My Hope for Continued Harmony
1 CORINTHIANS 13, 12-13 “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love”.
I had hoped to be an HGV driver, a hope which has expired because at my age no company will insure me.
Black History Month inspired me to search history for notable Black Individuals who have impacted our world. Dr Martin Luther King stands out as a civil rights champion. In the summer of 1963, he gave an iconic speech. “I have a dream today. I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers”. The ‘I Have a Dream’ speech immediately took its place amongst the greatest in American history.
His dream is realized in black boys and girls joining hands with white boys and girls, in marriage, relationships, jobs and with a black President of the USA.
The 1989 film Driving Miss Daisy starred Jessica Tandy as Miss Daisy and Morgan Freeman as her black chauffeur, Hoke Colburn. The film explores the reality of racism against black people, which affects Hoke personally. In 1955, my uncle visited us in Jamaica from America, with his Irish American wife and their two sons. He told us she could not sit beside him in their car but had to sit in the back seat. He would then be perceived as her chauffeur.
In 2006 I visited Dr King’s Home and Church in Atlanta, Georgia, a National Historic Site. Given my understanding of racial discrimination in that part of America, I was profoundly surprised to see the tour guide was a white American, yes believe me, King’s dream has been in part realized.
My Hope is for harmony, in a world where faith, hope and love, by all people across the whole spectrum of society can be integrated as St Paul states: Galatians 3, verse 28, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus”. This verse does not deny God-given racial, social, and sexual distinctions, but it affirms these do not imply spiritual inequality before God.
Countless Blacks and Coloured people are contributing to our safety, health, transport, working in technology, the medical profession and much more. We live in a multicoloured world, each one helping another, no restriction, no discrimination because of gender or race, that’s the ideal. However, in a real world where anomalies exist, let’s be the voice of hope for this generation and the next.
The death of George Floyd, recorded on mobile phones, horrified the world. It triggered a global movement, bringing together people of all colours and races in peaceful protest for justice, freedom and equality and to end the disparity in criminal justice against blacks and people of colour. The church must speak out against all forms of injustice, whatever goes against the word of God.
Jude, verse 3, “Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. Faith the Word of God.”
1Corinthans 13, verse 13, “So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love”.
We still sing the words of hope and assurance of ‘My hope is built’ by Edward Mote and my declaration is, whatever the trials and storms, we will cling to the rock that is our Saviour Jesus Christ.
My hope for continued Harmony is alive.
Headley Gayle is Senior Pastor at the New Testament Church of God in Caversham
