Reflections on a Seminary Revelation
It’s a question all keenly aware of their mortality ponder: What happens when you die? We know (and thankfully so) what Christian doctrine says. Does lived experience have anything to say?
The late preacher John Claypool thought so. He once remarked: “All the ‘little deaths’ we undergo as we dare to risk and venture may teach more about the sufficiency of God in the act of dying than a thousand abstract ideas.” Informing his comment is Jesus’ assertion: “Whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the Gospel will save it” (Mark 8:35).
To “save our lives” is to seek our own interests, our security of greatest concern. Whereas to “lose our lives” for Christ’s sake and the Gospel’s is to follow Christ, whatever risks that entails.
What happens, though, when we “lose our lives” for Christ’s sake and the Gospel’s by daring to risk beyond the security our own resources provide? Testimonies say we experience God in a profound way, sensing what it means to be fully alive – a far cry from the uninspiring nature of playing it safe. Moreover, God’s evident, sustaining presence in our “little death,” as Claypool termed it, strengthens belief that we can rely on God in our “big death.”
Hence Claypool’s point about the teaching value of daring Christian commitment with respect to dying, a matter he could speak to having risked his life to express his convictions during the 1950s and 1960s Civil Rights Movement.
His insight evokes the revelation that came to me when I first stepped out in faith.
It happened when I was a young student at Asbury Seminary, anxious about where I was going to get the money to pay for an upcoming spring quarter’s tuition. Two hundred dollars short of what I needed (no small amount for a student in the late 60’s), I decided to do something I dreaded – spend my week-long spring break in door-to-door sales.
Moved by a cookware sales manager’s assurance I could make the money I needed, I prayed fervently for success, bargaining, “Lord, if you bless me financially over spring break, I promise I will give you 10% of my income.”
Since I was a boy, I had heard of the biblical tithe. It was a practice I had paid scant attention to until I started making money, then paid no attention to. Now, though, with a fellow student’s testimonial of a bargaining prayer that worked for him ringing in my ears, I drew up my own contract, promising to tithe.
Today I wince at the memory of attempting to haggle with God. However, evidence shows the Lord works with us where we are in our spiritual growth. Please know that for that one week in 1968, I, a painfully shy student, earned a whopping $250 (equal to at least $2000 today) selling cookware.
But as the days passed and my income grew my memory of the deal faded (funny how memory works). And, by Saturday, I had no recall.
Then came Sunday morning. Rising to preach at the country church I was a student pastor of, I began my daily devotional using for a resource, if memory serves me right, E. Stanley Jones’s Abundant Living. At any rate, the reading for the day, addressing the issue of money, referenced a number of biblical texts, one of which was the Malachi passage (Malachi 3:7-10) where the Lord chastises the Israelites for not keeping the tithe.
The text hit me right between the eyes, confronting me with the pledge I had made. I could do no other but write a check to the church I served for… well, $10. Convicted by the obvious shortfall, I reached for my checkbook again, and this time, mind you, with resolve, I wrote a check for $15. It took three times for me to get it right.
Entering church later that morning, I dropped my $25 check in the offering plate. It was a huge move for a fledgling seminarian struggling to make ends meet. I was “losing my life” at that stage in my spiritual life. Indeed, I was undergoing a “little death.”
The service began, then something unusual occurred for Lamberts Chapel – two visitors walked in. Rarely did we have visitors in our remote, country church, but this particular Sunday an older couple stole into the sanctuary, taking their seats, adding to our small attendance.
They participated as everyone else did. Then at the end, while I shook hands with worshipers filing out of the building, this couple, smiling, placed an envelope in my hand.
Assuming it was for the church, I handed it to our treasurer, Ms. Sherrow. She, however, met me at the door when I returned later that day for vespers saying it was for me. I opened it, and to my utter astonishment, eyed a check made out to “Warner Davis” for $25.
Twenty-five dollars for me when I had just given up control of $25? What did this striking juxtaposition mean? After vespers, I drove home looking blankly into the headlight-lit darkness trying to make sense of what happened.
Who was this mysterious couple? Two Sundays later with no return visit on their part, I located their address and knocked at their door. Glad to see me, they showed me in. And minutes later, thanking them for their gift, I asked why they gave me that $25 and why they did it on that particular Sunday.
They knew my missionary father, the woman said. They had heard him preach. They admired his dedication and wanted to show their appreciation by giving a little something to his son. And as for that Sunday, it was as good a day as any to come over and do that.
I bade them farewell, my faith ablaze, convinced this openhanded couple’s one-time visit to Lamberts Chapel coinciding with my “little death” could only be explained as divine intervention. But what was the Lord communicating? The awe-inspiring nature of the experience defied definition.
Finally, there came to me the advance in understanding I needed. The couple’s $25 gift to me the very hour I relinquished my grip on $25 to step out in faith was the Lord’s saying “I’m your security, not your bank account!” It was an astonishing revelation of his steadfast dependability.
An older man now, I look back on this experience in seminary and see it from this perspective: it was the first of a number of “little deaths” I’ve since undergone, alive to the aliveness of God, each making me, in tandem with scriptural assurances, stronger in the faith, more prepared to meet my ultimate death.
“All the ‘little deaths’ we undergo, as we dare to risk and venture, may teach more about the sufficiency of God in the act of dying than a thousand abstract ideas” (Claypool).
I couldn’t agree more.
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