Month: June 2025

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Sardis: Sleeping on the Job

title slide with photos of Mayberry and Bluemont Presbyterian Churches

Jeff Garrison
Mayberry and Bluemont Churches
June 15, 2025
Revelation 3:1-7

Sermon recorded at Bluemont on Friday, June 13, 2025.

At the beginning of worship:

One of the most embarrassing things I’ve done as an employee occurred the summer after I graduated from high school. I’d been working at Wilson’s Supermarket since I was 16. Back then, the store closed at nine. After the floors were mopped, the stockers came in and filled the shelves. That summer, for the promise of more money, I agreed to work night shift when someone was on vacation. It was hard work. Even harder because I spent the days on the beach or running around with friends. Young and invincible, who needs sleep? 

I reported to work at 11 PM. One night, I got home around 9 PM. My family had gone on vacation without me. Alone, I had run without sleep for days. I decided to take a nap before going in—so I set the alarm for 10:45 and fell asleep, dressed for work. I woke up and it was nearly 3 AM, the alarm had gone off and died. I’d slept right through it. I felt like a fool going to work four hours late. It was probably only because I had been a reliable employee in the past that I wasn’t fired. But it was the last week I worked night shift at the supermarket which was okay with me. I could have used a “wake-up call.”

All of us, at one time or another, can benefit from a wake-up call. And most of us have received them. Maybe it’s a note from the Dean of your college saying, shape up or ship out. I got one of them, too. Maybe it’s your doctor telling you to get your cholesterol under control or to ditch the cigarettes if you want to live to see your children grow up. Maybe it’s a reminder from your spouse which forces you to deal with what’s important. Wake-up calls can be a good thing. They force us to concentrate on what’s important and hopefully allow us to make the changes needed in our lives.  

Before reading the scripture:

Today will be our fifth city as we work our way through the seven churches of Revelation. We’ll stop at Sardis. Get out your right hand up as a map. Tuck your thumb in and hold your hand sideways. If you remember, we started our journey at Ephesus, a city on the coast that’s located at the tip of your ring finger. Then we moved up over a peninsula of land to the city of Smyrna, also on the coast, some forty miles north, on your hand about the tip of your big finger Then we traveled further up the coast, then inland a bit to the beautiful city of Pergamum. Last week, we moved inland a bit more, to about where your knuckle of your big figure is at to the city of Thyatira. 

Today, we’re moving about forty miles southeast to Sardis. As I’ve mentioned, the seven cities make a circle, and you can now see the circle taking shape.  

This is a sobering letter. While there’s no mention of heresy nor reference to persecution, the Christians of Sardis receive the harshest message of all the seven letters. They think they’re alive and doing well, but they are dying. Of the seven churches, I wonder if the church in America isn’t most closely related to Sardis. This is a haunting letter. The church in Sardis appears to be growing and flourishing, but underneath it’s rotten at the core. The church lost its focus. It no longer values of the gospel. It no longer bears the fruits of the spirit: love, joy, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness.[1]

There is a personal side to these messages. If we know something about the city, we have clues into Jesus’ message. Sardis was a proud city with an enviable past. In the 6th Century BC, it was one of the most powerful cities in Asia, but by the time of the Romans, it was considered a relic of the past. 

Situated on a 1500-foot-high acropolis, high above the surrounding valley, Sardis could easily be defended. But twice in its history, the city guards slept while enemy soldiers slipped into the city and attacked from the inside.[2] With that in mind, let’s listen to what Jesus has to say to Sardis.  

Read Revelation 3:1-8

In Mitch Albom’s novella, for one more day, a man receives a wake-up call. Chick, a former professional baseball player and top-notch salesman, spiraled into a drunken failure. When he wasn’t invited to his daughter’s wedding because of his drinking, he attempts suicide. But he miraculously lives and while lying on the stretcher, his mother comes to him one last time. You’re not sure if it’s real or a vision. Afterwards, he gives up drinking and tries his best to help others. He works for the local Parks and Recreation Department. Shortly before his death, he asks that he be remembered for his final years, not the glorious years as a ballplayer. Those years, he was like Sardis, alive but nearly dead. The booze only numbed the pain. 

Not being invited to the wedding and his mother’s visit in the hospital served as wake-up calls. He turns his life around, reconciling his differences with his daughter.[3]  

Sardis receives a wake-up call. The church there, much like the city, and much like Chick in Albom’s story, lives on past reputation. As I’d said earlier, the city had once been a jewel of Asia, but by the first century had become a shell of its past. Its citizens still basked in their former reputation, but times have changed. 

There wasn’t much to be bragging about within the church in Sardis. Too many of the Christians forgot what they’d been taught by their mothers and fathers and other who influenced their faith. Spiritually, they’re dead.   

Jesus tells them that he’s coming like a thief in the night, a warning that should have caught the attention of the residents of Sardis. After all, the city’s location made it a natural fort. Yet, the city twice fell when enemy forces slipped inside the city—as thieves in the night. When Jesus tells them to stay awake, they recall those who supposedly watched their gates but napped on the job. 

While the thief in the night illustration might be seen as a warning for the end times, we must also remember all but one of the cities have disappeared.[4] Our time is up when we leave this place. We only have the present to get right with God.

Unlike other cities, the problem with Sardis isn’t heresy or great sins committed by the church. Unlike last week, we don’t have any Jezebels encouraging wild parties in pagan temples. Instead of transgressions, the church in Sardis adopted the culture of its community. There isn’t anything which distinguishes itself from those not in the church. 

Unfortunately, this is often true for the church in America. Numerous surveys show that Christians are just as likely to divorce as non-Christians. Child and spouse abuse seems to know no religious boundaries. Professing Christians have headed companies which frauded shareholders and employees and the public. I’ve known several “committed Christians” who embezzled from their employers. 

Does our faith make any difference in our lives? Does being a follower of Jesus change who we are and how we act and how we relate to one another? If we say Jesus is our Lord and Savior, does it make any difference in the decisions we make here at church, in our homes, in our communities, at our workplaces? Do we make our decisions based on our faith in Jesus, or on what we think will get us ahead the fastest? 

Sardis received a warning. “Wake up,” Jesus says, “some of you still haven’t spoiled your clothes.” In other words, some of the Christians in Sardis haven’t sold out what they believe in. But most have. The same is true for the church today. There are still Christians who, because of their Christian faith, stand up for what they believe even though it is uncomfortable and goes against the norms of society. Sometimes it cost them their jobs. They lose friends and their status in the community. But they retain their honor, their dignity. 

Jesus tells the church in Sardis that those who conquer, in other words those who are awake and who strive to live the gospel, will receive a three-fold promise. First, they too will be clothed in white robes, which is the dress of the saints in the book of Revelations. Even if their clothes are now stained, there is still a chance for them to wake up, to repent, to turn around, and put on new clothes.

Second, their names will remain in the book of life—but the implied threat here is that those who are do not repent will not find their names in the book of life. The blotting out of names from the book of life probably refers to an ancient practice of removing the names of criminals from a city’s roll, thereby denying citizenship protection.[5] Even though we are saved by the grace of our Savior, we have a responsibility for our actions. We are to be stewards of all God gives us, using our gifts in a way that will bring him glory and honor. 

Finally, for those who conqueror, Jesus will put a good word in for them with the Father. Jesus, as Paul reminds us, “prays for us.”[6]

The decision is in the hands of the folks in Sardis—will they wake up or will they continue sleeping and face the coming judgment? We, too, must make such a decision. Amen.

[1] Galatians 5:22

[2] Robert H. Mounce, The Book of Revelation, revised, NICNT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 91-2.

[3] Mitch Albom, for one more day (New York: Hyperion, 2006).

[4] As we’ve seen, only Smyrna still exists as a city. https://fromarockyhillside.com/2025/05/25/smyrna-poor-yet-rich/

[5] Mounce, 96-7.

[6] Romans 8:34 (the NRSV says intercedes instead of prays)

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Charlie Wallace: A Man with a Positive Disposition

Title slide with a photo of train tracks and a picture of a loaf of Holsum Bread

“We’ve lost a good friend, Jeff,” Terry said. It was late in the spring of 2010. I stopped by to see my Uncle Frank on his farm just north of Carthage. Terry, Frank’s oldest son, heard I was around and dropped by to see me.

I’d forgotten my cousin knew Charlie. Terry runs a company which rakes and ships straw from longleaf pines over the East Coast. Charlie’s wife had inherited a track of land, and my cousin harvested the straw off it. Terry told me about the old homestead near Cowpen Landing on the Northeast Cape Fear. Although I’d heard about the place, I’d never been there. My cousin told me the old house had fallen in, but the chimney still stood upright. Charlie had pointed out an indention in the brick where his mother-in-law sharpened the blade of her butcher knife. She ran the blade along the course brick till the blade was sharp. Then she would walk out to the smokehouse to cut off a slap of meat for dinner. Over the years, the metal of the knives carved into the brick.

I met Charlie at the Holsum Bakery. I hired on the summer I was nineteen, between my freshman and sophomore years of college. Charlie would have been almost sixty then. He spent most of life working for the bakery. You could always count on him to lighten things up with a good joke and you knew that any joke he told would be clean. Charlie worked hard but laughed even harder.

One afternoon, there wasn’t much to do as we’d run out of flour and the railcar, which was scheduled to be delivered that morning, had been delayed. We sat out near the loading dock where we could look down the tracks. Charlie came by and told us of growing up next to the railroad tracks, out north of the Green Swamp, east of Wilmington.

His daddy had been a section foreman for the Atlantic Coastline, maintaining the rails and water tower along a section of the mainline between Delco and Bolton. It may not look like much to those who speed by these days on the four-lane highway, US 74-76, but it’s a magical place. The land is as flat as a pancake and grows some of the most interesting plants on earth including the Venus flytrap. In some high sandy areas, higher by only inches, stately longleaf pines, and huge live oaks grow. In wetter areas, tupelo or black gum grow, often capped with mistletoe. And on the edge of swamps, often standing in water, are cypress, their sparse limbs dangled in Spanish moss. On cleared land in these parts, farmers raised tobacco and grew peanuts, along with strawberries and blueberries. 

This is black-water country, water darkened by the tannic acid produced by the tupelo and cypress. Often, in the evenings when the air cools, fog develops over the waters, making it even more mysterious.

“Charlie,” I asked, “have you seen the lights?” 

Just down the tracks from where Charlie grew up had been Maco Station. There, just a couple years after the Civil War, at a time the line was known as the Wilmington and Manchester Railroad, a brakeman named Joe Baldwin rode in a caboose. His car decoupled from the rest of the train and started to slow down. When Joe realized what happened, he grabbed a lantern and ran out on the back deck of the car. There, he swung his lantern back and forth, a universal sign on the railroad for trains to stop. He knew the schedule. Another train followed them.

Joe hoped to signal the engineer in time. But in the foggy swampland, the engineer didn’t see the signal until it was too late. The engine collided into Joe’s caboose, destroying it. Joe died; his head severed from his body. As they cleaned up from the accident, they never found the head and Joe’s body was buried without it. Most just assumed the head had rolled down the embankment and into the black waters filled with cottonmouths and an occasional alligator.

Shortly after Joe’s death, people started reporting a strange light moving in the swamps near the Maco sidings. Some suggested it was Joe’s lantern swinging along the tracks. A legend developed that Old Joe still looked for his head. People often went to these parts to walk the tracks to see the lights, but the tracks were removed in the late 1970s and not long afterwards, the highway expanded, and the lights fades away. 

Charlie had seen the light, but he didn’t believe it to be Joe’s lantern.  If I remember correctly, he brought into one popular theory that the lights were caused by swamp gas.

photo of old railroad tracks
I don’t have any photos of the line near Charlie’s house. This is the Aberdeen, Carolina and Western Railroad in northern Moore County, North Carolina

Living by the railroad tracks, hearing that lonesome cry from the engine pierce through the night as freight rolled toward the port in Wilmington must have been sealed in Charlie’s memory. But that lonesome wail can also bring sadness, as Charlie shared with us.

A year into the Great Depression, when Charlie was still just a boy, finishing up grade school, the lonesome wail wasn’t heard as much. There was so little freight moving that the railroad laid off every other section foreman. Charlie’s dad lost his job. The next day, Charlie went with his dad into Wilmington to look for work. But there were none to be found. Coming back home, late in the day, discouraged, they noticed smoke over the distant pines. As they got closer, they realized their house was totally engulfed in flames. The family lost everything. 

Charlie’s life was forever changed. He went to live with family in Wilmington, where he worked hard and earned a little until the war came and he joined the Navy.

You’d think that after such hardships, Charlie would have been bitter. But there wasn’t a bitter bone in his body. He was one of the most joyous and positive individuals I’ve known. He wasn’t a bellyacher. Even when he had good reason to complain, he just shrugged it off. 

About a year before I left the bakery, I was called into the General Manager’s office. I wasn’t sure what was up. When I entered, Charlie was there, along with the general manager, plant manager, and the president, who owned the bakery with his brother. It was obvious, they had been talking for some time to Charlie. At this point, Charlie’s responsibility included sanitation, receiving, and building maintenance. I was a production supervisor.

In the past six months, we had several problems in sanitation and receiving. When I entered, they informed me changes were being made. They assigned me Charlie’s responsibilities. Thankfully, they kept Charlie employed. He would continue to handle building maintenance but even there would report to me. It seemed strange for Charlie was nearly three times my age. I felt sorry for him, but he never showed any bitterness toward me. 

Thinking about Charlie, I’m left to wonder why some people endure tragedy and disappointment and yet can still be joyful. He continued to maintain a positive attitude. In Charlie’s case, this partly had to do with his faith. Charlie knew he was loved by God. He found joy in creation, in life, in laughter, and in good friends.

My cousin met Charlie long after I had left the bakery “Charlie thought a lot of you,” Terry said. “He was always asking about you.” 

Two weeks before Easter, 2010, and a month before Terry and I talked, Charlie died at the age 91. Hearing of his death, it seemed as if a part of my past died with him. Charlie was the one person from my time at the bakery whom I would occasionally see. After he retired, Charlie found a home in the church in which I grew up. Whenever I visited my parents, I would attend church on Sunday. Afterwards, Charlie and I would talk about old times. 

Oh, how I wish I could talk to him again.

I haven’t yet been able to find any photos of Charlie. I wrote this in 2010, but edited and significantly expanded it for this post.

More Bakery Stories:

Coming of Age in a Bakery: Linda and the Summer of ’76

A College Boy in the Bakery

Harvey and Ernest

Frank and Roosevelt

The Perils of Working on the Christian Sabbath

Baking Memories and a review of a book on “White Bread”

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Thyatira: Don’t Compromise Your Morals

Title slide showing the two rock churches where the sermon will be preached.

Jeff Garrison
Mayberry and Bluemont Churches
June 8, 2025
Revelation 2: 18-29

Today is Pentecost, the day we recall God sending the Holy Spirit to empower the disciples and early believers to establish the church. It’s important for us to remember this was God’s work. Yes, the disciples played a role, but the Spirit empowered them. I’ve said before, the book we know as “Acts of the Apostles,” really should be called, “The Acts of God Through the Apostles.” Without God’s help, we’d be lost. We can’t save ourselves nor our world. While we might make a small effort to make things better (and that’s our calling), any long-term change depends on the Almighty. 

Before we adopted our dog, Mia, there was Trisket. He was a good boy. An English Shepherd, he always stayed close, kind of like God’s Spirit. He’d run around but quickly came back to check on us. 

We got Trisket as a puppy. Caroline was a toddler. He lived well into his 17th year. Caroline named the dog for the cracker. He was about the same color. The dog had a weird taste in food. I don’t know if he ever ate a trisket, but he preferred banana pudding and fresh pineapple to steak. But that’s another story. 

Trisket had one bad habit, but one common with canines as I’ve recently heard a similar stories about one of your dogs. He loved to roll in something dead. The first time I remember experiencing this was when he was less than a year old. We were living in Utah. Thomas, Caroline, Trisket, and I hiked up a canyon in the winter. As a herding dog, Trisket stayed close, so we let him off leash and he ran around. Then he discovered some dead carcass and proceeded to roll in it. 

A few minutes later, he returned, all excited with his tail wagging and stinking to high heaven. I grabbed him by the collar and dragged him into the nearly frozen creek. We both got wet. But I did my best to clean him up for the trip home. I wasn’t going to let him inside the car smelling like a dead rat. 

For some reason, far beyond my ability to understand, the dog found great pleasure out of this disgusting habit. He would come back to me, with a smile on his face and his tail wagging. But as soon as I looked up at him, his tail quickly dropped between his legs. He bowed his head, knowing he’d been caught doing something which brought him great happiness (in some perverse sense) while angering me. But he also knew he’d get a bath, which he enjoyed.   

There’s an old Appalachian folksong titled “Don’t You Hear Jerusalem Moan,” which makes fun of various preachers. One verse goes:  

      There’s a Presbyt’ian preacher, an’ he lives in town,
his neck’s so stiff he cain’t hardly look around. 

Another of the verses goes: 

Well, a Cambellite preacher, his soul is saved, he has to be baptized every other day.

That was my dog. Of all things, a Campbellite. He loved sinning and bathing. I suppose a lot of us are like that. We know we shouldn’t do something, but it’s just so much fun. Afterwards we feel guilty, and repent. Thankfully God still loves and forgives us. I’m also sure there have been times God has wanted to wring my neck just like I wanted to wring my dog’s neck. But God has been graceful, and so should we. 

After Trisket’s sins, I performed the closest thing to a canine baptism. A bath. And once Trisket dried and his hair fluffed back out, he acted as if he was the most beautiful animal on earth. And he was. 

Before reading the Scripture:

We’ve off to another stop on our trip through the seven churches of Revelation—the city of Thyatira. Y’all know I lived in Michigan for a decade and there learned how to use my hand as a map. You can do the same thing for the country of Turkey, where these churches are located. 

Take out your hand, tuck in your thumb, and hold your hand sideways and let’s plot these churches. We started our journey at Ephesus, a city on the coast that’s located at the tip of your ring finger. Then we moved up to the city of Smyrna, some forty miles north, found on the upside of your big finger. Last week, we traveled further up the coast, then inland a bit to the city of Pergamum. This week, we’re continuing to move inland, to about where your knuckle of your big figure is at to the city of Thyatira.   

This is a city out in the hinterlands. It was established to be a military outpost—to be a buffer to protect the more important cities near the coast safe. But unlike Pergamum, which was located on a hill, there were no natural fortifications. They had to rely on soldiers and the citizen-soldiers for protection. Various emperors over the centuries populated Thyatira with craftsman, who could be free to drop their crafts and pick up a sword. As such, Thyatira was a blue collar, working class, city. One commentator said: “the longest and most difficult of the seven letters is addressed to the least known, least important and least remarkable of the cities.[1]

Although the city might have been unremarkable in the ancient world, we know of at least two women from there. One’s infamous; we’ll read about her in just a second. Lydia, the other woman, is more noteworthy. She’s Paul’s first convert on European soil, in the city of Philippi, Lydia hailed from Thyatira and sold in purple cloth.[2] Think of her as a sales representative for the tradesmen back home.  

Read Revelation 2:18-29

Let’s explore this message from Jesus.

We start with a unique vision of Jesus. Piercing eyes and bronze shoes, this is the only place in Revelation where we find Jesus with the title, Son of God. 

These opening descriptions of Jesus align with a situation within the community. Here, Jesus stands in contrast to the local worship of Apollo, the sun god, and his earthly son, Caesar. Coins from this community show Apollo shaking Caesar’s hand. The letter reassures the Christian community of God’s true son. Jesus’ eyes flame brighter than Apollo’s.[3]

The piercing eyes also indicate the omnipotence or all-knowing characteristic of God. The bronze feet represent the steadfastness of our Lord. God sees their good deeds and their bad. As they’re called to stand faithfully with God, God will also stand by them. 

Next, Jesus provides praise. Thyatira receives a good pat on the back. They’re loving and faithful and full of service and persevere when things get tough. Not only are they doing well, they also are growing in their faith. They do more work and grow in their excitement for the gospel. In a way, they are the opposite of the Ephesians, who started out loving and caring and ended up so legally bound they can’t love. 

Although praised, there is a problem in Thyatira, a woman identified as Jezebel. I’m sure that’s not her real name. After the first Jezebel, who would name their daughter that? But those reading the letter knew the woman. In scripture, the first Jezebel, the foreign wife of King Ahab, came to Jerusalem and tried to convert the holy city to her faith. But thankfully, Jezebel had a problem, a prophet named Elijah. He and the queen and her priests duked it out.[4]

The Jezebel in Thyatira appears to be a lot like her namesake. She tries to seduce the faithful to worship and live in a manner unbecoming for Christians. She encourages them, we’re told, to engage in illicit sex and to eat the food of idols. 

Thyatira had a lot of craft guilds with links to pagan temples. Those involved in such crafts were expected to pay homage to pagan idols and practices which included eating banquets in the temple. Perhaps, it was expected they have sex with temple prostitutes. This created problems for Christian members of craft guilds.[5]

Some Christians, thinking it didn’t hurt, compromised what shouldn’t have been compromised. 

It appears Jezebel encouraged this type of accommodation. We can try to understand their reasoning. If guild members failed to patronize the temple of the gods of their trade, they could lose their union card. In other words, they risked being kicked of the guild. But still, there is a limit to what we as Christians should do to accommodate to culture. It appears some in the city, at Jezebel’s encouragement, crossed the line. 

In the late 1990s, Jim Carrey played the role of Fletcher Reed in the comedy, “Liar, Liar.” Fletcher, a high-powered attorney, loves his son Max, but the demand of his profession causes him to miss events and break promises. At Max’s 5th birthday party, he wishes his dad could go 24 hours without telling a lie. Surprisingly, the wish comes true. 

The inability to tell a lie creates all kinds of problems and humorous situations. With a trial scheduled that day, Fletcher asks his son to remove the wish. “Max,” he says, “no one can survive the adult world if they have to tell the truth.” Even that line is a lie, but it’s one we often believe when we play loose with what’s right and wrong.

A similar thing may have been happening in Thyatira. Imagine a sales manager telling his Christian sales staff to entertain clients at the temple. After all, throwing out cliches, “when in Rome do as the Romans,” or “what happens at the temple, stays at the temple.

But Jesus, with those piercing eyes, knows what’s up. He tells them to clean up their act. And if they don’t, he warns them of a coming judgment. But if they stay the course and focus on Jesus and his teachings, he promises they’ll have authority. Remember what I said about this little hick town on the frontier. Economically, Thyatira is probably the least of the seven cities, but as we often see in the gospels, the last will be first.[6] They just must hold firm to what they’ve been taught, and they’ll go from insignificant to having authority.

It’s the same with us. Where do we make compromises with the gospel to get by a little easier in life. I hope none of you are out participating in a pagan orgy, but there are other ways we compromise our ethics and morality. When you come down to it, getting ahead, being popular, and an enjoying an easy life doesn’t count for much. When the roll is called up yonder, the only question asked of importance, is this: Have we been faithful to our Lord. Amen. 

This sermon was adapted from one I preached in 2007 at First Presbyterian Church of Hastings, Michigan.

[1] Quote from C. J. Hemer, as quoted by Robert Mounce, The Book of Revelation, NICNT, revised (Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 1997), 84.  I’ve depended on Mounce for most of my information about Thyatira.  

[2] Acts 16:11-15.

[3] See G. B. Caird, The Commentary on the Revelation of St. John the Divine (New York; Harper & Row, 196), 43; and Mounce, 85. 

[4] See I Kings 16:31ff. 

[5] Bruce M. Metzger, Breaking the Code: Understanding the Book of Revelation (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1993), 37.

[6] Matthew 19:30, 20:16; Mark 9:35, 10:31; Luke 13:30. 

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Reviews of books completed in May 2025

cover of books I competed during May 2025

While I only completed two books in May (compared to five in April), I am posting three reviews. I finally set out to complete Taylor Branch’s trilogy about the Civil Rights movement in America. I have one more volume to go!

Jim Shea, Get Up and Ride: A Humorous True Story of Two Friends Cycling the Great Allegheny Passage and C&O Canal 

Cover photo of "Get Up and Ride"

(2020), 189 pages with some maps and photos. 

Somehow Facebook knows my brother and I are planning to peddle from Pittsburgh to Washington, D. C. in late May. I learned of this book in which two brothers-in-law did the same trip in 2010 from a Facebook advertisement.

Two brothers-in-law. One teaches and has his summers off. The other finds himself between jobs. They decided to do the trip they’d been talking about for a few years. This book is easy to read and humorous, although much of the humor reminded me of listening in at a restaurant to conversation of a family unknown to me. This is not Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods or the writings of J. Marteen Troost traveling in the South Seas. But I did laugh and their stories helped me envision my own planned trips. I just hope the weather is as good for us as it was for them. (It wasn’t as I showed in my blog: Part 1 and Part 2).  I can handle one day of rain, but it would be a bummer to have a week of rain! 

Most of the humor of the book come from the experiences of Jim and Marty before they set off to peddle to Washington. We learn about how they often vacation together (after all, their wives are sisters). While one is from Pittsburgh (and still lives in the Steel City), the other is from just outside Washington but now (or at the time of their trip), also lives in the Pittsburgh area. One is an avid bicyclist, and the other is kind of along for the ride. While there are a few humorous things which happened during their ride, most of the laughs come from how they relate within the two families. 

The author of the book speaks of not reading much as if that means he won’t sound like a Hemingway or Steinbeck. At least he can make light of himself, but I would suggest that he read more and learn about how humor works. Bill Bryson’s short adventures on the Appalachian Trail, A Walk in the Woods,  which he turned into an international best seller might be a good place to start. 

Taylor Branch, Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years 1963-65

 (New York, Simon & Schuster, 1998), 746 pages including index, notes, and one set of black and white photographs.

This is the second volume of Taylor Branch’s massive undertaking of chronicling the Civil Rights Movement during the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. Unlike the first volume (review below), this is less of a biography of King than recapping what happened in these three pivotal years to the Civil Rights movement. This included the Burmingham Church Bombings, the death of voter registration workers in Mississippi, and significant Civil Rights work in Mississippi, St. Augustine (Florida), and Selma Alabama. In the background there is the death of John Kennedy and America’s deepening involvement in Vietnam. 

In a way, reading this book is like reading the newspapers for three years. At times, it seems Branch jumps around, but the movement was in such flux with events happening in multiple places at the same time.

The book also takes us inside both political parties in 1964, as they struggled with what to do with the Civil Rights movement. The Democratic candidate, Lyndon Johnson, had just passed the 1964 Civil Rights act, shifting African Americans further away from the party of Lincoln, who’d freed the slaves. Furthermore, the Republican candidate Goldwater tried to avoid discussion on Civil Rights, there were those within the party who used the movement to steal away Democrats who were unhappy with their party’s move toward supporting the movement. This was the campaign in which Strom Thurmond would become a Republican and Jackie Robinson would condemn his Republican party as being the party of “white men only.” Robinson would later leave the GOP. 

Much is made of the FBI’s role with both King and other Civil Rights leaders. They helped solve the murders of Civil Rights leaders, but they also kept close eyes on the leaders of the movement, watching for communist connections. Through wiretaps, they learned of King’s infidelities an even used this to encourage King to commit suicide. They attempted to thwart King’s reception of the Noble Peace Prize, which he later received. They also called in Cardinal Spellman to give him the dirt on King to block a papal visit. While Spellman supposedly took the information to Rome, the meeting papal meeting still occurred partly due to the intervention of Rabbi Abraham Heschel. Like the first book in the series, King isn’t seen as totally a saint or sinner, but a man who struggled with depression and his own humanity.

Branch spends considerable time providing a background on the Nation of Islam and the conflict between its founder, Elijah Muhammad and Malcom X. The Nation of Islam created a vision of separation of the races and violence toward their enemies, which contrasted to King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference vision of a beloved community. The book begins with a deadly police encounter after a Nation of Islam meeting in South Central Los Angeles in 1962. Toward the end of the book, the Nation kills Malcom X after he left the Nation for a purer form of Islam. His view of religion had become less racially focused, and he softened his stance toward King’s nonviolent resistance. 

This book also shows the tension within churches over supporting Civil Rights. Not all African American churches supported the Civil Rights movement, with some seeing it too dangerous. After all, there were many firebombed churches in the American South during the early 1960s. Northern Episcopal bishops struggled with what to say as they didn’t want to be seen as challenging their southern colleagues. This led to the wives of some bishops taking up the clause. One of the interesting stories was the wife of a Massachusetts bishop and mother of the state’s governor, Mary Peabody, who was arrested and jailed for protesting in St. Augustine. 

I recommend this book to anyone wanting to better understand the Civil Rights movement in America. I don’t plan to wait another 19 years before I read Branch’s third volume. The final volume holds interest in me as I remember some of the events which happened. 

This review is from 2006, after reading the first book in Branch’s series: 

Taylor Branch, Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-63

Parting the Waters:: America in the King Years, 1954-1963, Taylor Branch

 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988), 1064 pages including index, notes, and two sets of black and white photographs. 


This book is an enormous undertaking, for both the author and the reader. The author provides the reader a biography of the Reverend Martin Luther King’s work through 1963, a view into the early years of the Civil Rights movement, as well as showing how the movement was affected by national and international events. This is the first of three massive volumes by Taylor Branch that spans the years of King’s ministry, from his ordination in 1954 to his death in 1968.

This volume also provides some detail about King’s family history and his earlier life through graduate school at Boston University. I decided to read this book after hearing Branch speak in Birmingham AL in June. It’s like reading a Russian novel with a multitude of characters and over 900 pages of text. However, it was worth the effort as I got an inside look as to what was going on in the world during the first six years of my life.

Branch does not bestow sainthood, nor does he throw stones. The greatness of Martin Luther King comes through as well as his shortcomings. He demonstrates King’s brilliance in the Montgomery Bus Campaign as well as in Birmingham. He also shows the times King struggled: his battles within his denomination, the National Baptist; King’s struggles with the NAACP; as well as his infidelities.

The FBI also had mixed review. Agents stood up to Southern law enforcement officers, insisting that the rights of African Americans be protected. They often warned Civil Rights leaders of threats and dangers they faced. However, once King refused to heed the FBI’s warnings that two of his associates were communists, the agency at Hoover’s insistence, set out to break King. Hoover’s inflexible can be seen as he reprimanded an agent for suggesting that King’s associates are not communists.

The Kennedy’s (John and Robert) also have mixed reviews. John Kennedy’s Civil Rights Speech (and on the night that Medgar Evers would be killed in Mississippi) is brilliant. Kennedy drew upon Biblical themes, labeling Civil Rights struggle a moral issue “as old as the Scriptures.” Yet the Kennedy brothers appear to base most of their decisions based on political reasons and not moral ones. This allows King to sometimes push Kennedy at his weakness, hinting that he has or can get the support of Nelson Rockefeller (a Republican).

Although we think today of the Democrat Party being the party of African Americans, this wasn’t necessarily the case in the 50s and early 60s. Many black leaders, especially within the National Baptist Convention leadership, identified themselves as Republicans, with Lincoln’s party.



Many of the black entertainers played in the movement. King was regularly in contact with Harry Belafonte, but also gains connections to Sammy Davis Jr., Lena Horne, Jackie Robinson, James Baldwin and others. The author also goes to great lengths to put the Civil Rights movement into context based on the Cold War politics. Both Eisenhower and Kennedy found themselves in embarrassing positions as they spoke out for democracy overseas while blacks within the United States were being denied rights.



The book ends in 1963, a watershed year for Civil Rights. King leads the massive and peaceful March on Washington. Medgar Evans and John Kennedy are both assassinated. And before the year is out, King has an hour-long chat with the President, Lyndon Johnson, a Southerner, who would see to it that the Voting Rights Acts become law. 



As a white boy from the South, this book was eye opening. I found myself laughing that the same people who today bemoan the lack of prayer in the public sphere were arresting blacks for praying on the courthouse steps. The treatment of peaceful protesters was often horrible. There were obvious constitutional violations such as Wallace and the Alabama legislature raising the minimum bail for minor crimes in Birmingham 10-fold (to $2500) to punish those marching for Civil Rights.

I was also pleasantly surprised at behind-the-scenes connections between King and Billy Graham. Graham’s staff even provided logistical suggestions for King. King’s commitment to non-violence and his dependence upon the methods of Gandhi are evident. Finally, I found myself wondering if the segregationists like Bull O’Conner of Birmingham shouldn’t be partly responsible for the rise in crime among African American youth. They relished throwing those fighting for basic rights into jail, breaking a fear and taboo of jail. The taboo of being in jail has long kept youth from getting into trouble and was something the movement had to overcome to get mass arrest to challenge the system. In doing so, jail no longer was an experience to be ashamed off and with Pandora’s Box open, jail was no longer a determent to other criminal behavior. 

I recommend this book if you have a commitment to digging deep into the Civil Rights movement. Branch is a wonderful researcher, and his use of FBI tapes and other sources give us a behind the scenes look at both what was happening within the Civil Rights movement as well as at the White House. However, there are so many details. For those wanting just an overview of the Civil Rights movement, this book may be a bit much. As for me, I’m looking forward to digging into the other two books of this trilogy: A Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years, 1963-65 and At Canaan’s Edge: America in the King Years, 1965-68.

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Pergamum: Theology Matters

Jeff Garrison
Mayberry & Bluemont Churches
June 1, 2025
Revelation 2:12-17

Sermon recorded at Bluemont on Friday, May 30, 2025.

At the beginning of worship: 

In the late 1990s, I was a pastor in Utah. Dave who pastored the church in Sandy, Utah served as a commissioner to the General Assembly. In a heat of debate, Dave stood up and made a bold statement. Identifying the culture in which we ministered, he proclaimed, “Theology matters.” It became a rallying cry for a few years within the denomination. Occasionally, I still hear someone cite it.[1] Theology does matter. Not as much as love as we saw with our visit to Ephesus, but our ability to articulate our faith is important as we’ll see this morning.

Before reading Scripture: 

We’re going to move inland a bit in our journey through the ancient world of Asia Minor this morning as we work through the opening chapters of Revelation. As you remember, we started out in Ephesus, a glorious city along the coast with a quarter million residents. The Ephesian church hated false doctrine, but in their hate, they lost their love. Next, last week, we moved up the coast to the city of Smyrna. A longtime ally of Rome, Smyrna worshipped Caesar. A rich city with poor Christians. Yet, they remained faithful.

Today we move to Pergamum. From Smyrna, the road follows the coastline northwestwardly for about forty miles, and then you take a turn inland. There, about ten miles from the Aegean Sea, on a cone shaped hill, is the magnificent city of Pergamum. One ancient writer considered this to be the “most distinguished city in Asia.”[2] Let’s hear what Christ says to them. 

Read Revelation 2:12-17

Pergamum, like Smyrna, was a center of emperor worship. As we saw last week, Smyrna built the first temple to a Roman god. Pergamum had the distinction to build the first to an emperor. In the year 29, they received permission to erect a temple to Augustus. Caesar Augustus, as Luke’s gospel reminds us, ruled the Empire when Jesus was born.[3]

Pergamum also contains Satan’s throne. Possibility, this refers metaphorically to Caesar’s temple. Or, the fact pagan shrines covered the city 

Residents of the city were expected to go to Caesar’s temple and proclaim Caesar as Lord. Now to the Romans and to Caesar, this didn’t preclude the worship of other gods. After all, after paying homage to Caesar, they could also worship Zeus just down the street. Religious pluralism was the name of the game. You just had to first be willing to pledge your allegiance to Caesar.  

The city had a temple for Zeus, that offered sacrificed animals 24/7. The smoke from these offerings could be continually seen curling up to sky, reminding you of the importance of Zeus in the ancient world.[4] It also had temples for Asclepius, the god of healing. His symbol was a snake, like that on the symbol for medical doctors.[5]

All these temples created a problem for Christians who proclaimed Jesus to be Lord. As John reminds us, “Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.”[6] And mostly, it sounds as if those in Pergamum insisted on worshipping only God as revealed in Jesus Christ. One of their members we learn became an early martyr. Antipas, the only martyr mentioned by name in Revelation, died here.[7] For their faithfulness, those living in Pergamum are commended. But Jesus does have a bone to pick with them.

Although the congregation refused to show allegiance to other gods, they have tolerated heretical teachings. In a way, they are the opposite of the Ephesians. We’re told that they listen to the teaching of Balaam and Nicolaitans. We must go back to the book of Numbers, in the Old Testament, to learn what Balaam was up to. He was a foreign seer, who practiced what we’d call witchcraft. The king of Moab hired him to curse the Hebrew nation. God turned the tables on Balaam, and he blesses Israel. Later, however, Jewish theologians came to see Balaam as the father of religious syncretism, or the blending of religions.[8]

In the Old Testament, not being faithful to God was metaphorically referred to as adultery. The analogy makes sense. One compromises one’s heart by adopting the practice or the worship of another faith. While it appears the church in Pergamum had been faithful, there were those in the church proposing they compromise their beliefs a bit. “Let’s burn a little incense for Caesar,” they may have suggested. “Then we’ll all get along better.” Jesus will have none of this. If they don’t repent, he’s going to be the one who fights against them.

But if they do repent, Jesus has a wonderful promise. He’ll give them the “hidden manna,” and a “white stone.” There are questions about what this means.  One plausible interpretation, that ties the stone and manna together to the heavenly banquet, is that the stone was like similar engraved stones used by the Romans as a token admission to a banquet. Similar stones may have also be presented to the poor so they might trade the stone for food.[9] This is kind of like a coupon some cities have that allow the homeless to buy food. 

If the Christians in Pergamum repent, Jesus offers to invite them to the heavenly banquet. That’s a promise! So keep your eyes on Jesus.

Now, I don’t lay awake at night and worry about you all going off and worshipping Caesar or Zeus or any pagan deity. However, even today the world tugs at us to change what we hold true so that it will be more palatable to the larger world. And in a way, we’re all guilty. Just as we’re probably all guilty of coming down harder on the sins we’re less likely to commit and ignoring those sins with which we struggle.

After all, how many sermons do you hear on the dangers of materialism in America, which is one of our great idols?  From this passage, we learn that what we believe is important. It has consequences. Believing the wrong things may lead us down the wrong path. Wrong beliefs we’ll cause us to create false illusions about what is right and good and noble. Believing in the wrong things causes us to do things which go counter to the gospel. 

This is a hard message for a society like ours which values pluralism and with some who may suggest there’s no bad ideas. That’s a myth; there are plenty of bad ideas.[10] Think about how ideas of a superior race have led to all kinds of atrocities. It supported our ancestors’ dealings with native populations, to slavery, to the Nazi holocaust, to attacks on Israel and genocide-like policies in Gaza, to Russian continual attacks on the civilians in Ukraine and so forth. Bad ideas abound. The church must stand firm in our truth, Jesus Christ, and resist temptations to compromise our beliefs just so that it is less offensive to parts of the world.  

The late Catholic Bishop Fulton Sheen once said that “tolerance is for people, not for ideas.”[11] We’re to love and to be gracious to all people, even those with who we disagree, but we must hold firm to the principles of our faith. This is why tradition is not only important in the church, but also necessary. For we aren’t the first generation of Christians called to be relevant to the larger world. Without tradition, without theological grounding, we’re liable to be blown about, and in our attempts to be relevant, we become irrelevant.[12] Don’t get me wrong. Tradition should not hold us back. It should, “bear fruit” as it builds on the “achievements of the past.”[13]

The bottom line of what we learn from this passage is that theology matters. What we believe is important for it helps shape how we respond to the world around us. Amen.  

This sermon was modified from one I preached at First Presbyterian Church of Hastings in 2007.

[1] This phrase was used by David Gilbert, a pastor in Sandy, Utah who recently retired from Tazwell, Virginia.  

[2] Quote and description of Pergamum from Robert Mounce, The Book of Revelation, revised, NICNT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 78-79. Pliny was the one who considered Pergamum to be most distinguished.

[3] Luke 2:1.

[4] Bruce M. Metzger, Breaking the Code: Understanding the Book of Revelation (Nashville: Abingdon, 1993), 34.

[5] Metzger, 34-35. 

[6] John 14:6

[7] The New Interpreter’s Study Bible: New Revised Standard Version with the Apocrypha (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2003), 2217, footnote for Revelation 2:14.  While Revelation speaks of many martyrs, Antipas is the only one mentioned by name. 

[8] Numbers 22-25, for an explanation see G. B. Caird, The Revelation of St. John the Divine (New York: Harper & Row, 1966), 38-41.

[9] Mounce, 82-3.

[10] I am indebted here to Craig Barnes 2004 installation address as the Robert Meneilly Professor of Leadership and Ministry at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary.  

[11] As quoted in a sermon on January 21, 2007 by Dr. Vic Pentz, Peachtree Presbyterian Church, Atlanta, GA.

[12] See Ephesians 4:14.

[13] The quote, given to me by Don Drummond. Source: Zalman Schachter-Shalomi and Ronald S. Miller, Aging to Saging, who quoted from Robert Augros and George Stanciu, The New Story of Science.