is a place. The outstanding feature of early Christianity was its recognition that all one had was God's when the heart was given to God. Any house was the Lord's house when the Lord's people were there. The common expression was "the church which is in thy house." The table of the Lord was the family table, and it was the table of the Lord simply because he was Lord of the table. No building was sacred because none was secular.

     There was no "worship service" because all service was worship. The husband who loved his wife as his own body was worshiping God and so was the wife who reverenced her own husband. One who worked quietly for his living was fulfilling an appeal made in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ (2 Thess. 3:12). Those who gave to charity with all their heart and those who cheerfully helped others in distress were using gifts allotted by God's grace as certainly as those who publicly prophesied, taught or exhorted (Rom. 12:6-8). C. F. D. Moule in "Worship in the New Testament" writes, "Christian worship is indeed service--hard work--but it is the responsive service of obedience and gratitude, not of flattery or of 'mutual benefit.'"

     Service to humanity, the relief of human suffering, the supplying of human need--this was the greatest expression of

[Page 147]

worship. Even before Christ came the prophets caught the vision of the real liturgy of life. Isaiah, in his dissertation on the kind of service God chooses, pointedly reveals that it is not fasting to quarrel and fight, to bow the head like a reed in the wind, or to spread sackcloth and ashes under one. "Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover him, and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?" (Isaiah 58:6-7).

     Jesus refused to allow even the law of the sabbath to take precedence over humanitarian principle. When his hungry disciples plucked ears of grain and were censured by the Pharisees for such unlawful action, he cited them to the case of David "when he was in need and was hungry." David "entered the house of God, ate the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and also gave it to those who were with him." Then our Lord laid down a principle of such magnitude that most of those who profess to be his followers even now are still stunned by it. "The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath." He then added, "So the Son of man is lord even of the sabbath."

     Note that word "even." To the Pharisees the attitude toward the sabbath was the test of one's loyalty to God. Jesus repeatedly and habitually broke the sabbath law as they interpreted it. He showed that the need of man took precedence over law since law was given for the good of man. Keeping the sabbath was a part of ritualistic religion but relief of human need was an expression of worship, that is reverence for God, the pure and undefiled religion. The point is that our compassion and mercy must be as full and free and as continuous as that of God. No day must ever be made an excuse for withholding aid that may be provided. Nothing must ever become more hallowed than the provision for suffering humanity.

     Of course, in the Christian concept, there are no special days. There can be no holy days for the simple reason that there are no unholy ones. In the primitive community of saints Sunday was not a taboo day. L. Duchesne says in his Origin of Christian Worship:

     The idea of imparting to the Sunday the solemnity of the Sabbath, with all its exigencies and in particular its prohibition of work, was an entirely foreign one to the early Christians.

     Many of the primitive saints were slaves, owned as chattels by the masters. They had to work a full day in the fields. Pliny the Younger, who was governor of Bithynia, wrote that the Christians met very early in the morning. Tertullian said of the Lord's Supper, "We take it in assemblies before daybreak." This prompted A. B. McDonald to write in Christian Worship in the Primitive Church:

     The choice of the early morning hour would be dictated largely by the fact that most worshipers were busy people and had their day's work to do as usual.

     Augustus Neander, in his History of the Training and Planting of the Christian Church places the attitude of the disciples in proper focus in these words:

     On the standing-point of the gospel, the whole life became in an equal manner related to God, and served to glorify him, and thenceforth no opposition existed between what belonged to God and what belonged to the world. Thus all the days of the Christian life must be equally holy to the Lord; hence Paul says to the Galatian Christians..."After that ye have known God, or rather (by his pitying love) have been led to the knowledge of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage?"... The apostle does not here oppose the Christian feasts to the Jewish, but he considers the whole reference of religion to certain days as something foreign to the exalted standing-point of Christian freedom, and belonging to that of Judaism and Heathenism.

[Page 148]

     E. De Pressense, whose work The Early Years of Christianity became a sensation, both when issued in France, and when translated into English by Annie Harwood-Holmden, writes:

     There is no apostolic decree or episcopal ordinance appointing the celebration of the first day of the week any more than the watch-days or the hours of devotion. Sunday is the offspring of Christian liberty, not the inheritance of Jewish bondage.

     This makes some of our "sacred cows" look silly as sacred cows always do. Think of the signboards reading: "9:45 a.m., Bible Study; 10:45 a.m., Worship; 11:45 a.m., Communion." The more orthodox brethren, driven to extremes by those who oppose classes, have sought to avoid their charges by neatly arranged compartments, so they can argue that the Bible study ends before the worship begins. What is "the worship"? Where do those who speak where the Bible speaks find any such idea in the sacred scriptures? Do we not study the word together out of reverence for the Author? Then it is an expression of worship. Not only is Bible Study part of "our worship" but so is getting the children up, bathing them, dressing them, preparing breakfast and returning thanks, driving to the place where the saints assemble and waving a friendly hand to the neighbors along the way. We do not start worshiping "when the bell rings."

     Those good brethren who oppose Bible classes have a warped idea of the very nature of worship, but it is not one whit more twisted than is that of those who condone and defend classes. All of them are legalistic and Judaistic in their approach. All exhibit a lack of spiritual maturity. When we once grow up in the Lord, we will learn that Bible study, prayer, singing, contributing to needs, visiting the sick, plowing corn for a crippled neighbor or taking flowers to a shut-in, are all part of our "communion" and there is no such thing as the communion, although there is a communion of the body and blood of the Lord. We do not observe it; we participate in it. That is why it is a communion instead of a mere ritual.

     Jesus only once gave a picture of the final judgment and in it he provided the basis for acceptance or rejection. It had nothing to do with liturgy, litany, rubric or ritual. Ceremonials and sacraments were not even mentioned. Those who received the Father's blessing, who were invited to possess the kingdom that had been made ready for such as themselves since the world was made, were those who had fed the hungry, given drink to the thirsty, received strangers, clothed the naked, helped the sick, and visited those in prison. This is the real test of true worship, not the kind that is rendered at a certain mountain or in a certain city, but that which is in spirit and truth (reality).

     This renders picayune and paltry a great many of the occasions of conflict now in vogue in which brethren constantly bombard each other with paper pellets from partisan blowguns. One segment of the non-instrument "Church of Christ" has engaged in an attempt to send clothing and other commodities to the stricken regions of the earth where famine stalks on silent feet. In one instance they sent purebred bulls and cows to Korea for breeding stock and paid men who were skilled in animal husbandry to go along and help the native peoples to improve their herds. This has brought them under constant attack by another segment who have accused them of for-

[Page 149]

saking the gospel of Christ for the "social gospel" philosophy.

     Since I am simply a Christian and a Christian only, I am looked upon with suspicion as "a brother in error" by both the "cow party" and the "anti-cow party." This is good because it makes me free in Christ to say what I honestly think. I have nothing to lose but my soul. This gives me a tremendous advantage. Since in Christ Jesus there can be no separation between secular and sacred, it remains that the only thing which is secular is sin! Peter learned that no created thing is unclean. God has removed the taboos and phylacteries by washing them all away in the blood of his Son.

     Did you not die with Christ and pass beyond reach of the elemental spirits of the world? Then why behave as though you were still living the life of the world? Why let people dictate to you: "Do not handle this, do not taste that, do not touch the other"--all of them things that must perish as soon as they are used? This is to follow merely human injunctions and teaching. (Col. 2:20-22).

     In our day the time of the sectarian professional missionary is growing short. It is just about over. If we had wanted to preserve it we should have kept the natives in abysmal ignorance so that any cult representative would have looked good to them. But we established schools and shared educational advantages. In doing so we doomed our narrow sectarian hopes. Too many natives now speak with an Oxonian dialect. This means that the time is fast approaching when men who only go to the jungles to "grind an axe" will be supplanted by those who can swing one. This is no real loss and it may be a gain if the latter are committed Christians.

     A schoolteacher in a native village, a doctor in a remote clinic, a visiting nurse in native huts, an expert in soil conservation, an operator of a bulldozer digging ponds for a water supply--all of these, if God's dear children, are ministers of God for good. And if they let the light of the indwelling Spirit shine through them, and let the leaven of life touch the lives of those about them, they will serve God in the most effective manner in reaching men today. The poorest place on earth to reach those who need to be reached is from a pulpit, because those who need to be reached are not going to come and sit supinely before a wooden stand. If one really wants to witness for Christ in our day perhaps the worst thing he could do would be to quit teaching a biology class in college and "take up preaching."

     We are being forced to do what Jesus did-- leave our nice comfortable heavens and go into the world where people are living, dying, fighting, fornicating, loving and lusting. And we might just barely be allowed, some of us, "of helping to complete, in our poor human flesh, the full tale of Christ's afflictions still to be endured, for the sake of his body which is the church" (Col. 2:24). The Spirit is driving us into the wilderness and we will be tempted a thousand ways. A lot of us will not be coming back!

     I really think that one may minister more effectively for Jesus at the time by showing starving natives how to raise more food than by passing out tracts to skeptical hands, entitled, "Why I am not a Buddhist!" A man whose belly is writhing and cramping from hunger and whose clothing is soiled from diarrhea, is not too much concerned with what a sleek, well-dressed American is not! If brethren can increase the milk supply in a village where puling infants sob and moan as they tug at dry and withered paps, I say, "God bless them!" And I think He will. This does not mean that I want to substitute cow's milk for the sincere milk of the word, any more than Jesus wanted to substitute the loaves and fishes for the bread of life. I do not derogate the value of the soul in ministering to the body. Those who reach such a conclusion will only prove how the sectarian mind can corrupt and defile anything that it touches with its venomous thought.

     Of all the sects or movements on earth,

[Page 150]

the orthodox "Church of Christ" is the last to be accused seriously of espousing the social gospel because it sends bulls and cows to improve the herds of famine-stricken lands. I do not want to be critical of the motives of any of my brothers, but the writings of some of them about such humanitarian projects smack more of what I call "corn dangling" than the social gospel. When we had a recalcitrant mule who would not go where we wanted him, we learned that by dangling an ear of corn about two feet in front of his face we could take him right on into our stable. If sharing with the hungry and destitute becomes partisan bait and is used as a foundation for planting a "Texas style Church of Christ" and transplanting American culture to Tibet or Taiphong, the hungry will benefit, but the brethren over here may not. When there are any strings attached to sharing except the cords which bind our own hearts to Jesus we are part of a sectarian Establishment which prostitutes even deeds of mercy to its own growth and gain, and trades on human suffering for its own advancement. Competition makes compassion a farce; rivalry reduces religion to a racket!

     We must never forget that while man does not live by bread alone, without bread he does not live at all upon this earth. Jesus was "worshiping" the Father as much when he blessed the loaves and fishes as when "he took bread and blessed it, and broke it and gave it unto them saying, This bread is my body which is broken for you." Come to think of it, did Jesus ever cease to worship God? Should we? Is not our problem that we are still choosing mountains and designating cities as "the place where men ought to worship." Will we ever be able to cast off the shackles of Judaism and "worship in spirit and in truth"? If God wills, next month we will deal with "Acts of Worship."

     Editor's Note. This is one of a series of articles appearing during 1966 under the heading "Deep Roots." At the close of this year these will be bound in a volume of that title. Advance orders are now being taken for it to be delivered on March 1, 1967, at a pre-publication price of $2.49, payable at time of delivery.