God’s
Ways
“Don’t
raise your voice, improve your argument.”
Bishop
Desmond Tutu
We had
a minister once at the “Blue Roof Church” who had been forced to leave South
Africa for standing with Desmond Tutu in the days of apartheid. At the time, he
was a missionary from the Untied Church of Christ, who had moved his young
family to South Africa as soon as he was ordained. When he was booted out of
the country, he simply crossed the border into Botswana and continued his
ministry. His wife died young and was buried in Africa, and in the Zulu
tradition, her younger sister came to be his second wife and raise his
daughters. When they came back to the states, the children were grown, and he
was nearing retirement age. His sermons were filled with stories of Africa and
of Tutu and village life with the Zulu whom he served. Those stories were alive
with love and joy—clearly South Africa was his heart’s home. Then some church elders—conservative
Congregationalists who had moved the church from downtown Birmingham to the
affluent suburb of Mountain Brook when “the trouble of integration” began—told him
to stop talking about Africa in his sermons. From that point on, the light went
out of him. His sermons were dry and boring. He looked and spoke like a balloon
with a slow leak.
I
always thought this minister was a sad man because there was nothing dynamic
about him. But when I think about him now, I realize that he did the best he
could. His heart and soul stayed with the people of South Africa, in their struggle
against the injustice of apartheid. The love of his life was buried there along
with his animating spirit. He and his second wife bought a small house in a
predominantly black neighborhood of Birmingham because they wanted all people to
feel comfortable coming to visit them. And the affluent elders got their church
back. However, the next man hired for the job came out of the closet about two
years into it and all those elders left pronto for a more “traditional” worship
option. Clearly, God had reformation in mind for the Blue Roof Church!
I tell
you this story for two reasons: to let you know that there are and have always
been true Christians in the world. They understand and follow the path of Jesus
of Nazareth. They take to heart the instructions in Micah to “do justice,
love mercy, and walk humbly with your God.” They have done great good on
the earth. And there are also people who claim to be Christians who follow the
path they call “abundance.” They believe that they are blessed with wealth because
they are chosen by God. The man, Desmond Tutu, was one of the former as was the
minister who served at our church. When he was in South Africa with Tutu, he
remembered why he had gone into ministry, and why he fought so hard for justice
for black Africans that the white government expelled him from the country. He could
have been an instrument for change here too, except that the church was far
more calcified, more immovable, and unwilling to yield to God’s directives.
There is good news, however.
God did not give up on the church. It is now downtown once again, and its
pastor is a married gay man from the little backwater suburb of Hueytown,
Alabama. God works in mysterious ways, then and now. Thanks be to God.
In
the Spirit,
Jane
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