Heaven In The Now By Ace CollinsНамуна

Day 6

Sharing The Fruit (By and By, When the Morning Comes)

Matthew 6:19-20

Charles Tindley was born in Maryland in 1851. His father was a slave who was sold to another plantation owner when Tindley was just a toddler. His mother, a free black woman who worked as a servant, died before the boy learned to talk. After that he was passed around from family to family. The two constants in his life were hard work and church.

By twenty, Tindley had grown into a huge man, more than six feet four inches tall. His shoulders were the width of an axe handle. With his dark eyes, booming voice, and ebony skin, he cut an imposing figure. Yet, he came to realize that physical presence paled when compared to knowledge. Thus, in his spare moments, he read everything he could lay his hands on.

In his early twenties, Tindley married a woman he had met in church and left the only home he had ever known to join the large African-American community in Philadelphia. After negotiating the right to use their library, Tindley took a position as the janitor of the John Wesley Methodist Episcopal Church. Within a decade, he would assume the role as the church’s pastor. 

Tindley’s congregation constantly asked their pastor when things would change. When would the world stop limiting the opportunity for an African-American to have an equal opportunity for growth, expression, and advancement? When would schools, theaters, stores, and cafes open their doors to people of color? That question of change, the thing his congregation prayed to see, haunted the preacher’s every waking hour.

One Sunday morning in 1904, Tindley stood in front of his congregation and sang “By and By When the Morning Comes.” His latest composition reflected  something he could clearly see in Christ’s ministry — God treasured each man equally. The Lord had no favorites. And those who never gave up on faith, might be excluded from certain parts of an earthly world, but would be rewarded with an equal place in heaven. Yet, rather than just focus on the equality that would come in the life beyond this one, he urged his flock to seek to bring a bit of heaven to earth now.

Tindley’s sermon that day centered on a peach tree. In that message he painted a picture of a tree so heavy with fruit that the limbs bowed and reached down to the ground. Using this illustration, he explained that from this tree even a small child could pick a peach. He then suggested that it was a Christian’s calling to bend low and lift others up. That simple act would provide each person with value and assure them they were equal. He concluded by noting the peach tree represented Christ and if they wanted to follow Jesus, they would give to and accept others of all races as freely as He had.

Charles Tindley’s congregation grew to more than thirty thousand members and, by the 1920s, included members of all races. Though he never claimed to have all the answers, through his life, his sermons, and his music, he painted a complete picture of faith lived to its fullest. He also presented a way to enjoy a preview of heaven while dealing with life’s myriad of unanswered questions on earth. 

Lord, teach us patience, grant us insight, and allow us to be so filled with your grace that our fruit can been seen and shared with everyone we meet so that they can know you and feel your love both on earth and in heaven.