My Early Story (33)

 

San Francisco and The Jesus People – Five

 

Sister Josephine was the heart of the Anchor Rescue Mission, and Sister Yvonne was her faithful friend and companion. Everyday Josephine would make the rounds of produce dealers and grocery distributors to pick up items to feed the hungry that evening at the Mission. When she’d arrive at the Mission we’d haul the day’s “catch” in and follow Jo’s directions for the preparation of the meal. I did a lot of peeling, cutting, and dicing.

 

Josephine had a heart condition, and during my stay she had an episode that laid her up for a few weeks. In her absence Sister Yvonne took the helm and we followed her directions. Josephine returned to the Mission before she was supposed to, but that was Jo, her heart for others was so much bigger than her concern for herself.

 

These were the gentlest of women, ladies, sisters in Christ, and sisters to all humanity. Feeding people, mostly men, night after night, never showing any condemnation toward them, never a critical word, always praying for people, always welcoming, always loving. They weren’t looking for Federal or State grants, they weren’t fundraising, they were just trusting God on a daily basis to meet the needs of the people they were called to serve. Don’t misunderstand, this is not a knock against fundraising or grant money, but it is to say that perhaps we make things a bit too complicated, and that perhaps we’ve lost what it is to trust Christ for provision; perhaps the main thing is no longer the main thing – maybe we’ve lost the main thing?

 

I think it was Oswald Chambers who wrote that what we call the process God calls the goal. What he means is that we get so focused on goals that we lose sight of life, we lose sight of experiencing God and others in daily life. We look at the process as a means to an end, but God sees the process as the goal – He wants us to know Him…now, today.

 

I don’t know when the Anchor Rescue Mission closed. I doubt there is a historical marker recognizing its existence. But I can tell you that if you were in San Francisco when it was open, and you were hungry and needed a generous meal served by people with tender hearts, that you were not likely to forget Josephine, Yvonne, Pastor Redford, and Brother and Sister Manners. I know that when I met them I was hungry and they fed me; when I came to them I needed a place to sleep and they took me in.

 

"I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me” (Mt. 25:40).

 

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San Francisco and the Jesus People – Four

 

David Hoyt and I shared a room on the second floor of the Anchor Rescue Mission. On many evenings I’d help prepare the meal for the people at the mission. Other days and evenings I’d travel with David to gather with other young people for worship, witnessing, and fellowship. Sometimes we attended churches, sometimes we met in homes.

 

What struck me was that everyone participated in these gatherings, it wasn’t just a one-man show by the preacher. My thinking was revolutionized by this – people were sharing their thoughts, praying for each other, telling others about Jesus, caring for each other – and they were excited and serious and compassionate. I remember writing a letter to a pastor friend back in Maryland about it all, I was in awe – this was church! This was Romans 12 and 1 Corinthians 12, and Ephesians 4; this was a functioning body of believers. Not long after San Francisco I would experience something similar in the early stages of the Charismatic Movement, I may share about that in the future.

 

There have been similar renewal movements in church history, movements which have a functioning body of believers as a hallmark. The Pietistic renewal in Germany is one of my favorite models; it had home groups and social action centered in Jesus Christ. Church-life as a functioning body has also been one of the strengths of the persecuted church in China. The beauty of the Jesus People was that it was not orchestrated by man and that Jesus was the focal point of the movement. In the early days of the movement you could truly say that “church is not an organization; it is an organism.”

 

A friend recently pointed out to me that there were some heresies in thought and practice that came out of the Jesus People. As I thought about that it occurred to me that that has always been the case with renewal – if you have life you’re going to have counterfeit, excess, people doing stupid things, and yes, there will even be the working of the enemy. And then it occurred to me to just look at the New Testament, much of the NT was written to correct heresy, stupid thinking, sin, and the work of the enemy. My point is that it isn’t likely we are going to do any better than the Apostles – not to be negative here, but I think that if the churches they founded had problems and false teaching grew from them, well then, perhaps we can be a bit charitable to one another and also realize in our own ministries that “we ain’t God.”

 

One evening I happened to be looking in David Hoyt’s Bible and saw that he had drawn artwork on its pages, along the margins. “Why do you have all this artwork?” I asked.

 

“Well, the Bible is my home and people put artwork in their home.”

 

I’ve never forgotten his response.

 

David’s enthusiasm and commitment to Jesus were inspirations to me. If you read about David you’ll find that he became involved in probably the ugliest cult contemporaneous with the Jesus People, The Children of God. I first read about David’s move to the cult in the magazine Christianity Today around 1973. The article also said that he had moved to Atlanta. The next day I drove to Atlanta to see him – but he had left the country and I don’t think returned for a number of years – after leaving the cult. Some of this you can find on the Web, and I guess if his book comes out [which it did after I wrote this] he’ll deal with it as he sees fit. It was certainly a painful time for him.

 

Cult or no cult, David Hoyt was an example to me, and the Jesus People gave me a glimpse of what church-life could look like. The fact that David left the cult is a testimony to the grace and faithfulness of God – our God is a covenant-keeping God and the work He begins in us He fully intends to complete.

 

“For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus,” (Phil. 1:6).

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San Francisco and The Jesus People – Three

 

Ralph and Shirley Manners were in their 60’s. Shirley was a large woman with a smile that would brighten just about anyone’s day and a laugh that could light up the city. She radiated exuberance. Ralph was shorter than Shirley, easy-going, always dressed neatly, and, as is often the case with couples, was much quieter than his outgoing spouse.

 

I took to Ralph and Shirley as soon as I met them, spending time in their home and being treated like a family member.

 

One weekend they asked if I wanted to visit Ralph’s mother, who lived in Oakland. Of course I did, so off we went.

 

“Momma" was in her advanced 80’s and lived in a two-bedroom apartment with a living room and eat-in kitchen. During the day we discovered that Momma had clothes that needed washing, so we put her laundry in a two-wheeled shopping cart, the kind folks used to use to wheel groceries home, and we headed off to the laundry mat, Ralph, Shirley, Momma, and me.

 

I guess we must have been a sight in that Oakland neighborhood. Racial tensions were high in those days with the Black Panthers marching in front of the Oakland Courthouse (I saw them on another visit to Oakland) and here were three elderly black folks with a young white guy hauling laundry down the street.

 

Before we knew it the day had turned to night and we decided to stay with Momma and head home the next day. When the question of night clothes was raised Momma had the answer – old fashioned white sleeping robes, the kind with a hole for you to slip your head through and two slits for your arms. So Ralph, Shirley, and Bob each got a white sleeping robe for the night. We would have fit right in with a baptismal service.

 

The next morning we got up, had breakfast in our robes around the kitchen table, and then we got our Bibles out and read the book of Esther. Yep, we were still in our robes. Read the entire book we did, enjoyed the drama, enjoyed God’s goodness to Esther and Mordecai and all the Jewish folk, and enjoyed God’s goodness to us around the table.

 

I felt like an honored guest wearing Momma’s robe, no, actually I didn’t, I felt like family, I felt like loved and accepted family. Do you remember what I said in my last post about Pastor Radford singing The Love of God and It Is Well With My Soul, how I said no one could sing those songs like he could? Well, that’s the way I feel about the book of Esther and Momma, and Shirley, and Ralph; I’ll never read the book of Esther the way I read it with those fine people – I experienced the book of Esther that morning, I experienced the book because I experienced the love of God flowing through three elderly black folks to a young white man.

 

You might recall that I wrote about the gift of a can of fruit cocktail, and how that was one of the greatest gifts I ever received. Well, that robe of Momma’s was the finest piece of clothes I ever put on – I’ve never worn anything finer…and I doubt that anyone else has either.

 

The Scriptures tell us that a day will come when we’ll have white robes; when that day comes I’ll be looking for Ralph and Shirley, and of course for Momma. 

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San Francisco and the Jesus People – Two

 

The Anchor Rescue Mission was an outreach to the homeless and down-and-outers, many of whom had drinking and drug problems. It was operated by Sister Josephine and her friend, Sister Yvonne. Then there was Pastor Redford, and Ralph and Shirley Manners. All of these folks were black, which I only mention in order for you to better visualize them.

 

Pastor Redford was around 5’10”, medium build, about 50 years old, with a chiseled face, not the kind that exhibits hardness, but rather one that lets you know the person has experienced life. His eyes were eyes that you probably didn’t want to look at if you were lying, those eyes were not only the window of Pastor Redford’s soul, they were taking the vital signs of your soul.

 

The pastor’s voice had a deep resonance and I loved listening to him. He could also sing, and when he sang “The Love of God,” …well, I’ve never heard anyone sing that song the way Pastor Redford could sing it. I can still hear him on the refrain:

 

“Oh love of God, how rich and pure, how measureless and strong, it shall forever more endure, the saints and angels song.”

 

On my last night at the Anchor Rescue Mission Pastor Redford asked me what song I’d like him to sing, my request was, “It Is Well With My Soul.” There again, I’ve never heard anyone sing that hymn like Pastor Redford – oh the range his voice had, he’d take you down into a cavern in which you were enveloped with reverberating bass notes, and then lift you higher than the clouds – you just didn’t want it to end.

 

Speaking of hymns, every evening at the worship service there would be a hymn request time. One of the regulars, Johnny, made the same request at least once a week, sometimes more frequently, it was “Yield Not To Temptation.”

 

Now I suppose Johnny had seen his share of temptation, and my guess is that he knew what it was to yield to temptation, but he kept requesting that song, week after week. He had a way of running his words together when requesting that particular hymn; he’d raise himself about halfway up from his chair, slightly bent over, and you’d hear, “Yieldnottatemptatshun”. Then he’d sit down and Sister Yvonne, who played the piano, and Pastor Redford, would be ready to lead us all in Johnny’s request.

 

I imagine an onlooker might be cynical about Johnny and his request, here’s a drinker asking for this song week after week. But I think there is a lot to be said about not giving up hope, about acknowledging our frailties, and just maybe that song gave some other folks there some hope too.

 

There is a line in the hymn, “dark passions subdue.” It takes a real man, or a real woman, to acknowledge that he or she has the capacity for dark passions. Johnny wasn’t putting on airs, he was just laying it out there. Of course today the idea of temptation is relegated to giving in and eating too much chocolate, we aren’t tempted to sin anymore because there isn’t anything called sin – everything has a diagnosis and we are no longer responsible for our actions. We live in a therapeutic society in which we all just want to feel good.  I don’t think Johnny was interested in feeling good, he was interested in getting out of the hell he was in. Johnny was looking for hope, and maybe every time he sang those words, with all of us around him, maybe just for the three verses of that hymn, Johnny could see beyond his search for the next drink and see the light of Christ shining into his heart.

 

I grew to like that hymn, and on my last night at the mission I was hoping that Johnny would request it, and he didn’t disappoint me.

 

Here’s the chorus of Johnny’s hymn:

 

“Ask the Savior to help you. Comfort, strengthen, and keep you. He is willing to aid you. He will carry you through.”

 

Not a bad piece of advice – thanks Johnny.

 

My Early Story (29)

 

San Francisco and the Jesus People – One

 

A while back I was talking with a parishioner and mentioned the Jesus People, he didn’t have a clue to what I was referring. If you don’t either I’d suggest you Google “San Francisco Jesus People” and get some background. If you do read about the Jesus People in San Francisco (and elsewhere) chances are the names David Hoyt and Kent Philpott will come up.

 

Much like Miguel Diaz and George Will, David and Kent had an early influence on me. Around 2010 I chatted with Kent on the phone after some email exchanges, and later I had a snail mail (yes – they still do happen!) exchange with David Hoyt – in both cases it had been over 40 years since I had contact with them. David has recently published a book on the Jesus People.

 

If you do Google about the Jesus People, you’ll find more info about David and Kent than I could share on a blog, but I do want to share about my time with them, especially David, and about my time with other great people in San Francisco.

 

I suppose you could say that I had three spheres of relationships in San Francisco, the Jesus People, the black church community, and the hippie/revolutionary movement. Yep – no typos here. For a time I lived in Haight-Asbury (and again, if you don’t know about Haight-Asbury and the hippie movement go ahead and look it up). I also lived with David Hoyt at the Anchor Rescue Mission.

 

Now I need to adopt something here that I am a bit uncomfortable with, but I see no way around it – other than David and Kent I’m going to have to supply names for people whose names I can’t remember. If I do remember an actual name I’ll point that out, otherwise I’m afraid that I’ll be supplying names as I go along – I think you’d get tired of reading about “Mrs. so-and-so whose name I can’t remember.” Fair enough? Thanks.

 

The Spanish-speaking community of New York City taught me hospitality, a love for missions, and a love for those in need. The Jesus People introduced me to the functioning Body of Christ. Up until my encounter with The Jesus People my paradigm of church was traditional, the preacher/pastor did the work and everyone else basically watched. My idea of “ministry” was individualistic, ministry centered on the preacher/pastor, and these preacher/pastors were focused on developing their ministries – as opposed to developing people.

 

By this time I had probably read Watchman Nee’s The Normal Christian Church Life, now I think republished under another title, but I must not have understood it. Nor must I have understood Bonheoffer's discussion of community in The Cost of Discipleship. What we see is so much more powerful than what we read – I guess I needed to “see” a functioning body before I could relate to writings about a functioning body.

 

If you’ve never seen a VW microbus with Jesus- People art painted all over it, rolling down the highway with the driver and inhabitants singing Jesus songs, you’ve missed a sweet part of both Americana and church history. Some folks might want to celebrate Woodstock, I’ll celebrate The Jesus People. Come to think of it, that’s not a bad testimony – to have people call you “Jesus People.”

 

“…and the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch.”      Acts 11:26