I didn’t write a Blog on Tuesday because I spent the day running around and with friends at the Samuel Dewitt Proctor Conference at the Drake hotel downtown Chicago. The conference is for the Faith community to come together and talk about social justice issues. I like to watch how the young people and the older crowd react so differently to what’s going on around them.
I meet a very bright young Brother that dressed sharp and has a million dollar smile with an impressive academic track behind him studying religion. In the evening five of us sat down to have a drink and the young Brother said that he hasn’t developed the taste for beer or liquor so I teased him a bit about it to see how he would react. Mostly he shifted in his seat with some doubt about how to respond, I can only assume, but had the smile going strong. I was waiting to engage him when a Brother at the table asked about where he was going to finish school and he kicks out Vanderbilt and I had heard him early say something about that and what he had hoped to accomplish. Then another Brother said “you should go pastor a church for 2 or 3 years before you go into teaching others how to pastor” and he’s reaction was a bit like ‘yea maybe’ and I jumped in and asked what he was looking to accomplish with his education where was he going with it. As he started to say that he wanted to teach I was overwhelmed with the desire to knock him on his ass with a reality check. I asked him “how can you teach anything to anyone if you don’t have an answer to some of the tough questions students might have?” So I started to break it down to him about the responsibility that “church people” have in experiencing LIFE as the rest of the world does so that as a “pastor” he will be able to answer questions based on experience and not what he read about.
I believe I talked his ear off but he kept his eye contact and was actively listening to what I was saying and I put him in a corner with a real life situation. I told him that as a child I had come to experience racism in a very real way starting at the age of 10 when a police officer called me a wetback – spic among other things. Then a couple months later my teacher was “teaching” us about Greater than and Less than so the teacher picked me and my best friend Chucky and asked us to stand next to each other. Chucky was shorter than me with blond hair blue eyes and I was all of a foot taller than him brown hair brown eyes. So the “lesson” started “Class Gerardo is Greater than Chucky because he is taller than him so that makes Chucky Less than Gerardo.” As we stood up there and we looked at each and it made sense because I was looking down at him and he was always smiling. “OK class, another way to look at this without changing Gerardo or Chucky is that Gerardo is Less than Chucky and Chucky is Greater than Gerardo.” This is 3rd grade and well to be honest we were all lost with what she was saying so a brave soul asked the burning question ‘how is that teacher?’ So the teacher said “Gerardo is a minority and Chucky is a majority” this was the most confusing lesson ever at the time because the class did not know what she meant so she said that in our society Chucky was the majority because he was White and I was the minority because I was Not White. Quickly the yelling and threats from the police officer came back to me but this time the one inflicting the insult was not a White male police officer it was a Black female teacher. I understood what she meant due to the earlier trauma but the rest of my class was lost in translation.
So I look at the young Brother that I had just met at the conference and I asked him “How can Jesus fix this?” He sat there waiting for me to go on and I said to him “I actually want an answer from you because these are the things that will come up how can JESUS fix this? Because there’s plenty of “church folk” running around talking about accept Jesus and Jesus loves you that will fix everything! So I want you to tell me how Jesus can fix this?” The Brother struggled and started with an answer and I could tell that he was searching high and low for an answer until I stopped and said “there’s really no answer to it because it isn’t a matter for Jesus to fix it is up to us to deal with it.” It’s not that I do not believe in the power of Faith it is the simple fact that “church folk” run around saying the name of Jesus a thousand times but are NOT impacting the lives of others the way Jesus did.
Where is the unconditional love? Where is the willingness to challenge the system when it does wrong against the people? I know that it does happen but tell me when was the last time you saw a church organization 100% unconditionally support and fight for the rights of someone that is a gang member?................
I’m sure someone will say ‘oh I know of this one church that one day did something like that….’ One church? Maybe but it’s not the example of one church it is the example of every single Christian that believes in Jesus that I am looking for. I can’t accept a sign that says Jesus saves but yet all around that sign is a liquor store, vacant lots, abandoned buildings, and the pastor is rolling off the church lot in an $85,000+ BMW.
Now, I’m not pointing fingers at a particular person and if you are offended with what I have said here I respect that because I am not here to make people feel good this is about speaking on these issues that we usually are not willing to talk about.
The young Brother understood where I was coming from I believe and said he was going to think about what I shared with him. I reminded him that when we talk about taking on positions and titles in society we have to be responsible with that because so many before us have trampled over those positions for their own wealth and look at where that has left our communities. My suggestion to him is to follow the advice of the older Brother there with us and to pastor a church for a few years so that he’ll have substance when he does decide to teach.
With all of that said I want you to think about what title do you carry and how responsible are you with it? It could be teacher, Father, Mother, Pastor, Bishop, Brother, Sister, officer, Doctor, and one of the most important ones out of many more is Friend. Are you fulfilling that role with unconditional love and attention?
You cannot just say “I’ll leave it to Jesus!” No because if you are a follower of Jesus then you know that it is OUR job to deal with things that is our duty. If it was going to always be left to Jesus then what is the point of living? I’ve heard people say “I filled out a job application but I’ll leave it to Jesus” then they spend HOURS on Facebook playing games and commenting on other peoples pages while everyone else is at work or looking for work. If you believe that Jesus died on the cross for you than what else are you expecting Him to do for you? Hand you the job on a silver platter? No we all have to put in our work to get ourselves where we need to be with the Faith that the Almighty will keep us in His favor and support us when we feel like it’s too much to handle.
I appreciate the Brothers time and willingness to hear me out and I hope that I gave him a perspective that he hasn’t seen before and I look forward to see what accomplishments he’ll be making in the next few years. He is bright with a great personality and the obvious desire to practice what he believes in and that’s more than what I have seen in some adults that have been “pastoring” for several decades now. I do not mean to sound like a jerk but the reality is that we have people dying out here and those that have raised their arms in battle to protect people in need really need to fight harder.
We have to continue to ask ourselves tough questions and challenge each other with the objective of progress in our communities and not for the sake of being right.
Peace/AMOR
Gerardo
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