Seminary Journal 2008 (August) - Virginia Theological Seminary

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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
“If you continue in my Word you are truly my disciples and you will know the truth and the truth will make you free.” You all know that passage… it’s in the middle of a contentious conversation. There is a lot of profound truth in it. My friend Mark MacDonald, former Bishop of Alaska, now serving Navajoland and native folk in Canada, is an advocate of Gospel-based discipleship, the understanding of discipleship Bishop Curry with seminarian Frazier Green from the Diocese of Georgia (front row), Dean Martha Horne, and Joseph Constant, Assistant for Admissions and Community Life. VIRGINIA SEMINARY JOURNAL AUGUST 2007 that is grounded in the Good News of God that has been disclosed and made known and made plain and made real in Jesus of Nazareth. Now I’m going to get in trouble for this, but I can’t read the Hebrew Scriptures on my own. I need a rabbi. I’m not Jewish, so I need a guru who is Jewish. I need a rabbi who knows the terrain by second nature. I need Jesus as my rabbi. Everybody doesn’t but I do. And so I need him to help me understand more. Anyway, that is just a side note because I am convinced that for we who are Christian, prophetic leadership is an exercise of Christian discipleship and Christian discipleship is always, always Gospel-centered. You won’t hear that on the airwaves and from political preaching that is popular in our culture. What you will hear is everything else. I want to understand Leviticus…I need a rabbi. Now, I’ve heard Episcopalians mess up Leviticus because they have 9
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Page 5 and 6: VTS as our next Dean and President.
Page 7 and 8: ing this commemoration on the day o
Page 9: “I am convinced that the moral ar
Page 13 and 14: speak—that silence was complicit.
Page 15 and 16: while Gandhi gave us the method.”
Page 17 and 18: and said, “Where is Burundi?” [
Page 19: A Refl ection on the VTS Racial and
Page 22 and 23: Isaiah 40:6-8, 21-24, 28-31 Psalm 7
Page 24 and 25: The prophet Isaiah acknowledges tha
Page 26 and 27: I met Martha Horne in front of Aspi
Page 28 and 29: This has been a very wonderful fami
Page 30 and 31: “There should be something in the
Page 32 and 33: A Celebration in Thanksgiving for t
Page 34 and 35: Julia and Malina Cochran, daughters
Page 36 and 37: The Water of Life 34 VIRGINIA SEMIN
Page 38 and 39: “Designer water at $100 a bottle
Page 40 and 41: St. Francis’ perspective on water
Page 42 and 43: around God does not need to devasta
Page 44 and 45: The Need for a Theology of Water: T
Page 46 and 47: “Who gets the water is a matter o
Page 48 and 49: federal government could prepare an
Page 50 and 51: deal with than surface water, after
Page 52 and 53: “The change in vision that we nee
Page 54 and 55: Preaching is a privilege. I thank y
Page 56 and 57: changing of direction. I went back
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When the Rivers Run Dry: Water, the
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else of water and to empty rivers a
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serves. I am old enough to remember
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purposes, such as fi lling the taps
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Commencement Address to the Class o
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daughter on the eve of All Saints
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even, it is okay. It means that you
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Newland F. Smith 3rd Librarian Seab
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COMMENCEMENT 2007 continued The Rev
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Isaiah 25:6-9 Psalm 121 Romans 8:14
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and I know that even now God will g
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A Sermon for Maxine Shelly Turner (
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Michael Battle and Stephen Edmondso
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Betty M Glover Priest-In-Charge Tri
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Dr. Chris McConnachie, who is an or
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Good morning. Separation of church
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when I heard him tell the chaplain
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media’s fault? Yes, to some exten
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Virginia Seminary Welcomes Its New
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Seminary, sharing their life storie
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ANNUAL GIVING Annual Giving is a co
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Your generosity also helped the Sem
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Help provide for the financial futu
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The Rev. Ronald G. Abrams The Rev.
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Dr. and Mrs. William G. Thomas III
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The Henry St. George Tucker Society
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Mr. and Mrs. Richard G. Abbott, ‘
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The Rev. S. F. James Abbott, ‘66
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The Rev. Catherine M. Thompson, ‘
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The Rev. John R. Frizzell, Jr., ‘
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Anita Wheatcroft The Rev. G. Richar
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The Rev. A. Moody Burt The Rev. Dr.
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The Rev. William H. Burk The Rev. J
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The 14th anniversary of my ordinati
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Kreitler Environmental Fund The Kre
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St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, Ne
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The Rev. and Mrs. Gary L. Abbott, S
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Mr. and Mrs. James C. Hamilton, Jr.
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Mr. Emil M. Sunley The Rev. and Mrs
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volume weave together the familiar,
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and in “Throwing the things away,
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and American Evangelicals: Friends
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The Center for Lifetime Theological
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Seminary Journal 2008 (August) - Virginia Theological Seminary

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