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The Courageous Heart Rich Nathan July 29-30, 2006 1 and 2 Samuel: a Heart After God Series 1 Samuel 17

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The Courageous Heart Rich Nathan July 29-30, 2006 1 and 2 Samuel: a Heart After God Series 1 Samuel 17 The Courageous Heart Rich Nathan July 29-30, 2006 1 and 2 Samuel: A Heart After God Series 1 Samuel 17 I want to begin by telling you the story of a man whom many of you may not be familiar with, but who is a local hero. His name is Robert Graetz. He grew up in Charleston, West Virginia, in a largely segregated city as a white boy attending an all-white school. Following high school in the 1940’s, Robert Graetz attended Capital University here in Columbus. It was there during college that he began to read about and discover the extent of racial discrimination in our country. It was the first time he found out that black people had been almost entirely excluded from most American universities. This revelation changed his life. He switched his major to social science. He organized a race relations club at Capital University and he joined the NAACP. Robert Graetz became a Lutheran pastor. In 1955 he accepted a call to pastor Trinity Lutheran Church in Montgomery, Alabama, which was an all-black congregation. So, here he was, a white pastor in 1955, and he and his young wife, Jeannie, and their two toddlers, packed their belongings into their car and drove from Columbus to Montgomery in the sweltering June heat of that year. Six months later, Rosa Parks, who was the adult advisor to the Montgomery NAACP Youth Council, was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a bus to a white man. And it was as a result of that arrest that the Montgomery Bus Boycott was born. As you know, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. became the leader of the Montgomery Bus Boycott and all the other black pastors and congregations in the city joined the boycott. And so did Robert Graetz, this white Lutheran pastor of the all-black Trinity Lutheran Church. Well, Pastor Graetz thought he would enlist some of the other white pastors in town to support the boycott. So he mimeographed a letter to all of the members of the white Montgomery ministerial association – there were two different ministerial associations; one for white pastors, one for black pastors. Graetz participated in both. His letter to each of the Montgomery ministerial associations said this: SLIDE Dear Christian Brother, I am certain you are aware of the great tension that hangs like a cloud over our city, which has manifested itself particularly in the so-called “boycott” of the city buses by the Negro people of Montgomery. And I’m certain that you are interested in keeping peace between the races and in seeing that all parties concerned are treated justly. Graetz went on in his letter to explain that: SLIDE …The Negroes of Montgomery are not protesting segregation of the buses as such, but are protesting the unfair and unjust treatment they regularly received. Graetz asked the white pastors to keep their congregations correctly informed and to speak to their congregations regarding this boycott. He closed his letter saying, SLIDE Please consider this matter prayerfully and carefully with Christian love. Our Lord said, “Inasmuch as you have done unto one of the least of these, my brethren, you have done it unto me.” A week later he sent another letter to the pastors asking them to communicate with their congregations, and to communicate their concerns to city officials and to the bus company. He naively believed that a few white pastors would speak out about this. But that was too much to expect. Because if they had spoken up, their congregations would have fired them and that was a bridge that the white pastors were unwilling to cross. But the nightmare was just about to begin for Robert Graetz. Pastor Graetz was arrested by the police for transporting blacks in his car. They said he was running an unlicensed taxi service. Before he was released from jail, the sheriff lectured him and said to him: “I don’t see how you can claim to be a Christian and a minister and believe the things you believe about race.” He had a flood of phone calls and hate mail sent to his house threatening his life and calling him every horrible name under the sun. One morning, he tried to start his car. It wouldn’t start. When he began to check things out, he discovered that someone had poured sugar in his gasoline tank. And when the car was put up on a rack, the mechanic said, “Someone has also slashed your tires.” They had cut them from the inside so that he could not see. A petition was circulated among the white citizens of Montgomery which asked Pastor Graetz to leave the city “for the good of Montgomery and for his own good.” The opposition began to escalate. There was a letter to the editor of the local newspaper which said: “It appears that the Rev. Robert Graetz spends more time stirring up dissatisfaction among the Negroes than he spends in the pulpit. I notice that Graetz hails from Charleston, WV. I discovered in my encyclopedia that in 1859, just 96 years ago in Charleston, Virginia, another 2 fanatic by the name of John Brown was hanged. This John Brown ought to be hanged too. Signed James Greene Montgomery.” But the worst was still to come. Robert Graetz’s home was bombed. And the mayor of Montgomery accused the Graetz family of bombing their own home in order to stir up publicity and raise Northern contributions for their boycott. The newspaper kept up its editorial campaign against Pastor Graetz accusing him of having a “persecution complex.” The threatening calls continued. Anonymous callers would say: “We saw your children playing out in the field just a few minutes ago, but they’re not there anymore.” His house was bombed again. And then, bombed a third time. It was only by the most miraculous circumstances that the 11 sticks of dynamite tossed in his yard one evening did not go off and kill the Graetz family who was asleep in the house. Years later, people asked Robert Graetz: “How were you able to do it? How could you keep going with daily death threats against you and your wife and your children? With the newspaper in town regularly hammering you on the editorial page? The Mayor of Montgomery publicly accusing you of bombing your own house? With petition drives to have you move out of town? Regular vandalism of your property? Weren’t you afraid?” Pastor Graetz gave this wise response: “I can’t speak for the rest of the people in Montgomery, but there were times I was scared to death. But we began to define courage as doing what needed to be done even when you were afraid.” We’ve been doing a series from the Old Testament book of 1 Samuel that focuses on the heart. Today we are going to look at one of the most popular stories in the Bible – the story of David and Goliath. I’ve called today’s talk “The Courageous Heart.” Let’s pray. SLIDE 1Sa 17:1 Now the Philistines gathered their forces for war and assembled at Sokoh in Judah. They pitched camp at Ephes Dammim, between Sokoh and Azekah. 1Sa 17:2 Saul and the Israelites assembled and camped in the Valley of Elah and drew up their battle line to meet the Philistines. 1Sa 17:3 The Philistines occupied one hill and the Israelites another, with the valley between them. 1Sa 17:4 A champion named Goliath, who was from Gath, came out of the Philistine camp. His height was six cubits and a span. 1Sa 17:5 He had a bronze helmet on his head and wore a coat of scale armor of bronze weighing five thousand shekels; 1Sa 17:6 on his legs he wore bronze greaves, and a bronze javelin was slung on his back. 3 1Sa 17:7 His spear shaft was like a weaver’s rod, and its iron point weighed six hundred shekels. His shield bearer went ahead of him. 1Sa 17:8 Goliath stood and shouted to the ranks of Israel, “Why do you come out and line up for battle? Am I not a Philistine, and are you not the servants of Saul? Choose a man and have him come down to me. 1Sa 17:9 If he is able to fight and kill me, we will become your subjects; but if I overcome him and kill him, you will become our subjects and serve us.” 1Sa 17:10 Then the Philistine said, “This day I defy the armies of Israel! Give me a man and let us fight each other.” 1Sa 17:11 On hearing the Philistine’s words, Saul and all the Israelites were dismayed and terrified. SLIDE 1Sa 17:23 As he was talking with them, Goliath, the Philistine champion from Gath, stepped out from his lines and shouted his usual defiance, and David heard it. 1Sa 17:24 Whenever the Israelites saw the man, they all fled from him in great fear. As I said, we are going to talk today about courage. Courage, as Pastor Graetz put it, does not mean the absence of fear. The absence of fear can simply be fool-hardiness, or cluelessness. A person who is utterly out of touch with the risk can be fearless. Let’s just go down to a crack house and we’ll witness there. Or you are a petite woman and you say, “I’ll just walk down some back alley in the campus area at 3:00 a.m.
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