A More Honest Light
Stories
Contents
“A More Honest Light” by Frank Ramirez
“Desmond Tutu Transfigured” by John Sumwalt
A More Honest Light
by Frank Ramirez
2 Corinthians 3:12--4:2
We have renounced the shameful things that one hides, we refuse to practice cunning or to falsify God’s word, but by the open statement of the truth we commend ourselves to the conscience of everyone in the sight of God. (v. 4:2)
Around a hundred years ago the enemy opened fire, some using automatic weapons, on a group of largely defenseless Americans, unleashing several days of genocide. Among those dead were many veterans who had served their country with distinction only a few years before in the recently concluded world war. On that day over three hundred died, hundreds more were interned in concentration camps, thousands were left homeless, and many families were never reunited. Millions of dollars in property and assets were lost, never to be recovered.
It’s hard to picture how something like this could happen to Americans — and yet be ignored, to the point it was largely kept out of the history books. But the Greenwood Massacre near Tulsa, Oklahoma, was horrifyingly real — and nobody was held responsible, tried, convicted, or spent time in prison for the mass slaughter.
Prior to its admission to the union, many African Americans migrated west to the Oklahoma territory, attempting to escape the prejudice they found everywhere in the United States of America. There some were able to establish a haven for African Americans to achieve economic advancement, creating the prosperous model community of Greenwood which was referred to by many as the Black Wall Street.
However, with statehood in 1907 also came a constitution that institutionalized segregation. Blacks were forbidden to attend white schools, ride on white trains, or vote in the all-white elections.
On May 31, 1921, a teenaged black boy was falsely arrested for a supposed attack on a white girl. Around 25 black men, some wearing the uniforms they proudly wore serving in France during the First World War, assembled outside the jail to protect the young man. Scuffles broke out when a white man attempted to take a rifle away from a black veteran. A firefight broke out, and by the time it ended around twenty-five people, both white and black, were dead.
The next day ten-thousand-armed white people descended on Greenwood. They killed, looted, burned, and destroyed without any intervention from civil authorities. When the National Guard finally arrived to restore order, bureaucratic delays prevented their deployment for many hours. When all was said and done, over three hundred African Americans were killed. Ten thousand were homeless. As many as 6,000 were interned in camps. Hundreds were hospitalized. Thirty-five square blocks of the Greenwood neighborhood were burned to the ground. The equivalent of $33 million dollars in property and land in today’s currency was destroyed.
Not only did the perpetrators go scot-free, following the massacre white-owned newspapers underreported the damage and blamed black Americans for what happened.
One of those who was not only a witness to the massacre but also wrote about it was the educator Mary E. Jones Parrish. Thirty-one years old at the time, the events of that day inspired her to take up journalism. In 1923 her book, Events of the Tulsa Disaster, wove together her observations and the descriptions of other survivors and remains an important resource for historians today. Parrish had come to Tulsa a couple years before the massacre, attracted by the successful black-owned businesses and the beautiful neighborhoods. She opened a school and taught typewriting and shorthand. Her business burned to the ground with much of the rest of Greenwood. But Parrish stayed because she believed the story had to be told, especially to counter the false narrative woven by the white Tulsa authorities.
The Apostle Paul wrote, “We have renounced the shameful things that one hides, we refuse to practice cunning or to falsify God’s word, but by the open statement of the truth we commend ourselves to the conscience of everyone in the sight of God.”(2 Corinthians 4:2). Only in recent years have these shameful things in Tulsa been renounced. In 2020, the story of the Tulsa Massacre became part of the official curriculum for schoolchildren, creating an opportunity for the ”open statement of the truth.”
Just as we see Jesus transfigured, both on the mountaintop with his disciples, and from the cross in the presence of the women who would not abandon him, so too we are beginning to see history in a clearer, more honest light.
* * *
Desmond Tutu Transfigured
by Johnn Sumwalt
Exodus 34:29-35
“Moses came down from Mount Sinai. As he came down from the mountain with the two tablets of the covenant in his hand, Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God.” (vv. 29-30)
A great soul crossed over into heaven the day after Christmas. Desmond Tutu was 90; it’s amazing he lived so long.
During the worst of the apartheid nightmare in South Africa, Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu was asked by a reporter if he was afraid for his life — because he was an outspoken opponent of apartheid.
“Not at all,” Tutu replied. “I know that God has called me to work to bring about the end of apartheid. That’s my job. God’s job is to protect me. I trust him. If God wants this to happen (the end of apartheid), he will keep me from harm.”
Media outlets have been filled with stories of Tutu’s extraordinary life.
Asked by the BBC to identify the defining moment in his life, Tutu spoke of the day he and his mother were walking down the street. Tutu was 9 years old. A tall white man dressed in a black suit came toward them. In the days of apartheid in South Africa, when a black person and a white person met while walking on a footpath, the black person was expected to step into the gutter to allow the white person to pass — and nod his or her head as a gesture of respect. But that day, before a young Tutu and his mother could step off the sidewalk, the white man stepped off the sidewalk. And as they passed, he tipped his hat in a gesture of respect to her!
The white man was Trevor Huddleston, an Anglican priest who was bitterly opposed to apartheid. It changed Tutu’s life. When his mother told him that Trevor Huddleston had stepped off the sidewalk because he was a “man of God,” Tutu found his calling.
“When she told me that he was an Anglican priest I decided there and then that I wanted to be an Anglican priest too,” he said. “And what is more, I wanted to be a man of God.”
Huddleston later became a mentor to Tutu; his commitment to the equality of all human beings due to their creation in God’s image was a key driver in Tutu’s opposition to apartheid.
My colleague Steve Garnaas-Holmes wrote, “Tutu was joyful, even in the depths of apartheid. He was hopeful, even when things were awful. He was gentle and respectful even while being defiant against injustice. His divine delight shone like a light bulb when he walked in the room. I asked him once what he was working on and he said, ‘Transfiguration.’ Sure enough, I saw him transform people.”
In his review of Philip Yancey’s book, Rumors of Another World Keith Parkins talks about the spirit of mercy that pervaded South Africa after Nelson Mandela was released from prison.
“As apartheid drew to an end and Nelson Mandela was released from Robben Island, Mandela could have called upon the blacks to rise up and seek vengeance on the whites,” Parkins wrote. “He did not; he showed grace and appointed Desmond Tutu to head the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. There was an understandable desire for justice, retribution; instead, the path of forgiveness and reconciliation was chosen.”
The rules were simple — the perpetrators needed to tell the truth, the whole truth; their victims were given the opportunity to forgive. Many of the atrocities were truly horrific. A policeman called van de Broek told of how he and his fellow officers shot an 18-year-old youth, then burnt the body. Eight years later they went back, took the father and forced his wife to watch as he was incinerated. She was in court to hear that confession and was asked by the judge what she wanted.
She said she wanted van de Broek to go to the place where they burned her husband’s body and gather up the dust so she could give him a decent burial; van de Broek agreed. She then added a further request.
“Mr. van de Broek took all my family away from me, and I still have a lot of love to give,” she said. “Twice a month I would like for him to come to the ghetto and spend a day with me so I can be a mother to him.
“And I would like Mr. van de Broek to know that he is forgiven by God, and that I forgive him too. I would like to embrace him so he can know my forgiveness is real.”
Spontaneously, some in the courtroom began singing “Amazing Grace” as the elderly woman made her way to the witness stand. But van de Broek didn’t hear the hymn; he had fainted, overwhelmed.
Humor is a good way to ease the pain and salve the deep wounds caused by evil. It may also be the best way to expose the ultimate powerlessness of evil. Jim Wallis tells about a time the South African government blocked a demonstration against apartheid. Tutu responded by speaking about the evils of the apartheid system in a worship service at St. George’s Cathedral.
“The walls were lined with soldiers and riot police carrying guns and bayonets, ready to close it down,” Wallis said. “Bishop Tutu began to speak of the evils of the apartheid system -- how the rulers and authorities that propped it up were doomed to fail. He pointed a finger at the police who were there to record his words.
“‘You may be powerful — very powerful — but you are not God. God cannot be mocked. You have already lost.’ Then in a moment of unbearable tension, the bishop seemed to soften. Coming out from behind the pulpit, he flashed that radiant Tutu smile and began to bounce up and down with glee. ‘Therefore, since you have already lost, we are inviting you to join the winning side.’ The crowd roared. The police melted away and the people began to dance.”
Those of us who love Jesus and justice will carry on Desmond Tutu’s dance.
*****************************************
StoryShare, February 27, 2022 issue.
Copyright 2022 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
“A More Honest Light” by Frank Ramirez
“Desmond Tutu Transfigured” by John Sumwalt
A More Honest Light
by Frank Ramirez
2 Corinthians 3:12--4:2
We have renounced the shameful things that one hides, we refuse to practice cunning or to falsify God’s word, but by the open statement of the truth we commend ourselves to the conscience of everyone in the sight of God. (v. 4:2)
Around a hundred years ago the enemy opened fire, some using automatic weapons, on a group of largely defenseless Americans, unleashing several days of genocide. Among those dead were many veterans who had served their country with distinction only a few years before in the recently concluded world war. On that day over three hundred died, hundreds more were interned in concentration camps, thousands were left homeless, and many families were never reunited. Millions of dollars in property and assets were lost, never to be recovered.
It’s hard to picture how something like this could happen to Americans — and yet be ignored, to the point it was largely kept out of the history books. But the Greenwood Massacre near Tulsa, Oklahoma, was horrifyingly real — and nobody was held responsible, tried, convicted, or spent time in prison for the mass slaughter.
Prior to its admission to the union, many African Americans migrated west to the Oklahoma territory, attempting to escape the prejudice they found everywhere in the United States of America. There some were able to establish a haven for African Americans to achieve economic advancement, creating the prosperous model community of Greenwood which was referred to by many as the Black Wall Street.
However, with statehood in 1907 also came a constitution that institutionalized segregation. Blacks were forbidden to attend white schools, ride on white trains, or vote in the all-white elections.
On May 31, 1921, a teenaged black boy was falsely arrested for a supposed attack on a white girl. Around 25 black men, some wearing the uniforms they proudly wore serving in France during the First World War, assembled outside the jail to protect the young man. Scuffles broke out when a white man attempted to take a rifle away from a black veteran. A firefight broke out, and by the time it ended around twenty-five people, both white and black, were dead.
The next day ten-thousand-armed white people descended on Greenwood. They killed, looted, burned, and destroyed without any intervention from civil authorities. When the National Guard finally arrived to restore order, bureaucratic delays prevented their deployment for many hours. When all was said and done, over three hundred African Americans were killed. Ten thousand were homeless. As many as 6,000 were interned in camps. Hundreds were hospitalized. Thirty-five square blocks of the Greenwood neighborhood were burned to the ground. The equivalent of $33 million dollars in property and land in today’s currency was destroyed.
Not only did the perpetrators go scot-free, following the massacre white-owned newspapers underreported the damage and blamed black Americans for what happened.
One of those who was not only a witness to the massacre but also wrote about it was the educator Mary E. Jones Parrish. Thirty-one years old at the time, the events of that day inspired her to take up journalism. In 1923 her book, Events of the Tulsa Disaster, wove together her observations and the descriptions of other survivors and remains an important resource for historians today. Parrish had come to Tulsa a couple years before the massacre, attracted by the successful black-owned businesses and the beautiful neighborhoods. She opened a school and taught typewriting and shorthand. Her business burned to the ground with much of the rest of Greenwood. But Parrish stayed because she believed the story had to be told, especially to counter the false narrative woven by the white Tulsa authorities.
The Apostle Paul wrote, “We have renounced the shameful things that one hides, we refuse to practice cunning or to falsify God’s word, but by the open statement of the truth we commend ourselves to the conscience of everyone in the sight of God.”(2 Corinthians 4:2). Only in recent years have these shameful things in Tulsa been renounced. In 2020, the story of the Tulsa Massacre became part of the official curriculum for schoolchildren, creating an opportunity for the ”open statement of the truth.”
Just as we see Jesus transfigured, both on the mountaintop with his disciples, and from the cross in the presence of the women who would not abandon him, so too we are beginning to see history in a clearer, more honest light.
* * *
Desmond Tutu Transfigured
by Johnn Sumwalt
Exodus 34:29-35
“Moses came down from Mount Sinai. As he came down from the mountain with the two tablets of the covenant in his hand, Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God.” (vv. 29-30)
A great soul crossed over into heaven the day after Christmas. Desmond Tutu was 90; it’s amazing he lived so long.
During the worst of the apartheid nightmare in South Africa, Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu was asked by a reporter if he was afraid for his life — because he was an outspoken opponent of apartheid.
“Not at all,” Tutu replied. “I know that God has called me to work to bring about the end of apartheid. That’s my job. God’s job is to protect me. I trust him. If God wants this to happen (the end of apartheid), he will keep me from harm.”
Media outlets have been filled with stories of Tutu’s extraordinary life.
Asked by the BBC to identify the defining moment in his life, Tutu spoke of the day he and his mother were walking down the street. Tutu was 9 years old. A tall white man dressed in a black suit came toward them. In the days of apartheid in South Africa, when a black person and a white person met while walking on a footpath, the black person was expected to step into the gutter to allow the white person to pass — and nod his or her head as a gesture of respect. But that day, before a young Tutu and his mother could step off the sidewalk, the white man stepped off the sidewalk. And as they passed, he tipped his hat in a gesture of respect to her!
The white man was Trevor Huddleston, an Anglican priest who was bitterly opposed to apartheid. It changed Tutu’s life. When his mother told him that Trevor Huddleston had stepped off the sidewalk because he was a “man of God,” Tutu found his calling.
“When she told me that he was an Anglican priest I decided there and then that I wanted to be an Anglican priest too,” he said. “And what is more, I wanted to be a man of God.”
Huddleston later became a mentor to Tutu; his commitment to the equality of all human beings due to their creation in God’s image was a key driver in Tutu’s opposition to apartheid.
My colleague Steve Garnaas-Holmes wrote, “Tutu was joyful, even in the depths of apartheid. He was hopeful, even when things were awful. He was gentle and respectful even while being defiant against injustice. His divine delight shone like a light bulb when he walked in the room. I asked him once what he was working on and he said, ‘Transfiguration.’ Sure enough, I saw him transform people.”
In his review of Philip Yancey’s book, Rumors of Another World Keith Parkins talks about the spirit of mercy that pervaded South Africa after Nelson Mandela was released from prison.
“As apartheid drew to an end and Nelson Mandela was released from Robben Island, Mandela could have called upon the blacks to rise up and seek vengeance on the whites,” Parkins wrote. “He did not; he showed grace and appointed Desmond Tutu to head the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. There was an understandable desire for justice, retribution; instead, the path of forgiveness and reconciliation was chosen.”
The rules were simple — the perpetrators needed to tell the truth, the whole truth; their victims were given the opportunity to forgive. Many of the atrocities were truly horrific. A policeman called van de Broek told of how he and his fellow officers shot an 18-year-old youth, then burnt the body. Eight years later they went back, took the father and forced his wife to watch as he was incinerated. She was in court to hear that confession and was asked by the judge what she wanted.
She said she wanted van de Broek to go to the place where they burned her husband’s body and gather up the dust so she could give him a decent burial; van de Broek agreed. She then added a further request.
“Mr. van de Broek took all my family away from me, and I still have a lot of love to give,” she said. “Twice a month I would like for him to come to the ghetto and spend a day with me so I can be a mother to him.
“And I would like Mr. van de Broek to know that he is forgiven by God, and that I forgive him too. I would like to embrace him so he can know my forgiveness is real.”
Spontaneously, some in the courtroom began singing “Amazing Grace” as the elderly woman made her way to the witness stand. But van de Broek didn’t hear the hymn; he had fainted, overwhelmed.
Humor is a good way to ease the pain and salve the deep wounds caused by evil. It may also be the best way to expose the ultimate powerlessness of evil. Jim Wallis tells about a time the South African government blocked a demonstration against apartheid. Tutu responded by speaking about the evils of the apartheid system in a worship service at St. George’s Cathedral.
“The walls were lined with soldiers and riot police carrying guns and bayonets, ready to close it down,” Wallis said. “Bishop Tutu began to speak of the evils of the apartheid system -- how the rulers and authorities that propped it up were doomed to fail. He pointed a finger at the police who were there to record his words.
“‘You may be powerful — very powerful — but you are not God. God cannot be mocked. You have already lost.’ Then in a moment of unbearable tension, the bishop seemed to soften. Coming out from behind the pulpit, he flashed that radiant Tutu smile and began to bounce up and down with glee. ‘Therefore, since you have already lost, we are inviting you to join the winning side.’ The crowd roared. The police melted away and the people began to dance.”
Those of us who love Jesus and justice will carry on Desmond Tutu’s dance.
*****************************************
StoryShare, February 27, 2022 issue.
Copyright 2022 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
