In this Christmas season I want to share with you the most incredible true story. It’s the story of Grover Norwood and Ulice Parker. They were both Christians living in a small community in Texas. Grover was a white man and Ulice was a black man. This fact cannot be missed and is integral to the point of the story which is the only reason I point it out. They attended different churches-Grover a more affluent predominantly white church and Ulice a largely black church. Yet, the entire Parker and Norwood families were good friends.
Over time Grover and Jill became concerned with the home that the Parkers were living in. It was actually condemned with no hot water and many other issues. Grover and Jill and their family, which included 4 year old daughter Joy, did what they could for the Parkers and considered them family. Both Grover and his friend Ulice were deeply, deeply committed Christians. But one night their faith and their friendship was put to the test. Grover and his family were coming home from a ballgame. It was dark and they needed to stop along the country road on the way home. And for some unknown reason, little 4 year old Joy–the apple of Grover’s eye, jumped out of the car and ran into the road and was struck by an oncoming car. The driver of that car assumed it was an animal but couldn’t really see since it was dark. Joy was killed. Life was unimaginably hard for the Norwood family. But also for the driver of the car when he learned what had happened. The driver was Ulice Parker.
Though he was still in shock over losing Joy, when Grover heard that it was his friend Ulice his first thought was “I have to go to him, he has to be just devastated and scared to death.”
In the days and weeks and months which followed, an incredible tapestry of love, grace and forgiveness was woven together as a shocked community gasped for air at the pathos of it all. No charges were filed against Ulice at Grover’s insistence. Ulice should not have been driving at all, but Grover and Jill pleaded on behalf of Ulice for leniency. Grover also insisted that the Parker family sit in the front row with the family at the funeral. Ulice’s family didn’t have clothes they considered acceptable so Grover and his wife bought the family new clothes to attend the funeral. As if that weren’t enough, in the days following the funeral Grover grew increasingly uneasy about the Parker’s living conditions. So Grover rounded up a bunch of men from different churches and they totally remodeled and renovated the Parker’s house at no cost to the Parker family. There is no explanation for it other than the reality of their faith. I love the way that Ulice’s pastor put it: “Only God, only God could do something like that.”
Around this time of year we are inundated with many saccharine sweet “Christmas” stories which really have nothing whatsoever to do with Jesus. At the same time, this Christmas we are bombarded daily with grim and depressing news in our country. As far as I’m concerned it matters not on which side of the aisle you sit politically, this is a dark time in our country as we face the reality of just how dysfunctional our government currently is. The times we are living in and living through with the divisive rancor rival some of the darkest days in our country’s past.
And then there is the church in America which too often seems to be taking its cues more from national politics than it does the Word of God. And then there is the flood of stories of sexual abuse, abuse of power, financial corruption, and the like. We have seen such things bring down some of the most trusted pastors and church leaders—BOTH Catholic and Protestant.
In my worse moments I am nearly paralyzed with despondency over the brokenness and spiritual vacuity of the last decade. And, yet, I need not look with pointed finger upon everyone else. For similar sin, brokenness, duplicity, anger, lust, and the like resides in my heart as well.
So how are we supposed to live out our faith in such times? How can we-sinful sinners in a broken and sick world-make a difference as we are called to? How do we as a church community not succumb to opposite errors? On the one hand we are tempted to capitulate to the current cultural riptide and jettison clear biblical teaching. On the other hand, however, is the proclivity to use the Word of God and Christianity merely as a prop to support a weird sort of americanized civil Christianity which is really neither civil nor Christian.
And so that’s why I thought of Grover and Ulice. In the video of this story, “The Heart of Texas,” Grover was asked how in the world he and Jill were able to extend such profound love and grace and compassion to the man who accidentally killed their little girl. How is that even possible? Grover pointed to a passage of scripture that has been his NorthStar guiding him throughout his entire life-2 Corinthians 6:3-10. He then read the passage, but he read it from an old translation by JB Phillips from the 60’s called “The New Testament in Modern English.” It is just a fantastic translation of the New Testament. I have it but, evidently, never read Phillips’ translation for this passage. It stopped me in my tracks when Grover read this passage. Phillips’ translation of this passage from the apostle Paul is as relevant now as it was in the 60’s and the 1960’s:
As far as we are concerned we do not wish to stand in anyone’s way, nor do we wish to bring discredit on the ministry God has given us. Indeed we want to prove ourselves genuine ministers of God whatever we have to go through—patient endurance of troubles or even disasters, being flogged or imprisoned; being mobbed, having to work like slaves, having to go without food or sleep. All this we want to meet with sincerity, with insight and patience; by sheer kindness and Holy Spirit; with genuine love, speaking the plain truth, and living by the power of God. Our sole defense, our only weapon, is a life of integrity, whether we meet honor or dishonor, praise or blame. Called “imposters” we must be true, called “nobodies” we must be in the public eye. Never far from death, yet here we are alive, always “going through it” yet never “going under.” We know sorrow, yet our joy is inextinguishable. We have “nothing to bless ourselves with,” yet we bless many others with true riches. We are penniless, and yet in reality we have everything worth having.
That’s just good stuff. It just hits at the heart of how we are called to live as Christians, in the first century and in the twenty-first century. My word, how much different would the world be if every Christian had this passage as their NorthStar? If it was good enough to guide Grover and Jill Norwood through such a horrible experience, it just might be enough to help us live authentic lives as Christians in our day and time.
Chris Higgins 