Today on June 6, 2016, I’m on the plane flying home from Boston. Yesterday, I preached at First Baptist of Boston my home church’s 351st church anniversary. My text was Luke 7:11-17 with the title, “No Dead Ends.” My point is that Christ is a living God who can even raise the dead. If we feel that the church is in decline, in Christ, there is always a new beginning. There is no such thing as dead ends in God.
Being at FBC, Boston, I am reminded of singing, “Are you able said the Master” in high school and wonder how sacrificial has my ministry been over the course of these many years. I wonder if I have compromised my commitment when I became settled by marrying after my first year in seminary, being called to a nationally known church in San Francisco, and having our first son only six months into my first year of full-time ministry. Quickly, I became a part of the establishment.
At First Baptist, I again heard about Obadiah Holmes who was whipped in the public square for his Baptist witness. I was in Wayland Hall named after Francis Wayland who was one of the church pastors and another Baptist pioneer. When I preached, I saw again the stained glass window of Samuel Stillman. I wonder if I would ever be remembered perhaps not as one of the “giants” connected to this church but only as one who was faithful in life and in death. When I meet God, would I be able to say that I was able for the Master?
This has led me to reflect on the times when I felt that I was ready to give my best to Christ. When did I feel that my faith was on the line?
When I was younger with fewer responsibilities, I can remember becoming “radicalized” at the end of my college years. There was a minister named Roger Dewey? (Last name escapes me.) who met with us at Old Cambridge Baptist in Cambridge to explore a Christian chapter of the SDS (Students for a Democratic Society)—Christians for a Democratic Society (CDS). We even discussed and justified the use of violence as Christians for a more just society. Fortunately, we never acted on this.
When I was at Gordon where the atmosphere was conservative during the late 60s, I helped found RAP (Racial Affairs Program) along with fellow Black, Hispanic and white students to protest racial equality and eventually against Vietnam. We marched both in Boston and Washington, DC. When we were at the Washington Mall, we saw national guards on rooftops and we were ready to die for the cause. In the Forrest Gump movie, I can say, “I was there.”
One time, I went to the Black Panthers office in Central Square, Cambridge to rent movies for a film festival at Gordon. I can still remember Huey Newton sitting on a rattan chair spewing aggression on white America. We were intentionally being defiant and fortunately in the spirit of honoring free speech, we were not suspended for our actions.
When my draft number for my birthday was 113, Joy and I decided that if I was drafted that we would abandon our citizenship and move to Canada. I had passed my required military physical even when I failed for color-blindness. And then when I was in seminary, I officially became a conscientious objector that means that no war is justified according to my faith and that in no situation I would be able to take the life of another human being.
But these convictions all took place when I was young and perhaps more true to my convictions. What happened? I suspect that when we became homeowners, contributed into a retirement plan, bought life insurances, had more kids and aspired to be middle-class that such radical actions that may have undermined all that we have worked for receded from my consciousness.
What have I done since those formative years when I was more true to my beliefs? Have I lost all of my integrity across these past 40 years?
I hope and pray for forgiveness if I have forsaken my call. I hope that I am not just rationalizing what is and not assume responsibility for what has been and what could have been. I guess only the living can decide at my demise.
I hope that the 20 years I was with Educational Ministries in Valley Forge that I helped model the importance of diversity in God’s family and that each and everyone of us has something to offer in the making of the whole. I hope that when I spent a total of 20 years at First Chinese Baptist in San Francisco that I imparted on these faithful people that God is calling them to be in service and ministry. They are no longer objects of missions but they are a missional church. I hope that my personal conviction of being a vegetarian is to model the Peaceable Kingdom depicted in Isaiah 40. I hope that the years that I have served in the ABCUSA denomination and particularly as an officer have symbolized that we are ever more closely reflecting the true Body of Christ.
I hope that I am “able for the Master!”
6/6/2016