"Gather to me my consecrated ones,
who made a covenant
with me by sacrifice." Psalm 50
One of my favorite people of all time, the Rev. Bernard J.
Haan, founding president of the college where I’ve taught for thirty years, was
a remarkable man, one of those folks who could fill a room just be walking in.
A decade ago, when he was dying, my wife and I went to the
hospital to see him. A book of mine had
just come out, a book I’d dedicated to him, and I wanted to show him because I
respected him greatly—in part, because he’d always respected me, even when a
ton of folks didn’t. But that’s another
story.
That day, he seemed almost cadaverous, his long face thin
and gaunt; but when we came close to his bed, he looked up and recognized us,
greeted us warmly.
His eyes blinked a bit when he looked up at the open book I
held in front of him with my hands. I
don’t know whether he could read the dedication or not, but I read them to
him—“To B. J. Haan, who understands.”
“Oh, Jim,” he said, “that’s wonderful—that’s just
wonderful.” Then his head fell back to
the pillow a bit, as if simply to read was a strain. “You know,” he said, cutting a grin, “I’ll
remember that as long as I live.”
And we laughed. A
thousand people have a thousand stories about B. J. Haan, but no one can tell
that one but me.
It would be wrong to say that Haan never really sought
power; he did. He had his causes, chief
among them a college two blocks from our house.
But he never sought wider power than what he might use, lovingly, for
causes he believed righteous. He was a
mover and a shaker, but, chances are, very few people reading these words ever
heard of him. He was a leader of his
people, of whom there really weren’t very many.
It’s an odd phrase in this age—“his people.” But Haan himself used that phrase frequently
in her sermons and his radio commentaries.
“Our people have to talk about this,” he’d say about some theological
flare up. “God’s people have to think
about what the Sabbath means,” he’d say from the pulpit.
What B. J. meant by that phrase was a thin fraction of God’s
people, the descendent generations of Dutch Calvinist immigrant stock in an
area we call Siouxland—and members of
a particular denomination, the Christian Reformed Church.
Today, that phrase is almost meaningless, even here, where
he used it most effectively. No
preacher in the county would use it. Today, in our multi-cultural world, that
phrase, no matter how biblical, sounds inherently discriminatory because it
reminds us all that some people aren’t “God’s people” or even “our people.”
When I hear God’s first line in Psalm 50, I hear Haan. “Gather to me my people,” it might read, or,
even closer, “Gather our people together.”
That’s the command.
It seems worth noting that the sermon about to be delivered
isn’t going to be proclaimed in a seeker-sensitive worship experience. What God almighty is about to say isn’t aimed
at unbelievers but disciples, “the consecrated ones,” which is not to say it
isn’t meant to save souls. It is. Read on.
I wonder if old B. J. is smiling right now at my saying what
I just have, nodding his own consecrated head as energetically he might have
years and years ago.
I like to think so.
1 comment:
Hann drove 75 miles one Sunday to preach at our church.
I have been reading the short book on the history of Dordt college. I had friends and relatives who were very commited to the school. I was too tied up in the family farm have attended.
I preferr reading non-fiction to fiction. Non-fiction is stranger than fiction because it is not invented to please us. It is probaly better I never "entered the fray" at Dordt.
thanks,
Jerry
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