This coming April 15th will mark the 78th anniversary of Jackie Robinson’s first major league baseball game. On that day, he started at first base for the Brooklyn Dodgers against the visiting Boston Braves. By appearing in that game, Robinson brought an end to 60 plus years of racial segregation in the majors and moved the nation one step closer to the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and ‘60s and the realization of our essential founding truth that “all are created equal.”
Robinson was a man of great courage and character: though he played with a fire in his belly, he showed great restraint throughout the 1947 season, enduring frequent racist insults and taunts from fans and players and occasional dirty play by opponents, while refusing to respond in anger lest an outburst undermine the “great experiment” of integration. Robinson’s non-violence was a display of the courage not to fight back violently, but to respond with superior play on the field and dignified behavior. One cannot say enough good about Jackie Robinson, but he would have never gotten the chance to play if Dodgers General Manager Branch Rickey had not been determined to integrate the game.
Much has been written about Rickey’s reasons for signing Robinson and there were multiple motives. But there can be no doubt that Rickey saw this as a moral issue, an act of justice and as such the signing of Robinson was connected to his Christian faith. Indeed, the unpublished biography of Rev. Dr. L. Wendell Fifield suggests that Rickey made the final decision to sign Robinson after 45 minutes of pacing and praying in Fifield’s office at Plymouth Church in Brooklyn one day in 1945.
But the seeds of that decision had been planted over forty years earlier in 1903 when Rickey was the player-coach of the Ohio Wesleyan baseball team. That team included Charles Thomas, a catcher and first baseman, who happened to be black. One day in South Bend, Indiana, the manager of the Oliver Hotel refused to give Thomas a room because of his race (“We don’t let in nigras.”).
Rickey went ballistic, shouting at the manager and finally dragging a cot into his own ground floor room and declaring that Thomas would stay with him. Shocked by Rickey’s fervor, the manager relented—with conditions. Rickey recalled that the manager angrily told him: “ But you gotta keep the colored boy downstairs. He can’t go nowhere else. He can’t ride the elevators. And,” the manager continued, slamming the counter with his fist, “he sure as hell can’t eat with the white folks in our dining hall.”
Rickey turned on his heel and he and Thomas went to Rickey’s room. Decades later, Rickey would recall to author Roger Kahn, “After we got into my room and I closed the door tears welled in Charlie’s large eyes. His shoulders heaved convulsively and he rubbed one great hand over another with all the strength and power of his body. He was muttering, ‘Black skin…black skin. If only I could make my skin white.’” Such is the soul-destroying power of prejudice and hate, that it not only warps the souls and hardens the hearts of those who hold and act on prejudices. It also can make the victim forget that he or she is fearfully and wonderfully made in the very image of God. It can make them forget that they are beloved by God and that they possess a basic, essential dignity as human beings—a dignity that I, as a Christian, believe carries with it certain basic, inalienable human rights. That day, witnessing the awful effects of racism on another person, Rickey resolved to find a way to open up baseball to African Americans.
Commenting on this incident, Kahn, himself Jewish, writes, “To a devout Christian believer such as Rickey, the incident resonated with the Bible story of the first Christmas in Bethlehem. Once again, there was no room in the inn.”
It seems that for Rickey, Christmas was not something he could celebrate one or even a few days and then return to life as usual. Christmas was a powerful event, an event that shaped the way he lived and thought the rest of the year. He knew that Christmas was not an ending but a beginning.
The story of the wise men or magi, with which we end our Christmas observance, is a familiar one. We hear it and see it portrayed every year, multiple times in various media—manger scenes, scripture readings, movies, and Christmas tree ornaments among them. But there is one detail that is often overlooked: After entering the house and finding the child and his mother, after kneeling in worship and giving him gifts, the wise men go home. They leave for their own country. Christmas is over. But, they leave “by another road.”
They can’t go back the way they came. Literally, this is because of Herod’s evil schemes; for the safety of Jesus and his parents, and perhaps for their own safety, the wise men cannot return by the road to Jerusalem; they cannot fulfill the mad tyrant’s request to know the location of the child. The wisdom of this decision is proved by Herod’s reaction: he order’s the killing of all the male children 2 and younger in Bethlehem and its environs—perhaps 2 dozen children are sacrificed to the murderous fear of an autocrat jealously defending his power.
But this leaving by another road is not only literal. It is also metaphorical. They cannot go back the way they came, because they are not the same people they were when first they traveled to Bethlehem. They have been changed by what they have seen, by the one they have seen—they have seen God’s light shining in a toddler, the very revelation of God’s love and the very manifestation of God’s glory. Yet, they have to go back to their lives, they can’t stay there in Bethlehem. At the same time, they can’t go about their lives as if nothing has happened. Their leaving is not an end, but a beginning. They must take another road; their lives must be forever different because of this child. They must carry the light back with them to their own country.
Howard Thurman, the African American mystic, preacher and activist, knew that, like the wise men, we too have to return home after Christmas. We cannot extend the celebration indefinitely. Yet this is no more an end for us than it was for the wise men. It is the beginning of the response to what we have seen and heard. It is the beginning of carrying the light of God into the world. Thurman expressed this truth eloquently in a poem called “The Work of Christmas.”
When the song of the angels is stilled,
when the star in the sky is gone,
when the kings and princes are home,
when the shepherds are back with their flocks,
the work of Christmas begins:
to find the lost,
to heal the broken,
to feed the hungry,
to release the prisoner,
to rebuild the nations,
to bring peace among the people,
to make music in the heart.
What might this work of Christmas look like? I offer two examples. First, a few years ago, in Somerset, Mass. just five days before Christmas, Police Officer Matt Lima responded to a call about shoplifting at a local Stop and Shop. When he arrived, he discovered that two women had apparently not scanned every item in their carts. Upon talking to the women, he discovered that they were struggling financially and the unscanned items were intended for Christmas dinner. He also noticed that the women had two children with them. Officer Lima spoke with one of the women. "The woman I talked to, she explained she was working, but the mother of the children was not working and had some other family issues going on and that what she had taken was Christmas dinner for the kids." Sure enough, the grocery cart and the receipt of scanned items contained only food. Officer Lima was moved by the situation. "Obviously, this family was in need, and I can't imagine having to make the decision to go to Stop & Shop and just only pay for what I can afford.” He further said, “The two children with the women reminded me of my kids, so I had to help them out,” Lima said. The two women were issued a citation not to trespass at the store but were not charged with shoplifting. Then, Lima spent $250 of his own money to give the women a gift card that could be used at another Stop and Shop location, the same amount as the cost of the items in the shopping cart.
Officer Lima could have simply done his job and enforced the law. Instead, he treated the women with dignity by listening to them and noticing their circumstances. Then he acted with compassion. Compassion and generosity for a family in need: that’s what the work of Christmas looks like.
A second story: Back in 2018, something exceptional happened at Billy Earl Dade Middle School in South Dallas, TX. Dade was just a few years before a severely underperforming school. In the previous couple of years, Dade’s students and faculty had made great strides. One of the keys was community involvement.
In an effort to continue this improvement, they school’s leadership sought to establish a mentoring program. And so, with the help of the Rev. Donald Parish Jr. of True Lee Missionary Baptist Church, a “Breakfast with Dads” event was planned for December 14. The Rev. Parish explained, “When a young person sees someone other than their teacher take interest in them, it inspires them. That’s what we want to see happen. These kids need all the support they can get to be successful.”
Well, in the planning, the organizers realized that not all of the students had a father figure who could attend. Some had a father or grandfather in their lives. Others, had father figures, but they had to work and couldn’t attend a breakfast event. About 150 students had requested a mentor. So, Rev. Parish and the planning team put out a call on social media for volunteers, saying they needed at least 50.
They didn’t get 50. They got 600 volunteers—from all over Dallas; black, white and Hispanic; blue collar and white collar. 600 men showed up to help youth from a struggling neighborhood. A church and a school partnered to try to give kids a better chance in life. That’s what the work of Christmas looks like.
Like Howard Thurman, we too have heard the angels and we have visited the manger. Like Branch Rickey, we have shaken our heads in disbelief that there was no room in the inn. Like the wise men we have given gifts to the child and paid him homage. Now, as the celebration of Christmas comes to an end, we too must return to the familiar country of our everyday, normal lives. But what we have witnessed, experienced and celebrated we carry with us, in our hearts and minds. So, our lives must be changed, infused with the spirit of the Christ child, illumined by the light that shines out banishing the darkness. Now comes the task of following Christ down a different road. Now the mission of Christ’s church is undertaken. Now the work of Christmas begins.