That ‘Old Time Religion’

Interfaith Celebration Gathering

"Give me that old time religion, it's good enough for me," is the first line of an old spiritual. The next line says something like, "It was good enough for grandma, it was good enough for grandpa, it was good enough for grandma, and it's good enough for me."

Roy Falls was called into God's service in his middle years. He became an itinerant preacher, going from church to church in the outer-lying areas of Giles and surrounding counties in Virginia to minister to congregations without ministers.

Every Sunday without fail, for many years Roy Falls put on his Sunday suit, and drove for quite a few miles to preach at as many as ten churches each Sunday. He was never ordained as a minister, nor did he attend seminary. Yet, when Roy Falls was called to the ministry, he realized that when God calls us into service, all things are provided to us for that service.

When Roy Falls’ eyesight began to fail, he enlisted his Grandson Jody Falls to drive him to the many churches that had come to depend on his message. In exchange for driving his Grandfather around to the churches on Sundays, Jody got to use his Grandpa’s car on Saturday nights.

Just as Roy Falls was called to ministry, we are sometimes called to minister to others. Whether as a minister in a church, a helping hand in a shelter, a volunteer in a helping organization, or just as a friend, we are called. And when we are called, we have a choice. We can answer God’s call, or we can ignore it. God will not judge us or condemn us or cease to love us if we ignore His call to ministry. When we fail to answer, God will simply call someone else.

There are times when we do not hear God’s call because we are so absorbed in our own problems that we can hear nothing but the voices in our heads going over and over our own issues. Like rats in a maze, we worry and fret and try to find our way out of problems that face us. We use all our resources dealing with our own problems, and have little resources left over to deal with other people’s problems or needs.

We search for answers everywhere but where the answers actually are. We seek help everywhere but where the help actually is. We turn to God as our last resort after we have exhausted all our other resources. But by the time we finally turn to God for help with our own problems, we are usually so ‘burned out’ that we have no room left to care about the problems of others.

But not so very many years ago, people like Roy Falls knew that when he turned to God for help with his problems, the help would be there. So, they turned to God first rather than last. In Roy Falls’ time, people sought the long term solution for their problems rather than the quick fix. They knew that the long term solutions God offered would keep them from having to revisit their problems over and over so that they had little time to think about other people.

People in Roy Falls’ day helped their neighbors. They heard God’s call to ministry, and they helped whenever and wherever they could. People in today’s fast-paced world barely know their neighbors, much less have time to help them. Most of us have been taught to be so very self-reliant that if we cannot readily see how we could help others using our own finite resources, we ignore God’s call to ministry. What we fail to see is that where our own resources are finite, God’s resources are infinite.

Using our own finite resources to solve our problems is much like having only a hammer to make all the repairs in our home that we need to make. While a hammer has its place, if we had the correct tool, we could make repairs more quickly and better than we could with just a hammer.

People in Roy Falls’ day had plenty of that ‘Old Time Religion’. They understood that God is our source and our refuge for all things. God has all the tools we need to repair our lives. They knew that God is the rock we cling to when the world tries to toss us into the dark abyss. They grew up knowing that God has the answers we seek and will soothe our pain and help us learn to focus outside ourselves.

So, God, please give us some of that ‘Old Time Religion’ – it was good enough for people like Roy Falls and it certainly is good enough for us.

May God add a blessing to these humble words.

AMEN