Serendipitous Thoughts by Sugar Bear

“When Sunday Had to Carry Monday” 

Sugar Bear has been sitting with one sentence.Joseph R. Washington Jr., a scholar of Black religion, once borrowed the opening language of John's Gospel and turned it toward Black church history:

In the beginning was the Black church, and the Black church was with the Black community, and the Black church was the Black community.That is a mighty big statement. Maybe too big if we take it as a literal description of every Black person and every Black church. But sit with the image for a minute.

For generations, people came through church doors carrying much more than Sunday clothes. They carried slavery. Segregation. Grief. Children needing an education. Families needing food. People needing a place to organize. Somebody needed a burial. Somebody needed a job lead. Somebody needed to hear that the world did not get the final vote on his or her worth.Anne H. Pinn and Anthony B. Pinn help trace how Black Methodist, Baptist, and Pentecostal churches grew into institutions with religious and social importance. C. Eric Lincoln and Lawrence Mamiya remind us that these churches have never all been the same. And Barbara Savage warns us not to turn the Black church into a superhero. Some congregations marched. Some hesitated. Some comforted people without challenging the system hurting them.That complicated history is what interests Sugar Bear.I used to think the question was, "Why did the Black church get involved in social activism?

"Now I think that question may have the order backward.Maybe the better question is: How could the church avoid the problems of the community when the community kept bringing those problems through the church door?If the school would not teach your child, somebody had to teach.If the bank would not lend, somebody had to help.If the courthouse would not protect your vote, somebody had to organize.If society told you that you were less than fully human, somebody had to remind you whose child you were.

That does not make every church prophetic. It does explain why Sunday so often had to carry some of Monday's load.And here is my mirror moment. It is easy for me to admire courage in yesterday's church. It is harder to ask what my faith is carrying today.Maybe church history is not only about what happened behind stained glass.Maybe it is about what faith sent back through the door.

Carry-away line: Sunday became powerful when it gave people something to carry into Monday.

God bless you and this ministry!

 Serendipitous Thoughts by Sugar Bear

“The Words I Didn't Know Until I Missed Them”

When I was a boy growing up around Cincinnati's West End, I had a friend named Raymond.
Raymond went to St. Joseph Catholic School nearby. I was growing up Baptist.

Every once in a while Raymond would talk about something called a catechism.
Catechism?

Sugar Bear didn't know what that boy was talking about.
It sounded like a foreign language.

We had Sunday school, Bible stories, preaching, prayer, singing, and enough church mothers to keep a young boy pointed toward Jesus or at least pointed toward behaving himself.
But catechism?
That was Raymond's world.

Funny how God plants little seeds.
Years later my Christian journey brought me into the Lutheran tradition, and there was that word again.

Catechism.

This time it was Martin Luther's Small Catechism:

the Ten Commandments, Apostles' Creed, Lord's Prayer, Baptism, Confession, and Lord's Supper.
And Luther kept asking one simple question:

“What does this mean?”
Something that once sounded foreign slowly became part of the roots of my faith.

Now life has brought Sugar Bear another surprise.

I attend a contemporary-style Lutheran church. I appreciate much of what it is trying to do. The music is contemporary. We may begin with announcements. A short video sometimes introduces the sermon.
But I also notice what I don't hear as often.

The Creed.
The Lord's Prayer.
Communion every Sunday.
The old hymns.

And occasionally this old Sugar Bear finds himself wondering:

Where's the Catechism?
Then comes the mirror.
Maybe I didn't appreciate those old words enough when I heard them every Sunday.

Sometimes you don't realize how deeply something has formed you until you stop hearing it.
And maybe the real question isn't whether a church has an organ or a praise band.
Maybe the question is:
What is forming us?
Are we learning what Christians believe?
Are we learning how Jesus taught us to pray?

Do Baptism, forgiveness, grace, and the Lord's Supper shape who we are?

Are we becoming more deeply rooted in Christ?

Paul encouraged Christians to remain “rooted and built up in him” (Colossians 2:7).

That is what I want.
Contemporary worship can remind me that the Gospel still speaks today.
The old Catechism reminds me that Christianity didn't begin today.
Sugar Bear needs both.

Raymond introduced me to a word I didn't understand.
Decades later, I find myself grateful for the question underneath it:

“What does this mean?”
Maybe every generation of Christians needs to keep asking that.
Because styles will change.
Music will change.
Churches will change.

But before we cut down an old tree, we ought to understand what those roots have been feeding. 

God bless you and this ministry! 

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