South Carolina became my adopted state 30 years ago. Understanding and appreciating its culture is a continual journey of social and religious understanding. The story of the Emanuel Nine provides a new dimension of learning. This tragic incident is personal and impactful.
When Dylann Storm Roof entered Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston on Wednesday evening, June 17th and joined the Bible study taking place, he had no idea what he really joined or what he really started. The evil which possessed him and permitted him to carry out a horrendous series of murderous acts was already in the process of being overcome by good.
The dozen people present under the leadership of Rev. Clementa Pinckney were studying the interpretation of the Parable of the Sower and the Soils from the Gospel of Mark, chapter four. In this parable a sower goes out to sow seeds and some fell on the road, some of the rocky ground, some among the thorns, and some along good soil.
What Dylann did not know is that he had just connected with a group of people who overwhelmingly were part of the good soil. They got it. They understood the unconditional love of God through Jesus Christ. They were full of grace, mercy and love rather than judgment, cruelty and hate.
What’s more they were only a small part of a congregation that exhibited many of these same characteristics. Perhaps not all are examples of the good soil, but they are examples of people for whom being a follower of Jesus and placing their trust in things unseen more than things seen is part of their core Christian character.
What’s more he was in the Holy City of Charleston. Not everything that happens there is holy, yet they certainly know these days when unholy things occur and they will not let that divide them.
The Emanuel Nine understood what Harold Carter, an African-American Baptist pastor I knew in Baltimore back in the 1970s, said about the difference between white Baptists and black Baptists. He indicated that white Baptists talk more about being saved. Black Baptists talk more about walking with Jesus.
The Emanuel Nine understood, and their congregation and their family members continually understand, what it means to walk with Jesus. It means you show grace by forgiving. It means you show mercy even to those who have done harm to you. It means you love above all else.
The political wheels are already turning regarding the Confederate flag on the state house grounds in Columbia. I pray the wheels will also turn to figure out how to diminish violence, as symbolized in the proliferation and use of guns in American society, without destroying the core meaning — rather than the NRA meaning — of the Second Amendment.
Yet neither the flag nor guns are the core challenge. The core challenge is we keep generating judgment, cruelty and hate. Dealing with flags and guns is only the beginning of the next dimension of our journey to societal grace, mercy and love. We need more good soil people among whom seeds can be sown.
I suspect what the Emanuel Nine might hope about flags and guns is that people will come to understand what it means to be the good soil and embrace the seed the sower is casting. May it not be political might that forces change in these areas, but may it be the most loving thing to do.
I suspect the Emanuel Nine might call on all people of the good soil to be people of loving action. Evil can be overcome with good in the spirit of this challenge attributed to Dietrich Bonhoeffer: “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”
I suspect the story of the Emanuel Nine as persons of the good soil is bearing fruit thirtyfold, sixtyfold and a hundredfold as Mark 4:20 indicates.
We will remember June 17, 2015, as a day heaven came down and glory filled our souls because the Emanuel Nine, people of the good soil, had a message of grace, mercy and love that overcame evil with good.