Biography
Dr. Richard Halverson is the Chaplain of the United States Senate. He was previously pastor of the Fourth Presbyterian Church in Bethesda, Maryland. Dick is deeply involved in the International Prayer Breakfast movement and is a much sought-after speaker at ecumenical events. In spite of that, he has somehow found time to write a dozen very meaningful books. [Biographical information is correct as of the broadcast date noted above.]  

"Name of Names" 
I would like to begin with a few verses of scripture which seem as critical as ever at this particular time in the life of our nation and the world. I'm amazed that on Monday, September 25, two hundred years ago, the Bill of Rights became law in the United States. We've enjoyed the freedom which is given us by the Bill of Rights for two hundred years now. Communism, with its godless government, began seventy years ago and we're geeing its governments collapse all over the world. Meanwhile, almost every evening on television we see thousands and thousands of men and women from China, Eastern Europe, and other communist nations, demanding the freedom that we have enjoyed in the United States for two hundred years. We ought to be profoundly grateful for that.

It seems to me that one of the keys to understanding our greatness is right here in the scripture I would like to read. It is from the second chapter of Paul's letter to the Philippians. "Have this mind among yourselves, which you have in Christ Jesus, who, though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form He humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross."

Here we see the most amazing divestiture in human history - the coming of Jesus from the very divine personhood that He had enjoyed for eternity, not only to be a human being but a servant, not only a servant, but to the on the cross as a common criminal. In Jesus' day the cross was the worst form of capital punishment. A Roman citizen could not the by crucifixion no matter what his crime. It was the most infamous way to die, the most infamous form of capital punishment. The One who was in the form of God throughout all eternity emptied Himself, not thinking that something to be grasped, became a human being a servant - and as a servant, submitted himself in obedience to the Heavenly Father, to death on the cross.

Think about that. That's absolutely incredible! Notice the Apostle Paul is telling us that this is the way for us to think. Obviously, this is entirely opposite to the way we think in our culture today. We talk about upward mobility. We want to move, up, up, up, up, up. This is not against upward mobility. But, is thinking this way really the way to upward mobility that is meaningful and fulfilling? Thinking the way Jesus Christ thinks is the way to one's full potential. That's what we are told to do; to think the way He thought. Notice please, that though He was equal with God, He did not think this something to be grasped. Somehow I feel that this closed-fist grasping is kind of typical of our culture today. You can call it greed. You can name it a lot of other things - lust - but grasping.

When I was in the South Pacific many years ago, I learned that they have a very clever way of trapping monkeys. They simply put a banana in a narrow-neck jar and tie the jar to a palm tree. The monkey finds the banana, reaches into the jar to get hold of it, and will not let go. The trapper can return an hour, twenty-four hours or a week later and the monkey will be there. He will be making a lot of noise. He'll be jumping up and down. He'll be doing everything he can to get release, but he is trapped because he will not let go of the banana. How many things have trapped you because you grasped them?

Another story comes to mind. The story of the little boy who got his hand in a very expensive vase. His mother tried her best to get his hand out of the vase with no success. Finally, the father tried. When he could not succeed, he said,"Well, I guess we're going to have to break the vase." The little boy said, "Daddy, will it help if I let go of the penny?"

That's a picture of a grasping culture, a grasping civilization, trapped by what we will not let go of. But, you notice when I grasp I put a fist in another's face. When I let go, I offer a hand of friendship. Besides which, when I let go of what I'm grasping, I have room to receive whatever is worthy of receiving, and it's always better than what I have been grasping.

Paul the Apostle says, "This is the way to think. If you want fullness of life, if you want maturity in life, if you want to achieve your full potential, this is the way to think." It's the very opposite of the way we tend to think.

There is a wonderful verse in Isaiah which preoccupied me my last years as pastor of Fourth Presbyterian Church. When I would prepare my messages for Sunday, it seemed like this verse hung over me like a cloud. As I got up to preach in the morning, it was as if it were projected on a screen at the back of the sanctuary. Here's the text: "'My thoughts are not your thoughts. Neither are my ways your ways,' saith the Lord, ‘but as high as the heavens are above the earth, so high are my ways above your ways and my thoughts above your thoughts.'"

If words mean anything, the human way of thinking is exactly opposite to God's way. When we're thinking with human wisdom, our thinking is in inversion. When we're walking the human way, we're walking away from God in the opposite direction and every step takes us farther away from God. What Paul is saying to us here, and incidentally the Bible is filled with it, is to think the way Jesus thought: obedience to God, identifying Himself with God's will, doing whatever God told Him to do. That is the way of fulfillment.

I have a very dear friend in Oklahoma City. He is now a successful developer. When I first met him as a young man in 1956, he had the ambition of reaching the top -- that's the way he described it. He looked for ways to get to the top of the ladder. His father had a large development company in Oklahoma City which he finally inherited and is still managing. He told us that as he studied the men who had reached the top, he saw at the top of the ladder divorce, alcoholism, suicide and all kinds of disappointment.

In other words, life was meaningless at the top.

Jesus tells us the way to go, the way to think. Let go and allow God to govern your life and lead you in His way. Paul concludes the passage that I started with these verses: "Therefore, God has highly exalted Him and given Him a name that is above every name. That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and things under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."

Jesus. Savior. Call His name "Jesus" for He will save His people from their sins. "Jesus," the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew word "Y'Shua," Jehovah saves. "Christ," the Greek equivalent of Messiah in the Hebrew. Jesus, Savior, Christ, Messiah, Lord.

When the Old Testament was translated into Greek fran the Hebrew about two hundred years before Christ, they came to this word which was God Is name - the name that He gave to Moses when Moses was about to deliver Israel from Egypt and said, "When I go to Israel, whom shall I say sent me?" God's answer was, "I AM that I am. Tell them I AM sent thee." Now I AM in Hebrew, is Yahweh. We've anglicized it to Jehovah. It's a devout word. A devout Jew will not even pronounce the word. God's special name. I AM, as He spoke it to His people.

Now when they came to that word in the Old Testament, and these were Jewish translators, what word were they going to use in the Greek? They took a word that could be used only for Caesar - the Greek word "kyrios" -- Lord. They translated Yahweh, "Kyrios" - Lord. Here's Paul saying, Jesus, Savior, Christ, Messiah, Lord, Jehovah God. Think about it - the Jewish carpenter - Jesus.

When Jesus entered history by way of a virgin's womb, He lived in obscurity for thirty years. Then for three brief years, He had a public ministry. He ended that ministry by the ignominious death on the cross as a common criminal. By any of our standards, if you would measure the life of Jesus up to the cross, you would have to say He was a total failure. All of His friends abandoned Him. He was friendless and alone on the cross. But three days later, He arose from the dead and spent forty days in His resurrected body with His disciples. This became their message everywhere: "Risen from the dead." You see, death was not the end and death was not the victory for evil. Death was the victory for righteousness. This is the way God works in our lives. When we give death to evil, the righteousness of God can manifest itself in our lives. Jesus won the victory as He died on the cross. You will recall that He cried out from the cross. "Finished." As far as I know, He's the only man who ever lived that finished the task which He had come to do, which was to be the Savior of the world, the Savior of mankind. This Jesus, this Jewish carpenter, living in obscurity, never owned a home, never had a family, never did any of the things that we commonly think are important in our culture. Yet, look where Jesus is today.

Some months ago I asked a young man who works in my office in Washington if he would call the Library of Congress and ask them how many books have been written about Jesus. He reported this back to me: Wen he asked the question of one of the librarians, the librarian laughed and then quoted from the last verse of the Gospel of John: "If everything that Jesus said and did were written in a book, I suppose the world could not contain them." Then he added, "You know, we don't have a computer system that can collate the books that have been written about Jesus Christ."

I was talking with a friend of mine who works in the Library of Congress at a wedding reception following that. I told him about this experience. He said this to me, "You know, if we had asked the computer how many books were written about Jesus Christ, the computer probably would have said, 'Would you rephrase the question, please."'

Think about this: A Jewish carpenter, 33, died an ignominious death as a common criminal by the worst kind of capital punishment in that day. The books that have been written about him cannot be contained in the world - millions of titles about Jesus. He entered history to obey His Heavenly Father. He entered history as a servant, even if it meant death.

I have been working around leadership for a long time. We call our national leaders "public servants" -- sometimes they are, sometimes they aren't. The way to real greatness is servanthood. Jesus said, "If one would be great, let him be everybody's servant. He that exalts himself shall be abased. He that humbles himself shall be exalted." The very opposite of the way of human thinking. But, that's God's way of thinking. God says, "My thoughts are not your thoughts, my ways are not your ways, but as high as the heavens are above the earth, so are my thoughts above yours and my ways above yours."

What we are told here by the Apostle Paul is to think this way. Think the way Jesus thinks. I'm telling you, you'll never make a mistake.

One of the great senators that I've admired for many years - I met him first in 1956 - was the patriarch in the Senate when he retired at the end of the Hundredth Congress last year, John Stennis of Mississippi. He was speaking to a group of junior senators, just elected, just getting ready to enter the Senate to be sworn in. He said to them, "You know, some people come to the Senate and they grow. Others just swell." When you think the human way of thinking, you swell and bloat. You become too important. When you think the way God thinks, you grow. Thinking the way God thinks is the way to true fulfillment.

Paul said this message, "I preach to everyone I can. I warn everyone I can. I teach everyone I can that I may bring everyone to his/her full potential in Christ." Paul also said, "In Christ dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. You are fulfilled, completed, perfected, matured in Him." Thinking the way Jesus thought is the way to total fulfillment as a person. Thinking the way Jesus thought is the way of arriving at your full potential as God created you to be.

There is a wonderful text in Colossians. It has been one of my favorites. Paul gives this tremendous description of Jesus Christ. He says this, "All things were made by Him and for Him." The prepositions are important: by Him, for Him. Every thing that exists was made by Jesus Christ. He is the Creator God. Every thing that exists was made for Christ.

I know that I was made by Christ for Christ. I didn't know that until I was twenty years old. I had gone to Hollywood seeking a career in motion pictures, and the theater. I had been on the stage from the time I was ten. The stage, the drama, the theater filled by life. Then I met Christ and I learned that thinking His way is the way to true fulfillment. I learned that He had made me for Himself. Over fifty years ago, I gave myself to Jesus Christ, to think His thoughts after Him, to allow Him to think his thoughts in me. Having been made by Christ for Christ, I wouldn't trade my life for anything I can imagine. By the way, I commend Him to you. I commend His way of thinking to you. God bless you.

Interview with Richard Halverson
Interviewed by David Hardin

David Hardin: Dick, when you took aver the j ob as Senate Chaplain nine years ago, what was your biggest surprise?

Richard Halverson: First of all, I had no idea what to expect. I knew the former Chaplain, and Peter Marshall was my hero. The film and the book about him made the chaplaincy kind of well known, if not famous. To be honest with you, I think I wanted to be a Peter Marshall. The biggest surprise was that I immediately became conscious of my absolute powerlessness as a person. Here I was in a place of great power and I had no power at all. I also discovered to my surprise that being a pastor in a totally secular environment is quite different from being a pastor in the environment of a church. Nothing can be assumed. Nothing is the same. I would say those were the two greatest surprises. Actually, I went home night after night for weeks feeling like a mascot.

Hardin: Well, with this feeling of powerlessness, nevertheless, what is the most important part of your job as it evolved?

Halverson: Well, I believe that my most important responsibility is to be a servant pastor to everybody who works on the Senate side of Capitol Hill, that's about six thousand people. I am there not just for the senators and their families but for the food service people, the maintenance people, the security people, the elevator operators, etc. I spend a lot of time walking around the corridors, never in a hurry, always ready to stop at anyone's place, and let them share with me anything that is hurting them. Then, maybe, having prayer, but simply serving them as a pastor.

Hardin: Maybe I should ask this of your wife, Doris, but what is the most difficult part of this job?

Halverson: Well, Dave, I'm a pastor. I've been a pastor for more than fifty years. So I see everything with a perception of a pastor. Because I listen to as much debate as I can and spend as much time on the floor as I can, I am privy to all of the problems domestic and international - whether it's drugs, the subject we have been debating lately, the budget, prayer in the schools or abortion. You name it. I am privy to all of those things simply because I'm there and I listen to the debate.

Hardin: What is the rewarding side of all this for you?

Halverson: The rewarding side is that I really take seriously my responsibility as a pastor. Most of the burdens, problems and needs are the same as they are anywhere else, even in a church. But, they are always under such pressure in that place of power that you see these things more clearly and have a greater opportunity to respond.

Hardin: You unavoidably have feelings about these issues. You see certain solutions as a person - we all would. You have certain ideas. You must have to bite your tongue at times. Do you ever get drawn into political issues?

Halverson: You know, David, that really has not been a problem. In the first place, by nature I'm apolitical. I'm simply the antithesis of a political animal. I love people, so no matter whether they are Republican or Democrat, whether they are liberal, conservative or moderate, whoever they are, whatever they are, I find I respond with love. I've learned to love the senators, their families and everybody that works in the Senate side. This is not a problem for me. By the way, my biggest problem is people who think I should be there as a kind of lobbyist. I guess they assume that the Chaplain's position is almost an ideal position to influence legislation. I have no obligation to do that. I have never felt that. My job is to serve them as pastor.

Hardin: Do these people get along better than they seem to at times? You see them debating and yelling at each other. Behind the scenes are they a little more cordial?

Halverson: Really, the atmosphere of the Senate is like a big family. It was one of the first things that kind of amazed me. It didn't come immediately. There is a marvelous morale in the Senate. They are like lawyers who fight each other in court and then have lunch together. The very fact that they are politicians, I think, means that they are not thin-skinned. They don't take things personally. They are dealing with issues and they do not confront each other personally. When that happens occasionally, almost immediately one senator will cross the floor to the other and, whatever they do, ask forgiveness. They have wonderful friendships across the aisle and in every way.

Hardin: We are all very conscious of this issue of separating church and state. It's an integral part of our structure. You are a kind of bridge between church and state, a unique bridge. What do you have to be careful about in recognizing this reality?

Halverson: I really don't feel any responsibility about that. First of all, they have always had chaplains in the Senate and the House. When the office is challenged, as it has been many times even since I've been there in the last nine years, the response by the defense is this, that the same men who wrote the First Amendment had chaplains in the House and the Senate. So whatever their intention was, which is what the courts are after, they didn't intend not to have chaplains. That pretty much settles it.

Hardin: What is your dream for our country and how we should be going? Give us just a few thoughts on that.

Halverson: I mentioned in my message the collapse of the godless governments all over the world and the incredible perseverance of our way of freedom. What I am dreaming is that somehow Americans will wake up and realize that the basis, the foundation for that freedom, is Biblical and spiritual. They wrote in the Declaration of Independence, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights."

Hardin: It's a great way to finish, Dick. It's been a real pleasure having you with us. Thank you.