Remember The Days...

The title for this entry comes from the song Remember The Days (...On The Radio) by Nelly Furtado, the only single I remotely enjoyed from her first album, and that with serious reservations about its lyrics. That said, the song adequately reflects the two sermon messages given today by Mr. Veller and Mr. Treybig, and hence the title will stand and will be explained in more detail below. Suffice it to say that on this most "Church History" of Holy Days that remembering the days of our own past in the Church was front and center, more so than it usually is. I would have called the two messages nostalgic, only that they dealt with events that I find impossible to be nostalgic about, as I was a bright, attentive, and very concerned 13 year old at the time I had to deal with the historical disaster of 1995.

The first sermon was by Mr. Veller on the subject of dealing with the fight when it comes to you. As a part of his sermon, he commented on the ubiquity of heresies in the history of the Church of God throughout recorded history. Of course, while I cannot remember HWA, I remember 1995 all too well. It happened at that rare moment where I was becoming aware of what was going out without yet being able to have any remote control over it. It was a delicate time, to say the least. To watch authority crumble before your eyes in a living example of Acts 5:29: "We should obey God rather than men" was a painful and scarring experience, one that I am still dealing with the reverberations from. One cannot invoke the sacred right of rebellion without paying the long-term costs of having to establish a new order when one has knocked out the support of tradition and human authority. And it is important to note that rebellion is a sacred right, but a very dangerous one to invoke. Anyway, to put it mildly, as a pioneer in the Tampa Bay United congregation (if a young one), I'm not too keen on having to relive those awful and chaotic times. There was a sense of strength and relief at joining together with others of like mind who also fought against the heresies, but I wouldn't want to have to go through it again, as it was a major crisis of "place," as I tend to have on occassions where I make massive shifts in my life and do not know exactly how I am supposed to behave or what role I truly have. I guess I think way too much about these things, but I have to try to make some sense of what happens. Mr. Veller commented on the early days of long question an answer sessions, alternate services, and private bible studies, days I remember very well.

The afternoon sermon by Mr. Treybig was a similar, though not identical message. Comparing the events of the early church in Acts with his own 1995 experiences as the pastor of Spokane, Washington. He commented, obliquely, on his own problems as a UCG pastor with local boards in Spokane, without going into a great deal of detail as to the issue. Methinks he protested too strongly. It was interesting to see how he dealt with the changes in 1995, and how it was predicated on the good of the congregation, as well as his own personal and professional sense of virtue and brotherhood with fellow ministers and elders. Obviously, that is not a perspective I have personal experience with. It is intriging that he tried to focus some of his comments on those of us who were under 30 (about 1/4 to 1/3 of the audience), who were too young to remember HWA personally. Those younger than myself may not have had the same sort of painful experiences from 1995, but I belong to the middle group of young people--those who do not remember HWA or have any sort of personal nostalgia for the "good old days" of HWA, but rather remember the negative effects of the hierarchial system that HWA set up. Perhaps it's a bit unkind or unfair, but such is the life. The end result of tyranny is anarchy and the end result of anarchy is tyranny. Those of us who seek after wisdom realize there must be a better way that avoids either, a pitiless and narrow road. The events of 1995 are a natural result of the tyrannical system of hierarchy practiced by those who were in high positions in Worldwide during HWA's time. Hopefully the ministers who have remained with the truth have not, as the Bourbons of France (post-Napoleon) "learned nothing and forgotten nothing." That would be a tragedy yet to be written. Only time will tell if these days augur well or ill for the future. Perhaps that is the reason why it is good, in such an anniversary time as this, to reflect on the past. With that, I take my leave.