Did you hear
the story of the hairdresser from Halifax?
Her car broke down in New Glasgow and she had to wait an extra day to
get it fixed, so in order to try to shake her bad day, she went to the movie
theatre and bought a ticket to sit on the main floor.
The manager
discovered that she was sitting on the main floor and told her she had to sit
in the balcony. She refused as she didn’t
want to climb the stairs. They called
the cops, threw her out of the movie theatre, she got arrested and spent a day
in jail on top of everything else.
This really
happened! Her name was Viola Desmond,
the year was 1946, and she was thrown in jail for wanting to sit on the main
floor of the movie theatre. What had she
done wrong? She had sat in the ‘all
white’ main floor of the theatre. She
was charged with tax evasion because the ticket to sit on the main floor was 1
cent more than it was for the balcony, and by buying the cheaper ticket, she
supposedly defrauded the province of their tax.
She was fined $26 and given a police record.
What
happened next was just as startling as our scripture reading for today. We’ve heard about Jesus promising The Spirit
who will come as companion, and guiding Paul and his friends in a convoluted
journey through Turkey into Greece. What
is this Spirit who closes doors to going in one direction, then starts churches
through co-incidental meetings at rivers when people least expected it? And does it still happen?
And the real
big question, how do we know if this is the Spirit leading us or if it’s just a
figment of our imaginations?
I think that
there’s something inherently scary for us intelligent types of folks when it
comes to the Spirit. When I was a child,
we heard it called ‘the Holy Ghost’ which meant it was right up there with
Frankenstein and Dracula, something that came out on Midnight on
Halloween. And as a young adult, I saw
examples of people rolling around on the floor, speaking in tongues, going to
faith healers, being slain in the Spirit, you name it. That was not something I wanted to
experience, no thank you!
But this
church was built by people who trusted that there was something deeply true and
meaningful in the stories we hear in the book of Acts. The Methodists built this building 103 years
ago, and the symbol of Methodism is the Dove.
If you look around, you can see more than one image of the Dove on our
walls, and if you look at our new crest, the Dove is still incorporated in it. Methodists were founded after John and
Charles Wesley went to a Moravian prayer meeting and found their hearts
‘strangely warmed’. This warmth inspired
them to take the book learning they had gathered and bring it to places like
the riverside. They went to where they
found people, and they made the message of Jesus, the message of hope and
companionship come alive for those folks.
The Wesleys found a need for guidelines for telling if our thoughts were
from the Spirit or from ourselves. Some of their followers had taken the idea of
the Spirit to mean that since they had been ‘saved’, they could do no wrong,
even if they participated in drunkenness and debauchery. John and his brother, being graduates of
Oxford University and ordained Anglican priests, were not at all happy with the
turn of events.
John developed
a few simple questions that help us even today: Is it scriptural? Is it logical? Does it fit with our
experience? Does it fit with our tradition?
Scripture
would say, pay attention to those little nags and hints and dreams. Peter and Paul listened to their dreams and
what a change it made for them and us. Our
intellect would say, is this logical? Is it safe to follow my impulse to go for
a run past a drug house in the middle of the night in Mississippi? Probably
not, unless I’m 6 foot 6 and run in a bulletproof vest.
Experience
is also important. Does this impulse
seem like it’s coming from God or coming from my own ego? Is it really God telling me to eat that
chocolate bar? Or is it my own lust for chocolate? That is a trivial example, but I have seen
people rationalize everything from their addictions to staying in an abusive
relationship. It takes practise to hear that voice of peace.
Lastly
there’s tradition. For me that’s the
United Church, but it could be the Anglican Church or the Baptists, or wherever
you find God. Our traditions say we
should care for the poor and the hungry, the oppressed and the discriminated. When that little voice connects with my
tradition and my congregation feels empowered by it, then that’s the Spirit
calling. Synergy.
Viola
Desmond went back home to her congregation.
She talked to them and together they helped figure out what the Spirit
was calling them to do. They hired a
lawyer to fight the criminal charges.
She was still found to be guilty, but embarrassed the lawyers, the
government and the movie theatre. Her
lawyer refused to charge her and donated the funds to a new organization for
equality. One person said
... this meant
something to our people. Neither before or since has there been such an
aggressive effort to obtain rights. The people arose as one and with one voice.
This
happened nine years before Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of the bus
down in Alabama that kick started the Civil Rights Movement. It was an act of Spirit moving in the heart
of a brave hairdresser that still provides encouragement for us all to fight
any kind of oppression of one human by another.
And if you happen to be in Halifax someday, take a ride on the Viola
Desmond ferry, donate a few dollars to Cape Breton University’s Viola Desmond
scholarship, and check out her portrait in Government House while reading about
her pardon that was given in 2010. And
keep listening for that small voice of the Spirit who moves us to work for
peace and justice for all.
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