Please forgive us for all our sins we have brought upon us. And look down upon us with forgiveness for all our sins we will have in the future. I know you understand that brothers ain’t perfect, but we try Lord. We try to keep our heads up in bad times. This is a bad time. Show us the way. And if you can’t show us the way… then forgive us for being lost.
–“Sweetpea,” from the 2001
film Baby Boy.
Omar Gooding didn’t carry the lead role in the 2001 movie Baby Boy, but his lines put him front and center. The lead actor Jody, played by Tyrese Gibson, was the subject, but his friend “Sweetpea” stood center stage with him.
Here is the official synopsis as it was proffered to potential moviegoers.
“The story of Jody (Tyrese Gibson), a misguided, 20-year-old African American who is really just a baby boy finally forced-kicking and screaming to face the commitments of real life. Streetwise and jobless, he has not only fathered two children by two different women-Yvette (Taraji P. Henson) and Peanut (Tamara LaSeon Bass) but still lives with his own mother. He can’t seem to strike a balance or find direction in his chaotic life.”
Every time I rewatch Baby Boy, I get chills when this prayer is spoken. All of the petitions made by Sweetpea are reasonable and humble enough to admit that God is sovereign. However, that last line stirs something in my soul. And it can’t just be me in turmoil. “And if you can’t show us the way, then forgive us for being lost.” In my own sanctified imagination, I struggle with whether he is asking God or us or both.
I hate to admit it, but I worry that we browbeat our children because they don’t flesh out a knowledge of Christ and Christianity while never admitting that we failed in our due diligence.
Over the last few generations in Black America, we have failed to give our offspring what our grandmothers and grand-fathers gave us. If nothing else, they offered us a sound spiritual life through a religion that was at times overbearing but none-theless girded in the truth as they understood it.
If you are fortunate enough to recall it, think about those summers you spent at Vacation Bible School. This ritual could range from five weekly two- hour sessions to an entire two- week all-day camp.
The thrust was to make a God who is too confounding for the master theologians relatable to a six-year-old. How does anyone envelop the “Uncaused Cause” and deliver it to a child just out of training pants?
In the Black church, we did it with faithful attendance, rote memorization, and passing on parables.
If you were too sick to go to church on Sunday, you were too sick to go anywhere else. Church was it. The stalwart Christians in the Black church made it a public issue with the non-member class.
Rote memorizations were catchy and sticky. Maybe you recall these.
“1-2-3, The Devil’s after me. 4-5-6. He’s al- ways throwing bricks. 7-8-9, he missed me all the time. Hallelujah, Hallelujah, I’m saved.”
“I may never march in the infantry, Ride in the cavalry, shoot the artillery. I may never shoot at the enemy, But I’m in the Lord’s army!”
And then, of course, we used scripture as parables. What goes around comes around was the digestible version of Galatian ‘Whatsoever a man (or woman) sow, he (she) shall reap.
When I heard Sweetpea’s prayer the other night for the 452nd time, the responsibilities I ascribed to God alone finally became mine to own. As an agent and believer of Christ, there is a duty to “showing the way.”
And as we enter this post-pandemic age of church attendance, it becomes more challenging to get to the children. We grew up in a time when Church buses rolled like mass transit. Christian outreach was made to children and families who otherwise may miss an opportunity to learn “the way.”
In 2024, I hope to see a resurgence of the Black church scurrying the neighborhoods for children who need this God that we claim we couldn’t do without.
If it is true that we “Never could have made it,” how do we expect the next few generations to cope?
Sweetpea had another fear that is worthy of our consideration. “I don’t wanna reach the gates and Jesus be like: “Turn yo ass around nigga.”
I don’t want to get to heaven and have Jesus tell me that I am the reason that the “Sweetpeas” of the world didn’t make it.
Vincent L. Hall is an author, activist, award-winning columnist and a lifelong Drapetomaniac!
