A Word from Bob: You’re reading Part 4 of a blog mini-series on One America; Two Experiences. I’ve taken my thoughts from chapter 10 of my book Beyond the Suffering: Embracing the Legacy of African American Soul Care and Spiritual Direction. You can read Part 1 here: Racial Reconciliation: Understanding 2 Vastly Different Views of America. Read Part 2 here: The God of the Promised Land. Read Part 3 here: God’s Chosen People.
God Sees; God Hears; God Comes Down; God Rescues!
African Americans have applied the Exodus/Conquest narrative individually and nationally (see Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3). The national examples would fill hundreds of books. Reverend Absalom Jones’ Thanksgiving Sermon provides an excellent synopsis.
Rev. Jones chose as his text Exodus 3:7-8. Jones starts by briefly highlighting God’s sustaining care and healing comfort for Israel. He then relates the historical Exodus narrative to current African American life on the basis of God’s unchanging nature.
“The history of the world shows us, that the deliverance of the children of Israel from their bondage, is not the only instance, in which it has pleased God to appear in behalf of oppressed and distressed nations, as the deliverer of the innocent,
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