When Love Comes at a Price

Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth
Google Image

Tish Harrison Warren, an Episcopal priest who writes a column about religion for the New York Times, recently wrote about the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, a pastor in Birmingham, Ala. in the late 1950s.

Few people have heard of Rev. Shuttlesworth, perhaps, but he was a civil rights leader who was a friend and colleague of Dr. Martin Luther King.

“On Sept. 9, 1957,” writes Harrison Warren, “the very day President Eisenhower signed the Civil Rights Act and lawyers sought injunctive relief to force Arkansas to integrate Central High in Little Rock, Shuttlesworth organized the integration of Phillips High School in Birmingham, driving his own two children to the school to enroll them.

“He was met by a white mob that beat him with baseball bats, chains and brass knuckles. As he was beginning to lose consciousness, Shuttlesworth recounts that “something” said to him: “You can’t die here. Get up. I have a job for you to do.” In the hospital later that day, a reporter asked Shuttlesworth what he was working for in Birmingham. He responded: ‘For the day when the man who beat me and my family with chains at Phillips High School can sit down with us as a friend.’”

Where is the Outrage?

Where is Shuttlesworth’s outrage, the outrage that is so popular in today’s social and political climate? Where’s the pledge that “I’m not going to take it anymore?” The thirst for revenge?

Indeed, many people would say that the Rev. Shuttlesworth was a fool. If so, you should know that his “foolishness” didn’t end with that beating 1957.

“Shuttlesworth was resolutely committed to justice,” writes Harrison Warren. “He was, by his own estimate, arrested in peaceful protests some 30 to 40 times. His house was bombed with his whole family inside one Christmas Eve. His church was subjected to three bombing attempts. He remained until his death in 2011 a man of deep Christian faith who constantly spoke about how the Bible required us to seek systemic change and racial equality.

“Yet even in his darkest hour he honored and affirmed the humanity and dignity of those who hated him by holding out the possibility of forgiveness, redemption and even friendship.”

Google Image

It brings to mind Paul’s First Letter to the Christians at Corinth in which he writes, “Make no mistake about it: if any of you thinks of himself as wise, in the ordinary sense of the word, then he must learn to be a fool before he really can be wise. Why? Because the wisdom of this world is foolishness to God.”

I often think of an interview I once did as a newspaper reporter of an 86-year-old man who for years had been caring for his wife who had Alzheimer’s disease. She was close to being comatose, so he had to feed her, bathe her, dress her and take her to the bathroom. He wore dress slacks and a worn sport coat that had a big bulge in the right pocket. I asked what he was carrying and he said it was an alarm clock, the old-fashioned kind that needed to be wound by hand.

His wife needed to take her medication every four hours, day and night, he said, and he used the clock - whose alarm rivaled the noise made when a fire station opens its doors – to keep track of time. It accompanied him to bed and went everywhere he went. He had become a slave to that clock, all in the name of love.

Bandied About in Careless Ways

The word “love” is bandied about in many careless ways in today’s world, seems to me. It is used to describe irresponsible sex, the “love” of one’s car, the “love” one feels for a well-grilled steak.

All of these uses are only mildly related to what is prescribed by Jesus, and in my opinion, people who search for God in the Christian tradition must on the one hand broaden his/her idea of love and on the other hand, narrow it.

Taking the Rev. Shuttlesworth example, it must be broadened to include people not like us, even people who oppose us or hate us. And it must be narrowed from the frivolous uses of the word, to follow the example of the husband of the Alzheimer’s patient to include the many ways in which loving is hard, an inconvenience or a downright chore.