My Black History (4)

During my elementary school years, I remember daily our school bus had to slow down in a particular curve in the road - and the kids on the bus would throw things out the window at the black students waiting to catch their bus.  Sometimes they were prepared, and threw things back at our bus.  Of course, we didn't go to the same school; this was the 1950s in Alabama.  

I often wondered, if not then, at least I certainly wondered later

     - why would strangers throw things at one another?  

I didn't even personally know a black person that was my own age.  I had never been mistreated by a black person of any age.  I wonder what actions led my white friends to throw things at black strangers waiting for a school bus?  

About this time in my life, my mother had a lady helping her with housework a couple of days each week.  We weren't rich, but mom and dad both worked, so we could afford it.  I've told you about Marie already.  The person in our life now was Laura, and she was with us well into my high school years.  I didn't have as much interaction with her as I did with Marie, because I was at school while she was at the house.  However, one specific event stands out in my mind - in my heart - that shaped my opinion of her. 

Mother was Librarian at the High School only three doors away from our house.  So, even with after school duties, she still got home before me on most days.  Occasionally, Laura would still be there.  (I don't remember if she had a ride, or if mom took her home; anyway, she was there.)  At a time when mother had concerns about my older brother, Laura had similar concerns about her son who was about the same age.  It was obvious they had discussed their situations.  On this particular day, as I came home - for some reason I came through the door quieter than usual.  As I entered the living room, there was mom and Laura, kneeling at the piano bench (a frequent prayer altar in our house) - and, out loud, they were praying for their sons.  This was an old-fashioned prayer meeting type prayer - shouting to the Lord, pleading with Him to guide their boys to righteous living.  

My parents always taught me - in such acts as this - that you can't hate a person and pray for them at the same time.  Of course, there was not reason to hate Laura, or Marie, or Amanda (who came later) - just because their skin color was darker than ours.  But, for some people, that's all the reason they need.  I guess they just don't pray enough. 

LENT 2021:  PATIENCE

I am considering the need for more patience in my life.  By no means am I tested and tried as are so many people.  

I am not:

• suffering and in great pain - as are so many;
• in need of food and shelter - as are so many;
• living in anger and hatred - as are so many;
• absent from love and kindness - as are so many;
• alone and grieving - as are so many; 

So, Lord, why am I not patient - as are so many.  

My brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but joy, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance; and let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing. - JAMES 1: 2-4  (NRSV)  

For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen?  But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. - ROMANS 8:24-25  (NRSV)

I beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. -  EPHESIANS 4:1-3  (NRSV)

May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light. - COLOSSIANS 1:11-12 (NRSV) 

LENT 2021:  KINDNESS

Proverbs 31:26  

She opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue.

    It seems, on the surface, that kindness is missing from our current society.  A quick scroll through social media will reveal an excess of un-kindness in the words that are written to people we don't even know - and are not likely to ever meet. 

    The last chapter of Proverbs describes the virtuous woman.  Many of us think of our mothers or wives when we read this.  I remember the kindness my mother had toward those with whom she disagreed.  If someone asked her for fifteen minutes to present their view, she would agree to give them the first eight minutes, then follow-up with the last seven minutes, and wrap it up telling them about Jesus.  

    If we act unkindly online, or in person, we are missing an opportunity to display the "teaching of kindness" from our tongues.  People can't see what we're saying because of what we do.  

LENT 2021:  JOY

I used to spend a lot of time driving with my daughters: driving to band competitions, driving them to college and back, etc.  As a father these were good times.  I have great memories. 

One memorable conversation was when we spent several hours talking about the difference between joy and happiness.  I don't think we ever reached a conclusion, but for me the entire experience was both joy and happiness.  

In this pandemic period, we can identify somewhat with the suffering of Job, and the weeping of the psalmist.  But, in spite of all that can go wrong in life - in God, we can find joy.  

Read these passages - and the hundreds of other joy passages in the Bible.  Find your joy. 

Job 8:20-22  

“See, God will not reject a blameless person,

nor take the hand of evildoers.
21 He will yet fill your mouth with laughter,
    and your lips with shouts of joy.
22 Those who hate you will be clothed with shame,
    and the tent of the wicked will be no more.”

Psalm 126: 5-6

May those who sow in tears

reap with shouts of joy.

Those who go out weeping,

bearing the seed for sowing,

shall come home with shouts of joy,   

carrying their sheaves.

My Black History (3):

Some people are puzzled by my "Black History" posts, since I am clearly not a person of color, but I am an older white man. 

Let me explain it with this example from my evangelical background:

I grew up in a conservative evangelical church, with teachings of evangelism and sharing the Good News of Jesus with others, supporting mission work, at home and around the world.  Our beliefs and practices included learning how to share our faith story with others, or what we called our personal testimony.  We learned scripture passages to show a lost person how to be saved, how to know Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior, how to go to heaven.  An important part of sharing our faith was to tell our personal testimony.  Another person can argue scripture; they can argue various brands of theological understanding; but, they can't argue my personal story.  

• If I tell you I was saved from drowning - that is my personal story that I know is true.  
• If I tell you I was lost and Jesus saved me in His timing - that is my personal story that I know is true.  
• If I tell you how I encountered people of color at various times in my life - that is my personal story that I know is true.

These are things that have personally happened to me, and I know these events to be true.  This is what I am sharing in my posts in "My Black History."  I hope that helps people understand what I'm doing.

LENT 2021:  PEACE

Psalm 122: 6-9 






(NRSV)  

 
Pray for the peace of Jerusalem:

    “May they prosper who love you.
7 Peace be within your walls,
    and security within your towers.”
8 For the sake of my relatives and friends
    I will say, “Peace be within you.”
9 For the sake of the house of the Lord our God,
    I will seek your good.

Peace - what is it?  It's more than just the absence of war.   

I like the slogan of the Carter Center - Waging Peace.  To wage peace is doing the necessary work toward prosperity, security and the well-being of those we love (Psalm 122).  And who do we love?  We love the Lord our God, and love our neighbors as ourselves.  Clearly, Jesus tells us that our neighbors are whoever is in need; not just people we know, and not those who are easy to love.  

During some of our recent wars, I have heard American Christians pray that it is better for the bombing and destruction to be "over there" rather than here.  To wish destruction against our man-made enemies is against Jesus' instructions to pray for our enemies.  How can we pray for our enemies in Christian love, and at the same time pray for their destruction.  To me, our Christian love and peace go hand in hand.  If we truly wage peace in the world, we will work in Christian love for our enemies to be prosperous and secure within their homes. 

This is a hard concept to understand, but Philippians 4:7 says that God's peace surpasses our understanding.  We need to think and act as God thinks and acts, loving the entire world so much that we will sacrifice our best for them; praying and acting for God's will to truly be done on earth, as it is in heaven.  Christian love must accompany God's peace in the world.   Let there be peace on earth.  

LENT 2021:  LOVE

Some of the popular songs of my youthful years say things like, "all you need is love" and "what the world needs now is love, sweet love."  But love's not easy.  Jesus tells us to love our enemies.  That goes against everything that seems natural - but, God's ways are not our ways, and Jesus and His disciples were described as turning the world upside down - because of their practice of love and obedience to God.

Imagine, if we truly practiced loving our enemies - the world would truly be a different place, in an extremely positive way.  It really sounds too simple, doesn't it?  But we are to try it as we grow spiritually to be more like Jesus..   

Matthew 5:43-48  (NRSV)   Love for Enemies  

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’  But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.  For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?   And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?  Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

LENT 2021:  A CLEAN HEART 

I am at the close of Ash Wednesday.  

Psalm 51 is one of our traditional readings on Ash Wednesday, and today was no exception.  In fact, I sang a portion of it:  "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me . . . Cast me not away from Thy Presence, O Lord, and take not Thy Holy Spirit from me.  Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation, and renew a right spirit within me." 

God already knows I need a clean heart, and that one of the hardest places for me to keep a clean heart is on Facebook, where I spent too much of my free time.  This past year has been so difficult because it's so easy to find topics of disagreement:  wearing mask, political divisions, racism, etc.  I have tried, somewhat successfully, to stay out of the arguments, but it seems that C. S. Lewis's devil, Screwtape, is always finding a way to get under my spiritual skin.  One of my cousins carries out a good daily plan:  He post a short Biblically sound thought each day with a scripture verse.  Who can argue with that? 

My personal theme for this Lenten season is "A CLEAN HEART."  I think one way for me to address this is to study and practice the fruits of the Spirit, and other scriptures about appropriate behavior for believers.  If we are to be ambassadors for Christ in the world, we have to allow people to see Him in our lives and hear Him in our speech.   

It may be helpful to compare these two lists: 

• the works of the flesh (we don't want to do these) 
• the fruit of the Spirit (we do want to do these). 

Galatians, chapter 5:

Now the works of the flesh are obvious: 

fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. I am warning you, as I warned you before: those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is: 

love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit.  Let us not become conceited, competing against one another, envying one another.

 My Black History (2)

Mr. Eubanks was a local businessman and we lived in an upstairs apartment next to his house. At age four, I sat with him at church every Sunday; he seemed like a grandfatherly person to me.  I could say a lot about him, but he wasn't black, so that would be off topic. 

I don't know where my parents found Marie, but I remember her daily presence in our apartment.  My most vivid memory of her is that she read to me daily, and frequently, from a Bible that had a lot of bright colored pictures - perfect for a young child's attention and understanding.  She gave such life to the stories and gave me an early love for God's Word.  When we moved to our new home, Marie was there as well.  When a tornado hit "Nigger Hill" (I'm sorry, but that's what it was called), it destroyed and damaged many homes in that black community.  I remember our family taking food and supplies to Marie and her neighbors, and the devastation was horrible. We were not alone in our efforts to support their community, but I later wondered why kindness seemed to be present mostly in times of disasters, and was absent under normal circumstances. 

Marie has always had a special place in my heart and in my childhood memories.  I never thought of the color of her skin, or that she was a maid or hired help.  To me, she was simply Marie, a dear family friend and a stable force in my life, much like Mr. Eubanks.  I didn't know until years later that Marie couldn't read at all.  The stories she "read" to me were "by heart" - as we would say.  Truly, she told them to me from her heart to mine.   If all children could have a "Marie" in their lives, perhaps there would be more love in the world.  

“How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!” (Romans 10:15, NRSV)

My Black History:

My father died a couple of months before my 3rd birthday.  In January 1953 he accepted the pastorate of Emmanuel Baptist Church, Montgomery, Alabama.  He had suffered all his life from the effects of polio and a rheumatic heart.  In May 1953, he underwent open heart surgery to repair a mitral valve - the tenth surgery of it's type.  The first was successful; the other eight had died. My father died December 6, 1953, on a Sunday evening.  My mother said he died at the hour that he would have been in the pulpit when he was preaching.  My father's suffering never stopped him from going wherever he needed to go.  Mother said that he couldn't remember ever taking a step in his life that was without pain.  Pain was a part of his life.  

A white man, with a white pastor as a father?  What could I know about Black History?  I will share other Black History moments in my life, but I wanted to start with this "what if" situation.

Based on what I know of my father, from my mother, family members, and letters, 

I know that he was a man who never gave up on his dreams.  

I know he was a man who had love and compassion for others.  

I know that he was a man who loved God. 

I can imagine, if he had lived a few more years, this white Pastor in Montgomery would have found a way to stand, in pain, with a black Pastor on Dexter Avenue, and use his voice "to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners." (Isaiah 61:1 NRSV, also referenced in Luke 4:18).