It was a hot and humid afternoon when the speaker approached the microphone. The ceiling fans did nothing to cool the auditorium, and there was no air conditioning. Pastors and lay delegates from south Alabama and west Florida Methodist churches had assembled for their Annual Conference, and John Sparkman, the senior senator from Alabama, was to give the keynote address. As he took his place behind the podium, the congregation rose for a standing ovation. Senator Sparkman began: “Thank you for that generous welcome. I feel right at home. As you know, my father was a Methodist Minister and all I ever learned about politics I learned at a Methodist Annual Conference.”

We all laughed but we were well aware of the truth behind his words. Annual Conference was where we came together to worship, attend to the business of the Church, set policy, and debate theological and social issues. The Bishop, with the help of the District Superintendents, would appoint pastors to the churches for the following year. Yes, there would be politics in the Conference, for that was the way things got done. This was Montgomery, Alabama—June, 1957. The temperature was over 100 degrees every day and racial tension was the highest since Reconstruction. The world was holding its breath, waiting to see if violence would erupt. Politics, in the city, was at its worst.

Inside the auditorium, we set the agenda, gave reports, argued, and compromised as we tried to move the church to relevance in the world outside. Inspiring sermons, prayers, and hymns punctuated our worship—Methodists do love to sing! For the most part, we kept our tempers and were respectful of each other as we struggled to be faithful in the decisions we made. We didn't hold hands and sing “Kum Ba Ya,” but on more than one occasion, I saw that when a heated argument was ended by a call for a vote, the principals left the floor of the conference to go share a cup of coffee with one another.

One morning, Brother Emmet Wilson, a retired minister in his eighties who was filling in as pastor to a small congregation, rose to address the delegates. He was aware of a dramatic demographic shift on the horizon in the southern part of the state and wanted to position the church to serve the new community. He approached the Conference Mission Committee with his request for funding. It was denied. Not to be outdone, he took his cause to the floor of the entire conference. He spoke passionately but with humor. Everyone knew that whenever Brother Wilson spoke to the conference, he presented a gift—a challenge, always wrapped in stories. But some of his stories tended to go on for awhile. This day, after the old minister had been holding forth for quite some time, the bishop wrapped his gavel and called for a point of order, hoping to end Brother Wilson's story. The old minister reached up, took a hearing aid out of each ear, said, “They sure are out of order, Bishop,” and kept talking. He finally ended by saying, “I talked to the Lord last night. And I told the Lord that I wasn't going to eat or drink until the conference approved this mission.” He paused, glanced at the bishop with a smile, and said, “but the Lord told me I could smoke my pipe!” (This was in reference to a long-standing and sometime ignored rule that Methodist ministers must refrain from smoking).

We were still laughing when Joel McDavid, Chairman of the Missions Committee, stood and said he was reconvening the Committee and he felt sure they could find a way to grant the request. Everyone applauded. Brother Wilson thanked his good friend, Joel and sat down. The old preacher's stories could go on forever, but this time he knew when to stop. It was politics at its best.

The Reverend Emmet Wilson never sought positions of power or prestige within the Annual Conference. All his ministry, he served small struggling congregations at subsistence level salaries. As far as I know, he never published anything and was not in demand as an evangelistic preacher. But that one day, in an overheated college auditorium, he raised the bar and gave us all a glimpse of what politics, when practiced with integrity and humor, was all about.

A sometime Storyteller, Pastor Max Hale has served over half a century in ministry in various settings, including the military, the campus, and the local church. You may follow him on his                                         blog: www.avirtualfrontporch.com

Fifty-five years ago this summer, I was at a family gathering in West Palm Beach, Florida. I heard reports of Cubans arriving in Miami—fleeing the Revolution. I called Norka Fejo to get more of the story. Norka was the Director of Christian Education in Cuba for the United Methodist Church and was living in Miami. She told me that she planned to meet some of the refugees that afternoon and asked if I would like to go along. Miami was only a little over an hour away, and I could use a break from family for a while, so I said yes. 

She took me to the hotel where those arriving from Cuba were being greeted, and we met Luis. Luis was a fishing boat captain who had arrived just hours before with a boatload of refugees. He told a captivating story. 

The day before, forty Cubans boarded his boat, ostensibly to go fishing. They carried no luggage and only a sack lunch to avoid suspicion. Luis charted a course straight through the U.S. Naval submarine fields. One submarine surfaced, intercepted them, gave them food and water, and sent them on their way toward Miami. They had arrived safely.

As Luis told me the story, he became more and more excited and, at one point, I could tell he was talking directly to me. Norka interpreted. “He says he is going back tomorrow to get more refugees and is asking if you would like to go with him.” That would have been more than I was bargaining for. I declined.

Forty-seven years later, times had changed. Cuban revolutionaries controlled the government. The United States government long ago begun a campaign of regime change. It imposed an economic trade and travel blockade designed to keep Cuba poor and to prevent U.S. Citizens from traveling there. The embargo was the compelling reason for my trip to Cuba in 2007.   

I had met Rev. Lucius Walker, Director of Pastors for Peace, an interfaith organization which opposed the embargo because of the unjust economic burden it placed on Cuban citizens and for its restriction on U.S. citizens’ freedom to travel. Walker's authentic spiritual depth, his love of people, his quiet determination, and his capable leadership was transparent. Since 1992, he had guided Friendshipment Caravans, taking humanitarian aid and visitors to Cuba without the required license in protest of the embargo. I was hooked. It was now the time for me to go to Cuba.

One hundred twenty-five of us crossed from McAllen, Texas into Reynosa, Mexico in the early hours of July 18th. We were a caravan of twelve vehicles, most of them used school buses, and carried a hundred tons of humanitarian aid. We traveled three hundred fifty miles to the port city of Tampico where in the wee hours of the morning we loaded our cargo, including several of the buses, aboard a freighter. We boarded a Russian-built Ilyushin 62 jet for a brief flight to Havana.

The Cuban customs agents stamped our tickets instead of our passports to save us trouble with our own U.S. Customs when we crossed back into the U.S. later. We divided ourselves into three groups to facilitate travel, and the Cuban chapter of our adventure began. During the next nine days, we traveled through three provinces meeting people and visiting hospitals, schools, art centers, museums, and community gardens. We worshiped at a Presbyterian Church in Sancti Spiritu, toured the Che Guevera Museum in Vila Clara, were guests at a block party, and strolled along the famous Malecon waterfront. On our last night there, we attended the Medical School Graduation ceremony where doctors from all over the world, given free medical education in Cuba, graduated. They would return to their home countries to serve the poor and the sick. 

The next day, we were quiet on the flight from Havana to Tampico. The ride from Tampico to the U.S. border was even quieter. Our moment of truth would come when we attempted to reenter the U.S. By then, we would have violated the embargo and would face possible penalties, ranging from fines to imprisonment.

We were respectful as we each faced a customs agent. We offered only our passport and customs declaration and had agreed not to answer any leading questions about our trip. We passed through without exception and without incident. I am convinced this was because of the respect Pastors for Peace has gained through the years. We challenged the embargo, but we were otherwise completely respectful and law-abiding.

Back home in Colorado, interest in the mission grew. Over a seven year period, we collected close to half a million dollars’ worth of medical and educational supplies, other humanitarian aid, and five school buses which we sent with subsequent Friendshipment Caravans. The last school bus we sent is handicapped accessible and is being used by an orthopedic hospital in Havana.

The twenty-sixth Caravan will make its way to Cuba this July. The Caravans will continue until the embargo is completely lifted.

I tend to stay on the sidelines of social justice issues. I do, however, reserve the right to help the poor and to travel freely to make friends beyond borders. Although the trip to Cuba violated the embargo, I see it as an active, nonviolent alternative foreign policy action—​a call for freedom and justice that was worth the risk.

A sometime Storyteller, Pastor Max Hale has served over half a century in ministry in various settings, including the military, the campus, and the local church. You may follow him on his                                         blog: www.avirtualfrontporch.com

In 1957, I accepted an appointment as Minister in Charge of a Methodist parish in Alabama. The night I was ordained, Brother Pickard, a retired pastor said, “Max, most folks will not care how much you know until they know how much you care.” Little did I know then how that would play out in the years ahead.

I was the Minister in Charge by the appointment of the Bishop. I would become a pastor in the real sense only when and if I felt the people's pain, mourned their losses, and shared in what made them happy. I was tested by the conflict that arose when my preaching challenged their prejudices. Remember this was 1957 in a segregated Black Belt Alabama, and I was pastor to an all-white congregation. I preached, as best I knew how, of God's love that knows no bounds, and I challenged the age-old separate and unequal segregation of the races. The stage was set for conflict. The drama would unfold.

And unfold it did – from the first day we moved into the parsonage. That very night, a man knocked on the door. He said he was a member of one of the churches in my charge and just wanted to welcome me. He also said, almost as an aside, that there had been talk that the Klan had planned to burn a cross in front of the parsonage as a protest against the liberal preacher who preceded me. I knew that the county had a high Ku Klux Klan membership. After all, I was a son of the South, and I had been raised in a cotton mill town not far from where my churches were located. I knew where I was. I also knew that if the Klan thought my predecessor was liberal, I was in deep trouble. It didn't take me long that night to realize that my visitor was not there to welcome me as much as he was there to deliver a threat. I understood what he was saying. I responded to his message the only way I could think of at the moment. I said, “That would be terrible.” And when he nodded, I continued, “I keep a loaded shotgun inside the front door. I can imagine waking in the night with a mob burning a cross in my front yard, firing into the crowd and, God forbid, killing someone. I'm not sure I could live with that.”

          After he left, my wife said, “Why did you tell him that? You don't even own a gun.”
          I said, “I know, but he doesn't know that.”
          A couple of days later, a member of the church told me, “I hear you had a visit from the Klan the                     other night.”

The Klan never attempted to burn a cross in front of the parsonage. I never knew why not. I doubt if they felt intimidated by my presence. It may be they didn't think I was worth the effort. Whatever the reason, I never heard any more about it, and it was never mentioned in church.

However, racial conflict was the issue of the day, in and out of the Church. Responses to the threat of dismantling segregation were emotional, sometimes to the point of violence. Church members were angry, scared, and defensive as they struggled with their faith and conscience.

Before I unpacked my books, one of the churches in my charge called a meeting to vote on a proposal from the national Methodist Church to end segregation within its membership. Mine was the only voice in favor of the proposal. The reaction to my vote was swift, emotional, and threatening. One member called me a Communist, and I almost came to blows with another one. The thought occurrred to me that I might have the shortest term as pastor in the history of that church.

I remained as pastor for three years and left of my own accord. I cared for the people: burying the dead, consoling the suffering, baptizing the babies, marrying the young, and listening to people's problems. My family and I shared many a meal with families in the church. We couldn't ignore the dark clouds of racial conflict, but through our struggles, we held together as the Church – and I never equivocated in my preaching of God's inclusive love.

Quite often through those three years, I remembered what Brother Pickard had said about caring for the people. Over time, I realized that caring begins with respect. If we had judged each other only by first impressions of those turbulent beginning days, we would have parted company early on. If we had not determined to respect each other until we got to know each other better, we would never have discovered a shared vision or maintained any semblance of community.

There used to be a stop sign where Highway 24 runs into Highway 81 up in the northern part of Kansas. Below the Stop symbol was another sign that read, "Look both ways." And underneath that sign was another that said, "Look again." If we are to sustain a culture of peace and justice, our leaders can't wait until everyone holds hands and sings Kum Ba Yah together. Sometimes we have to say no to the mean spirit that pervades our world today. That calls for clever strategies and unyielding resolve. But it begins with respect. What do you see when you look at a neighbor with whom you disagree? Look again. Look for that shared vision. Prompted by the author of the Book of Proverbs, I write where there is no vision, the people perish, justice is denied, and compassion has its hands tied.

There is no report card on how well I succeeded as pastor to those country churches. That's not my point. The story happened long ago and far away in the crucible of troubling times, but the lessons learned then ring just as true today in these challenging times.

A sometime Storyteller, Pastor Max Hale has served over half a century in ministry in various settings, including the military, the campus, and the local church. You may follow him on his blog: www.avirtualfrontporch.com