The small town I group up in was idyllic. My grandparents had each moved there, met, and married in the 1920s, my granddaddy a businessman, my grandmother an English teacher. They raised their kids there through the 1940s and 50s. And it’s where I grew up in the 1970s and early 80s. It really was a near-perfect place to grow up, with red brick streets on which my friends and I rode our bikes all around the town. We made a raft and fished down at the creek. There were carnivals and town picnics and parades, and everybody looked out for everybody.
But my town had a secret—a secret lived right out in the open but never talked about. My idyllic small town was segregated, even in the 1980s. There was a section of town literally across the railroad tracks called Morningside. It was established in the 1920s as a place for black workers in the cotton fields to have homes and something of a community away from the white folks. Problem is, it never changed. No African-American really had the option of living in the town proper. They all still lived in Morningside. The powers that be liked things the way they were. So even through the civil rights victories in the 60s and 70s, and in the “morning in America” of the 80s, the institutional racism was still deeply entrenched in small towns and large cities throughout the country. It still is, of course. But all I knew was that I didn’t play with my black classmates after school, on weekends, or in the summer. They went to their side of the tracks and I stayed on mine. That’s just the way things were. And aren’t those the words that most often keep us—as individuals and as communities—from becoming all we might be: “That’s just the way things are.”
Read More[This post is part of an Easter series: President [fill in the blank] and King Jesus.]
My lowest grade in college was in Art Appreciation, so I really don’t have any authority to say what I’m about to say. But…I’ve concluded that most of the art that shows up if I do a search for Jesus’ ascension serves to hinder my ability to follow him rather than to help it. For example, doesn’t this make Jesus look less like the king of the world and more like Peter Pan?
Read More[This post is part of an Easter series: President [fill in the blank] and King Jesus.]
“We set sail…to Philippi, which is a leading city of the district of Macedonia and a Roman colony” (Acts 16:11-12).
Philippi was a Roman colony in northern Greece, settled mostly by Roman soldiers about a hundred years before Paul gets there. These Philippian colonists were proud of being Roman citizens, and they did their best for generations to introduce and cultivate the Roman way of life in this Greek territory. In addition to the very fleshly way of life enjoyed by most middle- and upper-class Roman citizens, one of the key aspects of Roman culture to emerge was emperor worship. Caesar was hailed literally as “savior” and “lord” and “son of the gods,” and to be a colonist under his lordship meant that one’s life should reflect the best of the king’s empire. For a Philippian to claim to be a “citizen of Rome” did not mean they were just going to sit around and act like the natives until they got to return to Rome. No—as a colonist, to be a citizen of Rome meant that they were going to live the Roman life right there in the midst of foreign territory.
Read More[This post is part of an Easter series: President [fill in the blank] and King Jesus.]
Last year, I studied with a cohort made up of the most blessedly bizarre group of people I've ever been a part of. There were about twenty of us, and we came from different places (of the five people in my mentoring group, we were from four different countries), different races, and different traditions of Christianity. We were studying spiritual direction together, so our central question and task for the year was to consider how we could each be more attentive to God's work in our own lives, so that we can become able to accompany others in doing the same? Somehow–from the first time we got together–our focus on that question immediately gave us a sense of being past all of the reasons we typically would have had to be hesitant about one another, or to subconsciously assume ourselves to in some way be better than the ones different from "us".
This felt so blessedly bizarre because I grew up with something of a fear of Christians of traditions other than my own. There was definitely a range involved: some other kinds of Christianity were okay, just not quite as right as my own, while there were other groups who–not only were they not as right as we were, but–were dangerous to us because they believed and did so many misguided things. As a kid, I remember hearing the phrase about another group of Christians in my town, “I wouldn’t touch what they’re doing with a ten-foot pole.” The fear of them set in for years. Later, as an adult, I've come to know, love, and be inspired by numerous people in that very group. No ten-foot poles are needed among the residents of Christ's kingdom.
Read More[This post is part of an Easter series: President [fill in the blank] and King Jesus.]
As a pastor I’m somewhat used to being around the departing and very-recently-departed. Within my first few months as a pastor a family called me to pray with them in the hospital room of their dead mother. They asked if we could all hold hands, including my holding the dead mother’s hand, which was still slightly warm yet was also cool and stiff and very clearly devoid of life. It’s an indescribable feeling one doesn’t forget. Another time, a dear church member died and my wife and I waited with the body for several hours in the cold hospital holding area as the woman’s family traveled to the city. But a number of such incidents have followed over the years and, while I’m always sensitive to and mystified by the dying and dead, it’s no longer a novelty.
Tabitha was a beloved disciple who “was devoted to good works and acts of charity” (Acts 9:36-43). She was a seamstress who had made many garments during her life, most likely many given to those in need. You know the type of person—quiet, humble, having very little yet always giving to others. So when Tabitha becomes ill and dies, she leaves behind many brokenhearted brothers and sisters in Christ. Desperate, they reach out to Peter for help.
Peter is on a journey—a spiritual journey. It began that day on the sea, the day Jesus called him to become a “fisher of people.” There have been many ups and downs, many challenges since then. Peter has been forced to look into his own soul, to weep at what he sees, and to humbly repent before his risen Lord. Now Peter is a real leader of the church. He only thought things were challenging while he walked the dusty roads of Palestine with Jesus. Now that Jesus has ascended, Peter has to step up and lead others down those roads. He has to go where, apart from that call from Jesus, he would never otherwise have gone.
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