Biography
The Rev. Dr. Calvin Morris is Executive Director of the Community Renewal Society in Chicago. A graduate of Boston University, Dr. Morris is ordained in the United Methodist Church and throughout his career has held key leadership roles in faith-based, community-based, and educational institutions. From 1973 to 1976, he was Director of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Social Change in Atlanta, Georgia; for 16 years he was Director of Field Education and Associate Professor of Pastoral Theology at Howard University School of Divinity; and just prior to his appointment in 1998 as Executive Director of the Community Renewal Society, he was Academic Dean of the Interdenominational Theological Center, a consortium of six seminaries. [Biographical information is correct as of the broadcast date noted above.]

"Who's Who?"
"For God so loved the world that God gave God's only Son, that whosoever believes in God should not perish but have everlasting life." [John 3: 16]

Let us pray. I love the Lord. He heard my cry and pitied every groan. Long as I live and troubles rise, I'll hasten to His throne. May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in thy sight, oh Lord, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

Who's who? My youngest daughter, Rachel, some years ago was selected to be listed in Who's Who Among High School Seniors. As her father, of course, I was excited and thrilled about that recognition. Rachel, on the other hand, was quite dismissive of it, and in effect said, "Daddy, that doesn't indicate who I am at all." I tried very hard to honor Rachel's request that I remain silent about the honor, but I did not and went about boasting that Rachel was in "Who's Who." However, upon reflection, I have come to recognize that my child had more wisdom about the matter than did I.

Reading in Gerda Lerner's book entitled, Why History Matters, I found this quote from her. She wrote, "The very act of categorizing another implies oppression. The one who does the categorizing sets himself up as the norm, the defining subject, while the one being categorized becomes the deviant from the norm, the defined object. Being so defined forces one to take a position to assert or deny who one is."

Howard Thurman in his wonderful book entitled, Jesus and the Disinherited, says that to the ordinary Roman, Jesus was just another Jew in the ditch. We find ourselves today facing all kinds of categorizations. Some people are categorized as straight, some are categorized as gay, some are categorized as black, some are categorized as white, some are categorized as rich, others are categorized as poor, some are seen as "in," others are perceived as "out." How one is categorized, how one is defined, may have a lot to do with how that one, that group understands himself, herself or themselves.

The scripture today challenges to us to recognize that we really are God's creation, that God has loved us so much that God not only created the world, but created us in the world and that whosoever loveth God, believeth in God, has life and has life abundantly. We then get our sense of who we are not from what the society says we are, but who we understand ourselves to be as God's children, as God's people.

This is very critical in our time. If we look at the landscape of the world today, we have people in what was formerly known as Yugoslavia killing one another because one is considered a Croatian, one is considered a Serbian, others are considered Christians, others are considered Moslem. We see it in the Middle East among Palestinians and Jews who identify themselves and categorize each other, and the fight and the battle and the struggle goes on. We see it in our own country where some people can be killed, lynched as it were, because of their gender preferences. Who are we? Who does God say we are? How shall we react to one another being God's children? Would we categorize each other because we are deemed one thing or the other, or shall we see our relationship as God's children, as brothers and sister all together? This is the challenge we face in our time. This is the challenge that the scripture calls us to today. Whosoever believes in God, those are God's people.

I come today to challenge each and every one of us to be concerned about our way of categorizing others. In this culture called the United States, those who have been designated black—African American, colored, Negro—all of those designations, have been deemed by the society at different times to be less than other people because of the color of their skin. And so we have had a kind of idiolatry of skin color worship where some who are white think they're better than those who are black. But we also have those who consider themselves better because they are straight and others are gay, or those who think they are better because they are rich and others are poor. The scripture calls us, God calls us, our faith calls us to see each other as creations of God.

When I was a little boy growing up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, there were designations about me as one who was born out of wedlock. There were designations about who I was supposed to be. But thanks be to God, I grew up in a little church where those people in the church recognized me as God's child, and they taught me by their actions and through the words of a song, "Jesus loves the little children, all the little children of the world; Red and yellow, black and white, all are precious in His sight; Jesus loves the little children of the world."

We are called, my brothers and sisters, not to categorize each other as the world would categorize us, but to see in one another the very face and presence of God. This is what we are called to do. This is what we are called to be. Who's who? God's people!

My fore bearers put it this way: God's got the whole world in God's hands. God's got the little bitty babies, the gamblin' man, the crapshootin' man, the lyin' man, God's got the wind and the rain, the sun and the moon, God's got everybody and everything in God's hands. That's who we are, that's whose "who-ness" is ours because of our creative anthropology. We have been created, breathed into by the breath of life, of a God who not only loves the world, but who loves us.

As I close this message, let me just say this to you. There are those who would always designate another as other and less than, but the word of the gospel, the Good News of Jesus Christ is that God loved the world and sent Jesus into the world to be our presence and our symbol of God's love. There is that which is within us that defines us, not externals, not the superficialities of language and designation, but there is something within us. The songwriter says, "Something within me that holdeth the reins; Something within me that vanishes pain; Something within me I cannot explain; All that I know, there is something within."

Who's who? We are God's. God is in us and we are in God. Rachel was right. My daughter was right. Who's who is not defined by the culture but defined by our relationship with a loving, caring and ever-present God. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Interview with Calvin Morris
Interviewed by Lydia Talbot

Lydia Talbot: Dr. Morris, in that powerful message you began with a prayer which you sang with your magnificent voice and this is a good time to remind our viewers that you are the father of one of the members of our own Thirty Good Minutes Chorale, Dodie.

Calvin Morris: Dodie Morris.

Talbot: And I know how proud you are of her.

Morris: I am indeed.

Talbot: Take us back to that little church in Philadelphia and to your grandmother, Ida, that was a spiritual force in your life.

Morris: A little church called Penial. It was a mission church, very poor, no professional people at all, but a group of loving and caring people. They took little boys and girls like myself, and shared themselves with us. They told us that God loved us, but then they loved us, and so their words about God's love became concrete. We experienced God's love through them and we also experienced a sense of ourselves and a sense of our possibilities that transcended what were the realities at the time, because we were just poor little colored children in North Philadelphia. My grandmother was the kind of person who if anyone was in need, she would share everything that she had. She was very giving and I've tried to pattern my life after her.

Talbot: And even though your grandmother, Ida, died forty years ago, she is still the impetus and the force in your life, reminding you of your identity and the clarity of your identity. Dr. Morris, your academic credentials are legion. You are here in Chicago as the new Executive Director of the Community Renewal Society, the mission arm of the United Church of Christ. What are the challenges that you anticipate and look forward to?

Morris: CRS is an organization that is so rich in history. It is 116 years old. It was formed in 1882 to renew the city of Chicago and over the years it has nurtured and brought into being many of the community organizations that now serve the city. Chicago continues to change demographically. We have all kinds of new people in the city. I think one of the challenges for the Society is to aggressively identify those groups and assist them in organizing themselves so that they can meet the needs of their people—our people—in the city of Chicago. I think the other challenge is to help those of us in the city ask the question, "What kind of city do we want Chicago to be?" as we move into the new millennium.

Talbot: And, of course, people know the Community Renewal Society for its commitment to racial justice.

Morris: Indeed.

Talbot: And the newsletter, The Chicago Reporter....

Morris: We have both The Chicago Reporter and we have Catalyst which is also one of our publications that looks at educational reform. See, what I was saying in my sermon today, I really want to live out with CRS, that is how do we provide that milieu, the atmosphere, the place where all of God's people can live in justice and with freedom.

Talbot: Because one of the great tragedies in our culture is the power of identity that was denied to African-Americans in this culture by our culture.

Morris: Yes, yes.

Talbot: But you've come past that.

Morris: I've come past it, but I recognize that there are many who have not yet. I also recognize that in the culture of materialism there are persons who are not African-Americans, but who are Caucasian, who are Latino, Latina, who are Native American and they are also categorized because they do not fit the model.

Talbot: And that categorization that you refer to in your message is what leads to oppression.

Morris: Exactly, and we have to say to the society God does not will that for God's people and we must work to see that we are all seen as sons and daughters of God.

Talbot: Created by God. Thank you so much, Dr. Calvin Morris, for that assurance.