Saved by Grace, Liberal in Mercy

In the second summer of my retirement, I walked into one of Cape’s most prominent White churches along with one of my former assistant principals. My eyes were immediately drawn to the flower-draped, gleaming-white coffin of Raymond Brown, Cape Central High School Class of 2015, my last year as high school principal.

Raymond and I had spent many hours together in my office exploring why he couldn’t seem to treat some of his teachers in the classroom as respectfully as he always treated me in my office. We talked about his plans for his future and about how much his mother, with whom I have a friendship yet today, loved him and how hard she had worked to give him the best life possible.

Ray would try to get me off topic by talking about the success of our sports teams or who I thought the hottest girls were in the senior class or the hottest women on the faculty, even as I reminded him repeatedly that the hottest conversations were not appropriate conversations for a student and his principal. I would give Raymond my best principal’s stare and pull him back to our discussion of his interaction with his teachers and of our three campus values of dignity, integrity, and justice.

I replayed snippets of those many conversations in my head as my eyes focused on that white coffin. The quiet music began to play as other folks arrived and were seated in the large and contemporary worship center.

The main officiant was the host church’s lead pastor, one of the most beloved and admired ministers in town. Even though it was his church in which the service was being held and he was the main eulogist of the day, seated beside him on the rostrum were four of Cape’s more prominent Black clergy. As is tradition in the Black church, if you have more than one pastor on the rostrum, you know you are going to have more than one sermon during church.

After the host pastor finished his eloquent, compassionate, and comforting comments with words of healing for the family, the Reverend Cletus Jones stepped into the pulpit.

In traditional delivery, Pastor Cletus declared, “Today, I give honor to our good brother as host pastor, and I give honor to the family of the young man we have come here to mourn today. I give honor to this fine church and even greater honor to the coming church of the New Jerusalem.” The sanctuary erupted with a blended chorus of “Amen,” “Hallelujah,” “Preach on,” and “I know that’s right!”

Then with thunderous passion, Pastor Cletus proclaimed, “I give all honor and all glory to God,” followed even more so by the rhapsodic call and response chorus of the Black church with “Amen,” “Hallelujah,” “Thank You, Jesus” from almost all the Black folks and even from a few of the more comfortable White folks.

I had been to enough Black church to know Pastor Cletus was far from finished, and he was about to seize the day even if he were not the primary preacher of the hour.

Pastor Cletus paused dramatically, leaned onto that pulpit, aimed his long finger from one side of that sanctuary to the other, and said, slowly and painfully, “Somebody, with God as my witness, somebody in this church this afternoon knows who killed young Raymond.”

After a long and dramatic pause, he continued, “Don’t tell me you don’t. Through the power of the Holy Ghost, I can feel the burden of your heart as well as you can feel the burden of your heart this afternoon.” That was followed by a subdued chorus of “Amen,” “So right,” “Go on now, Pastor.”

Pastor Cletus began to pace slowly from one side of the rostrum to the other, paused, looked from side to side, and shouted, “I know that you know! Let me tell you now: you owe it to this grieving mother to tell that you know.”

There was a dramatic pause.

“You owe it to this grieving family to tell that you know.”

There was another dramatic pause.

“You owe it to the mamas and daddies and grandmamas and granddaddies and aunties and uncles and cousins of this community to tell that you know.”

Without pause, he continued, “My dear sisters and brothers, you owe it to the church of Jesus Christ to tell that you know.”

And with the force of John the Baptist himself, he declared, “You owe it to God Almighty, our good and gracious and eternal Redeemer, to tell that you know.” The call and response chorus crescendoed as the congregation rose to its feet with applause.

Years later now, and to my knowledge, whoever the person was who Pastor Cletus charged “to tell that you know” has not done so. Raymond Brown, tragically not the first young Black man killed by gun violence on the streets of South Cape, went to his grave without justice—not Los Angeles, New York City, Chicago, Memphis, or Detroit—but Cape Girardeau, Missouri, 40,000 people buckled under the presumed protection of the Bible Belt.

Yes, it happens in Cape. It happens anywhere in a nation where too many guns are in the hands of too many people who do not know how, or who do not choose, or who do not care, to use them responsibly.