Her Name Was Saphronie

But she was always Miss Peterson to me. She wasn’t quite five feet tall. She had been blind all of her life. She started teaching the week after she graduated from high school and then worked her way through college during summer school. In 1962 she was my fourth grade teacher, and, later in life, she became a model of faith for me. At eighty-four, she had cancer and needed a ride to the treatment center. I had gotten my sight back by that time and could drive, so I drove Miss Peterson to her appointments for several weeks.

Following each treatment, I took her to a Bible study where her friend, a professor at the university, was part of a study on the book of Psalms. It was part of an ongoing Bible study where professors could come and speak about their faith with students at the Lutheran Campus Center. It was fairly academic, so I mostly took notes and kept my mouth shut. This Bible study was my first real introduction to scholastic disciplines that could be used as helpful tools for interpreting God’s living word. The conversation was miles above me, and yes, I was a little intimidated by my professors talking about their faith and admitting to wrestling with faith issues.

Now you have to understand that, although I had great respect for Miss Peterson as a teacher, her years of service, the years of activism and commitment to advancing living conditions for blind people around the state, and, although I knew that she was involved in the life of her church in Janesville, I thought of Miss Peterson as an aging elementary school teacher who had been retired for many years and not current in modern biblical study.

Since I was a student and she was a guest, I was unprepared for her standing up during one of the studies to raise questions and challenge some of the ideas of these university professors. What shocked me more was that she quoted extended passages from the Psalms from memory, apologizing for only knowing the King James Version of the Bible when we were using the New Revised Standard version. She revealed she had memorized all 150 Psalms when she was young and not taken the time to memorize the newer versions, and so she hoped they would forgive her antiquated language.

Yes, I was amazed. Her questions were appropriate, insightful, and poignant. This was my fourth grade teacher. She was holding her own with these university professors, and I was proud to claim her as my friend and mentor.

Following the study that day, one of the women came and talked with Saphronie. She said, “You are such an inspiration to all of us. I can’t believe that you have memorized all 150 Psalms.”

Saphronie replied, I’m blind, I’m not retarded.”

Taken aback, the woman continued, “I know that you have cancer and are taking treatment, so I wanted to tell you that, as talented and gifted as you are, I know that, when you get to heaven, you will be completely healed and able to see just like the rest of us.”

I had smiled at Miss Peterson’s first response, but I was totally unprepared for her next statement, “If God won’t take me the way I am, then I don’t want to go.”

What Saphronie Peterson understood and believed more concretely than most of the seminary professors I have studied with since is that, if we have to change in order to be acceptable to God, then our challenging lives and the struggles we encounter have no meaning because what makes us who we are is the sum of our life experiences. If we need to change ourselves or be changed in order to be acceptable in God’s eternal kingdom, then we are no longer who we are and the goodness of our creation is discounted.

Is there anyone who believes that a black person needs to become white in order be part of God’s eternal kingdom? Do we think that everyone will have red hair? Do we have to leave our race, our sexuality, our nationalities, or our knowledge here and have all of that changed in order to be acceptable to God? Do we really believe that we are created in God’s image? That means all of us, and that we are good. Or do we think that only some of us are truly God’s creation? Can we say with confidence that our wholeness comes from Christ and not from ourselves?

If we are all created in the image of God and our wholeness comes from Christ, then is it possible that God’s being is so far beyond our understanding that not only is God’s image able to be understood as male and female, but that God’s image can also be known as black and brown and red and white and yellow, gay and straight, and able-bodied and disabled, and smart and cognitively challenged? Is it possible that since the one who is raised up from the dead; the one who appears to us with the marks of the crown of thorns, lash marks, and holes in his hands, feet and side; the one who shows that what was once death producing is now death defying is the one who appears before the disciples without change, that we might also retain our worldly marks in the death defying life of God’s eternal kingdom? Might it be that the great change in 1 Cor. 15: 51-58 is only about the perishable putting on imperishability and the mortal putting on immortality so that death might be terminally defeated in a way that does not disparage or discount the lives that we live but, instead, lifts up our lives as having great value in shaping who and whose we are? Can we know the breadth and depth of God’s love and forgiveness if we cannot come before him as we are? And if we need to change, can God even be God? Does not knowing who and whose we are enable us with Paul to say, “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?”

I am reassured by the thief on the cross in Luke’s Gospel.  “But the other [criminal] rebuked [the first] saying, ‘Do you not fear God since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed have been condemned justly for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.’ Then he said, ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’ [Jesus] replied, ‘Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.’” (Luke 23: 40-43, NRSV)

Jesus does not tell the criminal that he must first repent of all of his ways. The criminal need not repay what he has stolen nor repent of the lives he has taken. Jesus does not tell the criminal that he needs to change, but only to know him and to lead his life from this time onward bearing witness to who Christ is. The only person in Scripture to be assured of paradise is accepted as he is.

So, with Miss Peterson, small in stature, blind in life and faith, holding onto: the rock of our salvation, our present help in time of trouble, the one slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, the good shepherd, the mother hen who longs to gather us under her wings, I stand by her side. If God won’t take me the way I am, then I don’t want to go either.

Thank God for God’s grace revealed to us in the person of Jesus the Christ who redeems us and forgives us even when we don’t know what we’re doing. Let us stand firm in our faith, secure in the wholeness of Christ’s incarnational body, without sight but with a vision of God’s kingdom that includes us all. Yes, let us go in Christ’s shalom wholeness and peace, loving and serving God!