Dear Caldwell,
Our brother Troy Bowles is in the hospital and has received several visitors from the church, both white and African-American. A nurse asked Troy’s supporter and friend Brenda Campbell who she was and, without flinching, Brenda said she was “Troy’s sister.” While making hospital visits, I wear a hospital-issued badge that identifies me as clergy. As I have quizzed nurses and social workers as “Troy’s pastor,” sometimes they do a double take. They look at my badge to confirm I’m clergy. It may be my imagination but I wonder if they are thinking: “African-American patient, white pastor …?”
As we move toward the weekend when we celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, it is unfortunate but true that such relationships are still the exception. We have yet to fulfill Dr. King’s dream in which white and black Americans live in “full communion” with each other. We have come a long way in many senses. We have a long way to go in others.
Over the last two Sundays, we have looked deeply at the Gospel of John’s opening verses, which remind us that, in Jesus, the “Word came into the world” but “the world did not know him.” One of the ways we have rejected Jesus is by continuing to allow differences of race to separate us. So, it is an interesting juxtaposition – how we move so quickly from Epiphany to this coming weekend, when King’s call for us to build the Kingdom of God is so much on our minds.
Pastor Evie will help us think about what it means to live “in Christ” as a way to subordinate all the other things that might separate us – whether it is race or class or sexuality or something else. In Christ, as Dr. King so-often preached, we are called to be one family and Evie will explore that with us. As a thought-starter, I’ve pasted excerpts of one of Dr. King’s sermons on this topic at the bottom of this post.
An update on Troy Bowles and other pastoral needs:
- Troy is at CMC-main with a diagnosis of advanced kidney failure. He is likely to be there at least a day or two more as decisions are made about where he will be most comfortable, with the help of Hospice of Charlotte. His family invites our prayers.
- Kim Bohannon is scheduled for hip surgery tomorrow and requests prayers. Kim has had a lot of pain, so the procedure will provide some welcomed relief. However, Kim like to be active so this will slow her down a bit. The procedure is at Mercy and Kim is likely to be there a day or two following the surgery.
- Ann Alford’s daughter, Courtney, will undergo cancer-related surgery on Thursday in Las Vegas. The procedure should determine the status of Courtney’s cancer and we are keeping her entire family in prayer.
- Please also keep former intern and close Caldwell friend Phanta Lansden and her family in prayer. Phanta’s mother died last week.
- Leslie Gipple continues her recovery and has started rehab. For those who have asked for her address, it is: 3943 Arbor Lane, Charlotte, 28209. Congregational Care Chair Ruth Curtis is coordinating food and other support. If you would like to help, email Ruth at ruthcurtis2@gmail.com
Yoga is in Belk Hall tonight and the prayer room is open tomorrow, both as usual. Finally, I will post Sunday’s sermon on the website asap, as requested by several of you.
Now, back to Dr King. One of his best-known and most-often quoted sermons was one in which he adopted the tone and form of an ancient epistle, as in those that appear in the New Testament. This epistle, however, spoke to the times in America in the mid 1950s (when our own Caldwell church was struggling mightily with segregation of its own pews). Dr. King was right then and, unfortunately, some things haven’t changed much here in 2014. Here is some of what he wrote:
I am impelled to write you concerning the responsibilities laid upon you to live as Christians in the midst of an unChristian world. That is what I had to do. That is what every Christian has to do. But I understand that there are many Christians in America who give their ultimate allegiance to man-made systems and customs. They are afraid to be different. Their great concern is to be accepted socially. They live by some such principle as this: “everybody is doing it, so it must be alright.” For so many of you Morality is merely group consensus. In your modern sociological lingo, the mores are accepted as the right ways. You have unconsciously come to believe that right is discovered by taking a sort of Gallup poll of the majority opinion. How many are giving their ultimate allegiance to this way….
There is another thing that disturbs me to no end about the American church. You have a white church and you have a Negro church. You have allowed segregation to creep into the doors of the church. How can such a division exist in the true Body of Christ? You must face the tragic fact that when you stand at 11:00 on Sunday morning to sing “All Hail the Power of Jesus Name” and “Dear Lord and Father of all Mankind,” you stand in the most segregated hour of Christian America. They tell me that there is more integration in the entertaining world and other secular agencies than there is in the Christian church. How appalling that is.
— Paul’s Letter to American Christians, Delivered at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Montgomery, Alabama, on 4 November 1956.
In Christ,
John