Beyond the Suffering
Embracing the Legacy of African American
Soul Care and Spiritual Direction
Hebrews 12:1-3
“So Great a Cloud of Witnesses”
Session Four
This Far by Faith:
Embracing the Lost Spiritual Legacy
Sign Posts from the Past
Some Sign Are More Helpful Than Others
Some Sign Are More Helpful Than Others
Some Signals Are More Helpful Than Others
Some Sign Are More Helpful Than Others
Recovering the Lost Spiritual Legacy
Following Founding Fathers
Lemuel Haynes:
An Epitaph Worth Living For
“Here lies the dust of a poor
hell-deserving sinner, who
ventured into eternity
trusting wholly on the merits
of Christ for salvation. . . .
Lemuel Haynes:
An Epitaph Worth Living For
. . . In the full belief of the
great doctrines he preached
while on earth, he invites his
children and all who read
this, to trust their eternal
interest on the same
foundation.”
Hebrews 12:2-3
Following the Faithful Witness
“Let us fix our eyes on Jesus the author and
perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before
him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and
sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Consider Him
who endured such opposition from sinful men,
so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.”
Hebrews 12:2-3—The Faithful Witness
The great cloud of past Christian witnesses
ultimately point to the greatest Witness and the
greatest reason for enduring suffering—
Jesus Christ!
The result of earthly witness is to point to the
Heavenly Witness so that together we will not
grow weary and lose heart.
Jesus is the Faithful Witness (Revelation 1:5).
Hebrews 12:2-3
Following the Faithful Witness
Only by fixing our eyes on Jesus
can we move beyond the suffering.
Bishop Daniel Alexander Payne
Heaven-Created Manhood
Payne believed that the separation of the AME
from the white Methodist Episcopal Church
was “beneficial to the man of color” in two ways.
“First: it has thrown us upon our own resources
and made us tax our own mental powers both for
government and support. . . .”
Heaven-Created Manhood
. . . Secondly, it gave the black man “an
independence of character which he could neither
hope for nor attain unto, if he had remained as the
ecclesiastical vassal of his white brethren.”
It produced “independent thought,” “independent
action,” and an “independent hierarchy,” and the
latter “has made us feel and recognize our
individuality and our heaven-created manhood.”
Founding Fathers: Daniel Payne
Standing his ground and confronting the white
authorities on the train, he said to them,
“Before I’ll dishonor my manhood by going into
that car, stop your train and put me off.”
Founding Fathers: Daniel Payne
Payne notes that after he left the train, “The guilty
conductor looked out and said, ‘Old man, you can
get on the platform at the back of the car.’ I
replied only by contemptuous silence.” Payne
then carried his own luggage, walking a great
distance over “a heavy bed of sand” to his next
speaking engagement in the deep South. Payne
literally walked the talk.
The Rosa Parks of His Day
A Manly Man of God
“I was the child of many prayers.
My father dedicated me to the service of God
before I was born,
declaring that if the Lord would give him a son
that son should be consecrated to him, and
named after the Prophet Daniel.”
Founding Fathers:
Revs. Richard Allen and Absalom Jones
The Birth of the Independent
Black Church
“We had not long been upon our knees
before I heard considerable scuffling and
low talking. I raised my head up and saw
one of the trustees, H—M—, having hold of
the Rev. Absalom Jones, pulling him up off
of his knees, and saying . . .
The Birth of the Independent
Black Church
. . . ‘You must get up—you must not kneel
here.’ Mr. Jones replied, ‘Wait until prayer
is over.’ Mr. H— M— said ‘no, you must get
up now, or I will call for aid and force you
away.’ Mr. Jones said, ‘Wait until prayer is
over, and I will get up and trouble you no
more.’”
The Birth of the Independent
Black Church
“Here we were pursued with threats of
being disowned, and read publicly out of
meeting if we did continue to worship in
the place we had hired; but we believed
the Lord would be our friend. Here was the
beginning and rise of the first African
Church in America”
(Richard Allen).
St. Thomas African Episcopal
Church, 1829
Richard Allen: An Artful Soul Physician
“Feeling an engagement of mind for your welfare,
I address you with an affectionate sympathy,
having been a slave, and as desirous of freedom
as any of you; yet the bands of bondage were so
strong that no way appeared for my release;
yet at times a hope arose in my heart
that a way would open for it; and when my mind
was mercifully visited with the
feeling of the love of God, . . .
Richard Allen: An Artful Soul Physician
. . . that he would make way for my enlargement;
and then these hopes increased, and a
confidence arose as a
patient waiting was necessary,
I was sometimes favored with it, at other times I
was very impatient. Then the prospect of liberty
almost vanquished away, and I was in
darkness and perplexity.”
Sisters of the Spirit
The Invisible Woman
Amanda Berry Smith’s Aunt:
Breaking the Snare
“Don’t you ever speak to me
again. Anybody that had as
good a Christian mother as you
had, and was raised as you
have been, to speak so to me. I
don’t want to talk to you.”
Amanda Berry Smith’s Aunt:
Breaking the Snare
“And God broke the snare. I felt it.
I felt deliverance from that hour.
How many times I have thanked
God for my aunt’s help. If she had
debated with me I don’t believe I
should ever have got out of that
snare of the devil.”
Spiritual Friendship
“If, therefore, there is anything
in the soul reviving and thrilling
Christian intercourse we have
enjoyed together in the Spirit of
Christ, and in the holy
communion with which we have
so frequently met together in
the house of God, . . .
Zilpha Elaw
Spiritual Friendship
. . . mingled our ascending
petitions at the throne of grace,
unbosomed our spiritual
conflicts and trials to one
another, and listened with
devotional interest
to the messages of gospel
mercy, and the unfolding
mysteries of divine grace.”
Zilpha Elaw
Biblical Sufferology
“God permits afflictions and
persecutions to come upon his
chosen people
to answer various ends. . . .
Julia Foote
Biblical Sufferology
. . . Sometimes for the trial of their
faith, and the exercise of their
patience and resignation to His will,
and sometimes to draw them off
from all human dependence, and to
teach them to trust in Him alone.”
Julia Foote
Identity in Christ
“Many think, because your skins
are tinged with a sable hue, that
you are an inferior race of
beings; but God does not
consider you as such. He hath
formed and fashioned you in his
own glorious image, and hath
bestowed upon you reason and
strong powers of intellect. . . .
Maria Stewart
Identity in Christ
. . . He hath made you to have
dominion over the beasts of the
field, the fowls of the air, and the
fish of the sea (Genesis 1:26). He
hath crowned you with glory and
honor; hath made you but a little
lower than the angels
(Psalms 8:5).”
Maria Stewart
Spiritual Identity
Encouraging spiritual sisters
with the good news that
the Spirit intimately indwells them.
The Promised Land?
The Promised Land?
The Struggle for Faith
“It has been a terrible mystery, to know why the
good Lord should so long afflict my people, and
keep them in bondage—to be abused, and
trampled down, without any rights of their own—
with no ray of light in the future. Some of my
folks said there wasn’t any God, for if there was
He wouldn’t let white folks do as they have done
for so many years”
(Nellie, a former slave from Savannah, GA).
Faith in the God of the Exodus
Egypt, the Exodus, and the Promised Land
For Europeans the Exodus had already occurred.
For Africans, it was yet future.
Europeans lived in the Promised Land.
Africans were bound for the Promised Land.
Egypt, the Exodus, and the Promised Land
“For African Americans the journey was reversed:
whites might claim that America was a new Israel,
but blacks knew that it was Egypt,
since they, like the children of Israel of old,
still toiled in bondage”
(Albert Raboteau).
Egypt, the Exodus, and the Promised Land
“It required no stretch of the imagination to see
the trials of the Israelites as paralleling the
trials of the slaves, Pharaoh and his army as
oppressors, and Egyptland as the South”
(Langston Hughes).
Trusting the God of the Exodus
When her mistress questions
her about her faith, a slave
named Polly explains her hope.
“We poor creatures have need
to believe in God, for if God
Almighty will not be good to us
some day, why were we born?
When I heard of his delivering
his people from bondage I know
it means the poor Africans.”
Trusting the God of the Exodus
“The folks would sing and pray and testify and
clap their hands, just as if God was right there in
the midst of them. He wasn’t way off in the sky. He
was a-seeing everybody and a-listening to every
word and a-promising to let His love come down.
Yes, sir, there was no pretending in those prayer
meetings. There was a living faith in a just God
who would one day answer the cries of His poor
black children and deliver them from their
enemies” (Simon Brown)
Trusting the God of Deliverance
Charlotte Brooks noted that “Aunt Jane used to
tell us, too, that the children of Israel were in
Egypt in bondage, and that God delivered them
out of Egypt; and she said he would deliver us.
We all used to sing a hymn:
Trusting the God of Deliverance
‘My God delivered Daniel, Daniel, Daniel;
My God delivered Daniel, And why not deliver me
too? He delivered Daniel from the lion’s den,
Jonah from the belly of the whale, the three
Hebrew children from the fiery furnace,
And why not deliver me too?’”
The God of Deliverance
The God of Deliverance
Trusting the God of Deliverance
Sound the loud timbrel o’er Egypt’s dark sea;
Jehovah has triumphed, his people are free!
Sing, for the pride of this tyrant is broken,
His chariots, his horsemen,
all splendid and brave—
Trusting the God of Deliverance
How void was their boast,
for the Lord hath but spoken
And chariot and horsemen are sunk in the wave.
Sound the loud timbrel o’er Egypt’s dark sea;
Jehovah has triumphed, his people are free!
Trusting the God of Deliverance
“It looked like the more I prayed
the worse off I got.
But the God I serve is a time-God.
He don’t come before time;
He don’t come after time.
He comes just on time!”
Faith in the God of the Oppressed
“For he will deliver the needy who cry out, the
afflicted who have no one to help. He will take
pity on the weak and the needy and save the
needy from death. He will rescue them from
oppression and violence, for precious is their
blood in his sight”
(Psalm 72:12-14)
This Far by
Faith
We’ve come this far by faith
leaning on the Lord;
Trusting in His Holy Word,
He’s never failed me yet.
Oh, can’t turn around, we’ve
come this far by faith.
This Far
by Faith
Don’t be discouraged with
trouble in your life,
He’ll bear your burdens and
move all misery and strife.
That’s why we’ve come this
far by faith.
Embrace Life
Through the Resurrection and the Life
Lift every voice and sing, till earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise, high as the listening skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has
taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has
brought us;
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
Let us march on till victory is won.
Stony the road we trod, bitter the chastening rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
Yet with a steady beat, have not our weary feet,
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?
We have come over a way that with tears has been
watered,
We have come, treading our path through the
blood of the slaughtered;
Out from the gloomy past, till now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.
God of our weary years, God of our silent tears,
Thou who hast brought us thus far on the way;
Thou who hast by thy might, led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, our God,
where we met Thee.
Lest our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world,
we forget Thee.
Shadowed beneath Thy hand, may we forever
stand,
True to our God, true to our native land.
Our Great Cloud of Witnesses
1. Embracing the Legacy of African American
Founding Fathers
2. Embracing the Legacy of African American
Sisters of the Spirit
3. Embracing the Legacy of the African American
Narrative of America
Beyond the Suffering
Embracing the Legacy of African American
Soul Care and Spiritual Direction
Hebrews 12:1-3
“So Great a Cloud of Witnesses”