She made sheer plod shine.
It’s been several weeks since I’ve read Seven Radical Elders, and I can’t shake this five-word sentence from my mind. It’s almost like a tune with a catchy melody or an alliterative advertising jingle.
More aptly, though, it’s like a number of Jesus’ sayings from the Sermon on the Mount. “Love your enemies,” or “Consider the lilies of the field, they neither toil nor spin.” I’ve never had to work at memorizing these. They are just there, forever, in my conscience as a reminder, a guide, and a challenge.
She made sheer plod shine. Practically poetic, immediately memorizable, and virtually prophetic, it’s a challenge to standard conceptions of what it means to be “radical” or to be a Christian “elder” worthy of a published memoir or oral history.
The shining plodder is Jeanne Howe, one of Seven Radical Elders in a recently published addition to the New Monasticism Library (Cascade Books). The seven were young, urban pioneers in the early 1960’s who formed an intentional community and were members of the interracial Church of Hope in Chicago’s Near West Side. After the church closed several years later, due to urban renewal, they continued to heed Jesus’ call to give up everything. By 1969 all of them had landed at Reba Place Fellowship in Evanston, Illinois.
The book is a collection of their memoirs, a communal oral history endeavor, conceptualized and edited by David Janzen, another member of Reba Place. Included are witness statements from 17 others who give testimony to their faithfulness in living the countercultural revolution of Jesus for more than 50 years.
I don’t need to retell stories that are already beautifully narrated. Instead I would like to offer my own personal impact statement about the book and the lives of these whom I consider mentors.
In my four decades of association with Reba, I’ve had the good fortune of personally knowing all seven. They have illumined for me—as I have passed through young adulthood into middle-age and now into my senior years—what it takes to follow the way of Jesus over the long-haul:
Commitment to justice through both lifestyle and care for neighbors who live next door as well as far away
Dedication to the hard work of community, to listening, to sharing, to meetings and then more meetings
Patience with those who struggle with group process
Cultivated disinterest in trends and all things shiny counterbalanced with a passion for beauty that reflects truth and grace
Endless supply of forgiveness
Day-in and day-out care for elders and parents and children
Willingness to serve in small ways as well as to step into larger and risky roles and responsibilities when called
Practiced and developed wisdom and discernment in knowing when to yield and when to stand firm
And a daily life of love, worship, and commitment.
It should have been obvious these things were part and parcel of Christian discipleship. After all, as a child, I spent hours in Sunday School and Vacation Bible School and heard innumerable sermons. But…. I needed examples.
Seven Radical Elders is a gift. The stories told through the oral histories as well as the witness testimonies give flesh and form to the gospel. David’s introduction and closing reflections provide context, insightful distillation of lessons from the lives of the seven, and encouragement for those of us who are on the way.
Three take-aways stand out for me.
One, the value of plodding. Heather Clark, a member of Reba and one of the “witnesses” in the book, offers this vivid portrait of Jeanne,
Standing on my second-floor balcony, I’ve watched her go down the street picking up trash, sweeping up broken glass, calling less-privileged neighbors by name. She made sheer plod shine.
Seven Radical Elders makes the case that plodding—holding counter-cultural convictions and living them daily over the course of a long life—should be an aspiration of all followers of Jesus.
Two, vulnerability is not weakness. Acknowledging mistakes is not defeat. Humility is the proclamation of the gospel. Each of the memoirs, in a non-prescribed, non-maudlin manner, includes stories of missteps and confessions. This is simply who the seven are (or were since two have now passed). Each of them communicates an honest desire to understand and claim God’s graciousness and provision.
Three, hope springs eternal for believers. I read the book in the closing weeks of 2020, a year in which many of us have been weighed down by the current four riders of the apocalypse: the pandemic, the galloping political polarization and wealth-inequality enveloping the world, the ever-more-visible and experienced horror of racism and prejudice, and the climate crisis that can no longer just be considered a future event. I needed a dose of hope.
This collection reminds me that our hope for the world is not found in our own ingenuity and hard work. Such hope would only bring us to grimness or despair. Our hope is in the lamb of God made visible in the life of the community of saints.
Seven Radical Elders is not just for those of us who have personally known Julius, Peggy, Hilda, Margaret, Albert, Allan, and Jeanne. It is for anyone who can read English and seeks to understand God’s realm.
Seven Radical Elders: How Refugees from a Civil-Right-Era Storefront Church Energized the Christian Community Movement, ed. David Janzen; 2020 (Cascade Books)
Joe Gatlin
Hope Fellowship, Waco, Texas