Column by Mary Lee Talbot
Laughter filled the Hall of Philosophy at the 9:15 a.m. Thursday morning worship service. The Rt. Rev. Eugene Taylor Sutton presided over the service and had a conversation with the chaplain of the week, The Rev. Zina Jacque, Ph.D. The Rev. Jason Talsness, pastor of Messiah Lutheran Church on Skidaway Island, Georgia, read the Scripture: John 15:12–17. Sonya Subbayya Sutton, interim director of Sacred Music, and guest pianist Arlene Hajinlian, played “Prelude, Cortege, et Air de Danse” as arranged by Claude Debussy from his opera L’enfant Prodigue. They played Johann Sebastian Bach’s “Arioso” and for the postlude, George Gershwin’s own arrangement of “I Got Rhythm.”
Jacque was born in East Chicago, Indiana. She said her mother had lost four pregnancies in utero, so “to say [she] was loved and wanted is an understatement.” Her mother had one more child, Rita.
Jacque said, “My mother was on bedrest and said that the child would either be an angel and go straight to heaven, or come home. The child came home — Hi, Rita. But that was the kind of faith my parents had — nothing but faith.”
She had six sets of aunts and uncles on her way home from school, “so if [Jacque’s] mother put liver in the sink to thaw for supper, [she] found someplace else to eat.” Jacque was baptized at age 7 and began teaching Sunday School at age 12.
When Eugene Sutton asked about her reprobate years, Jacque said they came after college when she was employed as an admissions officer by Northwestern University. She traveled the world, going to Department of Defense schools to recruit ex-patriot children.
“Jeremiah Wright did my wedding to my beloved Andre. Wright came to do a revival at my church in Oakland, California. I was working as a legislative liaison for a group of 108 colleges,” she said. “As I was driving to Sacramento, I heard a voice in the back of my car say, ‘Are you tired of running?’ I had a dialogue with God the rest of the way to Sacramento.”
When she talked with her pastor, he told her, “Everyone has seen it except you.” She went to Boston University School of Theology and became a college chaplain.
Her doubts came after ordination. “I loved the church, and the church is made up of human beings. I found a place where my gifts and passion came together and I got crushed by other clergy who viewed me as a threat. I didn’t understand, because I am a team player and I did not realize the competitiveness. They told me to go home and watch ‘The Godfather.’ I told them that ‘the’ was in the wrong place, it was God the Father, and my husband had a job so they could have this one,” she said.
She ended up at the “richest, whitest church in Boston, Trinity Episcopal Cathedral.” She flourished there and eventually found her way back to the Baptist church, the denomination she grew up within.
When Eugene Sutton asked Jacque what advice she had for people going through a storm, she said, “when the storm is outside, protect the inside because the outside does not have to come in. We are never called an adult by God; we are brothers, sisters, children, a child of God. God created a safe place, so don’t let go of the anchor, hold on more tightly.”
Support for this week’s chaplaincy and preaching is provided by The Robert D. Campbell Memorial Chaplaincy and The Jackson-Carnahan Memorial Chaplaincy.
