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Texts: Deut. 6:4-9, 20-25; Matt 11:25-30
Probably like most of you…I have had a
lot of schoolteachers in my life.
Some good. Some not so good.
But the ones I remember the most were
those men and women who took the time to see me…and really work with me to help
me accomplish the sometimes painful and arduous task of getting me through the
school year.
I’m thinking especially of one of my
math teachers: Mrs. Cronin.
Donna Cronin taught at the junior high
school in my hometown.
I never had a class with her as a math teacher while I was in
seventh or eighth grade.
Instead…my eighth-grade math teacher
was…well…we had three during the year.
And as a result…my class never learned
much of anything because each teacher started at a different place.
The following year…I was enrolled in a
New England prep school.
An
unforgiving…highly-competitive…learning environment.
My lack of understanding the concepts of
Algebra was simply treated as I was clearly an incompetent product of public
schooling…and I would always be at the bottom of my class.
That’s where Donna Cronin entered the
picture.
My mom called the principal of our
public junior high school…and he arranged for me to come back to my old
stomping grounds during my spring break…and receive tutoring from Mrs. Cronin.
Now…I was scared to death.
First of all…I was already feeling like
a failure…because I was literally failing my Algebra class.
And then I knew that Mrs. Cronin had a
reputation for being tough as nails.
Now she would be dealing with a math
dunce like me.
I met with her after school in her
classroom.
And before we began…she wanted to know
what was happening in my math class at school…what did I know about Algebra?
I basically told her I had no idea.
I didn’t understand anything.
I didn’t get why we were doing math with
numbers and letters. It didn’t make any sense.
Then she asked me who had been my math
teacher last year in eighth grade.
“Well, we started with Mr. Schumacher…”
She put her head in her hands.
“Oh, no…We were worried what was going
to happen to you kids. I’m so sorry. We let you down.”
It was amazing for me…as a struggling
15-year-old struggling in math…to hear a teacher admit that the school had
failed me.
And now she was going to do her best to
make up for that during the three-week break I had from the prep school to fix
this situation so I could at least finish the year.
I went to see her every afternoon.
She would pick out problems and we would
work through them.
Then she assigned me to do some more on
my own and we would go over those the next time.
She helped build up my confidence enough
that I was able to at least finish that school year with the understanding that
I would have to repeat Algebra.
But now…I could figure out how to solve
for “x.”
Good teachers…those caring and
considerate people who help children to learn and grow…are such a vital part of
our communities.
That’s what made Anna Ellison Butler
Alexander an extraordinary and exemplary saint of the church.
Because Anna had to accomplish the task
of educating the children of Pennick and Darien with very little to no
help…save for her faith in God…and trust in the rightness of her mission.
She was born to former slaves of Pierce Butler’s
Plantation on St. Simon Island…right at the end of the Civil War. Her love for
schooling and learning came from her father…James or Aleck as he was called by
the Butlers.
Aleck was self-taught. Pierce Butler’s
wife…the British actress Fanny Kemble…broke societal rules to teach Aleck how
to read the alphabet. He then learned to read and write from the Book of Common
Prayer by memorizing the prayers.
He picked up skills as a carpenter. And he
used what he had learned to help his neighbors as they established their newly
freed lives in Pennick.
Anna was the youngest of eleven
children…and she took to studying like a fish to water. She initially started a
school at St. Cyprian’s Episcopal Church in Darien with her two sisters.
It was a 40-mile trip from Pennick to
Darien…and she would make the journey on foot and by boat down the Altamaha
River.
It was when she attended a service one
Sunday at St. Athanasius in Brunswick and met a lay reader named Charles Shaw
that a dream was born: Anna would establish The Church of the Good Shepherd in
Pennick…and from this place she would build her own school…teaching the
children of her community using the Book of Common Prayer and the Bible…much
like her father had learned.
Anna felt that the children were better
served getting a Christ-centered education.
Her efforts caught the attention of
Bishop C.K. Nelson of the diocese of Georgia…and in 1907…Anna Alexander became
the first African American set aside as a deaconess in the Episcopal Church.
But while Bishop Nelson looked upon her
and saw what he called, “A devout, Godly, and respected colored woman,” things
were soon to get complicated for Anna.
Because in that same year…the diocese of
Georgia split.
There was now an Episcopal Diocese of
Georgia and one for Atlanta.
Bishop Nelson went to Atlanta…and a new
bishop…Bishop Frederick Reese…became the fourth bishop of Georgia.
Under Bishop Reese…the diocese denied
the black Episcopal Churches any representation at the diocesan conventions…and
refused to set aside funds to support black schools.
This was the era of Jim Crow
laws…lynchings…and general terror for blacks in South Georgia.
And it was into this world that Anna
Alexander was living…ministering…and teaching.
But her focus was not on the hate that
surrounded her every single day. She kept her eyes on Love. And she ministered
to all the people of Pennick…both black and white.
In many ways…her devotion to teaching
and treating everyone she met as a beloved child of God did as much to unify
Pennick as anything could.
Her ministry faced the challenges not
only of the racism of her day…but of the Great Depression as well.
In addition to the school…Good Shepherd
became a source of private and government aid to the community. She kept
meticulous records of what was distributed.
And with what could be thought of as
almost a loaves and fishes ability…she managed to keep many a person in body
and soul at that time. She helped a motherless boy…an elderly woman. Her example
became infectious in the community…with white neighbors delivering rations to a
black farmer unable to make the trip to Good Shepherd himself.
With her life…and her labor…Anna
Alexander became the type of Christian witness needed for her time…as well as
ours.
To live in love…and to put that love and
empathy into practice.
This is what it means to be a Christian
witness. Through our actions…when we help one another and build each other up…we
show the love of God…and we touch and transform lives in our community.
Anna Alexander’s efforts…her devotion to
the children of Pennick for more than 50 years…helped spur them on to attend
college and have lives that would have been less full if it hadn’t been for
this teacher. Thanks be to God for what her life shows us about living into God’s
witness in the world.
In the name of our One Holy and
Undivided Trinity.
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