Lessons from the Shirley Sherrod Case

Top story of the month? When the news events of 2010 are compiled, the forced resignation of Shirley Sherrod from her position with the U.S. Department of Agriculture—allegedly by the White House, the brutal criticism by the NAACP and the media feeding frenzy that followed will rank high among the notable stories of the year.

Aside from the political jungle into which her first critics plunged on the basis of part of a speech she gave, I found a number of encouraging facts that came out in Sherrod’s later interviews.

First, I detected no racial animosity, which was the focus of the initial controversy. Shirley Sherrod has multiple memories that could justify a lingering anger against the white society of the racially divided South. She shared how her father was murdered by whites. A model student, she was called out of class to the principal’s office and told her father was in the hospital. Her dad had always wanted a boy, so much so that he nicknamed his four girls with boys’ names. Shortly before that yearned-for son was born, Sherrod’s father lay dead. And speaking of school, Sherrod reports that the black schools always had “hand-me-downs”—buses and books that were discards from the white school systems.

But the most profound anger and personal hurts may be overcome. When the rest of her speech was played, it revealed that she had helped a poor white farmer save his land because it was about poverty and not about race or retribution. We believers need to see that forgiveness is a marvelous “God thing.” Christ even outlined that “if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”(Matthew 6:14-15).

Getting into the mathematics of forgiveness, Christ answered the numerical question when asked about the high limits. “Then Peter came to Him and said, ‘Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Up to seven times?’ Jesus said to him, ‘I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.’” (Matt. 18:21-23) Taken literally, that is 490 forgiven offenses.

If we were to calculate our personal sins—past, present and future—they would number into the millions, with some being committed every day. Four hundred and ninety times? And some people can’t forgive a single offense, harboring grudges for years?

Toward the end of one interview on CNN, Sherrod focused her eyes on the interviewer and said, “Let’s not forget the church! When the church doors were open, we were all there.” Then she added that her mother went about the house constantly singing “The Lord Will Make a Way Somehow.” She explained how this got them through the hard times.

Praying, singing believers have the ultimate spiritual power that positive legislative advance reflects. Hard as her life was in youth, Sherrod seems to have found a spiritual goal in church and song. Blacks in white America converted to the Lord Jesus Christ and pled with the God of the Bible for a better day, and their prayers were answered. Some years ago, black Baltimore preacher Joe Brown was a guest on my radio program “The Word and The World”. He declared that the advance of civil rights came about because his people had sung and prayed in those cotton fields so long ago, and God heard and answered. This was in contrast with other ethnic groups, such as Native Americans, who never converted to Jesus Christ. I still have the tape and play it with wonder from time to time.

Another lesson is that we should not prejudge a matter before learning all the facts. Some did and are permanently embarrassed. That is how this situation got started. Apologies are flying, but the offenders have scarred themselves with a tragic rush-to-judgement legacy.

Brave Nicodemas, Jesus’ nighttime visitor in John 3, asked an irritating question during a discussion by the Pharisees over Christ’s growing impact, an influence that angered Christ’s detractors. “Nicodemus (he who came to Jesus by night, being one of them) said to them, ‘Does our law judge a man before it hears him and knows what he is doing?’” (John 7:50-51). He must have known his Bible for Proverbs 18:13 says, “He who answers a matter before he hears it, It is folly and shame to him.”

I suspect that the Shirley Sherrod case will be the focus of lingering discussion, but she is vindicated and lives to teach us all some vital spiritual lessons. Thanks, Shirley. We needed that.

Dave Virkler