On the seventh day of the last full week of September, Almighty God in Heaven was said to be working overtime on a labor dispute at New Evergreen Missionary Baptist Church.
It was difficult to tell which way He was leaning. Some said that He said the pastor was going to get It. Others said it was those who would not follow the pastor who were in Deep Trouble. Everyone quoted God directly, but the only thing anyone could agree on was that God was definitely involved.
The church they fought over was a long way from heaven. In north Houston, among the bars and humble homes on Collingsworth, it stands beside a dirt parking lot -- a small clapboard structure with peeling white paint that resembles nothing more than a one-room schoolhouse. New Evergreen never held more than 125 Christians, and that Sunday, after so many had been banished, only about two dozen were scattered among the pews. But they pushed the walls out with their songs. Waving their hands, they rejoiced that "Jesus is mine!" and "I love Jesus!" A woman cried out, "Oh, sing it! Sing it!" and they sang that God loved them, and God was smiling on them. And then they emptied their pockets into the offering plate.
Rousing spirits and collecting money, the associate ministers were immaculate in their dark suits. They paid no attention to the man in the center of the podium, sitting quietly with his hands folded, wearing a red blazer that nicely matched the carpet. When the offering was done, this man disappeared with the money. The sanctuary fell silent, and then one of the ministers commanded, "All rise!" And behold, the black man in the red blazer returned, Pastor Milton Leavern Jackson, with his hard-fought wavy hair and clenching jaw muscles. He strode boldly to the pulpit and said unto his people:
"You may remain standing."
Thus began a long and powerful sermon, deeply relevant to the times. Pastor Jackson read loudly Matthew 5:4348. He stared at his Bible incredulously. He glared at the people. He pointed his finger and shouted, "Even you with your saved self -- even you! -- would have a time with this verse."
For certainly, it gave the pastor fits. Jesus was asking him to love his enemies, even to pray for them. "Prayer," said Pastor Jackson, "ain't what you want to do."
According to his detractors, Milton Jackson's time in the service of the Lord has been marked by cunning plots and secret alliances, by the crushing of the old and of the weak, and by a general indifference to the welfare of his subjects. In December 1996, after six years of his pastorship, the people revolted. New Evergreen rang with shouted accusations and flying Bible verses. There were two church elections, three court hearings and finally a victory for God. Or at least for Pastor Jackson.
After that came the purges.
The people of New Evergreen are now the meekest and most humble of believers. After his sermon on the difficulties of loving enemies, the pastor stood beside the pulpit, not so much greeting his followers as acknowledging them with a nod. He would not tell a visitor what he had done to his enemies. He said simply that it was over, and he had won, and "God bless you."
His silence leaves open to speculation exactly why Milton Jackson was so driven to be king of New Evergreen. He grew up in the church, and such as it was, the building and the people within it were all he knew. Jackson seems to have conceived of no greater glory than becoming the authority here, under God alone. He would lead his friends and family where he thought they should go. He would achieve their respect, or demand it. They would follow, or Pastor Jackson would cast them out.
Accounts of his leadership make him appear less like a saint than like a dictator -- like Stalin, say, on the most minuscule of scales. But the exiles from New Evergreen see a different influence. They say it was the devil who stole their church.
In her living room with bars on the windows and brass angels on the walls, Sarah Mims sat quoting Jeremiah 23:1: "Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture."
Miles away, in her own living room, Cwiller Spells said, "He ain't got away with nothing. God don't sleep, and He gonna whip his -- " And she stopped before she said a bad word.
You can't understand what it means to believe, Sister Mims explained, unless things have happened to you. It was Jesus who made her headaches go away, she believes. Jesus made her car lock up when she tried to turn into a nightclub, and Jesus turned on the microwave when no one else could.
Sister Mims knows the power of faith, and 47 years ago, it was faith like hers that built a church. You could see the ground through the floor and feel the rain through the ceiling, and the church seemed to exist as much in heaven as on earth. Several windblown years went by, and then James Lockwood was appointed pastor, and a new building was purchased, and the church began to grow and take shape.
