Timothy J. Clarke - The Power of One Thing: One Desire

This morning, beloved, I am beginning a new series for the month of May entitled «One Thing.» This is my theory, Uncle George Deacon Mary: my thesis for this sermon and this series is simply this, in one sentence: In life, one of the hardest things to do is to settle on one thing. And yet, beloved, despite that challenge, despite the tension that comes with it, the ability to do that—the strength, the sagacity, the nerve, the energy to do that—is one of the most rewarding efforts that you and I can make. So today, as we begin this series for the month of May, I want to look at this idea of one desire. I want to look, deacons, at what it looks like to live our lives amid all the options that we have. And God in heaven knows we have a whole lot of options out here.

When I was a boy growing up, I’m going to date myself; I know that I’m old, but it’s all right. When I was a boy growing up, we had several TV channels: ABC, NBC, and CBS. Y’all ain’t helping me! ABC, NBC, CBS! And then, in New York, we had Channel 13, which was—Deacon Rose, you remember—that was kind of like the public service channel, and there wasn’t anything good on there; it was all boring. Those were our channels; those were our options. In those days, we had a remote control; it was the youngest person in the family. If you were the youngest person in your family, you were hoping and praying that your parents didn’t believe in birth control and would have another child so that you could boss somebody around and tell them, «Get up and change the channel!»

Now, some of us—I’m going to move on because I don’t want to talk about y’all too bad—some of us only had one TV, black and white, and sometimes over time, the handle broke off the dial, so we had to use a pair of pliers. I wish I had a church online; people would be laughing. And then your grandmother, your mother, or whoever would tell you, «Now, don’t turn it too fast because you’re going to strip it, so turn it slowly.» Those were our options back in the day.

Now we live in an age, a time, when there is, how shall I say it, a plethora of choices and options. We can watch TV on our flat-screen televisions on the wall, on our laptops, on our iPads, or on our phones. And now, we’ve gotten so sophisticated—we have become so advanced in our use of technology—that you can even watch it on your watch! We live in a world, in a time, when we have an abundance—almost an embarrassing abundance—of options. When I was a boy growing up, you ate what was set before you. If you had the timidity, the gall, the nerve, or the audacity to tell Big Mama you didn’t like it, then Big Mama had the nerve to tell you, «You ain’t hungry; this is not a restaurant; this is my kitchen, and you don’t pick. There’s no menu here; whatever I cooked is what’s on the menu.»

Now we’ve got options. There was a time when African Americans, those of us of African descent, did not have the options for travel. We had to rely on those things—Deacon Logan, you know them as Green Books—that black folk had to use; they told us where we could stop, where we could eat, and which gas stations were friendly to people of color. But now, bless God, we can go anywhere, stay anywhere, and eat anywhere because of the struggles and sacrifices—I feel like preaching this! —of those who have gone before us. Our lives are filled with options.

There was a time when the only places for higher education we could attend were HBCUs—historically black colleges and universities—like Fisk, Morehouse, Spelman, and Howard. And while y’all are getting quiet on me, Lincoln! Come on! The only places we could go were North Carolina A&T, other historically black colleges and universities. But now, somebody holler! Now we can go anywhere, from Harvard to Yale to Princeton. We can go anywhere our skills and scholarship will take us. We can compete, we can apply, we can be accepted. And while I’m saying that, I might as well say it: even though we’re thankful and we celebrate the entrance into these what we once called Ivy League schools, we must not forget nor neglect those historic institutions that were there for us when nobody else would. I feel a preach coming on right there!

I was in conversation this week with some friends, brothers in ministry of mine, and one of them was sharing with us that ITC, the Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta, part of the Morehouse family—part of that marvelous school system in Atlanta that comprises Spelman, Morehouse, and other institutions of higher learning—is on the brink of shutting down. They train black preachers, train black scholars, and train black theologians when we could not get into Harvard Divinity School or Yale or Princeton.