A great city needs great leaders. Leaders who will stand for what is right when it is unpopular. Leaders with the courage to make themselves bridges between people who are divided. Leaders who think, speak and act with humility, kindness and love for all people. Leaders who can guide us to be better today than we were yesterday.
In a time when such leaders seem few and far between, Dallas has been fortunate to have one in George Mason. He has seen the city endure many trials in his three decades of service as senior pastor of Wilshire Baptist Church on Abrams Road. The murder of five police officers on our downtown streets. The killing of an innocent man, Botham Jean, at the hands of an off-duty officer. The fear of the deadly Ebola virus spreading among us. The reality of two years of a COVID-19 crisis that has stolen lives and created fear and division.
Then, of course, there are the countless private struggles Mason has shepherded his church members through while standing on the pulpit each Sunday to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ with a message of forgiveness, honesty and, most of all, the fundamental importance of our love for one another.
Mason is retiring as senior pastor, and his ministry will become smaller and more private than it has been. It’s worth reflecting now on what he has given us as a city in the time he has spent in his public role.
The demonstration of real moral courage is no easy thing. It rarely comes in a single moment. Instead, it is a long journey, each step measured and considered. There is almost always a cost — misunderstanding, anger, alienation, the loss of rank, the possibility even of the loss of liberty and life in places less free than ours.
In November 2016, George Mason’s congregation made the decision, amid great division, to give full and equal membership to everyone in the pews, regardless of sexual orientation. It was a remarkable step for a Baptist church.
And when the vote was over, Mason said of those who voted in opposition: “I believe they are well-meaning and loving people. We need to respect one another and recognize we’re still going to be wrestling with each other as we move forward. The way I’ve been thinking is, we’re not of one mind but of one heart.”
There was no animus from him. There was no anger at those who differed. There was instead a bridge back to one another.
When Ebola struck, Mason was front and center because his church was the congregation of the fiancée of virus victim Thomas Eric Duncan. Much of Mason’s leadership, though, was behind closed doors. When Jean was murdered, he was in the room, working with Black pastors to finds paths forward.
Mason called on those he led to be clear-eyed about our nation’s history of racism. He called on them to be aware of the reality that policies today reflect that racist past. He called on us to listen to those who have been marginalized, left out, cast aside, pushed away, not fully embraced in the arms and love of our society. He asked for more from us as individuals, as people called to love one another.
That isn’t politics. It’s Gospel. And that was how George Mason led, as a preacher of the Gospel.
And even if we did not attend his church, or listen to his sermons, or even know his name, he was leading us. He was showing us a better way.
