did someone whistle? I couldn't hear it.

It's amazing how many layers of meaning you can pack into a little sermon if you know what you're doing. I know: sermons are my stock in trade. And they're also the primary arsenal for aw-shucks just-plain-folks evangelical Republican Mike Huckabee, who stumped for John McCain at the Republican National Convention with a speech that made my jaw drop.

Let me explain why. Excerpts of Huckabee's homily follow, in fine sermon style; toward the end of his speech, he pulled out a seemingly-unrelated story, then called forth a moral and a theme, and then wove that theme back into his prior subject matter, the imperative to vote for the McCain-Palin ticket. The first parts of his oration are basically irrelevant boilerplate about how Barack Obama hugs terrorists and blushingly gives them boxes of candy. And then he gets into the oft-told tale of McCain's capture and torture, following with remarks about McCain's efforts to lift his arms and how he gave for us, so we should all be grateful. That's when Huckabee slides smoothly into Sermontown:

Allow me to tell you about someone who understands this type of sacrifice better than anyone.

McCain? No, not yet: a schoolteacher who is in no way a stand-in for Sarah Palin, a young woman who overcomes doubt and skepticism to teach people about how we ought to be more grateful to veterans like a certain J.M.

On the first day of school in 2005, Martha Cothren, a teacher at Joe T. Robinson High School in Little Rock, was determined that her students would not take their education or their privilege as Americans for granted. With the principal's permission, she removed all the desks from her classroom. The students entered the empty room and asked, "Mrs. Cothren, where are our desks?" "You get a desk when you tell me how you earn it," she replied.

And this is where, reading this aloud, I said suddenly to my partner, Oh, I hope this doesn't go where I think it's about to go. If you've spent much time in evangelical circles or surrounded by them, you'll know what I'm talking about any moment. The golden question of the moment is: how, Teacher? How do we earn our place in...the classroom?

"Making good grades?" asked one student.
"You ought to make good grades, but that won't get you a desk," Martha responded.
"I guess we have to behave," offered another.
"You WILL behave in my class," Mrs. Cothren retorted, "but that won't get you a desk either."

Being good won't earn it for you, see. You're required to work hard and succeed and follow the rules in order to show you're among the people who have a right to a desk, but there's nothing you can do--no action, no works--that can earn the desk for you. Listen to the Teacher--there's a price for the desks you can't pay. They'll be apportioned according to some other criterion. Getting warmer?

No one in first period guessed right. Same for second period. By lunch, the buzz was all over campus... Mrs. Cothren had flipped out ....wouldn't let her students have a desk. Kids had used their cell phones and called their parents. By early afternoon, all 4 of the local network TV affiliates had camera crews at the school to report on the teacher who wouldn't let her students have a desk unless they could tell her how they earned it. By the final period, no one had guessed correctly. As the students filed in, Martha Cothren said, "Well, I didn't think you would figure it out, so I'll have to tell you."

Now, this is sermon-ese for "I am about to use this character as a stand-in for a moment while she (I) hammers home the big arrow-shaped sign toward my point--her point--you know." I'm a preacher at heart, you may have noticed, and I know these things. It helps that the character is beleaguered by parents and media who don't understand, sort of like teachers who push Creationism in schools, or like unpopular political leaders we know are really misunderstood maverick heroes doing what they have to to get a message across. She'll try novel things, that teacher who isn't Sarah Palin, in order to show you the light. Nobody can comprehend the answer on their own, after all. They need someone to spell it out for them, because there's no way any of these lowly mortal students can think their way to a desk, either. It's almost like those desks stand for something all metaphor-like.

Martha opened the door of her classroom. In walked 27 veterans, some wearing uniforms from years gone by, but each one carrying a school desk. As they carefully and quietly arranged the desks in neat rows, Martha said, "You don't have to earn your desks...these guys already did. They went halfway around the world, giving up their education and interrupting their careers and families so you could have the freedom you have. No one charged you for your desk. But it wasn't really free. These guys bought it for you. And I hope you never forget it. " I wish we all would remember that being American is not just about the freedom we have. It's about those who gave it to us.

Okay, so this seems pretty straightforward, a repeat of the earlier message: freedom is dearly bought, and everything you will ever have in this country is due to our military, and you should be grateful to them for all of it. And hey! One's running for President!

Ladies and Gentlemen, John McCain is one of those people who helped buy the freedom that we enjoy and the school desks we had.

Wait, wait, hold the phone, though. That was the theme before. What were all those metaphors and allegories? Let's back up and review. Why should we be grateful to these military veterans?

"You don't have to earn your desks...these guys already did."

Your desk, your place in the room, can't be earned. You can't behave well enough to get one, work enough to get one, think enough to get one. It is impossible for you to deserve a place to sit before your teacher, see. Looks pretty hopeless, doesn't it? But wait! You don't have to earn Grace--I mean, a desk--someone else has already earned it for you. And you can have it, for free! Someone else bought the desks by sacrifice, by spilling their blood on foreign soil, so that even though you can't earn a desk, it can be given to you by your benevolent authority figure because a heroic intermediary bled to provide it for you.
Are we getting some clarity yet? Shall we break it down? Good sermons come in layers, and Huckabee is good at sermons. Here's the first layer of the story:

An innovative teacher chooses an offbeat way to illustrate to her young students that everything they have is owed to soldiers, who should be honored for their sacrifice and given deference.

Okay. Check. Here's the second layer:

Standing in front of you is a military veteran John McCain, who is like the soldiers in this story. He sacrificed a lot to provide to you, the people, your luxuries and your very way of life. He, like these soldiers, is being presented to you by a younger woman who wants to use innovative methods to showcase his worth. Honor his service by voting for him.

But we're still missing a layer. Let's back it up--who else are these soldiers like? Allow me, gentle reader, to sum up:

There's something you need, a right to be in a particular place, that you can't earn by any kind of exertion, virtue, or intelligence. It has to be given to you, but you don't actually deserve it, and left alone, you will never figure out how to get it. Luckily, someone's showed up to tell you how to get it for free. It's already been purchased by someone else, someone better, who spilled their blood in order to secure the blessing of this thing for you even though you don't deserve and can't earn it. And all you need to do is honor them in order to benefit.

Sound familiar yet? Please tell me it does. This is the doctrine of "Grace, Not Works" or "Grace Alone," a theological position expounded during the Reformation, cuddled by Calvin, and popular among evangelical Christians. It's not a desk, it's a place in Heaven. And it's not soldiers we're talking about, it's Jesus Christ. Don't buy the connection of this story as an allegory for the doctrine of Grace Alone? Here's a few ways to put it. And the guy talking is clergy in a denomination that holds this doctrine dear, so he knows what he's doing and who his audience is. Let's plug this little revelation back in to Huckabee's sermon at RNC and see what happens:

Let me tell you about a guy who can't lift his arms because he was tortured by enemy soldiers and sacrificed for your freedom. Think about it like desks in a classroom, where you can't earn or deserve a place to sit--but someone better than you or me went out there and sacrificed himself, spilled his own blood in order to dearly purchase for you your place at the table. His sacrifice redeems you when you wouldn't have been able to make it there on your own, and now you can have a desk, a place, a spot in Heaven if you just believe in and honor him.

Who's that man who sacrificed for you, who could have bought his own freedom by simply renouncing his creed, but stayed to be tortured in order to free you?

Allow me to tell you about someone who understands this type of sacrifice better than anyone.

Ladies and Gentlemen, John McCain is one of those people who helped buy the freedom that we enjoy and the school desks we had.

Has your jaw dropped to where mine was yet? Because I'm pretty sure, in this campaign where they're already painted the opposition as the Antichrist, they just labeled their candidate Jesus Christ.