“I am so excited to go to church today!” I said to my wife early in the morning on the last Sunday of May. Not a testimony true of every one of my 32 years of Sundays. But this day was Anthony Anderson Sunday, a tribute to the young man who so briefly graced us and whose life was gunned down over 30 years ago. The God-Pull was working on me.
Deacon Campbell’s vision was tried and true: “Bring them Back with Basketball!” Worked 30 years ago, why not now? “Let’s come together around Anthony with both physical and spiritual food.” Deacon envisioned. The plan was for those 45 years and older to play basketball Sunday afternoon as well as worship together in the morning. All in order to remember a tragic event that not only shaped the first two weeks of my ministry but the community around 1241 S. Pulaski Road. Deacon was calling us collectively to EMBRACE a darkness which individually we unsuccessfully attempted to deny. When I got to worship that beautiful May day it became clear that the God-Pull was working on more than myself. Together we listened to dozens of testimonies of Anthony’s life and how God used this little cracker-box church casually called “Christian Reform” (always leaving off the ‘ed’) by the surrounding community to lead us to Him. “We are who we are today because of Christian Reform” Venus emphatically exhorted. “My mother would always say after school, ‘If you’re not going to Christian Reform you‘re not going outside.’” “Anthony introduced me to Lawndale church and Rev. Grevengoed, Norman, Ms. Clayton,” said Tim Anderson, Anthony’s brother. “They taught us about God—and adding with a quivering voice- “they saved our lives.” Salvation? Through brokenness, through violent tragedy? God surely there must be another way. Take that cup from us! “Frankly God, we’ve had more than our fill of that cup!” Yet we have been forced to drink this cup again and again. Anthony Anderson, Johnny Taylor, Michael Powell, and Hydia Pendleton are all persons made in the image of a personal God! While each one’s story is different, all were young persons, all were black, all were shot to death by handguns and ALL were connected to our church. How do we drink from this cup? You see, this is PERSONAL. We don’t have the luxury of insulating ourselves from “this cup” by engaging in some abstract rhetoric with gun totting activists or for that matter advocates of gun control. Peering personally into the face of a young person lying in a casket has a way of shutting up the loudest mouths! (I often wonder how quickly the conversation would change if each of the 535 lawmakers in Congress had a loved one gunned down.) Yes, we are called to work towards justice and peace and I am aware that we do battle with powers and systems that profit from gangs and guns and these must be exposed. But what do we do in the meantime- How does one drink this cup? This is a question a pastor has to ask. I don’t have a sociological strategy, a political proposal, or even some divine intervention to take this cup away. But on this Sunday in May the church was engaged in what the church does best: DOING CHURCH! Mrs. Clayton preached it that day, “some plant, some water, but God gives the increase.” When God’s people come together DOING--- basketball, volleyball, protesting powers that profit from carnage,…when the church laughs and cries, and worships when it is in action: planting and watering. Then the Father-Son-& Holy Ghost is in action. On that May Sunday a peculiar bunch came together: Pentecostal, Black, White, Hispanic, straight, gay, Baptist, COGIC, and yes a few Christian Reform sprinkled in. When the Church is doing Church- the cup is not lifted but it is lightened. Buoyed up by the Father-Son-Holy Ghost community DOING CHURCH. But a pastor in our inner-cities faces far too many of those family members. What do we say? What hope do we offer? How do we drink from this cup? I wish I had an easy answer as others seem to have. I don’t, other than what happened on this May Sunday loudly tell us that there is something seriously SICK in our American society. Whether one is a gun activist, a gun control advocate, black, white or brown; poor, middle-class, rich; democrat, independent republican; Muslim, Jew or Christian all know deep in their hearts that there is some ugly BROKENNESS going on. And for the most of us, we don’t even know WHAT to do- much less DO IT. As a pastor in the inner-city, I have little patience for abstract, political, and ideologically self-blinding debates that re-play themself each time an ugly violent act arrests our attention. Jesus said, “I have come to bring life.”… for me that is enough to know whose side I am on. Yes, we are called to work towards justice and peace, but as a pastor- who works the here and now of life in the meantime, How does one drink this cup? How does one place violence and brokenness under the blessing? These are questions a pastor asks. One answer that continually repeats is that we can certainly not solve these problems alone nor in a homogenous community. As Ms. Clayton preached that morning: “Some plant, some water, but God gives the increase.” It takes an eclectic and diverse community, ones that most of our networks do not naturally reflect. The truth is that we aren’t even speaking to one another- much less listening! We MUST, creatively and spirit led, (as counter-cultural and often growth inhibiting as it is) cultivate followers of Jesus who despite differences of race, class, gender, age, denomination, and sexual orientation come together around the One Who Is Lord of it All. He is the One, not our sociological strategies, and only One who can and does give the increase and healing. It takes a righteousness that exceeds Pharisaical stardom. A righteousness that at its center is a relating-ness. It is time to take righteousness out of the realm of heroic, individualistic, Olympian stardom and place it into the much more difficult arena of relationships-a relating-ness-that can actually effectuate change. One thing for sure- worshipping week after week trying to somehow gain a personal righteousness- is not doing it! I along with many others have worked hard at achieving righteousness this isolating way and while it may have been well-intended it brought little effect to the trajectory of the real problem. Building relationships with others profoundly different than ourselves. On that warm May day our community had the courage, as painful as that becomes, to embrace a horrible brokenness and place it under God’s Blessing. When we do this we are reassured as a Broken Community that we are GOD’S BELOVED NO MATTER WHAT! It is the righteousness that pulls a diverse community together. An eclectic community with the courage to enfold the brokenness, and place it’s relating-ships, difficult, theologically diverse, and divisive as they can be, to live under the blessing. Yes, that May Sunday, we were living the Blessing- Beloved of God!
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