Rev. Dr. J. Alfred Smith Speaks Pt.2

The Reverend Dr. J. Alfred Smith, Sr., Pastor Emeritus of the Allen Temple Baptist Church, Oakland, California is one of the widely respected, intellectually astute ministers of Gospel. His social justice teachings have impacted people all around the world. Today, we conclude the second half our interview with Reverend Dr. Smith. If I could offer this interview a title, it would be: "The Preacher Speaks of Love."

Matthew 8 verses 1-4 read: “When Jesus came down from the mountainside, large crowds followed him. A man with leprosy came and knelt before him and said, ‘Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.’ Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. ‘I am willing,’ he said. ‘Be clean!’ Immediately he was cleansed of his leprosy.”

Musing on those verses, Reverend Dr. Smith said: “In the times when Jesus walked the earth, you could not touch a leper. That was against the law. Jesus broke the law. If you are going to be an urban minister, you’ll have to follow the model of the Jesus.

“If you don’t have the mind of Jesus get out of the ministry and do something else. Where do the poor go to take bath? Where do they go to use the bathroom? We don't have the mentality or the mindset to put ourselves in somebody else’s shoes. That’s what Jesus did. He became one of us. That’s what God did.

“The objective of ministry is to make yourself one of the people that you are sent to serve. You are no longer an outsider but an integral part of their every day world.

“Jesus said, “I didn’t come to be served but I came to serve.” Now, some modern ministers think that because they are ministers, they should be the beneficiaries of certain perks and entitlements. They believe that people ought to wait on them and serve them. That’s not the Christ model. When I was pastoring in East Oakland, I would take a broom out on to International Boulevard and sweep the sidewalks in front of the church. When I taught seminary, I used every chance I had to take my students out into the inner city streets so that they could see, hear and feel. I wanted them to become one with the community so that could see what it meant to be a vessel of love in the places where they served.

“We are called to show love, to show mercy. And therefore, we can’t be sidetracked by constant debating with those who do not agree with us. We have to be faithful. When Jesus went before Pilate, he didn’t answer all of the questions. The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther, King, Jr. would never have gotten anything done if he spent all of his time answering his detractors.

“To be faithful means to live the Gospel. Jesus was the incarnation of love, forgiveness and justice. In Jesus, the love of God beat in a human heart and divine compassion glistened in a human eye. In Jesus, divine mercy was spelled with the touch of his human hand; a hand that healed and helped and lifted people.

“Jesus was also light. Light doesn’t talk. Light shines. That’s what we need to do, not become embroiled in a debating society. You can debate all night and never get anywhere. At my age, I don’t plan to spend my time in debates. I’m going to try to live the truth. There are two main things which we all must need possess if we are going to be faithful servants. We need the twins of humility and faithfulness. Usually when you finish school you think you're going to change the world. We aren’t called to do that. We are called to reflect God’s light. The light will shine in the darkness and the darkness will not be able to extinguish it. I’m not responsible for the darkness. Who I will help along the way, I don’t know? I’m just responsible to shine the light of love.

“I learned about love from my grandmother and my mother. My grandmother was a 5th grade scholar. She grew up in Mississippi and never went to school for the entire 8 months because back then children were required to chop cotton. Parents would take them out school and make them work.

“My mother was a domestic and a hotel maid. In my eyes, my mother and grandmother were the real saints, not necessarily the people with the Ph.ds, the D.Mins, the M.Divs and the D.D.’s. Their theology shaped my life more profoundly than the thoughts of Luther, Calvin, Neibuhr, Tillich and Bultmann. The seminary never recognized these people because they considered them ignorant by the standards of western theological education. The model had no place for them and yet they taught the greatest element of the Christian faith effectively to countless people. That element was love.

“We need to live Jesus’ demonstrative love ethic in society and we need to talk about it more. There is nothing new under the sun but things are getting worse. You see the homeless and the jobless everywhere now. You see the people all around you who are victimized by addictions. Politicians often want to balance the budget on the backs of the poor; cutting their access to food, medicine and housing. They tell the the elderly, the single parents, the children and the sick that they are to blame for their own plight. Meanwhile, these same politicians have the best healthcare in America.

“And you see that black lives don’t matter. People get mad because they killed a gorilla who had a little baby in his lair. It took them 10 minutes to decide to kill the animal. I didn’t see that type of mercy and consideration in the Eric Garner video.

In closing the Reverend Dr. J. Alfred Smith, Sr. said: “I have mentored preachers who serve here locally and from one end of America to the other. I taught them that the question is not necessarily will there be life after death, which is question that Jesus settled at the resurrection. The real question is: “Will there be life after birth?” Will their be hope and justice for the hungry, the homeless, the poorly educated and the sick in this life? How will you help the people that Jesus called the "least of these." Less than 10 percent of the preachers I’ve work with got it. The rest look at me as if I don’t know anything because they want to be big television superstars. That’s not what I’m about. They are interested in worldly success. But they ought to choose another profession. Love, humility, servitude and becoming one with those seen by society as the the “other”; those are the true building blocks of ministry.”