During his retired years my grandfather would, go to
coffee, as the expression was in the home, meaning he would go to a local diner
where he and his friends met in the early afternoon; they would have a cup of
coffee and discuss the local and global news. On several occasions during the
course of my childhood, I would go with my grandfather to coffee, and on one
particular occasion I happened to pay close attention to their discussion.
Depending on the topic, the
conversation, which was shared from the perspective of educated and well-to-do African
American men who happened to be Christian, was more often than not relatively
objective but grime. On this occasion my grandfather verbally painted a
positive portrait of what America could be if she could ever purge the sin of
prejudice from her soul. Needless to say the other gentlemen were shocked and
rather dismissive of my grandfather’s hope-filled positive outlook. One of the
gentlemen followed my grandfather’s remarks with this question, “what makes you
so optimistic?”, and my grandfather replied, Jesus.
In another instance, I am
reminded of the captivating and wonderful film, The Color Purple. In this masterpiece there is a scene where Ms.
Celie is in the corn field putting up a scarecrow. As she is in the process of
doing this, a lively and rather angry Sophia comes marching through the corn
stocks to confront her. When Sophia comes upon Celie she says to her, “You told
Harpo to beat me!” Celie, who is obviously caught off guard by Sophia’s
presence and temper responds in a way that suggests a sad acceptance of this
life, but joy in the life to come; Celie says, “this life be over soon, heaven
last always.”
In
both accounts I am reminded of Revelation 22:12; and that Christianity in its proclamation that
history is moving towards the return of Jesus the Messiah, is eternally
optimistic; but the history of Americans who are of African descent,
scared as it is, by discrimination, slavery, terrorism, and deliberate oppression, is
pessimistic. While this history is wrapped in a real and understandable pessimism; for those of us who
are Christians, we look at those realities, be them past, present, or future,
and inspite of them, because of Jesus we are eternally optimistic.
Perhaps this great truth crossed his mind at some point, as he sat like John the Baptist or the Apostle Paul, in prison, waiting for the final result of absolution. Alone, yet not. Mocked, yet resilient. Criticized by his own brethren, and yet, undeterred, . . . with one prayer in his heart, and on his lips, . . . "Lord, come quickly."
Z. M. D. McGregor is the senior pastor of The
Relevant Church, in Dallas, Texas.
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