Good morning,

Does God like poking fun at tyrants? Michael Quinn Sullivan will return to the Texas Minute on Monday. But while in Israel this week, he prepared this week's Friday Reflection exploring that idea of subversive humor.

This is the Texas Minute for Friday, July 19, 2024.

– Sydnie Henry

Texas and New Mexico Lawmakers Push Back Against Federal Land Grab

• As the federal government puts private land along the Texas-New Mexico border in the crosshairs of acquisition, current and former lawmakers from both states are uniting against the land grab. Will Biagini has the latest. 
    

• The Land Protection Plan aims to seize 700,000 acres of private land in the Southern High Plains region and put it under federal control. The plan is also a part of the Biden administration’s since-rebranded "30×30" initiative, which schemes to federalize 30 percent of the country’s land and oceans by the year 2030. 
   

• "I think there’s cause for concern for this particular initiative by the federal government." - Republican U.S. Rep. Jodey Arrington (TX-19) 
   

• American Stewards of Liberty is hosting a landowners' meeting in Littlefield, Texas, on July 25 with Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller. The property rights organization argues that the key to stopping the federal land grab is educating the grassroots about the problem. Anyone is welcome to attend.

Abbott and Cruz Rally for Trump at RNC, Emphasize Border Security

• In a primetime speech Wednesday night, Gov. Greg Abbott used his platform as the leader of the largest border state to underscore the necessity of strong leadership in the face of the crisis at the southern border. Brandon Waltens has the rundown. 
    
• Abbott didn’t mince words when describing the individuals crossing the border under Biden’s policies, saying, "Biden has welcomed into our country rapists, murderers, even terrorists."
   
• "Never before has an election mattered so much," said U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz. "We’re facing an invasion on our southern border. Not figuratively. A literal invasion. 11.5 million people have crossed our border illegally under Joe Biden."
   
• "America needs a President who will secure our border. America needs Donald J. Trump." - Greg Abbott  

Denton ISD Admin Delays Criminal Electioneering Case Again

• Delays continue to bog down a ground-breaking criminal electioneering case initiated by local voters against two Denton Independent School District administrators who urged their staff to vote in the Republican primary for anti-school choice candidates. Erin Anderson has the latest case update. 
    
• The administrators, Lindsay and Jesus Lujan, sent the political messages using the district’s taxpayer-funded email system.
   
• Lindsay Lujan had a court date set for Wednesday morning in a Denton County criminal court, but her case was rescheduled for a third time. Court records show she is now scheduled for a plea hearing on August 14.
   
• Following their indictment, arraignments for the Lujans were originally scheduled for May 13 but were reset for June, and then delayed again until July. 
   
• Jesus Lujan’s case in the Denton County criminal court is set for July 30, but that will likely be rescheduled as well.
   
• The cases against the Lujans mark the first time Texas school officials have been criminally prosecuted for using district resources to electioneer.

Orlando Salinas Ran for School Board, Then the School Police Came for Him

• In part two of the latest investigative series on Round Rock ISD's police department, Robert Montoya reports former Round Rock ISD school board candidate Orlando Salinas was told to leave while campaigning in the parking lot outside a district stadium. 
    
• The Round Rock ISD police wanted him and the other candidates—also challenging incumbent school board members—to leave. Salinas and the others asked the police why they had to leave. "At some point one of the officers, and I forget who, said it was the superintendent who wanted us out of there, and the superintendent had been told by board members to get us out of the parking lot and to make us stop doing what we were doing," Salinas said.
   
• This story was referenced in the June 2023 investigative report of the Round Rock ISD police from the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement (TCOLE) covered in part one of this investigative series. 
   
• The weaponization of the school police force against school board candidates crystallized in Salinas’ mind the danger of school districts even having such a force. 

Lt. Gov. Patrick Forms Committee to Scrutinize Utility Companies’ Preparedness for Hurricane Beryl

• Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has formed a special committee in the Texas Senate to review electrical companies’ preparedness and responses to Hurricane Beryl. Luca Cacciatore has the details. 
   
• Patrick announced that State Sen. Charles Schwertner (R-Georgetown) will chair the committee investigating the delayed response of some electric utility giants in Southeast Texas.
    
• "Texans are rightfully upset with the overwhelming failure of electric utility companies to restore power in a timely fashion following Hurricane Beryl," stated Patrick. "The electric utility companies’ failure cannot be tolerated, especially when it was so obvious a storm was headed toward Texas."

Friday Reflection
Laughing at Legion

We have a blasphemously sour image of God. His detractors have long encouraged us to think of the Creator of Heaven and Earth as a cosmic killjoy. But that’s not the God of Isaac and Abraham. From Scripture, it is readily apparent that the Almighty delights in His creation… and wants us to find humor in it, as well.

You’ll see this on Friday, but I’m writing it on Tuesday under the shade of a tree at the ancient archeological site known as Hippos, rising up from the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee.

Given the events in Pennsylvania last weekend and the ongoing events in the Middle East, a reflection on divine humor might seem out of place. But I think God gave us a sense of humor precisely to get through dark and troubled times.

So, let me tell you about Hippos (that’s the Greek name, also called Sussita in Aramaic, both mean “horse”).

It was founded by Greeks in the second century B.C. By the time the Romans took control of the region from the Hasmoneans, it and nine other Hellenistic cities were known as the Decapolis. They were organized into the Roman Provincia Syria.

Hippos was a Roman city-state overlooking the Galilee region. By housing the Roman legion, it represented the reality that Judea was no longer a self-governing people.

Directly across the lake from me, and visible even through today’s hazy weather, is Tiberias, a relatively new city in that it was formed in 20 A.D. by Herod Antipas and named for the Roman emperor Tiberius. This city represented those Jews in the ruling elite who wanted to get past religion and accommodate their Roman betters but with their own cultural distinctiveness… or whatever it took to keep power in the area’s day-to-day affairs.

To the north, almost halfway around the lake, are the remains of the city of Capernaum, the base of Jesus’ ministry and home to many of his original followers. Not coincidentally, it was the base of many of the Jewish zealots who were eager to overthrow Roman rule.

So going counter-clockwise around the lake is the embodiment of Rome at 4 o’clock, the revolutionary zealots at not quite 12, and the accommodating self-servers at 8.

Whether you were a zealot or an accommodator, Hippos was the wrong neighborhood for a Jew.

And so, of course, this is very likely where we find Jesus and His disciples in a familiar story told in Mark 5 and Luke 8. The city isn’t named in the gospel accounts, but the recent archeology here in Hippos checks out.

You might recall that Jesus came across a demon-possessed man, who had been living among the tombs. The demon, speaking through the man, begged not to be “tormented” by Jesus. When Jesus asks the demon’s name, the response is that the demon isn’t a singular but a plural, many demons. They answered, “Legion, for we are many.”

Jesus allows the demons to leave the man and enter a herd of pigs—which then ran over the cliff, to their death on the rocks below.

Too many of us go straight for the spiritual aspects of this passage, skipping past the humorous subversiveness of it.

Remember, this was Rome’s main military outpost in the region set in place to suppress Jewish dissidents. And don’t forget: pork was a mainstay of the Roman military’s diet.

So when word spread that Jesus sent demons named Legion out of a man and into a herd of unclean beasts, which in turn committed mass suicide, it would not have endeared Him to the occupying Romans.

Scripture tells us that the townspeople who witnessed the event were terrified. They begged Jesus to leave. But, for good measure, Jesus sent the formerly possessed man back into the city where he was known to tell them about the miracle God had done.

The zealots might have wondered why Jesus didn’t just vanquish the Romans, but He instead demonstrated the path that the cultural rot of Rome would follow without repenting and putting their faith in God.

You can imagine the embarrassment the ruling elite in Tiberias and Jerusalem would have felt at such displays of evangelical zeal.

But, come on, demon-possessed Roman pigs committing mass suicide—I don’t care who you are, that’s funny all by itself. Frankly, the likely reactions from all three groups of power-hungry people make me laugh. They just don’t get Jesus.

Tyrannical regimes and would-be potentates never have a sense of humor—but our loving God most clearly does. More importantly, God is always willing to save us where we are.

We must never forget that Jesus came as a liberator, even if not exactly in the way the people of His day or ours would prefer.

A final thought. The subversiveness of that story doesn’t end, of course. As Israel was occupied by the Romans, so all of us are held captive by sin. Through Jesus, the sins that enslave us—like those demon-infested swine—will be dashed on the rocks and washed away.

And that thought should make us smile with great joy—especially in times like these.

Quote-Unquote

"There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters."

– Daniel Webster