There was a series on HBO called “Lovecraft Country.” In one of the episodes the character Leti, played by Jurnee Smollett, is able to mysteriously travel back in time to the massacre that happened in 1921 Tulsa, Oklahoma. In the scene Leti is talking to Hattie, played by Regina Taylor, as the building they are in is about to burned to the ground. Hattie shares something significant with Leti about the baby boy she is carrying. Hattie says to Leti these words: “When my great-great grandson is born, he will be my faith turned to flesh.”
The series and the scene were powerful, and it is a disappointment that HBO cancelled the series after only one season. Maybe it was because the brilliant Black woman director and developer, Misha Green, depicted Black people in the Tulsa race riot scenes more accurately, fighting back against white racists who descended on the Black metropolis.
Maybe the truth that Black people did not let hate-filled white mobs run over them, but fought back with power and pride, was too much for the white executives at HBO. And maybe those executives did not want that truth to influence younger versions of those Black folks in Tulsa, like the Black folks recently in Montgomery, Alabama, who rallied to support a Black man during a fist fight, which is being called the “Montgomery Melee.”
In that incident, hateful and disrespectful white racists physically teamed up and attacked a Black man who was doing his job by asking them to move their boat because it was blocking a riverboat from docking. The Black people present were not having another Black person teamed up on by another white mob, so they stepped in to fight back and defend the Black man.
But I digress.
The scene in “Lovecraft Country” and the words of the elder Black woman Hattie, “When my great-great grandson is born, he will be my faith turned to flesh,” shows me that Faith is also an Inheritance that is passed down from generation to generation.
Hattie is sharing that her faith is being passed down through her spiritual DNA to her progeny.
In fact, scripture shows us this same reality in 2 Timothy, Chapter 1. In it the African Apostle Paul is trying to put steel in the back of his son in the ministry.
Paul writes these words to Timothy, “I have been reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and I am persuaded, now lives in you also.”
The faith that was in Timothy had been passed down to him from his grandmother, to his mother and on to him. Timothy was his grandmother’s “faith turned to flesh.”
This powerful truth is also reflected in the book of Hebrews, Chapter 11 where the writer shares words of remembrance to inspire and fortify the believers he was writing to. The writer in Hebrews in that 11th Chapter walks through what we call the Hall of Fame of the faithful to remind believers he was addressing that they have a legacy to live up to and to carry on.
And as if to rise to a climax of courage in the 13th verse of that 11th Chapter, the writer pens these powerful words, “These all died in faith not having received the promise…” The writer is pointing out that the ancestors of faith had passed on to the believers in the text their Faith to not only sustain them but to also fortify them to press forward in faith.
Faith is an Inheritance bequeathed by those who came before us who had to Faith their way through being stolen from their homelands. Faith their way through being stuffed in the stinking holes of slave ships. Faith their way through being sold in a strange land on auction blocks.
Our forebears had to Faith their way through being separated, like property, from family members. Faith their way through being forced to work from can’t see in the morning to can’t see at night, for no pay, and faith their way through being treated worse than farm animals.
Ancestors had to Faith their way through indignity after indignity, and contrary to the misconception of the Governor of Florida, brought skills with them from Africa, useful trades, and they were abused and forced by their enslavers to build this very nation.
What manner of people could endure over four hundred years of inhumane treatment and unimaginable cruelty to one day not only rise to the highest heights of a society that still refuses to value them but leave their indelible imprint of African ingenuity.
What manner of people, who in the words of author Zora Neale Hurston, have “eaten in Sorrow’s kitchen and licked out all the pots,” yet still strive.
We still thrive and still overcome barrier after barrier to produce giants like Reverends Harriett Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Gabriel Prosser and Nat Turner.
The names of AME Steward Denmark Vesey, Callie House, Anna Julia Cooper, Bishop Henry McNeal Turner, Martin Delany, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Jo Ann Robinson, E.D. Nixon, Septima Clark, Ella Baker, Pauli Murray, Fannie Lu Hamer, Paul Robeson, W.E.B. Du Bois and Carter G. Woodson are written in the pantheon of Black greats.
Of contemporary note, Malcolm X, Dr. Martin King, Jr., Dr. Samuel DeWitt Proctor, Dr. Prathia Hall, Dr. Katie Geneva Cannon, Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr., and Barack Obama head the list of Black activists, scholars and United States President.
It was a people of Faith who inherited a faith that fueled them to fight against all manner of inequities and who have passed that same faith on to us, today.
Faith, beloved, is an Inheritance and we have been vouchsafed with this incredible legacy of faith in a God who is able to “do exceeding and abundantly more than we could ever ask or think.”
Beloved you are their “Faith turned to flesh!!!”
Rev. Dr. John E. Jackson, Sr. is the Senior Pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ-Gary, 1276 W. 20th Ave. in Gary. “We are not just another church but we are a culturally conscious, Christ-centered church, committed to the community; we are unashamedly Black and unapologetically Christian.” Contact the church by email at [email protected] or by phone at 219-944-0500.
Rev. Dr. John E. Jackson, Sr. is the Senior Pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ-Gary, 1276 W. 20th Ave. in Gary. “We are not just another church but we are a culturally conscious, Christ-centered church, committed to the community; we are unashamedly Black and unapologetically Christian.”
