“Whole Lotta Shakin Goin’ On”

• Scriptural Reference: Hebrews 12:18-29
• August 26, 2007

I get vivid images of Dr. Carl E. Bates whenever I hear two passages of scripture. The first is the passage I always quote at baptisms, the story of Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch in the 9 th chapter of Acts. The second passage is this one from Hebrews 12. Most of you know that Carl Bates was my pastor when I did most of my growing up in Charlotte. He was always extremely important to me, but I had a rare privilege. After his retirement, Dr. Bates taught some courses at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville while I was doing my Ph. D. work and I got to know him not only as a pastor, but as a close friend and advisor. Dr. Bates went from being the holy and virtually unapproachable fourth member of the trinity standing in that exalted pulpit in the huge Byzantine sanctuary at FBC, Charlotte, to the wise and crusty elder statesmen, leaning back in his rickety chair in a cluttered study, feet propped on his desk, spinning out stories and advice. I was no longer the youth looking at him in awe. Rather, I was a rookie pastor who’d endured some of the same things he’d endured and we had become colleagues.

I had dropped by his office one day and found him reading a book and taking notes. He saw the look on my face, heard the tone of my voice and knew I needed to talk. He shoved some scrap papers aside and laid the book down in that manner that makes librarians go apoplectic – you know, pages splayed out, spine up.

I told him how depressed I had gotten with the fundamentalist-moderate fight in the Southern Baptist Convention and how no one at Muldraugh Baptist Church seemed to be taking any notice and what did the future look like? I told him how despairing I felt at how radically the convention atmosphere had changed and how rejected I felt. He listened intently and then said, “Have you ever read the 12 th chapter of Hebrews?”

Well, I probably had. I knew Hebrews was in the Bible and having been at seminary, I had to read the whole New Testament, but I hadn’t memorized the whole thing at that point. “To which part are you referring,” I said, “The 12 th chapter is rather long.”

He smiled and paraphrased, “’I am removing the things that can be shaken so that what cannot be shaken can remain.’ Read your church history, Drexel. Denominations, religious institutions all through the history of the church have gone through these kinds of fights. As long as there are human beings, there will be these disagreements, and sometimes they get nasty. It’s true that in this Baptist fight, there have been some broken hearts and some heart attacks, but at least no one’s been burned at the stake. At least no fundamentalist army has burned down a moderate town. What’s happening here is God is forcing us to reconsider what the truly important things are, and it’s not doctrines or statements of faith. It’s the joy of serving the Lord that’s most important, and as long as you invest in the joy of the Lord, you’ll never be shaken.”

Then Dr. Bates got into some memories – and on this particular occasion, it was a memory we could share. I remembered the event he remembered, but he filled in the behind the scenes stuff that went on. This is the way it developed, his memories combined with mine – and maybe a few tiny homiletical embellishments.

Every church has that highly successful businessman who thinks, along with many in the congregation, that since he’s made it big in business then he also has deep, spiritual wisdom. FBC Charlotte’s version of this kind of guy was William Pope. He had made it big in the banking business, laying the groundwork that has made Charlotte the financial center it is today. Mr. Pope had the opinion that FBC under Dr. Bates had gotten away from proper religion. Dr. Bates preached too much love and forgiveness, Mr. Pope believed, and he decided that if he ever was chairman of the deacons, he’d see to it that FBC had some old-time preaching, in the form of a good, old fashioned, fire breathing, foot stomping, tear jerking revival. Mr. Pope stood up at a deacons meeting and dressed in his best banking suit, with that measured tone of voice that had swayed many a bank board to adopt this or that financial strategy, he convinced the deacons that because FBC had not invested enough in the kind of preaching that would get ‘em down the aisles, FBC was facing a membership deficit.

The deacons went along with it and instructed Mr. Pope to invite whatever fine preacher he thought should come. Certainly the pastor and the minister of music would support him. After all, wasn’t Jesus the first revivalist?

Mr. Pope put together a team and planned a fall revival. And Mr. Pope invited what he said was a famous and God-anointed revivalist. I remember him vividly. His name was Joe Slaughter and somehow, the name fit his style, which is why I remember him. He was a tall, bony guy with thick bushy eyebrows and a neck so long that it looked like it had a joint in it right behind his protrusive Adam’s apple. On one of those nights of revival that I was forced to attend, he read this passage of scripture from Hebrews 12. After he read it, he gazed silently at the open Bible for a few moments before he placed it carefully and deliberately on the side of the pulpit. He then grasped the pulpit with both hands and glared at the congregation from beneath those brows. It seemed that fire simmered there as he growled, “Our God is a consuming fire!” And then he went on to say that before he kindled the fire that would consume us, he was going to shake us and anything and everything that wasn’t tied tightly to the truth of God was going to come loose and become kindling for that fire. “Hold TIGHT to the word of God,” he said, “or you’ll be consumed by the fire! A shaking’s coming! A shaking’s coming!”

As we remembered this story, it was the next part that stood out in my mind the most. You see, Mr. Pope had told Mr. Jarvis, the minister of music, that music wasn’t his area that Mr. Jarvis was to plan the congregational singing and the special music. Dr. Bates had been real bummed out over Rev. Slaughter coming to FBC until Mr. Jarvis had come by his office and told him that Mr. Pope had entrusted the music to him. “I’m going to get Syl Blankenship to do special music,” and Dr. Bates’ eyes lit up. Sitting in that study in Louisville twenty years later, Dr. Bates laughed out loud and said, “Bless that Bill Jarvis. He knew what he was doing the whole time.”

When Rev. Slaughter looked over the order of worship with Mr. Jarvis and saw that Syl Blankenship was to do a piano special after his sermon on the closing night, he asked, “Who’s this Mr. Blankenship?”

“Oh, he’s a professional pianist,” said Mr. Jarvis, with a straight face. We all remembered Syl well. He was a rock-n-roller and the first guy I ever knew who used a Moog synthesizer in a concert in Charlotte with his rock band. He could play Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Yes, and Elton John. But he could also do a great Jerry Lee Lewis.

Well, Rev. Slaughter’s final phrases had barely ceased to echo in that huge domed ceiling of FBC Charlotte: “Hold TIGHT to the word of God,” he said, “or you’ll be consumed by the fire! A shaking’s coming! A shaking’s coming!” He glared at us one more time, then he turned and nodded to Syl to take the stage and sing the song that was to set up the invitation.

Syl sat down at the piano. His left hand went to the keyboard. The first bass note played, then the second. Then we all heard that boogey-woogie bass line. And Syl tossed his hair back over his shoulders with a sudden jerk of his head, rammed his lips against the microphone and started singing:

Shake, baby, shake!

I said, shake, baby, shake!

Yeah, shake, baby, shake!

There’s a whole lotta shakin’ goin’ on!

He tossed his hair again, he shoved the piano bench away and stood up, even brought his foot up and whacked the keys with the heel of his left foot. When the congregation didn’t know how to react to this, Syl shouted, “Come on folks! You heard the preacher! Shake it loose!” Well, the kids in the balcony started to clap. Mr. Jarvis had his head down, barely able to contain his laughter. And Dr. Bates just stared at a point somewhere over the right exit door, a sort of deer in the headlights look. Then the whole congregation started clapping in rhythm.

When Syl finished, the crowd went nuts. Rev. Slaughter looked like he’d just witnessed a strip tease at Vacation Bible School, but he gamely stood up and issued his invitation. His voice had lost some of the confidence it had had earlier, but marvels of marvels, people streamed down the aisle.

In remembering this, Dr. Bates just laughed.

“I remember that,” I said. “I wondered how you felt about the whole thing.”

“Well, I couldn’t show my joy with Syl that openly, but to this day I believe that Syl had the point of the passage better than Rev. Slaughter. You see, the good Reverend had missed the point of the passage entirely. The shaking wouldn’t come because people feared God’s judgment. The shaking comes because people discover the joy. When they discover the joy, then everything else follows! Heaven isn’t going to be populated by refugees from Hell.”

“In fact,” Dr. Bates added, “A joyful church is better at everything. A joyful church grows in membership and a joyful church has no problem with its finances, either.”

I still miss Dr. Bates tremendously. He died in 1999, but his wisdom is still valid. No problem with growing. No problem with its finances. That’s what characterizes a joyful congregation.

This passage from Hebrews emphasizes that the believer has not come to an idol. There is no talisman here, no graven image, and no monument to worship. The Christ follower doesn’t believe in something so small that it can be packaged in any way. Now much of the rest of the world needs just this: something they can touch. This is because many people don’t have the ability to think and be devoted to something that is bigger than their own narrow portion of existence, their own little neighborhood, their own narrowly defined self-interest

Here’s what the believer HAS come to – “the city of the Living God.” This city cannot be touched and it cannot be contained. It has no borders. Its scope is no less than the entirety of Creation itself along with the energy and dynamism that fuels Creation. You can’t touch a reality that outlives empires. Listen to that poetry: “You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly.” In other words, you have been seized by the Life that never dies and the great freedom that that infuses in the soul. You have centered your very soul in the very purposes of the Universe. This kingdom cannot be shaken. It will not decay. It cannot be destroyed. When all else fails, this kingdom will still be thriving. It cannot be shaken.

Now, someone who has been seized by the great joy of that which can never be shaken, he or she has no problem giving to it.

Consecration Sunday is coming. CS is the culmination of a month-long process of focusing on our financial commitments to our Lord. The congregation will be hearing more over the next four weeks about making a concrete financial commitment to the ministries of our congregation, a commitment that reflects our devotion to God. You will be encouraged to consider your own relationship with Jesus and whether the financial portion of your life adequately responds to his love for you. Could you do better?

Now, if you decided not to attend church any more because someone challenged you to do better than you’re currently doing, then you might consider the meaning of the cliché, “Put your money where your mouth is.” People do support with real finances that to which they’re truly committed. When we raise the money issue, we’re actually doing you a favor, because one unswervingly accurate indicator of your love of Christ is how much you devote financially to Christ’s cause in the world. By giving, you don’t boost Christ’s account – he owns it all anyway – but what you do is boost YOUR account with Christ.

I remember FBC Charlotte as a very joyful place. Those folks firmly believed in the unshakeable kingdom and invested in it. I was baptized when I was nine years old, and at that time, was given a Bible. Evidently, though, my family took a trip to eastern North Carolina to visit my dad’s extended family not long after my baptism and I took my new baptism Bible with me. While there, I put the Bible down in my uncle’s house and forgot about it.

How do I remember this now? My uncle Hubert, the oldest of my dad’s siblings, died in 2002. His entire estate went to his only child, Sara Rayford. Over the next few years, Sara slowly worked to liquidate the estate and to deal away with all the stuff all over the multiple houses they owned. Some time this spring, Sara was going through some boxes in a remote corner of her parents’ attic in Newton Grove, North Carolina. She found a Bible, slightly faded and a bit moldy. She opened it up and was very surprised.

A few days later, a package arrived at my house. It was that Bible. I opened it and there I saw the sticker that read, “This book has been presented to Drexel Rayford, 1963, by First Baptist Church, Charlotte.” 1963 was the year of my baptism. This was my baptism Bible, given to me by my church when I was nine years old, lying lost in that attic for 44 years.

That’s when I noticed the signature on the inside cover: “Carl E. Bates. Drexel, God bless and use your life.” And underneath that, a scripture reference had been scribbled, a custom Dr. Bates had of picking something to write for each person he baptized. The reference was Romans 10:13-15 which says:

For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed?

And how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard?

And how shall they hear without a preacher?

How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace

And bring glad tidings of good things!

Forty-Four years ago, Dr. Bates wrote that to me. How could he have known? Well, he probably didn’t, but God did; and because he and FBC had made an investment with real money in the lives of their young people, including me, Dr. Bates wrote more than he knew.

And here I stand, fulfilling a very real prophecy. When you invest in the things that cannot be shaken, you end up with unshakable joy that lasts for generations, indeed, into eternity.