A View from My Window
A. Knighton Stanley
Published by Cronos Press, an imprint of Fideli Publishing, Inc.
Acclaim for A View From My Window
For over 40 years, Dr. Stanley’s preaching has attempted to move a complex, sophisticated community beyond the ‘kindergarten’ Christianity of its childhood to a powerful, relevant gospel that reconciles their complex lives while affirming the simple truth that in spite of all of our shortcomings, we are all God’s beloved children. This volume illuminates a life and ministry obedient to a worthy call.
Ambassador
Andrew Young,
Civil Rights leader/minister/humanitarian
Atlanta,
Georgia
One Sunday morning, Dr. Stanley preached a sermon that so illuminated an aspect of my life’s journey I wrote one of my strongest musical compositions. On the Sunday after Coretta Scott King died, through his teaching and preaching, he showed us a woman with a deep moving spirit and commitment to justice. I was able to cry again as we closed the service singing the spiritual, “There is a Balm in Gilead.” I have continually found inspiration and hope in his words. May you also find water in your dry times from this well.
Dr.
Bernice Johnson Reagon,
singer/composer/cultural
historian
Washington, DC
A View From My Window is a refreshing, unassuming collection of a preacher’s thoughts and reflections about God and who we are as God’s children. Tony Stanley has a unique gift of sharing experiences of life through the lens of God’s love, mercy and faithfulness to all people. While reading his sermons, one feels as if one is reading over his shoulder as he journals about his life, ministry and how God’s love overshadows every nuance of what we do. Stanley has a gift of making the most mundane occurrence appear in reflection as a great epiphany in him. This book is a must read for every preacher and especially seminarians.
The
Reverend Dr. Susan D. Newman, Author,
Your
Inner Eve: Discovering God’s Woman Within
This volume of sermons by Dr. A. Knighton Stanley is inspiring and instructive for laity and preachers alike. His evocative weaving of solid theological scholarship, illustrations from daily life and his personal faith journey create a tapestry that compellingly presents the hope and joy of the good news. Taking a view from his window is to see the fullness of God’s majesty.
The Reverend Dr. Henry T. Simmons, Senior Minister
St. Albans Congregational Church
St. Albans, New York
A. Knighton Stanley’s earlier book, The Children Is Crying (1979), addresses the American Missionary Association and the Congregational Church’s blatant disregard for the rich and meaningful culture already existent among Afro Americans in the South following the Civil War and suggests that because of their failure to establish culturally relevant churches throughout the South, “The children, black and white are crying everyday.” It is entirely providential, therefore, that this sensitive pastor/scholar/preacher now shares with us thought provoking sermons that provide words of hope and encouragement so that we may cease our crying and more faithfully be the Body of Christ.
The Reverend Dr. Marvin L. Morgan
Moderator, General Synod 27
United Church of Christ
Dr. Stanley is passionate in his love for God and his service toward God’s people. I so appreciate his openness and candor about his struggles as he continues to know and live the ways of God. This collection of sermons offers a glimpse into the life and soul of a preacher on his journey toward the heart of God.
The Reverend Natalie V. McLean, Chaplain
Bennett College for Women
Greensboro, NC
©2008 A. Knighton Stanley
Published By: Fideli Publishing, Inc.
119 W. Morgan St.
Martinsville, IN 46151
www.fidelipublishing.com
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Publisher.
ISBN: 978-1-60414-113-9
Cover image courtesy of the Washington Post. Used with permission.
Photo credit: Marvin Joseph.
All biblical references derived from:
The Holy Bible, King James Version, Copyright © 1989. Used by permission of Zondervan, and New Revised Standard Version Bible, Copyright ©1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
To my children,
Nathaniel, Kathryn and Taylor
Preface
The thoughts that follow are just a few things I have learned while trying to follow Jesus Christ. They are the result of a long journey that began in a little village in North Carolina some seventy years ago and continues through this day.
God has a way of taking the shape of the vessel in the person who receives God. I rejoice that God has found a place in my life, and I in the life of God. By and large, the sermons and meditations contained herein were first heard by congregations at Peoples Congregational United Church of Christ in Washington, DC where I served as pastor for nearly forty years, St Albans Congregational Church in Queens, New York and the National Cathedral in the Nation’s Capital. They are my views about life and God, the nature and destiny of humankind, human relationships and Jesus Christ, the Lord of our faith. There are other views about all of these matters, I am sure. But these are my views seen through the lens which has been ground through the often hard experiences of my life. This is the shape God took as God entered this vessel. Although this God may not fit your vessel, your God is none the less real. For those in whose life God has not taken shape, form or residence, I hope these outpourings from my soul will be bread for your journey. Because I am still on the road that leads to faith, perhaps I will meet you there. For God has a way of making pilgrims into companions and friends.
I am grateful to Andrea Young who patiently heard and critiqued many of these sermons on the Saturdays before they were actually given. I am grateful to my daughter, Kathryn who patiently edited these wanderings of my mind. I am deeply indebted to members and friends of Peoples Congregational and St. Albans Congregational churches who first heard, critiqued and lived these messages. Additionally, I am forever grateful to those who stood with me during a difficult season of my life: my friends, Henry, Bernice, Willoughby, Andrew and Carolyn, Sammy, Bobby and Joy, Eleanor, George, Douglas, Hillary and Bo; my sisters, Bettye and Joan; my soul children, Hope, Natalie, Victor and Sushama; and my birth children, Nathaniel, Kathryn and Taylor.
The author, Dr. A. Knighton Stanley (Tony) was pastor of Peoples Congregational United Church of Christ in Washington, DC during the time he prepared and delivered most of these sermons. Peoples Church is a congregation of educators, community leaders, professionals, business-owners and government workers. Peoples Church is also culturally diverse with members from the Caribbean and Africa, as well as the United States. The reader will find the sermons inspirational as well as intellectually satisfying. Tony followed the discipline of writing his sermons based on the common lectionary that divides the Bible into readings and teachings for the Church year.
At Peoples, Washington’s leaders came to find a message that would give them a sense of direction, refine their moral compass, restore their courage, invigorate their hearts and hear a Christian viewpoint of the political challenges of the day. On special Sundays, the morning’s message might come from Ambassador Andrew Young, Rev. Jesse Jackson, Senator Edward Kennedy, Vice President Walter Mondale, Dr. Dorothy Height, Dr. Johnnetta B. Cole or James Baldwin. However, it was Tony Stanley’s skillful and thoughtful preaching that grew the congregation seven-fold and built a culturally- inspired new sanctuary and dynamic ministries for young and old alike during his tenure. This sample of his sermons provides a glimpse of the food for the spirit and mind that was served at Peoples each Sunday for thirty-eight years.
Each sermon illuminates a text from the Bible. Many passages will be familiar to even the ‘casual’ Christian, but others will be new and fresh. Always, the meaning taken away will give a new perspective on even the most familiar passages, such as the parable of the good samaritan.
The stories that illustrate each biblical text reference well-known historical figures such as Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King, Jr. Also included are stories involving lesser known leaders such as Septima Clark and Willa B. Player. There are vignettes from family life and the experiences known only to the pastor of a large church. Stories concerning the beliefs and actions of the powerful and the small miracles possible in the life of the average person are a part of the real-life illustrations herein.
The sermons in A View from My Window guided the life of a congregation and will be a meaningful and treasured addition to any collection of religious and inspirational literature.
Andrea I. Young
A View From My Window
Luke 5:1-11
Once while Jesus was standing beside the lake of Gennesaret, and the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, he saw two boats there at the shore of the lake; the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little way from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat. When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.” Simon answered, “Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.” When they had done this, they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to break. So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both boats, so that they began to sink. But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” For he and all who were with him were amazed at the catch of fish that they had taken; and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. Then Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.” When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him.
On my visit to Israel several years ago, my plane landed in Tel Aviv, the political capital of the nation. I was met by a gracious Israeli gentleman named Daniel. For the next ten days, Danny would be my driver and guide. Danny’s van had no doubt been a fit vehicle at an earlier time. Now it moaned and groaned and sighed under the weight of too many passengers, too many journeys, too many years.
We set out from Tel Aviv on a journey of about seventy-five miles to Tiberius. The trip seemed to take forever over winding roads. Finally in the dead of the night we reached our destination. Tiberius is a city of about 30,000 people on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee. Bone tired from the travel of the day, without much to do, I checked into my hotel, went to my room and fell fast asleep.
The next morning, I awakened to the voices and noise of fishermen just outside my hotel window. When I went to the window, I had my first glimpse in the daylight of the Sea of Galilee. The Sea of Galilee is really a lake, about fourteen miles long from north to south and seven miles wide from east to west. The rays of the morning sun shimmered on the lake giving it an orange like glow. As I looked across to the eastern shore, I recalled that at the point where the land ascends from the shore was the place where Jesus gave his famous, Sermon on the Mount. I recalled that it was on the Sea of Galilee that Jesus walked on water and calmed an angry sea. I thought that it might have been just beneath my hotel window that Jesus taught the multitude. And it was to the other side of the lake that he went in a failed attempt to get away from the crowds. I remembered that it was from the shores of the Sea of Galilee that Jesus called his disciples. As I remembered these things, I knew I was standing on Holy Ground.
Looking out and remembering all of the wonderful things Jesus had said and done in this sacred place was an awesome experience. Yet at the same time that my soul looked back in wonder, I was struck by how ordinary this scene was. The so-called mountain on which Jesus preached his famous sermon was hardly the size of most foothills I have seen. The Sea of Galilee didn’t begin to compare in size and beauty with the Great Lakes of North America.
Even so as I studied the ordinariness of this place, a miracle, a transformation began to happen within me. As a student, I had studied the New Testament in a scholarly fashion and had continued to do so as a pastor. Intellectually, I was well acquainted with the Good Book and with the historic land from which it emerges. But suddenly on that glad morning, the characters of the New Testament seemed to leap out at me. They seemed to take on life, not only on and around the Sea of Galilee, but also in my spirit, in my heart. In that joyous moment, I remembered once again that it was out of this lake just outside my hotel window that Jesus called Simon Peter. Thinking of Peter’s call, I remembered this fisherman’s opening words which he spoke on the shores of the Sea of Galilee: “Master,” Peter said, “we have fished all night and we have caught nothing.” When I remembered these words, I knew that, unbeknownst even to Peter, these words were about something other than fishing.
In the nighttime of your life, have you ever toiled with all of your heart and mind and strength and resolved nothing? Surely, I have. I was an excellent student in divinity school. I graduated with honors. I was an exceptional scholar, or so they said. But somehow, in those years, Jesus, Peter, James and John and all those fellows, had never come out of the pages of the Bible and walked along the highways and byways of my life. In divinity school, I had toiled all night on many a night, studying the word – but I had caught so little in terms of the very sum and substance of the Gospel, of the faith.
Have you ever toiled all night and have taken nothing? Surely, I have. It must have been a thousand times and under a thousand different circumstances that I’ve said, “I’ve tried that before. But never will I try again. It doesn’t work.” A thousand times I’ve said, “I’ve struggled with this or that long enough. I’ve made up my mind. I’ve lived long enough to know what works and what doesn’t. I’ve toiled night and day for years trying to master this problem and that problem and so many times I’ve solved nothing. So I’ve decided never to try again.” I’ve said that. Have you?
Have you ever become discouraged because you have toiled with a major issue of your life and solved nothing? I’ve seen couples give up on marriage because they’ve fiddled with it for years and it remains a mess. They’ve toiled all night and achieved nothing. I’ve seen parents give up on their children because their toiling, laboring and indulging them for years has produced no good results. They’ve toiled all night and have nothing to show for it. I’ve seen people give up on an education because they couldn’t seem to fit it in along with all the other demands of their lives. They toiled all night and caught nothing. I’ve seen people give up on religion because they have sat in churches and synagogues and mosques for years and they have discovered that faith doesn’t come easy. They’ve dropped out because all of the church-going and hymn singing and preaching and praying have made no difference at the very center of their lives. Though they have worked hard at their religion, faith seems to elude them. They’ve accomplished nothing.
Yes, it is clear to me that when Peter said to Jesus “Master, we have toiled all night and have taken nothing,” he was talking about more than just fishing. Peter’s speech moved beyond fishing when Jesus began to fill the rest of his life with a new vision, a new glimpse of what his life could begin to mean.
As I stood looking out of my hotel window at the Sea of Galilee, I wondered what persuaded a professional, experienced fisherman like Peter to cast his net into waters they had already fished all night and come up with nothing? What convinces such a person to cast his net and fish again? But what is more important for us in today, is what convinces people like you and me, people of experience who have tried and failed in so many things in life – what convinces us to go on back into the deep water, pull out another net and fish again? But even more than that, what convinces people like us, people who read “at” the Bible, at least, people who come to church with some frequency, people who serve faithfully, pray religiously, yet emptiness still fills our hearts to keep at the faith? What convinces us that Jesus Christ is really sovereign and that Jesus Christ can make a difference in our lives? What convinces people who have lost their sense of moral meaning that Jesus can come out of the pages of the Good Book, take on life and walk on the highways and byways of that part of themselves where meaning and love and peace are found? How do we move beyond what our past has defined as “the way things are”? How deep do we have to go before we catch something meaningful for ourselves? Isn’t it true that even the best of us go around murmuring to ourselves, “I’ve fished all of my years and don’t expect to find anything new in any of life’s waters?”
Indeed, as I stood looking out of my hotel window toward the Sea of Galilee, I found myself trembling for reasons I could not explain. Suddenly, this scene which seemed so ordinary was filled with heralds of the Divine. I was overcome with excitement and joy, anger, fear and awe. “What is happening to me?” I wondered. “Was the same thing happening to me that happened to Peter on the Sea of Galilee 2000 years before?” I wished! Does this transformation, this new way of seeing and being and doing happen in a split second as it seems to have for Simon Peter? Is the same thing happening to me that happened to him? For Peter, there was not the slightest hint of a pause. When Jesus told him to “Go on out into the deep waters and cast your nets again.” Peter replied, “But Master, we toiled all night and took nothing.” Then without pause he said, “But at your word, I will go on back out there and let the nets down again!” Peter obeyed! Does it happen like that, in a split second? Is life transformed in the twinkling of an eye?
For some, it is. But for others, if not for most, the split second turns into months and years and even a lifetime. For some, the net that harvests true life, has long laid untied at the bottom of the boat. Our net suffers from dry rot because it has not been used. How long, Lord? How long does it take? Who really knows how long it takes for God’s Word to penetrate our hearts? Who knows how long it takes to be changed by God’s Word? Perhaps God’s life-giving Word comes to us through a memory of childhood. God’s transforming Word may come through a conversation with a stranger or a friend. Perhaps it comes from a passage from the Bible that we’ve read a thousand times before but only heard and understood in the present. Why does it happen and when? We really don’t know. But perhaps there is no better way of explaining this moment of new vision and new life than with the words of the psalmist which say it happens when “deep cries unto deep” or it happens, as Saint Paul said, “When God’s spirit speaks to our spirits and we are made whole and new.” We can never know what made Simon Peter, at the call of the Christ, cast his net into the deep waters against his own knowledge and experience as a fisherman. It may have been the miracle of healing which Jesus performed in Simon’s house just days before that convinced him to take up the Jesus way of being in the world. It may have been that Peter had already heard Jesus’ teachings around the Sea of Galilee and was almost persuaded. Whatever it was, in the twinkling of an eye, Simon was ready to give his life to Jesus and to say, “No matter what I’ve been. No matter what I’ve done before now. No matter what I’ve known, I know now that all is not lost. For God is a God of the second chance and there is a net in the bottom of my boat, and at your word, Lord Jesus, I will move out into the deep with you and cast my net again”.
Because they trusted, because they took Jesus at his word, Peter and the others caught more fish than they could haul away. They took Jesus at his word and believed, Jesus filled them more abundantly than they could have ever asked or thought. Right now, I invite you to stand at the window of a new life with me, no matter what you’ve done before; no matter how long you’ve toiled; no matter how much you’ve denied Christ or how uncertain you feel, Jesus reminds you that there is another chance awaiting you. For there is a net in the bottom of your boat and Jesus invites you to keep hoping, take another chance with Him. Launch out into the deep with Him. If you’re willing to fish for it, a new life awaits you. If you are willing to fish for it, a new way of thinking and seeing, being and walking and talking awaits you. If you fish for it, new life will be abundantly yours.
How many times have I fished night and day and caught nothing? Nevertheless, I will take you at your word, launch out into the deep and keep fishing. For in you, new life awaits me. Amen.
A Call to Risk Everything for Jesus Christ
Matthew 25:14 – 30
For the kingdom of heaven is as a man traveling into a far country, who called his own servants, and delivered unto them his goods. 15And unto one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one to every man according to his several ability; and straightway took his journey. 16Then he that had received the five talents went and traded with the same, and made them other five talents. 17And likewise he that had received two, he also gained other two. 18But he that had received one went and digged in the earth, and hid his lords money. 19After a long time the lord of those servants cometh, and reckoneth with them. 20And so he that had received five talents came and brought other five talents, saying, Lord thou deliveredst unto me five talents: behold, I have gained beside them five talents more. 21His lord said unto him, Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of the lord. 22He also that had received two talents came and said, Lord, thou deliveredst unto me two talents: behold, I have gained two other talents beside them. 23His lord said unto him, Well done, good and faithful servant: thou has been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord. 24Then he which had received the one talent came and said, Lord, I know thee that thou art an hard man, reaping where thou hast not sown, and gathering where thou hast not strawed: 25And I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth: lo, there thou hast that is thine. 26His lord answered and said unto him, Thou wicked and slothful servant, thou knewest that I reap where I sowed not, and gather where I have not strawed: 27Thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the exchangers, and then at my coming I should have received mine own with usury. 28Take therefore the talent from him, and give it unto him which hath ten talents. 29For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath. 30And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
The parable of the talents is one of the most well-known parables in all of the New Testament. My mother used this parable to encourage my sisters to practice the piano and make the most of the gifts God had given them. Her philosophy was that if you don’t use the gifts God has given you, you lose them. “Use it or lose it” was her understanding of the appropriate employment of talents and gifts.
While I’m not altogether certain my mother’s interpretation of this parable was completely accurate, it does serve as a good starting point for an understanding of Jesus’ message through this parable.
The parable of the talents is the story of three servants each of whom was entrusted by their master with large sums of money. The master went away on a trip. The servant who was entrusted with one talent was not particularly short changed because a talent is not a mere pittance, but an enormous sum of money. It was the highest denomination of currency in the Roman Empire. One talent was equal to about 6,000 days’ wages or the income of a working person over a period of twenty years. In those days, a talent was a whole lot of money.
When the master came home, he found that his first two servants had placed his money in a high yield, risky investment. The risky investment paid off, doubling the master’s money. These servants lived a dream come true. They played the stock market with someone else’s money and the market came through. But, the third servant with the one talent was afraid that he would lose his master’s money. So he decided to play it safe. You see, there were no FDIC- insured accounts or safe deposit boxes in that day. The only place to ensure the safety of that which had been entrusted to him was to bury it in the ground. There is a sense, then, in which the third servant did his job well. He did his best to protect and to safeguard his master’s money. But while he was trustworthy and prudent, his shortcoming was that he was so afraid of losing his master’s money that he took it and hid it so he could return every penny of it when his master returned.
We know what happened. The two servants who doubled their master’s money were rewarded for their good work. “Well done,” the master said to each of them, “you good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a few things; I will make you ruler over many. Enter now into the joy of the Lord.”
But the third servant took no risk because he was afraid that if he used his master’s money he might lose it. To avoid failure and loss, he took his master’s money and buried it in a hole in the ground. He didn’t want to risk anything. He suffered from what Martin Luther King Jr. described as the “paralysis of analysis.” As a result of the servant’s action, the master said to him, “You wicked servant, you know I reap where I have not scattered. You should have put my money with a stockbroker and when I got back I should have received my own plus interest. Take, therefore, the one talent from him and give it to him who has ten talents. For to everyone that has shall be given, and he shall have abundance; but to everyone who has not, even that which he has shall be taken away from him and given unto him who has ten talents.”
The story of the talents is what some scholars refer to as a “kingdom story.” A kingdom story says that in fact, if one is to usher in the reign of God on earth, one must be willing to do more than simply take the Master’s gifts. If we’re going to usher in the future, give birth to the reign of God, we’ve got to risk everything for the master. We must risk everything for Jesus Christ. The message of this parable is that we cannot claim the future by clinging safely to the present or the past. We do not sail through life by clinging to the shores; we navigate by looking at the stars.
The saying, “If you don’t use it, you lose it,” applies to human persons in all kinds of situations and in all walks of life. If a weightlifter stops lifting weights, he loses the ability to lift. If a track star doesn’t exercise her muscles by working out or running, she loses her ability to run well. In all things physical, one has to exercise one’s appropriate muscles. For if you don’t use those muscles, you lose them.
The same is true of our moral, spiritual and ethical development. If we don’t exercise our moral and spiritual muscles we lose them. In so doing, we lose our moral courage and spiritual strength.
I share with you the lives of five women who were no doubt one-talent women, but women who risked their all to usher in the kingdom. These women exercised their moral and spiritual muscle, spared nothing in their service of their Master. These women used what they had to make rich gains for God and God’s people.
The first woman whose achievement I share is unknown to most, I’m sure. Her name was Mary Peake. Mary Peake, a native Washingtonian, was mulatto to the extent that most people thought she was white. Because she was a free “negro,” Peake had the advantage of a normal school education which prepared her to teach. This was a rare privilege for people of her race. Mary Peake was so committed to educating people of color that before the Civil War, she set up a clandestine school for African Americans in the very shadow of the White House.
When the Union soldiers made their way south, Mary Peake followed closely in their footsteps. When the Union Army took Fortress Monroe in Hampton Roads, Virginia, Mary Peake, under the patronage of the American Missionary Association of the Congregational Churches, established the first school, however makeshift, for African Americans in the South. Hundreds of former slaves, children and adults alike, flocked to Mary Peake’s crude little school. Because they came and learned, Mary Peake set their feet firmly on freedom’s highway. The lives of these former slaves would never be the same because they had had life giving, soul giving contact with a godly woman who buried neither her talents nor gifts; a godly woman who flexed her moral muscle and risked everything God had given her for her Master, Jesus Christ. Mary Peake was surely one of a kind. But thank God the strong women kept coming!
Another Mary, Mary Phillips, became the head of the School at Lincoln Normal in Marion, Alabama. The Lincoln School was an institution established for the education of the children of ex-slaves by the American Missionary Association of the Congregational tradition. Because the Lincoln School improved the conditions of African Americans lifting them socially, politically and economically, it was often under attack by the Ku Klux Klan and the local gentry. Mary Phillips was described as a wiry woman of Irish descent with flaming red hair. Because she followed a very popular head of school, initially she was not well-liked. What is more, shortly after she came, the Klan burned down the boy’s dormitory. Soon after that, Ms. Phillips disappeared. No one knew where she had gone. Some felt her fear of the Klan had driven her away. Because she was not highly regarded, her students viewed her disappearance with suspicion and mixed emotions. Nonetheless, the school continued to move forward in her absence. About five weeks after her disappearance, Mary Phillips reappeared and it was discovered that she had been to Tuskegee Institute. While there, under the tutelage of Mr. Booker T. Washington and others, she had learned to make and lay brick. When she returned to the Lincoln School, Mary Phillip taught the boys the trade she had learned at Tuskegee. Within a few months, she and the boys had replaced the boy’s dormitory with a building more substantial than the one before. Mary Phillips was a good and godly woman who exercised both her physical and moral muscle and laid her all on the line for Jesus Christ.
Almost a half century later, there came another strong woman, who, though distant in time from Mary Peake and Mary Phillips, nonetheless, followed in their footsteps. She was a brown-skinned woman, small in stature, but long in courage and commitment. This lady’s name was Septima Clark. Ms. Clark was a well-educated woman who taught in the public schools in Charleston, South Carolina. But much to the consternation of the powers which then presided over Charleston, Septima Clark was active in the local chapter of the NAACP. In fact, she even held an office. The superintendent of public schools in Charleston notified Septima, “If you don’t give up your role in support of the NAACP, as far as Charleston is concerned, your teaching days are over.” Septima didn’t give up her role in the Civil Rights Movement and continued to hold office in the NAACP. The public schools of Charleston fired her but, praise God, her teaching days were not over.
Septima Clark joined with Martin Luther King and Andrew Young and with the support of the American Missionary Association of the United Church of Christ, Septima Clark helped establish freedom schools at Penn Center and at Dorchester Academy, where she and others like Dorothy Cotton taught African Americans from the backwoods of Georgia, South Carolina and Mississippi, how to exercise their rights as good and free citizens, especially how to vote. Whenever we remember those who helped bring in little pieces of the Kingdom in the 20th Century; whenever we remember those who were willing to give up and to risk their all for their master, Jesus Christ, Septima Clark’s name shall be lifted up and shouted out.
Another person I wish to share with you is Fannie Lou Hamer. What well-developed moral and spiritual muscle she possessed! Some would say that Ms. Fannie Lou Hamer was a one-talent heroin if there ever were one. She was a beautiful person, severely overweight due mostly to an unhealthy, unbalanced diet.
Ms. Hamer was good with numbers and became the bookkeeper on a Mississippi plantation where she was sharecropper. She kept the books for the plantation owner on debts owed him by other African Americans who lived with her on the plantation. Fannie Lou was never convinced that the owner’s book keeping methods were ethical or fair. He cheated those who owed him. Fannie Lou became outraged and insulted by the fact that her people were being used. She became weary of it. As she put it subsequently time and again, she became “Sick and tired of being sick and tired.”
One day, the civil rights workers of the southern and northern student movements came to Fannie Lou’s little cabin to recruit her for the freedom movement. Hamer had attended one of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference’s Freedom Schools like those established by Septima Clark in South Carolina and Georgia. By 1964, Fannie Lou Hamer had became so politically astute that she was a founding member of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party which went to the Democratic National Convention to challenge the Democrats of Mississippi and to remove them from their seats.
I met Fannie Lou Hamer at the General Synod of the United Church of Christ in the summer of 1965. Ms. Hamer was to address those assembled at the national gathering. For whatever reason, I was backstage standing with Ms. Hamer and Andrew Young before her speech. Andrew had seen to Fannie Lou’s being there and he introduced her and the Mississippi women she brought with her. I remember being somewhat upset with Andrew that he had brought this untutored woman to address the national meeting of the United Church of Christ. She was clearly out of her element or so I thought. I was sure the delegates would disregard her and that she would be devastated and hurt. I felt bad for this woman.
Fannie Lou Hamer wasn’t dressed like a queen, but when she went to the podium and sang, “This little light of mine, I’m going to let it shine,” we knew we were in the presence of a royal child of God. And when she spoke the whole convention hall shook at the gravity of her words. On that glorious day, Fannie Lou Hamer brought in a little piece of the Kingdom of God. Throughout her life, she flexed her moral muscle and proved herself to be a faithful servant of the Lord, one who risked everything with which she had been entrusted and endowed on behalf of her Master, Jesus Christ.
The fifth African American woman who is so near and dear to my heart is one Willa B. Player. In the late 1950s and early to mid-1960s, Dr. Willa B. Player was president of Bennett College in Greensboro, NC. Dr. Player gave me my second job after I finished divinity school. She was very fond of me, and I of her. Dr. Player was a person of tremendous strength of mind, body, spirit and courage.
During the student sit-in movement while Dr. Player was away on business for the College, two-thirds of her students were jailed for violating Jim Crow laws of the state of North Carolina. So many Bennett students had been arrested that the city of Greensboro and the County of Guilford ran out of jail space and some of these courageous young women were held in an abandoned polio hospital on the outskirts of town. Dr. Player was contacted to return to the campus. When Dr. Player returned to Greensboro, she came immediately to the polio hospital. I was there to greet her and give her the news that nearly 400 of her students were in jail.
She, seemingly very upset with me, asked the jailers if she could speak to her students. When she reached them, I am told that she greeted each one of them by name. Hours later when she came out of the area where she had a conversation with her students, it seemed as if a halo were over her head. She said to me, “Mr. Stanley, get the names, addresses and telephone numbers of each of the young women jailed here. Before morning comes, I want to send telegraph messages to all of their parents to tell them not to worry about these brave women. I want their parents to be proud. They are fighting for our freedom and everything will be alright.” At the time, Willa B. Player was the only black woman who was president of a college in America. Her very prestigious job came with a trustee board that was as southern as molasses and magnolia trees and as white as the driven snow. Yet she was willing to lay all of that on the line. Because of her courage and faith, she ushered in at that moment in time and forevermore, a little piece of the Kingdom. By supporting the students in their activism, she risked her job, her future, her all for freedom and justice, whose master, guardian and guarantor is Jesus Christ.
There is a sense in which I, too, am a one- talent person. Sometimes, I actually feel that I am a jack of all trades and a master of none. Yet in my better moments, I know that God has blessed me with so many talents and so many gifts. When I first arrived at Peoples Congregational United Church of Christ, nearly 40 years ago, I just knew I would not be there long. I knew that there were greener pastures out there just waiting for me to enter. I had offers to work at colleges and universities, offers to become a denominational executive, offers for a high post with the city of Washington, D.C., and other agencies, and an offer to work for the American Association of Theological Schools. But somewhere down the line I decided I wanted none of these things.