Turning Points

How has your life journey been going?
…the last few months? The last few years? The last few days?
If you’re like most of us, there’ve been a few twists and turns along the way. Some of them you may have anticipated; some, have come out of the blue. Our lives are filled with turning points. The challenge is which way do you turn, how do you go forward?
Some of them are writ large on the world stage right. Last week’s landslide election in the UK, the country turned from the conservatives to labour. One headline read: “A New Era Begins.” I had to smile at that. New eras are usually decided by history. Their new prime minister has already begun to temper expectations.
Across the Channel, France seems poised for a turn in the other direction. Like many parts of the world, anger and fear have caused a rise in authoritarianism and nationalist populism. David Brooks calls this, the “politics of recognition” as opposed to the “politics of distribution.”
The “politics of distribution” seeks to allocate resources to address a social need (whether from socially conservative or socially liberal perspectives). The intention is to govern. The “politics of recognition” seeks to affirm identity, to recognize and validate grievances and anger. (David Brooks, “How to Know a Person” pp 101-102). Rev. Richard Coles an ordained priest in the Church of England who has been known as Britain’s vicar, described it another way when he said, “we have slipped into a kind of lazy anger.” I thought that a pretty good description. It seems like the world is turning to a lazy, unthinking, self-involved anger.
Of course, there’s another turning in the world right now as we watch hurricane Beryl catastrophize its way through the Caribbean. The earliest, and most easterly in origin, major hurricane recorded. While temperatures records for heat are broken across the continent and around the world in the hottest year on record in a succession of hottest years on record. We’re face with an existential tipping point. Where do we turn. So many seem to turn back to denial.
But these are larger geopolitical happenings on which we map our own stories. For me, as Barry mentioned, I came to that turning point called retirement, or as I like to call it, “rewirement” at the end of last September. It has been an interesting journey; harder for my wife. This August, another turning point, my son is getting married (about time). Now I know what the job of the father of the groom is: Show up, shut up, and pay up. But it may be a little different when you also have the delightful job of marrying them. And then, this past Friday, my brother-in-law died. My big sister is a widow. Her world has changed forever and our family’s world with hers.
We are usually working with more than one turning point at a time. That is our life’s journey, our mortal pilgrimage. The question, the challenge always is which way do you turn.
Our scripture passage today is about a turning point, personal and public, in one individual history and the history of Israel. The story of Elijah and Elisha is a fascinating one and pivotal.
In spite of all the special effects of theophany, the whirlwind and a chariot of fire, it is, at heart, a very human story about someone who is losing a friend and mentor, a pillar of their life.
Elijah had in fact changed the course of Elisha’s life. In Elijah’s encounter with God in the “still small voice” outside the cave, he had been sent to anoint Elisha as his successor. He called him to be a prophet while he was out happily ploughing with his team of oxen (1 Kings 19:19-21).
The colourful story goes that Elisha was behind a team of oxen, one of twelve teams in the field. That’s quite a lot of oxen, suggesting a lot of wealth to leave behind.
Elijah, the hero of Israel, seemingly out of the blue, came along and threw his cloak or mantle around Elisha. He clothed him in his clothes, naming him as his successor. Elisha recognize the call and said to him, “first let me kiss my mother and father good-bye”. Elijah cryptically replies “Go ahead, go back if you want, it has nothing to do with me.” But Elisha realizes this is a turning point. He goes back but it is only to slaughter his oxen BBQ them over his burning plough, yoke and harnesses. He gives the food to the poor. And he follows Elijah. He didn’t burn his bridges; he burned his plough. There was no going back.
That was one turn in his life but in today’s passage, we’re at another turn and his reaction is far different, human, and very relatable.
He was losing the one for whom he had given up everything. He was not only losing a deep relationship with a guide and model, companion and Father figure but also turning to an uncertain future. How could he go on alone?
Many of us can identify with the loss of a relationship which is a core part of our identity and meaning.
We don’t want to let go. Elisha doesn’t want to let go.
Three times Elijah tells him to stay behind. Three times Elisha says I will not leave you. Others come forward and tell him, you know he’s leaving you. Elisha responds with words to the effect: “I don’t want to talk about it.” We deny more than climate change.
Throughout this story, there’s a strong parallel here with the story of Moses and Joshua in the history of the people of the covenant. Moses had led Joshua and Israel through the reed or Red Sea, then brought them to the Jordan across from Jericho. Joshua would have to cross the Jordan alone. Elijah has brought, Elisha to the Jordan at Jericho. He leads him dry shod to the other side and there they again stand looking at Jericho across the Jordan. Suddenly there is the dramatic experience of the presence of God in whirlwind and fire and Elijah is taken from him.
He calls out, ““My father! My father! The chariots and horsemen of Israel!” You are my father! You are the security of Israel! You are my security! But Elijah is gone. Elisha is alone. He tears his garment in two, the ancient sign of mourning.
Then taking up the cloak, Elijah’s mantle, that was left behind, he walks to the bank of the Jordan and in prayer and anger calls out: “Where now is the LORD, the God of Elijah!” He discovers, God is with him.
In my work in the foodbank, I see a lot of people at turning points in their lives, wondering where God is. Many are Ukrainian refugees. People who have fled to Canada for safety and often they have left loved ones behind, sometimes husbands and sons fighting in the trenches. As Chaplain, I am approached for prayer and as one person did so the other day, another, overhearing, said, God doesn’t answer my prayers. I pray all the time and God doesn’t hear.
My heart went out to her. I wanted to point out that the foodbank was there, in that church, with all those volunteers and all the donated food because of the God we serve. The foodbank is an answer to prayer. But sometimes when our lives have turned from what we want or hope, we wall out the presence of those who loves us, let alone the presence of God. I tried to engage her but she wasn’t interested.
Do you know the story of Thomas Dorsey. Not Tommy Dorsey, the big band leader for whom Frank Sinatra sang. But Thomas Dorsey the black composer and choir leader recognized as the Father of Gospel Music. You’ve probably been joining in the celebration of the 50th year of the founding of Hip Hop. Or maybe on July 4th you observed the 100th anniversary of the Caesar Salad. You should know we’re coming up to the 100th anniversary of Gospel Music and the story is a compelling one.
Dorsey (b. July 1, 1899) was brought up in Atlanta Georgia, the son of a Baptist preacher and a piano teacher. He and the family had moved there when he was four but he didn’t do well. He left school after the fourth grade.
But he was raised with the sound of the blues and at the age of 16 moved to Chicago where he studies composition and arranging and entered the world and life style of jazz. He played for rent parties, in brothels, and night clubs.
He formed the “Wild Cats Jazz Band” in 1925 where he backed up a singer (Ma Rainey) and found work for his wife to be, Nettie, who was responsible for Rainey’s wardrobe.
In 1926 he fell into a deep depression. It lasted 2 years and was nearly fatal. But in 1928 inspired by a church service, he experienced healing, was converted and returned to faith, dedicating his life and his musical talent to serve God. He became active in Pilgrim Baptist Church in Chicago eventually becoming the church’s choir director (1932-72). He was the first to use the term “gospel music.”
One hot August in Chicago in 1932, he was called to be the music leader and soloist at a large revival meeting in St. Louis. He didn’t want to go. Nettie was in the last months of her pregnancy with their first child. But he was in great demand and this was a great opportunity for him and his family and Nettie urged him to go.
Dorsey wrote: “In the steaming St. Louis heat, the crowd called on me to sing again and again.” When he finally sat down, spent after a long set singing God’s praises, a messenger boy ran up to him with a Western Union telegram. He ripped open the envelope and pasted on the yellow sheet were the words: YOUR WIFE JUST DIED.
He left immediately.
When he got back, he learned that Nettie had given birth to a baby boy. He swung between grief and joy but that night the baby died. He buried Nettie and their little boy together in the same casket.
Then he said, he fell apart. “For days I closeted myself. I felt that God had done me an injustice. I didn’t want to serve Him any more or write gospel songs. I just wanted to go back to the jazz world I knew.” He would have torn his garment.
He was lost in grief but found himself surrounded by kindness. One special friend, Professor Theodore Frye, a colleague and leader of the choir of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, took the broken Dorsey to a neighbour hood music school. They went into one of the empty classrooms and talked into the night. Dorsey sat down at the piano and, as he said, “his hands began to browse the keys.” They picked out an old tune from the Methodist hymnbook and he recognized it, “Must Jesus bear the cross alone.” The Holy Spirit began to speak powerfully to him, finally piercing the shell he had made around himself and that tune began to be molded into a new tune with new words: “Precious Lord, take my hand.”
He remembered who his God was, the crucified and risen one. Where now is the LORD, the God of Elijah. He knew the living God was with him and with his beloved Nettie and their son. In that place and time where every other direction was hopeless, in turning to his risen Lord he had a place of hope, and life, and home.
He went home that evening and continued to work on that song, to let the words come.
He gave the song to Frye who introduced it to the choir at Ebenezer Baptist Church the next Sunday. An event that Dorsey later remarked “tore up the church.”

“Precious Lord take my hand
Lead me on, let me stand
I am tired, I am weak, I am worn
Through the storm, through the night
Lead me on, to the light.
Precious Lord take my hand, Lead me home.”

It touched the lives of almost everyone in that congregation who knew what it was to live under oppression and discrimination in the Jim Crow South and knew what it was to be heart broken by the twists and turns of life.
The pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta was Rev. Martin Luther King Senior. Precious Lord became the favourite hymm of his son, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and it became one of the unofficial anthems of the civil rights movement, calling people who were tired, weak, and worn – to hope and to life.
It was sung at the rally in Memphis the night before Martin Luther King was assassinated. It was sung at Martin Luther King’s funeral, by Mahalia Jackson, the Queen of Gospel music. Four years later, Aretha Franklin sang it at Mahalia Jackson’s funeral.
Many in this world become angry at God when things do not go well. They forget the identity of the living God who was crucified and rose for them, who creates a way where there is no other way forward. When the world falls apart, a way opens to turn to life, hope, and to the future.
That day in the foodbank, when the woman overheard another approaching me for prayer, that other person wanted to know if he could be baptized. He said he had called me. I asked him, “do you mean you called this church.” He said yes. I said, “then you didn’t call me, I’m not the pastor here and right now they’re between pastors but I can baptize you.
He had the appearance of a man for whom life had taken many hard turns but in sharing his story of redemption with me and in his eyes, he shone with a genuine faith and realization of God’s love for him. He said, I just hope Jesus will accept me. I told him, I knew he already had.
Would you like to be baptized now?
“Now?!!,” he said, “Is that possible?”
“Sure, do you know the story of the Ethiopian Eunuch in Acts 8: “Here’s water, what is to prevent me from being baptized.” Well we’ve got water here. You go get your food and I’ll get things ready.”
He became very excited. “Wait till my wife here’s about this!” I asked him, do you want to wait and arrange a time when your wife can be here?” He said, “No, let’s do it now!”
And so we did. We went into the sanctuary. I had another volunteer who happened to be the chair of Stonegate Ministries act as a witness. We prayed, read scripture, and I baptized and blessed him. The tears were rolling down his face. He said, “This is the greatest day of my life.” I said, “Don’t tell your wife that.” We laughed and embraced. I went back to serve in the foodbank. He stayed and prayed.
It was a turning point for him. He had found acceptance in God’s love and that acceptance was affirmed that day. A recognition that brought him into relation with all God’s children.
When we pray “Precious Lord take me home.” We’re not talking about going to heaven, though that hope is certainly before us. We are turning to the living love, dignity, and belonging that gives us a way forward through all the turning points of our lives. Through the times of heartbreak and of joy.
Home is with God, in God’s love, service and unparalleled hope. Home is knowing God is with us and will not abandon us. There is no need for denial or turning away, we are always welcomed home.