Needing a place, finding a place

As Rev. (and Sen.) Raphael Warnock was winding up the service this morning at Ebenezer Baptist Churchin Atlanta he had done the classic church altar call and then walked into the crowd.

“In the days ahead, in what's coming our way , you’re going to need a place,” he told everyone. "You're going to need a foundation. You're going to need some reinforcements. That's what the Body of Christ is. We are one."

And here was a place indeed. In all the storms swirling through our nation and so many other nations, this sanctuary on this day offered energy and hope.

The eight of us from Christ Presbyterian Church in Madison could not have found a better place to end our week-long Civil Rights Pilgrimage. Across the street was the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, where Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s father was the long-time pastor and where MLK himself was an associate pastor while he led the Civil Rights movement.  

So we gathered in the packed sanctuary, sang hymns with the all-women choir (celebrating Women’s History Month), shared communion – and, of course, heard Rev. Warnock preach. (You can get a sample of one of the hymns here.)

He was using a section from Paul’s letter to the people of Rome, chapter 12, verses 1-5. It says in part, “Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of the mind, so that you may discern what is the will of God.”

And he called his sermon “They Not Like Us,” which brought laughter from the crowd. They recognized it from Kenrick Lamar’s half time show at the Super Bowl last month.

 “Thank you, Kendrick, for interrupting the regularly scheduled program,” Warnock said. The halftime performance perplexed some people who did not understand all the messages woven through it but delighted many Black folks who saw themselves portrayed in dramatic ways at a moment when powerful forces are trying to push them back.

Warnock noted that Lamar had used a line from the poem by Gil Scott Heron: “The revolution will not be televised.” And then noted how Lamar had flipped it: “The revolution ‘bout to be televised. You picked the right time, but the wrong guy,” he said standing on top of a car.

He called the whole performance “a modern day spiritual,” tucking bold messages within a familiar art form. 

“All that at the halftime at the Super Bowl and all you wanted was your beer and pretzels,” a smiling Warnock said.

And then he tied it all to the story of Jesus. 

Jesus was lynched on a cross, he said. “Like so many brown brothers, he died with his hands up.” But then three days later, “he got off that cross and into our hearts.”

Followers of Jesus are called to be different, Warnock preached. “We are the body of Christ. We are not called to go along to get along. We are the righteous resistance.”

Too often, he said, the church has conformed – to the Roman Empire of Constantine, to the slaveholders of the past and to the Jim Crow laws of Reconstruction, to Nazi Germany and to South African apartheid. 

So, he asked, “What does it mean to be transformed to be the body of Christ?”

First, love radically – love one another with mutual affection, as Paul wrote later in that letter to the people of Rome. Outdo one another in showing honor.

“What would the church, the world be like if we were outdoing love for each other,” he asked.

Second, serve joyfully. 

And then walk victoriously. 

“My beloved,” Warnock said, “I know it’s tough. Everywhere I go, they ask ‘what are we going to do?’ “

His answer: “Walk like somebody who knows that he’s not given this world over to mere mortals…If you know Jesus walks with you, you can walk in victory.”

He cued up a video of Serena Williams doing the Crip Walk during the halftime show that was so controversial when she did it after winning the gold medal in tennis at the 2012 Olympics.

Despite all the backlash she received both times, Warnock said, “she just kept on moving, kept on walking.”

Serving joyfully, walking victoriously.

Finding a place to be.

We found that place. Now all – all – we have to do is love radically, serve joyfully and walk victoriously. 

May it be so.

You can find the whole worship service at this link.

 

Andrew Young remembers, inspires

It was 90 minutes of stories and insights from Andrew Young, a key aide to Martin Luther King, Jr., a member of Congress, an ambassador to the United Nations, a mayor of Atlanta, an elder in our nation who shared his life with our group of eight from Christ Presbyterian Church on a Saturday afternoon in downtown Atlanta.

His stories covered so much territory. And his thoughts for today – his worries and what gives him hope – left us all pondering how we might live.

First, a few stories. 

My favorite involved the time he and his wife, Jean, were in Thomasville, Georgia, where he was pastor of Bethany Congregational Church – and where he was encouraging people to register to vote. 

Jean, it turned out, grew up in the same town – Marion, Ala., and went to the same high school, as Coretta Scott King. Juanita Abernathy, the wife of one of King’s closest friends, Ralph, also went to that high school. Three powerful women with three of the leaders of the Civil Rights Movement.

As they drove into Thomasville in the mid-1950s, Andrew and Jean saw the Ku Klux Klan out in full white-sheet regalia. “I thought there were a thousand of them,” Young said with a chuckle. “There probably were a hundred.” But however many there were, they were an intimidating sight.

Both Andrew and Jean had immersed themselves in the theology of non-violence. This, however, was an unnerving and frightening moment. Andrew figured he would go out from their house to talk to the leaders of the Klan. He asked Jean to stand in the window with a rifle and if they threatened him, he would tell the Klan that she had them in her sights. 

“I cannot do that,” Jean told him. “I can’t point a gun at the heart of a child of God.”

Andrew said he replied, “Did you ever see the heart of a Klansman?”

Jean wasted no time with her answer: “I don’t see much of your heart now.”

Lesson learned.

Andrew called the mayor of the town who told the major business leaders he did not want any trouble. They let the Klan protest downtown, but not in the Black community. Crisis averted.

Andrew Young said he put into practice what he knew – “Stop and think and pray and then do something sensible.”

This was Young’s trademark throughout his career – finding ways to connect people, to negotiate to reduce conflicts. It was all about relationship building for the common good.

He traced that back to his experiences growing up in New Orleans and to the advice of his father.

On the corner he had to pass by to go just about anywhere, he said, there was an Irish pub, an Italian bistro, a Chevrolet dealer and the Nazi offices, where he could hear their German shouts. “I had to be a negotiator to get to the grocery store,” he said.

And then his father told him that Young would never be a very tall man, “so you’re never going to be able to beat up anybody. So you better just stay calm and let your mind lead you through the troubles.” That turned out to be good advice all the way through, Young said, “even with my wife.”

He learned how to work to build networks before any troubles began. The National Council of Churches, where had been hired in 1957 to work with the Youth Division, sent him to Little Rock, Arkansas, that year to work with white students in churches in anticipation of the contentious integration of schools in that city.

Later, now working for King in Birmingham, Ala. In 1963, Young’s first task was to get to know the Black folks in the community and help determine what they wanted changed and he worked with the Episcopal bishop to bring together white business leaders to help them understand what the Black citizens wanted. 

There were troubles. The police set dogs and fire houses on young people who were protesting, white supremacists bombed the 16^th Street Baptist Church on a Sunday morning killed four little girls. But in the end – after a year – the white community agreed to make changes. “Birmingham desegregated before any other city in the South,” Young said.

Two stories from when he was elected mayor of Atlanta in 1981. 

The Friday after his election, he met with 85 CEOs. He acknowledged that most of them had not supported him, but that he would need their help to lead the city. He gave them his home phone number and told them to call him when they thought he was doing something stupid and also when they had ideas on how to make the city better.

Then one Saturday morning, Young was enjoying the chance to sleep in. But his phone rang and one of his aides set “Get your ass out of bed.” No way, Young said and hung up. But the aide called back and talked to Jean and she told him to get up.

The wife of Tom Murphy, the speaker of the Georgia House of Representatives had died and her funeral was that day a little more than an hour west of Atlanta. Young described Murphy as the most powerful politician in Georgia. So Young got up and drove to the church, feeling awkward when he arrived. This was not his normal crowd. He decided to stay inconspicuous in the back.

When Murphy spotted him, he went to the back of the church and led Young to the front row, telling two ardent segregationists – former Gov. Lester Maddox and former U.S. Sen. Herman Talmadge to “move over and make room for the mayor of Atlanta.” 

Young noted that after that, he never had any trouble getting Murphy to push through legislation that would help Atlanta.

Relationship building for the common good.

But today’s political environment is very different. “There’s just too much going on to process it,” he said of the first weeks of the Trump Administration. 

“I want to say ‘How can this do some good?’ and I can’t see how much good can come from this.”

But he still clings to hope, based on a lifetime of tackling issues that seemed impossible and then seeing change happen, recognizing that he did not often know what he would be doing the next day and sensing that God’s Spirit had brought him where he needed to be.

What to do now? 

Vote, was his one-word answer.

And then take hope in one of his favorite Gospel hymns – “I don’t feel no ways tired.” Here are the lyrics and a link to a contemporary group singing it.

I don't feel no ways tired
I've come too far from where I started from
Nobody told me that the road would be easy
I don't believe He brought me this far to leave me.