Like a lot of you I grew up playing Monopoly with my family on the living room floor. I remember I always wanted to be the Race Car. And I treated the game just like it was a race car game. I sped off and did my best to make it around that little square track as fast as I could, not slowing down to miss a beat. Ninety-to nothing I was in my car and I was out to collect my $200 for passing Go! My mother was the banker. “Reading Railroad, do you want to buy it?” “No.” Pass Go! Collect $200. “St. Charles Place, do you want to buy it.” “No.” Pass Go! collect $200. Yes! Boardwalk, Fifth Avenue? No. Just give me my $200. While I was speeding my race car around the board my dad was busy being the Top Hat. The ultimate symbol of a Monopoly baron. St. Charles. Yes, I’ll buy that. New York Avenue. Why yes, I’ll buy that also. Boardwalk, Park Place. Yes, I’ll buy those too. Thirty minutes into the game I’m rolling in the dough and my dad is almost broke.
And then I land on my first house. And then the second house. And then the hotel. “Let’s see,” my mom says, “Boardwalk with two hotels and nine houses and a couple of horses and a Jacuzzi out back. Yes, Ryon will also be needing a $700 billion bailout.” I look up at my dad. He’s standing over me in a top hat in the middle of the living room jumping up and down on my little race car shattering it into pieces.
When I was in divinity school I did a summer internship in an inner-city ministry and made friends with a 13-year-old kid named Alvin. Alvin’s father was in jail for killing his mother and Alvin himself was on the margins. His life was at a critical point. He could go one way or he could go the other. I was glad to be there at that critical time to befriend him and to help steer him in the right direction.
Then my internship was over. I went back to the Gothic Wonderland of Duke. I was just a couple of blocks away from Alvin’s house, but I was a world away from his life. Yet Alvin kept showing up. I was a Resident Assistant on campus and I kept finding Alvin roaming the halls of my dormitory. I would come home from school and there Alvin would be, hanging out beside my door. I mean he was desperate for a friendship.
But I was too busy. I was too busy studying theology. I was too busy plunging the depths of God’s mind. I was too busy trying to make the grade. I didn’t have the time for an interruption like Alvin.
I was driven by fear that Alvin was going to ruin my nice, orchestrated life. Do you see? I was being the Race Car again. I was playing the wrong game again. I had gone to seminary to learn about God and instead I was settling for a theological education.
And I risked a 13-year-old boy’s life while I was at it.
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Mighty Waters
As of this writing it has been exactly one week since it was announced that Senator Barack Obama had been elected the next president of the United States. What followed that announcement was an act of ritual cleansing - for our nation and for me also.
When President-Elect Obama and his family walked out onto the stage there at Grant Park black America wept. My father-in-law, who grew up the son of a preacher on Sweet Auburn beneath the shadow of Martin Luther King's Ebenezer Baptist Church, wept. My wife, who grew up in the outcrops of a racially-divided Old South bastion, wept. Jesse Jackson wept. Colin Powell wept. All black America wept.
We saw their tears blazoned across America's television screens. Tears of joy, yes. But more than joy; tears of jubilee.
Those enough close enough could hear the tears as they fell. It was the sound of mighty waters. The sound of a 40 million member chorus, singing through the lump in their throats: I, Too, Sing America.
Henry Louis Gates, Jr. compared last Tuesday night to the night Joe Lewis beat Max Schmeling for the Heavyweight Championship of the World. A "magical" and "transformative" moment in African-American history which marks a point when we all know nothing will ever be the same again.
But it was more than that too. When Max Schmeling fell to Joe Louis only the black people of America cheered. As Jimmy Carter tells in his memoir, the black sharecroppers on his daddy's farm listened to the fight on the radio from outside the Carter home. When Louis knocked out Schmeling in the first round there was not a peep from anybody. The black families walked back across the lot to their own homes in silence and shut the door. It wasn't until that door was opened that Carter heard what he described as the sound of all hell breaking loose.
Last Tuesday was different from that. It wasn't just a transformative moment for African-American history. It was a transformative moment for American history. Not only blacks shed tears. Whites did too. And not behind closed doors. The doors were open. The tears were public. Colorless.
Even those who voted for Senator Obama's opponent shared in the momentousness of the night. They echoed the graciousness of Senator John McCain in celebrating the fact that "America today is a world away from the cruel and frightful bigotry" of its past.
As I reflected on Senator McCain's words I realized that I too am a world away from the cruel and frightful bigotry of my own past. When I was a boy I shuttered at the thought of a black family living in my neighborhood. Now a black family will soon be living in the White House. The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. The stone I rejected has become my president.
I thank God for all of this. Not for Barack Obama having been elected so much, but for America having been "ready" to elect a black person president.
After the long procession of civil rights marchers crossed the Edmund Pettus bridge in 1965 and made their way to State Capitol Building in Montgomery, Alabama King preached a sermon from the capitol steps popularly known as the "How Long? Not Long" speech. "How long?" Dr. King asked in a series of litanies. "Not long," the response each time.
On January 20 that procession will make its last leg to Washington, DC where a new litany will be heard echoed from the steps of our nation's capitol.
"How long?"
"Now."
When President-Elect Obama and his family walked out onto the stage there at Grant Park black America wept. My father-in-law, who grew up the son of a preacher on Sweet Auburn beneath the shadow of Martin Luther King's Ebenezer Baptist Church, wept. My wife, who grew up in the outcrops of a racially-divided Old South bastion, wept. Jesse Jackson wept. Colin Powell wept. All black America wept.
We saw their tears blazoned across America's television screens. Tears of joy, yes. But more than joy; tears of jubilee.
Those enough close enough could hear the tears as they fell. It was the sound of mighty waters. The sound of a 40 million member chorus, singing through the lump in their throats: I, Too, Sing America.
Henry Louis Gates, Jr. compared last Tuesday night to the night Joe Lewis beat Max Schmeling for the Heavyweight Championship of the World. A "magical" and "transformative" moment in African-American history which marks a point when we all know nothing will ever be the same again.
But it was more than that too. When Max Schmeling fell to Joe Louis only the black people of America cheered. As Jimmy Carter tells in his memoir, the black sharecroppers on his daddy's farm listened to the fight on the radio from outside the Carter home. When Louis knocked out Schmeling in the first round there was not a peep from anybody. The black families walked back across the lot to their own homes in silence and shut the door. It wasn't until that door was opened that Carter heard what he described as the sound of all hell breaking loose.
Last Tuesday was different from that. It wasn't just a transformative moment for African-American history. It was a transformative moment for American history. Not only blacks shed tears. Whites did too. And not behind closed doors. The doors were open. The tears were public. Colorless.
Even those who voted for Senator Obama's opponent shared in the momentousness of the night. They echoed the graciousness of Senator John McCain in celebrating the fact that "America today is a world away from the cruel and frightful bigotry" of its past.
As I reflected on Senator McCain's words I realized that I too am a world away from the cruel and frightful bigotry of my own past. When I was a boy I shuttered at the thought of a black family living in my neighborhood. Now a black family will soon be living in the White House. The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. The stone I rejected has become my president.
I thank God for all of this. Not for Barack Obama having been elected so much, but for America having been "ready" to elect a black person president.
After the long procession of civil rights marchers crossed the Edmund Pettus bridge in 1965 and made their way to State Capitol Building in Montgomery, Alabama King preached a sermon from the capitol steps popularly known as the "How Long? Not Long" speech. "How long?" Dr. King asked in a series of litanies. "Not long," the response each time.
On January 20 that procession will make its last leg to Washington, DC where a new litany will be heard echoed from the steps of our nation's capitol.
"How long?"
"Now."
Monday, November 10, 2008
Risky Business
I don't usually blog about stuff I'm going to preach on soon. Blogging and preaching are two separate exercises for me - though they do seem shape and refine each other like two measures shaken together and then running over.
Nevertheless I'm sharing something here that I'll share again Sunday. We'll be talking about risky faith and this is a story from our congregation I wanted to share.
We have a deacon at our church and whose phone number is on our church answering machine. If no one is at church and someone is having an emergency they can call her house for help.
You would not believe the kind of calls she gets. The other day some lady called and asked, “Is the owner of the church in, or is he napping?” I told our deacon she should have put her husband on the phone. “Yeah - ahh - this is Jesus; I was napping on the pillow down deck in the houseboat. How can I help you.” (If you don't get that read Mark 4.)
Anyway, back in August our deacon gets a call from a lady looking for someone to do a memorial service for someone in the family who had just passed away. “I’m sure we can get somebody to help you,” our deacon said. “When is the memorial service going to take place?” “Oh, in about an hour.”
You read that right. An hour. Sixty minutes.
Our decaon gave that woman some scriptures to read and told the woman that she would try to call the minister. And then something really cool happened; our deacon decided that if she couldn’t get hold of me, she was just going to go over there herself and read scripture.
You gotta love that. No theological education. No seminary degree. Just a woman who loves God and is compassionate toward people and couldn't stand the thought of a family not hearing words of comfort on a dark day.
Risky faith.
I love it.
Nevertheless I'm sharing something here that I'll share again Sunday. We'll be talking about risky faith and this is a story from our congregation I wanted to share.
We have a deacon at our church and whose phone number is on our church answering machine. If no one is at church and someone is having an emergency they can call her house for help.
You would not believe the kind of calls she gets. The other day some lady called and asked, “Is the owner of the church in, or is he napping?” I told our deacon she should have put her husband on the phone. “Yeah - ahh - this is Jesus; I was napping on the pillow down deck in the houseboat. How can I help you.” (If you don't get that read Mark 4.)
Anyway, back in August our deacon gets a call from a lady looking for someone to do a memorial service for someone in the family who had just passed away. “I’m sure we can get somebody to help you,” our deacon said. “When is the memorial service going to take place?” “Oh, in about an hour.”
You read that right. An hour. Sixty minutes.
Our decaon gave that woman some scriptures to read and told the woman that she would try to call the minister. And then something really cool happened; our deacon decided that if she couldn’t get hold of me, she was just going to go over there herself and read scripture.
You gotta love that. No theological education. No seminary degree. Just a woman who loves God and is compassionate toward people and couldn't stand the thought of a family not hearing words of comfort on a dark day.
Risky faith.
I love it.
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