Rev. Dr. Diana DeWitt is an ordained elder in the Tennessee Conference of the United Methodist Church. After pastoring different churches for nearly two decades, she became Executive Director of Aspen Tree Ministries. She is also author of The Authority of Love: Reclaiming Spiritual Authority in the Church Today (2013).
A year ago as I shared lunch with Bishop Job and his wife, Beverly, at their Brentwood home, we celebrated together our rich spiritual heritage of coming to faith through the Evangelical United Brethren Church (E.U.B.). While Bishop Job grew up on a farm in North Dakota, his wife, Beverly, had been nurtured in the same county youth group circle in which my mother had been nurtured in central Iowa. We acknowledged the deep faith and spiritual forming of our lives through our E.U.B. roots, which pre-dated the union of the E.U.B. Church with the Methodist Church in 1968, a historical fact of our denomination of which many United Methodists today have little or no knowledge. Bishop Job’s time in serving as the bishop in Iowa was a very special season of ministry for United Methodists in my home state. Even though I was living away from Iowa at that time, and it was before God’s call upon my life to enter the ministry as an ordained elder in the UMC, I knew of his impact on my home state.
Bishop Job comes from a very special generation of people who grew up in the heartland of America where faith and family, and a strong farm work ethic formed and shaped mighty men and women of God. On the day of Bishop Job’s passing, I was preaching at my uncle’s funeral in Iowa, having preached the day before at my aunt’s funeral. My mother’s brother and sister had both died the same day, on the Tuesday after Christmas. I reflected at both funerals on this rich spiritual legacy that I was privileged to inherit, which had also shaped and formed Bishop Job’s early life.
In preparation for the funerals of my aunt and uncle, the Lord took me to Deuteronomy, chapter 6. I was deeply moved by the relevance of these words that the Lord had given to Moses in regards to the spiritual heritage being offered to the children of Israel.
These are the commands, decrees and laws the Lord your God directed me to teach you to observe in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess, 2 so that you, your children and their children after them may fear the Lord your God as long as you live by keeping all his decrees and commands that I give you, and so that you may enjoy long life. 3 Hear, Israel, and be careful to obey so that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the Lord, the God of your ancestors, promised you.
These verses speak of that rich spiritual heritage and legacy which is passed from generation to generation [so that you, your children and their children after them may fear the Lord your God as long as you live]. The Lord instructs His people to impress these commandments upon their children. He also gives instruction on how one might enjoy a long life [by keeping all his decrees and commands that I give you, and so that you may enjoy long life]. I find it interesting that longevity of life is a part of the promise given. I made mention of this in my family funerals. My parents are now 86 years old (the same age as Bishop Job and his wife), having been married for 67 years. My aunt whose life we were celebrating had died at 91 years old, having celebrated 67 years of marriage with her husband before his passing a few years prior. My uncle whose life we were celebrating had died at 81 years old, having been married for 63 years with his surviving spouse. Their remaining sibling is 79 years old, who has also been married for almost 60 years. Their mother lived until she was 91, and their grandfather had lived an active life until he died at 102. Maybe, just maybe, there is something to the promise of God that by keeping His decrees and commands one may enjoy a long life. All of the siblings were farmers (with their husbands or wives) who worked hard and enjoyed the plentiful harvests that can only be realized from the rich farmlands of central Iowa. The funeral spray of flowers on both my aunt’s and uncle’s caskets contained full ears of corn, which is a beauty that I am sure is unique only to Iowa. It seems to me that this rich farmland of central Iowa is truly a “land flowing with milk and honey.”
In growing up with my twelve cousins who were the fruit of these four siblings, every Sunday was like a family reunion at our little E.U.B. Church which was located at the corner directly across the road from the family homestead where all of the siblings were born. After Sunday school and Worship, the twelve of us cousins would run across the street to hang out at our grandparents’ home. In recent days, we exchanged many special memories of growing up together, sharing stories of faith and family that are a part of our spiritual heritage. I shared at my uncle’s funeral that the twelve of us cousins seem to bare a significant numerical correlation to the twelve tribes of Israel who gathered in the wilderness to hear God’s Words of instruction through Moses, in the Shema, again from the sixth chapter of Deuteronomy:
4 Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.
I praise God that I have such a rich spiritual inheritance coming from my E.U.B. roots of strong biblical authority and faith in Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. In the E.U.B. Church there was particular emphasis laid on prayer and a life of devotion to Christ. As my brothers and sisters in the Methodist Church were studying John Wesley in their confirmation classes, my cousins and I were learning about the lives of Jacob Albright, Phillip William Otterbein, and Martin Boehm. As the diminishing generations go on to be with the Lord, may our rich spiritual heritage birthed in the Evangelical United Brethren Church not be lost, […so that you, your children and their children after them may fear the Lord your God as long as you live by keeping all his decrees and commands that I give you].
Thank you Bishop Job for your impact upon the world, for the lives you led to Christ, and for the spiritual legacy you leave us through your many written works. Well done, good and faithful servant.
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