Seminary Journal 2008 (August) - Virginia Theological Seminary

She reminds me of a parishioner I had
when I served at St. Simon of Cyrene
in Lincoln Heights, Ohio. St. Simon’s
was a remarkable congregation with
a remarkable story to tell. St. Simon
of Cyrene was started by the Sisters
of Transfi guration in Glendale. It
began when the sisters, who lived in
the mother house in nearby Glendale,
about a mile away, in the late 1920’s
and early 30’s, happened to be taking
their constitutional and saw these little
black kids playing. They discovered
that this was a community of black folk
who were making what sociologist
Gunnar Myrdal in his study The Great
Dilemma called “the great migration”
from the rural South up to the urban
North. The sisters stopped and discovered
this dirt poor community of
people who stopped and stayed. These
sisters started this ministry with a food
cooperative, eventually a parochial
school, and the founding of a church.
The Rt. Rev. John Melville Burgess, the
fi rst African American diocesan bishop,
served as vicar of that mission in the
30’s, and I was privileged to serve as
its vicar back in the late 70’s and early
80’s. It was a remarkable congregation,
just a remarkable place…an all black
community, about one square mile
outside Cincinnati, that at one time
provided the domestic workers for the
surrounding suburbs. It was a deeply
impoverished community of good,
decent, honorable folk.
The woman of whom I speak refl ected
the best of this painful and goodly heritage.
She spent a life cleaning other
folks homes for little earthly reward.
By the time I knew her she was well
up in age, slow to walk, but straight of
carriage. I don’t think she could really
read that well, but she was a good
Episcopalian, she knew the Mass by
heart. And as long as you were doing
Rite I you were in good shape. Rite
II would throw her for a loop. I will
never forget that when she would go
up for Communion, after receiving the
Sacrament she would kneel, make the
sign of the cross, and then on some
occasions she would clap and say,
“Thank you Jesus!” You would see
little kids giggling all throughout the
congregation and their mothers popping
on them on the head, “Don’t you
laugh…straighten up!” Anyway, she
always had this tradition on Sundays.
She would come to the door and say,
“Father, that was a good word today.
“That is the claim of
a woman who had
lived with the worst
that Jim Crow could
offer. She stood up to
say that there is
a God.”
You were fi red up…you were preaching
this morning.” And I knew I was
ok if she said that but, there would
also be Sundays when she came and
said, “That’s a nice robe you have on
today. Did you stay up a bit late last
night?” [laughter] And I knew I would
have to go back and do a little work
for next Sunday.
Sister Pollard, I guess, was a little
bit like my friend at St. Simon’s. She
came up to King after the meeting and
said, “Son, what is wrong with you?
You did not talk strong tonight.” King
responded to her saying, “Nothing’s
wrong. I’m fi ne. I’m doing all right.”
She knew there was something wrong.
Something different in the tenor of his
voice… the words were there but the
spirit wasn’t, and she said, “What’s
wrong?” And this is a quote, “Is the
white folk messing with you again?”
King kept saying, “No, no I’m fi ne.”
She stopped and said, “Come close
to me boy. Let me tell you something
one more time…I want you to hear it.
I want you to hear it real good. I done
told you we’re with you but even if
we ain’t, the Lord is going to take
care of you.” There is no evidence to
verify that claim…that is the claim of a
witness. That is the claim of a woman
who had lived with the worst that
Jim Crow could offer. She stood up to
say that there is a God. Jim Crow may
rule this world but this is my Father’s
world. That’s faith. And it is on that
foundation that King and the movement
found life.
I think it could be a documented fact
that as the faith that undergirded the
movement in its early days no longer
undergirded it, the movement itself
began to dissipate and eventually
disappear as it entered into more complex
and even more perilous terrain. If
it is to run the long distance race, prophetic
leadership must be faith based.
Prophetic Leadership in the King
Tradition is Gospel Centered
Let me go to the next step. King’s
legacy of prophetic leadership, growing
out of real and radical discipleship,
is clearly Gospel-centered. Now,
you remember Jesus in John 8, where
he is in contention with, I think, the
Pharisees, and he blurts out (I love
these passages where Jesus blurts out.
I mean, you know he wasn’t sitting
there like Buddha, you know he is
in the middle of the fray). Jesus says,
8 VIRGINIA SEMINARY JOURNAL AUGUST 2007