An Honest Day's Work

An Honest Day's Work

Study By: Sid Litke

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Part 7 – Biblical Financial Stewardship

If I were a Rich Man

Our daughter Charlotte was involved in the local middle school production of Fiddler on the Roof. The musical has that familiar song sung by Tevya. If I were a rich man, Ya ha deedle deedle, bubba bubba deedle deedle dum. All day long I'd biddy biddy bum. If I were a wealthy man. I wouldn't have to work hard…

Tevya dreams about not having to work hard. We’ve all been there. What might it be like to be independently wealthy and just do what we wanted? If we feel overworked we dream of having truly free time to pursue hobbies or vacationing. So Is Tevya right that we would be happier if we didn’t have to work hard? Is work the villain who steals our time?

Then there’s the bumper sticker that parodies the eager seven dwarfs heading off to work in the diamond mines. I owe, I owe, So off to work I go. Is that all there is to work – paying off principle and interest? Is work just a necessary evil to pay off our loans?

What is the purpose of work in the mind of God? Is it just money production? Many Christians have perhaps never considered whether their work had value beyond the money they earn – or maybe witnessing to someone at work. Obviously God does want to provide for us through our jobs and He wants to use us spiritually where we work, but what about the work itself? Doe it have value intrinsically? It would seem a terrible waste of 40 – 60 hours a week if there was no real value to our work itself.

Employed by God

The first step toward meaningful work is to realize that God was the first worker. He “worked” for six days creating the world until He chose to cease – thus establishing the Sabbath in which He appreciated what He had accomplished. If work is something God does, it must have some intrinsic value. He wouldn’t model a mundane drudgery and certainly not a necessary evil. God example honors work.

Adam was the next worker. God finished His work and assigned the upkeep of his handiwork to Adam.Genesis 2:15 states, "The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it." So work itself is actually a “spiritual” stewardship, not a “secular” necessity.

So there was human work to do even before there was sin. God put Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and told them to work it and care for it. We might wonder what there was to do in a garden that had no weeds or thorns, but there was evidently some kind of picking and preparing food. Maybe there was some creating rearranging of plants like my wife Priscilla does in her flower bed all summer. The curse of thorns and thistles came later with sin, but work really came before that.

The term “work” (or keep or cultivate) is actually the Hebrew word for serving. In fact the priest’s service in the tabernacle and temple was called “work” with the same term as used of Adam’s work. The worship-work of priests and the garden-work of Adam are not distinguished in the Bible the way we tend to distinguish between secular and spiritual work in our modern Christian mindset.

Whom did Adam and Eve serve by work and tending the garden? Was their work just a matter of meeting their own needs? No, they were serving God. After all, it was God’s garden. And since we have learned that God owns everything, Adam’s work in the garden and our work today all takes place in God’s world. God owns the trees, the land, and the buildings we work in that are place on God’s land and constructed out of His trees. He owns and provided the copper wires carrying electricity through our walls and machine where we work. He created the materials forming the cement parking lot outside our office building or plant. It’s all God’s stuff.

Partners with God

Work we do serves His purposes and fits into His plans for the universe. If all forms of work in Bible times shared in common that they were really designed to serve God, there is no reason to view work differently today. Work is the process of us partnering with God to do what God wants done.

God wants to put food on the tables of the world, so if you are in the food industry, you are God’s partner. God wants to supply all the stuff at Walmart that you need to live, so if you manufacture or pack or truck or ship or repair or stock or sell or manage money or whatever you do, it’s serving God. God wants to clean people’s teeth and have kids learn math. He even wants us to have computers to create and communicate information. So God equipped you to help Him. Work is a divine assignment – regardless of the often selfish and sometimes evil intentions of those who perform work on earth.

The point is that work is not only valuable as a way to earn money. Our work is partnering with God – unless we work intentionally at something designed to hurt mankind. The “sin industries” such as the production of pornography or other vices come to mind. It is legitimate to consider if what we do for work is primarily devoted to sin or goodness, but we can’t control the effect or perversions of what sinful people do with what we create. For example, if we build computers, it is well known that computers have both harmful as well as helpful effects. A recent study of internet websites ironically revealed that pornography claims the top number of websites, while religious websites numbered the second most. (James Twitchell, Shopping for God, Simon & Schuster, 2007, p. 13).

The bottom line is that although the company for which we work might not realize it, they are just stewards too. They may be ungodly or selfish or even dishonest, but nonetheless they are being used by God to take care of His world. So what we call “secular” work is really a sacred responsibility.

As followers of Christ, it is our job to fulfill God’s intention for work so that He is glorified. We are the chosen few who really can do our work with inner motivation because we know that we are really serving Him (Colossians 3:23-24). To please God at our job means that first we must realize it’s a stewardship – whether we are stocking shelves, designing building, making widgets, volunteering to help someone in need, caring for babies at home or working as a full-time pastor or missionary.

Paul urged the Corinthians that "Whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God." (1 Corinthians 10:31). If we thought that glorifying God was something that happened only within the walls of a church or in the confines of a ministry job, that idea is dispelled. God is just as interested in being glorified on a weekday afternoon as we try to be productive in the sleepy slump after lunch as He is during the crescendo of a worship anthem on Sunday morning. Everything task we “work” at is a stewardship from God whether we are paid for it or not. As we consciously and deliberately serve God in our regular responsibilities, we glorify Him.

As we work we are maintaining God’s world. What a wasted opportunity if we write off all those hours a week to just pay bills or debts. We dare not degrade our work when God commands and honors it. In fact we are responsible to thank Him for our work.

Thank God it’s Monday

You probably sit at an abundantly full table at Thanksgiving Dinner. Did you only thank God for the food you ate and the people around you or did you thank God for the work that He gave you to do before you got time off for the Thanksgiving weekend? God is the One who enables us to succeed at work and we must thank God even for the ability to work and earn.

Listen to these words from Moses: (Deuteronomy 8:17-18) You may say to yourself, "My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me." {18} But remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth.” The better we are at what we do and the more successful and wealthy we become, the more we might tend to take personal credit for it. But if we are learning to live as stewards, then success will actually bring more glory to God, not to me.

Gratitude for our work means we understand with humility that we are “receivers” even when we work. And if we are actually receivers, then we are accountable for both the money we earn and the way we work.

Putting Food on the Table

So our work is a stewardship from God. And if we have learned anything from our study of financial stewardship it’s that God is a rewarder. But how does God reward us for approaching our work as a faithful steward?

Notice an obscure but noteworthy verse in Proverbs that illustrates an obvious reward of working hard.“Where there are no oxen, the manger is empty [clean], but from the strength of an ox comes an abundant harvest.” (Proverbs 14:4)

The proverb explains that a person who enjoys eating the yield of a farmer’s harvest needs to remember that such bounty requires messy, difficult work to produce. A farmer could enjoy looking at a clean manger, but if his manger is clean, that means he doesn’t have any animals. Without messy animals there will be no harvest. Food on the table is a basic reward of hard work.

In addition to producing grain on the Kansas farm where I was raised, my dad also custom raised chickens for many years. Twice a year, 15,000 newly hatched baby chicks arrived at our farm. When the chickens were mature, the hatchery who owned them would come and take them away to become laying hens elsewhere. So guess what had to happen every 6 months? We had to shovel several inches of manure from 5 barns into manure spreaders to be spread out on our fields. Then in a couple weeks, 15,000 more chicks would arrive and began to mess it all up and start the cycle of work all over again.

Empty barns are nice, but that’s not going to pay the bills – let alone feed eggs to the world. Your work is hard too. But God is taking care of you and the world through your work! And there’s even more to work than just supplying the world’s needs.

A Job Worth Doing

Solomon, the wisest man ever, said, "Then I realized that it is good and proper for a man to eat and drink, and to find satisfaction in his toilsome labor under the sun during the few days of life God has given him--for this is his lot.” (Ecclesiastes 5:18) He wasn’t being pessimistic; he saw a true redeeming value to work. We should pursuit finding personal satisfaction in our job.

When Solomon said that it was our “lot” to work, it might sound like a bad thing, as if it’s something we are stuck with. But that’s not the tone of Solomon’s thought at all. The term, “lot” can be translated “portion.” Our work is our piece of God’s pie in a good sense. Our work is actually our chosen for us by God as His blessing or reward.

We should eagerly pursue enjoyment in our job. We should seek satisfaction in doing it well. We can probably do some part of it better than anyone else. Christians who understand work as a stewardship from God will pursue excellence. Whether we are making cabinets or hamburgers or sermons we should do our best and then enjoy the satisfaction of doing it to God’s glory.

Promotion is bonus blessing for doing a job well. God has ordained advancement. Solomon wrote, “Do you see a man skilled in his work? He will serve before kings; he will not serve before obscure men." (Proverbs 22:29) Advancement requires our unique skills blended with hard work so that we can do something significantly better than others. Many people quit jobs too soon and too often and then wonder why they don’t advance in their careers. Maybe one of the reasons is that they don’t stay in one place long enough to develop the skills that would make them truly valuable to their employer.

Many people complain that they don’t get the credit they deserve or the promotion or pay they think they deserve. Somehow in God’s world, however, it usually pays off to do a job well and faithfully for a long time.

Avoiding Laziness

If my work is a stewardship from God, then diligence is essential. God’s word tells us that if we don’t work, we shouldn’t eat (2 Thessalonians 2:10-11). The Proverbs are filled with warnings to the sluggard (the lazy). Laziness is a major headache of workplace mangers in every culture, and more importantly, it displeases God, our real employer.

1. Laziness is irritating to others (Proverbs 10:26) “As vinegar to the teeth and smoke to the eyes, so is a sluggard to those who send him.”

Hardly anything is more irritating to those who care about quality and productivity than the laziness of those who don’t. Almost every workplace has employees who try to get out of work. Laziness takes the form of long breaks, leaving things for the next shift or frittering away productive time with chit-chat, internet browsing, personal calls or just lack of initiative.

2. Lazy people are usually frustrated (Proverbs 13:4) “The sluggard craves and gets nothing, but the desires of the diligent are fully satisfied."

Laziness doesn’t change cravings. Lazy people usually try to live the same economic lifestyle or higher than those who are industrious and faithful. It ends in frustration however because they can’t afford it. Because of lack of effort or diligence they don’t have the ability to finance their desires. The prevailing culture of credit card debt allows a lazy person to dig their financial hole even deeper.

3. Laziness leads to poverty. (Proverbs 6:10-11) "A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest-- {11} and poverty will come on you like a bandit and scarcity like an armed man." (Proverbs 20:13) “Do not love sleep or you will grow poor; stay awake and you will have food to spare.”

It’s a simple observation. If a farmer stays in bed instead of working his fields, it will show at harvest time. If we show up to work late, try to leave early, punch in late because we turned off the alarm, eventually it will affect our paycheck.

4. Laziness is a form of theft. Proverbs 18:9 warns that, "One who is slack in his work is brother to one who destroys.” When we are not being productive for the hours we are paid, we’re really stealing. For example, if you are a carpenter and you should have built another hour’s worth of wall by working faithfully, then it’s the same result as if you torn down the wall that some another carpenter built for an hour. Of course most workers would be fired for destroying someone else’s work, but it’s really the same thing when we are negligently unproductive.

A steward understands that he or she is accountable to God for effort and diligence. Time is a stewardship just as much as money. We owe our employers and the Lord an honest day’s work.

Avoiding “Workaholism”

While working hard and developing our skills are biblical values, there is an opposite problem. It’s possible to be so focused on perfecting or accomplishing our work that our health and our families suffer. We call it workaholism because the rewards of work have an addictive element. When we perform our job well and praise and promotion come, we are drawn to work even harder. We crave the pleasure it brings us in the short term, but ignore damaging consequences in the longer view. Many families have struggled because at least one parent made work, promotion and money an almost exclusive priority.

The solution to the work addiction is not just cutting down on hours. That simply creates a more frustrated workaholic. What needs to change is our thinking about work. That only comes as we adopt a stewardship mindset about work. God is the owner of all who has appointed us to work for Him. If we begin to live to please God in our work, instead of trying to meet all the demands of others or endlessly trying to prove ourselves, we will find balance. God expects us to work hard and even put in extra effort. As we seek to please God, most human bosses will be pleased as well. But working for God means that we also address our need for rest, health and time invested in relationships.

Psalms 127:2 declares, "In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat-- for he grants sleep to those he loves.” (New International Version) This seems to teach us how dependent on God we are to bless our work efforts. If we trust God, we can be at rest about success and sleep.

But this verse may be saying even more than that. The New American Standard Version reflects an alternate way of understanding the Hebrew expression at the end of the verse. It could be translated, "It is vain for you to rise up early, to retire late, to eat the bread of painful labors; For He gives to His beloved even in his sleep.”(Psalms 127:2 - NASB)

This would be saying that it is foolish to overwork because God ultimately controls our success. Every farmer knows that plants grow while you sleep based mostly upon conditions like rain and sunshine – factors you can’t control! You still have to work hard, but success ultimately depends on God’s power over the weather – not only on how hard we work.

It is obviously a complex challenge for every person to learn to balance work and home as well as other responsibilities such as church ministry and taking care of one’s one health and well-being. There is no formula, but there are some important questions we should ask ourselves. 1) Am I working so hard or long because I derive most of my significance from what I do? 2) Am I working so hard trying to please or impress some people at the expense of my family? 3) Is my pursuit of money or promotion by excessive hours fueled by a failure to trust in God to supply for me while keeping reasonable priorities? 4) Have I ignored the pleas of my spouse or the warnings of other mature advisors in my life about my work commitments?

How will find that balance? We have to pray and utilize wisdom and advice from God’s word, from friends and spouses.

Get Rich Quick – or Not

The goal of work for a Christian is to be a good steward of time, just as we are called to be a good steward of money. Time really is money in that we are accountable to God for both. That’s what is wrong with “get rich quick” schemes. They are bad stewardship of our time. God’s word reminds us, "He who works his land will have abundant food, but the one who chases fantasies will have his fill of poverty.” (Proverbs 28:19). Easy money is a fantasy. As the saying goes, If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

People tend to believe what they want to believe when it comes to money – which is why scams work. I get some great offers from Nigeria and other countries very regularly in my email telling me that someone has died and left a fortune. It’s amazing how they all want to send it to me!

Hopefully, no thinking person would fall for that kind of scam, but many are susceptible to pyramid schemes or some kind of multi-level marketing business. A pyramid scheme promises huge return for investing money and/or enrolling others in the program to do the same – without ever delivering any goods or services. 90% of those who get involved in pyramid schemes will not recoup their initial investment. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_scheme) A chart in the Wikipedia article shows furthermore that the 11th level a pyramid scheme would require every person in the US to be involved, which of course is unsustainable.

Many multi-level marketing businesses are perhaps legal efforts but exist in a grey area which is similar to a pyramid scheme. It’s a business model of selling products directly to consumers through relationships. The promise of significant income however comes from gaining commissions from other dealers whom you recruit to work under you. That’s where the so-called easy money comes.

One ethical problem with these businesses is that a person basically needs to exploit friendships to sign people up. I remember when one of my wife’s co-workers invited us to dinner when we lived in Dallas. They made it sound like they wanted to get together to talk about spiritual things. That caught our interest. But as I talked to them on the phone about the dinner invitation, I became suspicious and probed until I found out that the real nature of our coming visit was that they actually wanted us to be “dealers” under them in a business.

Gambling with God’s money

Gambling is promoted as a harmless game of chance. The problems with gambling however are many. The odds of course make it a terrible investment and the addictive nature of gambling carries with it the consequences of family strife and financial ruin. But in our effort to honor God financially we must conclude that what’s really wrong with gambling for a Christian is that it’s unfaithful stewardship of God’s money in several ways:

First of all, gambling wastes money that God has entrusted to me as a steward. Did God really lead me to buy lottery tickets with the money He gave me? Secondly, gambling is based on the greedy hope that I can take other people’s wasted money for myself. Furthermore gambling violates the stewardship of work in that it is based on getting something for nothing. It’s based on a wish for many that they would no longer have to work. Therefore it undermines and wastes the abilities God entrusted to me – maybe the rest of my life. Finally, gambling is based on luck of course, which is completely contrary to a sense of trust in God.

So gambling is wrong not based on whether or not it is legal; gambling is wrong because it violates all stewardship issues. I’m trying to bypass God’s will. The bottom line is that if we expect to get rich without work, we are violating the basic issue of stewardship. I’m not being a steward of the time, strength or energy God gave me to expect to not have to work for it.

If we understand the issue of the stewardship of work, we understand that the job we have right now is the job God wants us to have right now – with the time it requires and the pay I receive.

God is certainly able to bless us with more money if He desires through promotion or the success of our business of the appreciation of our legitimate investments. God may even bless someone occasionally with a windfall through inheritance or other means. The greed that underlies gambling is not however what brings God glory or teaches us to trust Him.

Working for a New Boss

If I see myself biblically as a steward then God is my real boss. He is the One sitting behind the desk in the corner office. And ultimately it is God whom I must obey by working faithfully, honestly and obediently. We need to adopt the mindset that the person who signs our check or who oversees my work is not my real boss; God is.

(Colossians 3:22-24) "Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to win their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord. {23} Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, {24} since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving."

We are accountable to God! It doesn’t matter if our human boss knows what we are doing or not. God does! If we just work hard when our supervisor watches, we have essentially become Christian atheists. We believe that God exists, but we are living as if He doesn’t.

Many employees essentially spend their days trying to “win the favor” of the boss. They laugh at the boss’s jokes, do him or her special favors, feed his or her ego and basically pretend to like them, hoping to get special treatment. But we can escape those games if we adopt the concept of biblical stewardship – working for God. And then we don’t have to worry about the good things that boss didn’t notice or about the mistakes he did notice.

God is our rewarder when we think like stewards. We can trust God to reward us eventually in due time (verse 24 above). A good test of our stewardship is how much we do things for the boss to notice. If God as our real boss, then we don’t need to push ourselves and our accomplishments.

Ephesians 6:5 describes our relationship to our boss in a similar way with the words, saying that we should obey our earthly masters … “just as you would obey Christ." It doesn’t get any simpler than this. If our boss tells us to do something, and we don’t feel like doing it, we can just take a deep breath and visualize that Jesus Christ is standing there asking us to do it. Unless it’s something sinful, it’s as important as Christ telling you. 1 Peter 2:18 adds that Christians should submit themselves to their masters/bosses – even if the boss is harsh and unfair – as many slave owners in that day were.

Integrity

If God is our real boss, then it’s a natural conclusion that we should be completely honest as an employee. A 2003 study of retail theft by accounting company Ernst and Young estimated that $46 billion was lost in a single year in retail theft and over 40% of that was due to employee theft. (Only one in 10 thefts is an employee, but they take 7 times as much as the average shoplifter.) And that’s just evaluating retail theft. That doesn’t include other kinds of corporate or business theft such as padding expense accounts, having someone else clock in or out for us or using the company car or credit card for personal uses.

Do we justify anything that God – our real boss – would call theft? If we work for God, then there is no reason to think that we’ll really gain by dishonesty. And there is every reason to be completely honest even if means that we do not take advantage of loopholes that others do. Through His blessing on us God can certainly overcome any disadvantage we may think we have by being honest.

The Boss’s Boss

Integrity is just as important for bosses as for employees because God is the boss’s boss also. "Masters, provide your slaves with what is right and fair, because you know that you also have a Master in heaven.” (Colossians 4:1) Christian employers or owners are not really their own bosses. Just as a Christian employee obeys Christ, the boss must obey Christ in every decision. Here are some examples that God’s word specifically addresses:

1. Fair Wages. "Look! The wages you failed to pay the workmen who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty." (James 5:4) Christian employers will need God’s help to figure out what is right and fair. If we are the boss, we have to realize that our natural inclination will be to pay the least we can to make the greatest profit and still keep our good employees. Maybe that’s appropriate, but the only question the Christian boss really has to settle is whether that amount is what God wants us to pay. After all, we are accountable to Him alone as true stewards.

2. Treating employees with kindness (Ephesians 6:9) "Do not threaten them [employees], since you know that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favoritism with him.” Every Christian boss has a boss who holds them accountable to be kind to their employees. Matthew 18:23-35 tells Jesus’ parable about the servant who was forgiven his debts by his master, but then was ruthless in demanding payment of debt by a fellow-servant. It is not hard to imagine that the God who holds all power and authority does not take it lightly when we abuse the authority that we have over others.

3. Honest business practices (Proverbs 16:11) "Honest scales and balances are from the LORD; all the weights in the bag are of his making.” In ancient near eastern markets, merchants had a scale and a bag of weights. They were of course supposed to be standard weights – talents, shekels, bekas. In the absence of modern technology or a state agency to check the honesty of the weights like they check the calibration of gas pumps today, the customer was dependant on the integrity of the merchant. This proverb is saying that a godly businessman gets his scales and weights from God! It’s a clear statement of stewardship in business. The Christian businessperson is really a business partner of God. The Christian businessperson can only make deals that he or she is convinced God would make.

4. Paying taxes honestly ((Romans 13:2) "Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted… (13:6-7) This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God's servants, who give their full time to governing. {7} Give everyone what you owe him: If you owe taxes, pay taxes...”

Taxes can be so irritating and seem so unfair. And we indeed might not agree with how they are spent. I had a Christian friend once who got on a kick that income tax was constitutionally illegal. So he didn’t pay them. I don’t know how that turned out for him because I moved out of the area, but I no for sure that God was not cheering in heaven, regardless of how constitutionally correct he felt he was. And of course the world that watches a Christian try to get out of taxes everyone else pays is going to be unimpressed by our faith.

God’s word is telling us that when we obey tax laws, we are obeying God. As a steward of God’s money, when I send my tax return in, I don’t have the luxury or resenting government waste or complaining what I think are unfair laws. God allowed this government and this law – just as He allowed evil Nero’s taxes in Rome which Paul and even Jesus paid (Mark 12:14-17). God commissions me to pay the exact tax I owe, whether it’s assessed by Nero or Republicans or Democrats.

In the final analysis, giving someone a fair deal and paying taxes are just as much obedience to God as giving the tithe – because it’s all God’s money.

Taking a good deal too far

Integrity is required of consumers as well. Have you ever been tempted to cheat on a sale item or misuse a coupon? It’s just as dishonest as shoplifting or switching price tags. Sometimes we get so caught up in the hunt for bargains that we actually lie or cheat. But we don’t have to be desperate to save money when we realize our money is God’s money and that He will supply what we need.

It might not be illegal or even strictly unethical, but another way that frugal Christians sometimes violate their stewardship before God is by excessive bargaining. Basic haggling is expected at rummage sales or when buying used items from a private party such as a car or appliances, but one of the temptations of the thrifty is to cross the line ethically from being “a deal” to “a steal.” The Proverbs addresses that mentality: “It's no good, it's no good!" says the buyer; then off he goes and boasts about his purchase." (Proverbs 20:14). I wonder if sometimes we as Christians lose both our sense of stewardship before God as well as our testimony before people by our proud pursuit of bargains.

God doesn’t give us a exact guidelines about where to stop haggling and just pay a fair price, but maybe that’s the point. He wants us to think through the issue of stewardship. Is my attitude simply to use God’s money wisely by being content with a used item, or am I trying to prove how shrewd I am by taking advantage of someone? To what degree am I willing to pay the owner a fair price for a used item without taking advantage of their need to sell? It’s good to feel the tension those questions raise. It tests our heart. Is this an issue of gratitude or greed – or even an issue of arrogance? Or is the real issue even deeper. How much do I trust God?

Stewardship: In God we trust

Larry Burkett used to say, Do we trust God or do we just say that we do? Every stewardship issue really is a matter of trusting God. Every integrity issue amounts to trusting God. Because what is there to gain by cheating the government, the boss, the customer, or the lady running the rummage sale – if we really believe that God ultimately determines what we have? Do we expect Him to reward us or do we think that we can bypass His control by fudging here or there – to kind of “reward ourselves?” Who do we think we are? Who do we think He is? Is God really the boss, the owner, the sovereign caring Provider of all that we have? Our giving says we trust God. Our spending can say that we trust God. Our hard work and our integrity all reveal if we really trust Him.

It’s true, if I were a rich man, I wouldn’t have to work hard. But then I also wouldn’t have the opportunity to grow in my stewardship by trusting and seeking to please my Master in heaven by the way I conduct myself at my work or in the marketplace.

Why New Year’s Resolutions Don't Work

Justin Holcomb

Willpower Is Weak

There’s an assumption about human nature that is important to have in place as we think about New Year’s Resolutions: people do what they want to do. The Reformation theologian Thomas Cranmerheld this view of human nature (as summarized by Anglican historian Ashley Null):

What the heart loves, the will chooses, and the mind justifies. The mind doesn’t direct the will. The mind is actually captive to what the will wants, and the will itself, in turn, is captive to what the heart wants.

An article in the New York Times only confirms that the will is weak when it shows that the overwhelming majority of New Year’s resolutions are doomed to failure. According to research, 80 percent of those who make resolutions on January 1 have given up by Valentine’s Day. Nutrition experts say that two-thirds of dieters regain any weight lost within a year, and more than 70 percent of people who undergo coronary bypass surgery fall back into unhealthy habits within two years of their surgery.

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Confront the reality that your resolution is likely needed because you are not loving God with your entire being and not loving your neighbor as yourself.

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“Most of us think that we can change our lives if we just summon the willpower and try even harder this time around,” said Alan Deutschman, the former executive director of Unboundary, a firm that counsels corporations on how to navigate change. “It’s exceptionally hard to make life changes, and our efforts are usually doomed to failure when we try to do it on our own.” If you’re going to make a New Year’s resolution, here are a few things to keep in mind.

1. Not All Resolutions Are Good

Try to determine if the resolution is actually good. Are you planning on working out more? If so, is it because you want to be a good steward of the body God gave you or is it vanity? In reality, it is probably both. But what is the driving desire? Self-improvement or to glorify God?

2. Just Do It…

If your resolution is actually a good one, just do it. Go ahead and work out more, smoke or drink less, read your Bible more, pay down your debt and save more for retirement, focus on your marriage, spend more time with your children. Every once in a while, people start a New Year’s resolution and it sticks. But most don't. That’s because (1) you are sinner and (2) your heart is anidol factory.

3. Grace Actually Works

Confront the reality that your resolution is likely needed because you are not loving God with your entire being and not loving your neighbor as yourself. These two failures lead to havoc, discord, pain, and destruction. Jesus gave us the basic requirement: “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets” (Matt. 22:40).

That basic failure is why we need the gospel: Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection deal with the guilt and the stain of sin. Jesus is our propitiation and our expiation.

Jesus also gave us the Holy Spirit, who can change our desires and empower us to love God and neighbor. As Paul tells us, “it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Phil. 2:13).

4. God Gives Grace to Change

As Cranmer realized, our wills are captive to what our hearts love, and we are powerless to change ourselves without the work of God’s Spirit changing our desires. When you think through New Year’s resolutions, here’s a prayer as you ask God to work on your heart:  

Almighty God, you alone can bring into order the unruly wills and affections of sinners: Grant your people grace to love what you command and desire what you promise; that, among the swift and varied changes of the world, our hearts may surely there be fixed where true joys are to be found; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen (Book of Common Prayer).

If Nothing Else, We Learn That In a Fight Over a Goat Sacrifice, the Goat Always Loses

By Kimberly Thorpe
published: Wed., Jan. 27 2010 @ 2:49PM

Brandon Thibodeaux

Jose Merced

The sleepy suburb of Euless seems an odd spot for a battle over goat sacrifice. Perhaps that's what first attracted us to the story of Jose Merced, a commercial flight attendant who also happens to be a high priest in the Afro-Cuban religion called Santería, in which animal sacrifice serves as a principal form of devotion. We wrote about Merced in the paper version of Unfair Park back in October, in a piece that chronicles how the city of Euless first prohibited him from sacrificing goats on his property; how he sued them in district court and lost; and finally, how he appealed the decision to a federal appeals court and won.

When we left him, it seemed likely that his case -- Jose Merced v. City of Euless -- would land in the U.S. Supreme Court. The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals did not decide Merced's case on First Amendment grounds, but rather on its interpretation of the Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Nevertheless, the case received international fame as a victory for religious freedom. The appeals court also ordered the city of Euless to pay Merced's attorneys' fees, but left the amount for the lower court to determine.

Although the city of Euless decided not to appeal to the Supreme Court, they continued to fight, particularly after Merced's lawyers at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty asked for approximately $350,000 in legal fees. A U.S. district judge set a hearing to determine the fees on January 14, but Euless demanded a jury trial. More delay. More costs.

"Euless City Council never seems to learn," Eric Rassbach at the Becket Fund told Unfair Park in early January. "Not only do they still have their own lawyers' meters running on a case they lost last July, they also have our meters running. ... Euless taxpayers ought to start asking council members how much money they've spent so far and how much more they intend to spend fighting the last war."

That last war finally ended yesterday.

Not in a jury trial, however. Instead, the district judge ordered the parties to hold a private mediation, where it was agreed that Euless would pay $175,000 in plaintiff attorney fees. Case closed, right?

Well, not exactly.

"As it pertains to Mr. Merced, I suppose so," says Bradford Bullock, one of the attorneys representing Euless. "As it pertains to the Texas law at issue, no, I don't think it's the end of that."

A court case forced a Santeria priest to reveal some of his religion’s secrets. Its ritual of animal sacrifice, he revealed on his own.

A court case forced a Santeria priest to reveal some of his religion’s secrets. Its ritual of animal sacrifice, he revealed on his own.

By Kimberly Thorpe

published: October 22, 2009

• Brandon Thibodeaux

  

  Jose Merced

• Brandon Thibodeaux

  

  Inside Jose Merced’s shrine room, devotees of all ages participate in the cleansing ceremony for Virginia Rosario-Nevarez as part of her seven-day initiation into the Santería priesthood.

• Brandon Thibodeaux

  

  The deities, or Orishas, communicate through cowrie shells, telling one woman about her past, present and future in a divination reading.

• Brandon Thibodeaux

  

  A Santería priest performs the cleansing ceremony on Nevarez (center) before 60 or so deities, which sit in pots on the shelves to her left.

• Brandon Thibodeaux

  

  Money is part of the ritual offering to the Orishas during a cowrie shell reading.

Details:

Web extra: More photos from the feast day at Jose Merced's home.

Subject(s):

Jose Merced, Santeria, animal sacrifice, Euless, Doug Laycock, William “Mick” McKamie

The Euless neighborhood is mostly quiet, a sleepy suburb of pleasant ranch-style homes, winding creeks and mossy oaks that looks as if it could have been plucked from any American city. Except, of course, for the ancient gods that populate the home and religion of one of the area's most controversial residents. But Jose Merced doesn't shy away from controversy—and he has no plans of doing so on this crisp day in late September. No matter that his neighbors remain uneasy with the ritual singing and drumming that are part of his Santería religion; no matter that they might, as before, call the police if they feared he was engaging in animal sacrifice; no matter that the city of Euless, even after losing a drawn-out lawsuit that tested the boundaries of religious liberty in Texas, is still searching for new ways to shut down Merced's spiritual practices. For him, the deities who reside in the back room of his house have been silenced long enough.
It's been nearly three and a half years since he stopped the ritual slaughter of four-legged animals in his home to pursue litigation against the city over his right to do so. With a decision from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in his favor and against the city's health and safety concerns, Merced, a flight attendant, will resume his full religious practices tonight.
As the sacrificial hour approaches, several priests (Santeros) are preparing the 40 assorted goats, roosters, hens, guinea hens, pigeons, quail, turtle and duck who grow noisy and nervous in their cages. Their lives will be taken in an exchange mandated by Olofi, Santería's supreme god and source of all energy, to heal the broken body and spirit of Virginia Rosario-Nevarez and to initiate her into the Santería priesthood. No medical doctor has been able to alleviate her suffering—the intractable back pain that makes walking unbearable, her debilitating depression and loneliness.
During a spiritual reading, lesser deities have told Merced that for Nevarez to be healed, she must become a priestess. In the initiation ceremony for priesthood, a high priest will sacrifice animals, which must die so she can live a healthy and spiritual life. In a theology similar to Christian grace in which Jesus died to forgive the sins of his followers, the animals will be offered in sacrifice to Olofi and the other deities (Orishas), who will purge her of negative energy as she makes her commitment to them.
Mounted against a wall in the back room shrine in Merced's house are shelves containing clusters of small ceramic pots, ornately decorated and filled with shells, stones and other artifacts—the physical manifestations of the Orishas that reside in the room. To initiate Nevarez as a priestess, new godly manifestations of the old gods on Merced's shelf must be born. To make this happen, animal blood will be spilled onto new pots, which the priestess will take home to begin her own shrine with her own newly manifested gods.
Much of theology behind Santería's rituals remains unknown to Nevarez, though more of its secrets will be revealed to her as she grows in her commitment.
Secrecy defines the Santería religion, which is why estimates, even by its own followers, of the number of its U.S. adherents vary widely between one and five million. The religion's clandestine nature was also a point of contention during the lawsuit. At trial, the city asked Merced if its health officials could witness a sacrifice to determine if it violated Euless' ordinances prohibiting animal cruelty, the possession of livestock and the disposal of animal remains, but Merced said only initiated priests were permitted to see one. The exclusion of outsiders stems from the long history of persecution Santería's followers suffered. Santería came to Cuba from West Africa during the slave trade centuries ago, a peculiar melding of the Yoruba religious traditions of captured slaves and the Catholicism of their masters. Slaves were forbidden from practicing their indigenous beliefs, so they hid that practice from their oppressors, adopting the names of Catholic saints for their Orishas (Saint Peter for Ogun, for example) whose divine intervention they could call upon when seeking protection, health and wisdom.
But tonight, Merced has had enough of secrecy. The litigation has taken a toll on his physical appearance. He looks heavier, grayer, worn out. The national media generated by the case, however, has left him more comfortable with the presence of strangers in his house, even with local news trucks parked in his front yard. And this evening Merced is allowing his first nonbeliever to witness an animal sacrifice.
"I'm going to let her see one and that's it," he says, standing in front of a long, flowing curtain concealing the entrance to his shrine. He is unwilling to listen to any who oppose the outsider observing the ceremony. Some in the shrine raise their eyebrows but return to the task at hand. They figure Merced's deities are in control today. If he's allowing the Orishas to be seen by a nonbeliever, then the gods must be OK with it.
Merced has recently disregarded other premonitions of danger. Three days earlier in his home, he held a séance for Nevarez in preparation for her priestly initiation. Ten members, all wearing white, gathered inside his converted garage, now a spare kitchen. On top of a white tablecloth sat a crucifix, prayer books, pencils, paper and a fishbowl of water—there to cleanse the spirits from negative to positive. Hanging on the wall were decorative hollowed-out gourds, painted in primary colors to represent a handful of the 60 or so Orishas in Santería. In one corner sat a life-size female black doll dressed in a flowing skirt and bandanna, a half-empty bottle of rum and lighted candles placed nearby.
One of the Santeros at the table knotted his face, his expression troubled. He began to grunt and take short breathes, acting possessed by the spirit, which came alive through him and asked for some rum. A woman handed him a gourd brimming with white Bacardi. As he gulped the rum, he walked hastily toward Merced.
This was a negative spirit, and it had a message: It would be best for Merced to leave the area or send everybody away from his home and remain alone.
Merced folded his arms defensively across his chest. Time and again, throughout his legal troubles, lawyers, neighbors, friends and even Santeros had proposed he do the same. Why didn't he just leave Euless? Worship somewhere else? Why come out and create so much controversy when he could just keep things secret and live in peace like the others? To Merced, this spirit represented an insult to everything he had accomplished.
"How dare you?" accused Merced, reminding the spirit that it was "immaterial"—and in Merced's house. "I don't have to go anywhere. I'm going to keep up the fight."

----

Jose Merced never intended to be the face of Santería in North Texas, although he might argue that it was his fate.
He grew up in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and recalls his childhood as happy and stable—that is, until his father left the family. Merced, at 12, felt abandoned and grew physically ill, developing a sharp, chronic pain in his stomach and intestines. A medical doctor suggested exploratory surgery, but his mother wouldn't hear of it.
She had grown up in a home where regular séances took place between family members. When pregnant with Jose, a stranger stopped her in a shoe store and told her she would give birth to a male child on April 20 who would possess the gift of spirituality. Merced was born on April 19 and early on became intrigued with the spiritual realm.
After Merced became ill, he asked his mother to bring him to a woman his mother had been seeing for private spiritual readings. Even without him mentioning it, the woman told him about his intestinal pains and his nightmares. Hoping she could cure him, Merced began attending weekly séances at her home. Many of those attending wore colorful, beaded necklaces, and he asked the woman how he could get some. She told him those who wore the necklaces were followers of Santería, and he could only get them when he needed them, not when he wanted them. A year and a half later, she did a reading for him with the deities of Santería and told him it was time.
At 14, he donned his collares—necklaces that represented the protection granted by the Orishas. For a short while, Merced, who weighed 210 pounds, began to feel better, but it didn't last. "Spirits also can bother you when you're not knowing or understanding what it is you come in life to do," he now explains.
The woman became his godmother in Santería, and she continued to treat him with herbal potions and spiritual readings. Over the next 18 months, he lost 60 pounds and had good months as well as bad.
Finally, Merced says that the Orishas spoke through the woman and told her that the only way to make his pain disappear was to get initiated as a priest. Merced was ready, but the ceremony was expensive, $3,000, and he didn't have enough money. For a year after graduating high school, Merced saved up, working as a clerk for the Puerto Rico Department of Education in San Juan. By early 1979, with his mother's help, he had saved enough money, though he still had no idea what to expect.
He had helped with other initiations at his godmother's house but was never allowed inside the shrine-room. "I saw the animals going in alive and coming out dead," Merced recalls. But he had no idea why. He helped by cleaning or cutting up the meat or plucking chicken feathers. Sometimes he would ask the people outside the room what was happening inside. "And when you asked something, all they answered was, 'It is a secret.' If you're not crowned [a priest], you're not supposed to know. So when I went in to my ceremony, I didn't have a clue."
On the day of his initiation, he was called inside the shrine and told to keep his eyes closed. Four hours later, he was dressed in regal-looking robes, his head completely shaven. Later he was told he had been possessed by his Orisha, but he remembered nothing.
After the crowning ceremony, it was time for the animal sacrifice. As the animals were brought in, he was told to touch his head to the animal's head and its hooves to other areas of his body. The animal was absorbing his negativity. He had to chew pieces of coconut, swallowing the juice but spitting the coconut meat into the animal's ear.
He would later learn that this was necessary for the "the exchange ceremony," which came next. The pieces of coconut represented Merced's message—his thoughts, feelings, needs—which were transferred to the goat for direct passage to Olofi. His physical contact with the animal was also symbolic of his commitment to God. As soon as the animal's blood was spilled, Merced's negativity, which had been absorbed by the goat, was released. The purified blood then spilled into the pots.
Shortly after the initiation, he says his stomach pains subsided. "I never, ever have felt again the same pain that I used to feel before," he says.
Although he had little contact with his father, a nonbeliever, he invited him to his divination readings two days later. His father also visited him at his mother's house immediately after the seven-day ceremony concluded. Merced was wearing all-white, his head shaved clean, and his father insisted this was all his mother's doing—she was the one who had become a priestess a year earlier. His father demanded he end these religious practices and join the National Guard like he had. Merced told him, no: He had become a priest for health reasons, and he refused to let him shake his faith, particularly after his father had been so uninvolved in his life for so long.
If his father had learned anything from the divination readings, he would know what the Orishas had in store for his son. The priest had told him he would travel the world. He told him he would become a priest who would initiate others. And he told him that people would have reason to remember his name.

----

The first year of his priesthood was a difficult one. At the department of education, many of his co-workers would shoot him strange, even hostile glances when he wore his necklace and dressed in the all-white attire his religion required him to wear in the year following his intiation.
In 1989, he learned about a job opening with a commercial airline, and the next year he began to work for the company in Dallas. The work was good, but his spiritual life suffered.
He didn't know any Santeros here and removed his necklaces to avoid drawing attention to himself. "I didn't want people to know [about my religion]," Merced says. "That's hiding. And I lived hiding for a long, long time."
A closet in his apartment in Euless served as the shrine for his Orishas, which he had brought in cloth bags when he first traveled from Puerto Rico to Dallas.
A year after the move, he bought his first home and dedicated an entire room to his deities. Using the Yellow Pages, he located a botanica (a spiritual supply store) on West Jefferson and felt brave enough to introduce himself as a Santero. Here he would find others who shared his beliefs.
Over the years, he would become godfather to at least 500 followers and initiate at least 17 priests. As these new priests went out into the community and gave out necklaces to their own godchildren, Merced's own house grew. He estimates that today there are close to 1,000 believers in his Santería community.
As Merced grew more confident in his job and in himself, he stopped hiding his religion to outsiders and would tell them about it when asked. He took the same approach in his personal life. And in 2002, when his boyfriend, Michael, decided to take his last name, their commitment to each other seemed a natural progression. "This is me," Jose says. "And everyone will accept me for what I am."
In 2002 Merced moved into the house he currently owns in Euless, but it wasn't until 2004 that he started attracting the attention of the authorities. On September 4, Euless police and animal control officials showed up unannounced at his home. An anonymous caller had complained that goats were being illegally slaughtered in his backyard. When the authorities arrived, Merced was in the middle of a sacrificial ceremony inside his shrine. The police told him to stop—that if he didn't they would fine him or arrest him. But the animal control officer intervened: Merced was allowed to continue the ritual and would not be arrested, at least not that day.
The incident was only the beginning of a lengthy legal struggle that would thrust this otherwise private man into the national spotlight.
In May 2006, authorities again appeared at Merced's home, responding to a neighbor's complaint that he was preparing to kill goats. But Merced and a friend were just sitting outside, celebrating another Santero's birthday with a beer and a cigarette. Merced invited the authorities to search his backyard for goats. Only two small dogs came running.
Merced recalled what the police told him in court: "They said, well, if you're not doing it today, make sure you don't do it tomorrow, either, because you cannot do it." Shortly after the second complaint, Merced went to Euless City Hall and asked for a permit that would allow him to perform animal sacrifices. City staff said no such permit existed.
With the threat of arrest looming, Merced felt he had no choice but to sue. In December 2006, Merced, through his attorney John Wheat Gibson, sought an injunction in a Fort Worth federal court prohibiting Euless from preventing him from exercising his right to practice his religion. The suit alleged that the city had violated the First, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments as well as the Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Because his case was the first to invoke the act's protections, Judge John McBryde had no precedent upon which to rely.
During the one-day trial, Merced took the stand and told the judge: "I just want to practice my religion. I just want them to leave me alone as long as I'm not harming anybody or it's not a risk or causing damage to anybody in the neighborhood."
Merced and a defense expert testified that the location of initiation ceremonies was divined by Santería deities and that Merced's deities requested those ceremonies be held where they lived—in his home. But Merced also told the court that he had conducted initiation ceremonies outside of Euless—a fact the attorney representing Euless, William "Mick" McKamie, seized upon in his argument.
"When you're looking at the overall practice of the religion, that's one aspect of it [and] it can be practiced elsewhere," he contended. "Mr. Merced moved into this place where it was illegal instead of selecting a place that wasn't. And so he burdened himself."
The judge agreed that Merced's sacrifices could be performed outside of Euless and ruled against him. Gibson was convinced the decision was wrong—that McBryde was unable to rule in favor of a religion so alien to his own belief system.
"I think what happened in Euless is that we have people who don't understand what the Santeros are up to," Gibson says. "It's not that they're against dogma; it's just that this is the wrong dogma."
Merced took the decision as one more instance of people insisting he was the problem, and if he would only move, he would be free to practice his religion in peace. Outraged, he decided to appeal.
The case gained recognition, embraced by religious liberty lawyers who sought a more expansive interpretation of the Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
Enacted in 1999 under then-Governor George Bush, the TRFRA prevents Texas state and local governments from "substantially burdening" a person's free exercise of religion unless that government can show a compelling interest in doing so. The law was a reaction to a 1990 U.S. Supreme Court decision in a Native American peyote-use case, which held that the First Amendment did not prohibit the state of Oregon from banning the sacramental use of peyote through general criminal drug laws as long as they do not specifically target Native American religious ritual. It did say, however, that the legislative process could be employed to protect the free exercise of religion.
Congress took the court at its word and in 1993 passed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. But the Supreme Court fired back with a 1997 ruling that said it was unconstitutional to apply this federal law to the states. So at least 14 states, including Texas, took it upon themselves to pass similar laws protecting religious freedom.
First Amendment scholar Doug Laycock, a law professor at UT-Austin at the time the Legislature enacted the TRFRA, said its authors intended the law to be expansive and apply to all religions, even the ones "the Legislature has never heard of."
Laycock had successfully represented the Santería church before the Supreme Court in 1993 after the city of Hialeah, Florida, tried to ban the ritual killing of animals not for public consumption. The Hialeah City Council enacted the ban specifically targeting the Santería religion after it learned one of its churches had plans to locate within city limits. The high court saw this ordinance as being applied exclusively to Santería and held it an unconstitutional restriction on the free exercise of religion.
So when Merced decided to appeal his case, he called Laycock. But Laycock, now a law professor at the University of Michigan, had other obligations and couldn't take the case. He assured Merced he would find him representation. And fast. The deadline to appeal was approaching.
Laycock contacted Plano-based Liberty Legal Institute, a nonprofit First Amendment law firm with a history of advocating conservative causes. But the firm already had one TRFRA challenge before the Texas Supreme Court and didn't want to detract attention from it. The conservative 5th Circuit also had an abysmal track record when it came to religious liberty claims, especially those that had been adversely decided by its lower courts.
Within days of the deadline, Laycock found Eric Rassbach, the national litigation director at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty in Washington, D.C. Legal Liberty's director Hiram Sasser also helped Rassbach prepare for his oral arguments, stressing the importance of making the judges comfortable with animal sacrifice in the context of religious freedom. "That's always the hardest part about handling a case that involves weird facts," Sasser says. "Everybody has to understand that their religious freedom is tied together."
Rassbach hit that point hard during his arguments before a three-judge panel of the 5th Circuit, which on July 31 ruled in favor of Merced and ordered the lower court to issue an injunction against the city of Euless. The panel didn't decide the case on First Amendment grounds but rather on its interpretation of the TRFRA.
In an August 7 Wall Street Journal op-ed entitled "Why I Defend Goat Sacrifice," Rassbach praised the appellate court for championing religious freedom.
"The Court did not decide whether Mr. Merced's beliefs were right or wrong, orthodox or unorthodox," Rassbach wrote. "It simply held that as long as he is not endangering public health or safety, the government had to leave those beliefs up to him and his gods."

----

The litigation had taken its toll on Merced. His testimony and the media attention that followed brought many of Santería's secrets into the open and unnerved those devotees who saw its mystery as part of its theology as well as its enchantment.
He had written letters to the several hundred Santeros he had met over the years, asking each to contribute $100 to his legal defense fund. But many turned him down. Some were fearful that his case would reveal the secrets that gave power and meaning to their religion; others felt his case was his own personal crusade and not a cause for all who practice Santería. "They want to keep on hiding," Merced says, "which I don't understand."
Many of his co-workers at the airline started to give him strange looks, avoiding him altogether. But most painful was the disappearance from his life of friends unrelated to Santería, whom he had known for more than a decade.
They had visited his home many times for parties, but had never entered his backroom shine or the converted garage where he practiced. "See, it's not my business card saying, I'm Jose Merced, and I'm a Santero."
With the lawsuit, he also isolated himself. "I was just sharing with Santeros. I put shields up." One relationship grew stronger though, as he and his partner Michael completed the process of adopting a baby boy from Guatemala.
Suddenly his own father could read about him on the Internet or watch his interviews on CNN. After he won, his father wanted to know what the decision meant. "I didn't sue for money, I sued for religious rights," Merced told him. "It means that I can practice at home and they can't bother me...I made history."
Michael also saw the case as a huge victory for religious freedom and thinks the reaction from some in the Santería community is unjustified. "I would hope that this is a turning point for [them] not to be ashamed of the religion you believe in," he says. "[Jose] has to be commended. If it wasn't for him, who would fight?"
Doug Laycock hopes that with another win under its belt, the Santería community will feel more protected. "Now there're two decisions, and city attorneys will be more inclined to tell their clients they're just wasting their time and money."
That hasn't proven true, however, with the city of Euless. Even though the lower court issued its injunction on September 16, Euless' attorney McKamie sees the adverse ruling as a minor hiccup.
"We are going to look at our ordinances as they're written in light of the court's ruling and see if they can be rewritten," he says. "Also, we are going to coordinate with other state and county officials on the enforcement of their laws, not just city ordinances."
McKamie says he has seen Merced's property and does not think there's enough land there to keep and kill animals. "Oh my goodness, this is next door to homes! It's not like there's some kind of buffer zone there or anything...Keeping them inside a house, and killing them with blood and waste inside the house, that's a major league health problem."
McKamie is considering an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, convinced the 5th Circuit Court misinterpreted the TRFRA. "I think it was never intended to be perverted in this way." He is shocked that the court didn't find Euless' public health interests compelling enough to "burden" Merced's religious practices.  "How can you say the public health is not compelling? Protection of the public health is the definition of a compelling interest."
Several state statutes deal with the public health concerns of slaughtering animals in an urban setting. "It's not just something simple as 'Oh, trust me, I'm going to kill this animal correctly, and by the way, I'll double-bag it.' That's almost insulting it's so simplistic."
During the trial, McKamie raised the issue of animal cruelty, but the defense countered that the Santería method of animal sacrifice—cutting the carotid artery—was a humane way of slaughter. It would be difficult for the city to prove that killing animals in a ritualistic manner, such as the Jewish faith does, is crueler than killing animals in a slaughterhouse.
None of this will stop McKamie from exploring animal cruelty concerns as he retools his attack. But redrafting health, safety and zoning ordinances or convincing state and county authorities to investigate Merced for other violations smacks of targeting Santería and may run afoul of constitutional protections.
Merced insists he will keep practicing his religion openly, even at the risk of being threatened or arrested, or being shunned by followers and friends.

----

Merced throws back the long curtain at the shrine's entrance, for the first time allowing a non-believer to witness an animal sacrifice in his home. The ritual will mark the dramatic climax of the second day of Virginia Rosario-Nevarez's weeklong initiation.
Other Santeros are hard at work preparing the first animal. The men and women all wear white—hats, bandannas, shirts, skirts, pants, socks and shoes. Only Nevarez wears color—a yellow satin robe draped over a long skirt. Her head has been shaved, painted and adorned with a crown.
Merced disappears into another room, and then yells, "Ahí va el primero!"
The first goat, a black and white male, is carried to the shrine and placed on the white tile. A woman presents it to Nevarez, lifting its front legs into the air.
Nevarez leans forward and cups the goat's small head between her hands. She whispers into its right ear. Her lips move quickly.
The goat relieves itself on the shoes of the woman behind her. The mess is swept up and the goat is picked up—its front legs crossed with its rear to prevent it from struggling. A broad-shouldered man is handed the goat to hold.
On the floor in the middle of the room sits a group of Orishas, their physical presence represented by open pots containing shells and miniature axes, spears and carvings of roosters. Above these Orishas, the goat is suspended on its side, as the other Santeros retreat into the room's shadows.
The high priest (Babalawo) picks up a sharp blade and braces the head of the goat. He pinches the skin on its neck and brings the knife in close. He cuts its fur, letting its shavings fall onto the heads of the gods in anticipation of blood. As the Babalawo begins to sing a Yoruban song, his knife forcefully enters the goat's neck so its esophagus remains untouched. Blood collects on the blade and spills off its tip.
The broad-shouldered man holding the goat moves with the Babalawo as he feeds the Orishas, pouring blood into each container. The goat's tail continues to wag and the men and women begin to sing. After several minutes, the Babalawo lays the goat on the floor. He completely severs the goat's head and shakes its body over the Orishas to catch any remaining blood. He turns its head upside down and places it on the floor beside the Orishas.
Next, roosters and pigeons are brought in, and then another goat. The ceremony repeats itself for the next two hours until all 40 animals are killed.
After each Orisha is fed, the animal carcasses are taken to an enclosed patio where the remaining live animals are kept in separate cages before slaughter. Ten people are set up in stations here, skinning goats, plucking chickens, carving up body parts and separating meat from bone.
The smell of animal waste and flesh is strong on the patio. Merced would rather this be done outside, but he has yet to receive a copy of the injunction and wants its security before he risks offending his neighbors.
The next day calls for another long ceremony. Twice as many Orishas sit on the floor, with fruit, sweets and money baskets laid beside them as offerings. The Orishas are now covered by hollowed-out gourds brimming with cooked animal feet, legs and heads. The odor emanating from them is strong only up close and smells of fried skin and hair.
Nevarez seems rested today. "I feel very calm," she says. "It's a new life. The old ways are gone." She looks forward to being healed from what doctors could not cure. She holds her head proudly and relishes the formal greeting process, which has her blessing each visitor who enters the shrine.
After the greeting ceremony, musicians enter the shrine, followed by Santeros who dance to the beat of the drums and the songs sung by the Babalawo. In the kitchen the meat waits in pots, separated by the type of animal—goat, chicken and lamb—being prepared for a large feast.
From out of nowhere, a squad car pulls up in front of the house and waits. Merced rushes outside, pointing to his neighbor's house. A Euless police officer explains he received an anonymous call over his radio—something about a blocked driveway. Merced turns to the driveway of his next-door neighbor, whom he suspects has been the anonymous caller all along, and notices a car has blocked its entrance, just slightly.
The police officer seems friendly enough. "I'll tell you what my call screen says." He reads from it: "Vehicle white truck blocking drive way. People in backyard have been chanting all day and all night and have been known to sacrifice animals."
Merced throws his head back and laughs. He invites the officer to look for himself and when he approaches the house, the musicians stop playing. But Merced urges them to continue. In the meantime, he leads the officer inside the house and straight to the shrine. "The police came to visit!" Merced announces. "Say hi!"
Nevarez, unsure of how to react, lifts her hands and folds them diagonally across her chest in ceremonial greeting. The officer looks at the shelves of pots and the new priestess, and squeezes himself back outside.
"It's different," the officer says to Merced, as they tour the backyard in search of animals. "You know how people are with different. They just don't like different."
The officer is satisfied and returns to his squad car, driving away. Merced glances toward his neighbor's house. "If they're trying to put pressure on me in order to get me out of here," he says, shaking his head. "I'm not moving."