Sermons from St. Paul’s Episcopal Church
All Saints, 2006
The Rev. Melissa Skelton
John 11:32-44
When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus began to weep. So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”
Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.” Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, “Father, I thank you for having heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.” When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”
Jesus cried out in a loud voice: “Lazarus, come out!” And then Jesus said, “Unbind him and let him go.”
The Saints of God are those whom God has called to come out of their tombs and to walk freely among those in bondage and fear. We, you and I, are privileged at times to see some of those saints or to hear their stories. This morning we are also privileged to welcome new saints into our community, recalling that we, like they, are those who have passed from death into life, from the isolation of the tomb to the glorious liberty of the children of God.
And so to remind us of our sainthood, I offer you this story of a saint. Listen for the tomb he inhabited: the fear and the doubt he found there. Listen for the voice calling him out of that tomb. Listen for his unbinding and notice what his glorious liberty would do for others.
In the 1960’s, seven years before the broader desegregation effort in Boston, a group of African American parents in Roxbury organized themselves into a parents group looking to find less crowded, more adequately staffed schools for their children. Drawing on a seldom invoked “open enrollment” law, these parents had secured a school bus with private money and were meeting to consider whether they would indeed try to bus their children to predominantly white schools in the Back Bay or South Boston area.
Albert Jones, a school custodian, was one of those parents. These are his words, his account of what happened at the meeting.
“When I went to the first meeting in the church, I heard people talking about whether they should send their sons and daughters over to ‘whitey territory.’ One man shouted no and some agreed. But others said yes. And I began to understand that we all were teetering, that’s what: mothers and fathers, not sure of ourselves what to do, and let me tell you, scared, scared out of our minds, and when you’re scared, you tremble, and you’re afraid you’ll make a mistake, and here were our children, and they’d be the ones to suffer, to pay for our errors, for all the mistakes we made.
The noise got louder, and I could see what was happening—I said to myself sitting there: hey, Albert, don’t you see there’s a crowd of people here and they’re talking about themselves and their kids, but they’re going one way one minute and one the next, and they’re headed for trouble….and this won’t stop until someone starts telling it like it is, and speaking big, speaking the truth, speaking above himself and way beyond himself even if he’s scared…. (this won’t stop until someone) decides to roll the dice, not to make dough but to put his heart on the line, no matter what, and his soul too—and that’s being a leader.
“What’s a leader?’ I asked myself…. right in the church, so help me God. I asked myself: what should you say now, Albert? But I heard nothing, except my heart beating hard, and I saw my fingers moving, my right hand shaking, and I could feel my toes, ready to go—get out of there, rather than take a chance and stay and say what seems right. I knew—I knew if you open your mouth, in no time flat, you’ve got people naysaying you, and giving you a look that says you’ve fallen flat on your face!....I was in the middle of that, thinking like that—and then, God—I heard myself!
“Let’s go.” That’s what I said, just two words.
A man in front of me turned around to look, and I could see he didn’t know what I meant….leav(ing) (the meeting) or get(ting) ourselves together and mak(ing) some decision. That’s when I raised my voice and really spoke up…(or) as my wife says I ‘had my say.’ I said; “We should get going and take charge—get things under control.’
I could see the guy wasn’t out to argue with me but he was wondering: okay, buddy, but how do you go do that. (And I told myself, all right (it’s time to) let go with an idea, a proposal. Say it like you believe it, I told myself, say it so others will get going themselves, in their minds, like its going in your mind. So I started myself up again—I was talking high, talking loud. I said, “Listen folks, this is important. I said, “It’ll really make a difference what we do.”
I said this: “Don’t you, see, (white folks) are out there and they’ll decide what happens to our kids, whether they go here or there or some other place---they’ll decide according to what suits them. But these are our kids and…we can say no, nothing doing—it’s up to us to stand up and speak and take the lead….we’re going to be the ones who make the decisions or we’re going to sit back and be theirs—their people. They’re used to owning us and we’re used to being owned, (but) now we’re talking about our children….”
Next thing I knew I was all out of breath, and as my momma would say, “scared, mighty scared.” But no one took me on. (And) the man in front of me, all of the sudden he got up and he was standing like I was and he was talking: “I heard the man’s words and I’m one hundred percent with him.. Let’s go, like he said.” And then he said it again and then people were repeating themselves and it was amazing because we were all together united.”
Afterwards as we were leaving, people were hugging and smiling and that’s when a man came up and said, “You get this going and then what? It was then that I thought to myself, all right, if you start something, you’re part of doing the starting, then you’d better not disappear. You owe it to what you’ve begun, to the kids, your own and everyone else’s here. That means you volunteer, you drive, you go, you go with them. So I…told the minister. I said, “I’ll go with the kids and drive the bus, if it comes to that.” ….I guess if you drop the usual in your life, and start speaking, and making your offer, then you’re out there, out of the everyday things you’ve got to do.
I went home and talked with my wife…Usually I let her know something and she’ll try to get me straightened out in my thinking, but that night I was being as clear as I could and she could tell. She told me that my mind was all “set” and she was with me and she’d do all she could to back me up. “I’ll walk with you,” she promised—and I admit it; I was scared for both of us.”
Albert Jones did drive that bus, a bus that daily took thirty African American children into white neighborhoods and to white schools. He also coached those children during that bus ride. And later when they rode city buses, he rode with them, encouraging them on the way.
The Saints of God—the ones we welcome today, the ones we ourselves are—are not impervious to fear, to doubt or to the kind of isolation that can feel like a tomb around us. Saints are not impervious to any of these things. The saints are the ones whom God calls to come out of the tomb and to be unbound—even with fear pounding in their chests, doubt sounding in their ears and the chill of the tomb still upon them.
Works Cited or Consulted
Robert Coles, “The Bond Between Leaders and Followers: Erik Erikson, Gandhi, and Albert Jones, a Boston Bus Driver,” in Lives of Moral Leadership.
