Cle Hereford
September 21, 2004
On June 4th, 1936 Nancy B. Hereford probably said, “thank God it’s over” once Cle Hereford made the passageway from her womb to her arms. Little did she know that she would be going through the experience eight more times with Cle’s future brothers and sisters. Now when you’re a family of nine in Alabama in the thirties and forties, one thing you did not want to be, was late for supper. If you were, you were going to be hungry that night.
It doesn’t matter if you’re born in the white house with a table feast of food everyday, or in house with no paint, little food located in the state of Alabama, the bible tells us the Lord is no respecter of persons. It tells us the rich and poor have this in common, the Lord is maker of them both.
God was as just interested in working in the life and saving the soul of that little black boy being held in the arms of Nancy Hereford as he was each and every child born that same day. Not only that, God gave Him the same assignment as he did all the other babies born that June 4th and have been born since then, and that is to prepare to meet your God.
We celebrate a Homegoing rather than endure a funeral service tonight because Cle Hereford was prepared to meet His God. His life is a testimony of God’s willingness to be faithful to us, even when we have not been faithful in our walk with the Lord. There was a reason Cle’s favorite song was, “God has smiled on me.”
Cle recognized more than anyone that he had been that prodigal son, that walked away from His heavenly father early in his young adult life, but found his way back home and discovered God was ready to receive him back. He knew that he was still alive through some turbulent years for the simple reason that God had his hand upon his life.
Have you come to recognize that God has his hand upon your life. It doesn’t matter whether you are saved tonight or not, I’m telling you God has His hand on your life and he’s calling you back to himself. You may say, I haven’t been in church for twenty years, it doesn’t matter. You may say but I’m an addict, it doesn’t matter. You may say but I’ve done all kinds of things and ought to be locked up in jail, and I still say it doesn’t matter.
You can’t stop God from loving you and wanting to change your life. If Cle was alive, he’d tell you, “I know what the Lord did for me, and I know he could change you too.”
When God creates us, he places a part of Himself in us that longs to worship Him. We may fill that longing with going after things or even people, but it remains inside of each of us tow worship something. When God creates us, God equips us with the things we’re going to need, to complete the purposes he has for our lives. Some of us never get around to discovering all that God places in us. When we look back over a person’s life, we can see what God placed inside of them because most of the time it comes out.
God had a good time making Cle. He made Cle funny with the ability to tell all kind of stories, some of were true and some Cle just got carried away with as he added his own details. He made Cle with a certain amount of boldness that made him a true leader. The thing about Cle is that he would get projects going, and then turn them over to you to get them finished.
God made Cle with a listening ear in which you could talk to him just about anything and find Cle to be a caring and sympathetic person. He was a counselor and a good friend to have.
God make Cle likeable. Even as a kid and teenager, Cle was well liked and was often times the family favorite. You knew Cle was going to be a lot of fun to be around. Cle could be a great big tease so it was hard not to like him. One person said Cle was a trip.
As the oldest of nine children Cle learned early what it was to work. He became a father figure to his younger brothers and sisters as Cle took jobs in order to help his mom make ends meet. He knew what it was early in life to struggle. But that didn’t squash his spirit and determination to make it in life. His willingness to work stayed with him throughout his entire life.
One day at church as teenager in the year 1956, Cle’s eye caught the eye of good looking girl the name of Jeanette. He managed to come over and eat dinner with her family on are a regular basis. Cle would then escort this good looking sister to Cedar and East 79th Street for an ice cream pop for his date.
Well the time came when Cle wanted to move beyond the dating to the next step of marriage. He got up the nerve and went to Jeanette’s father to ask if he could have her hand in marriage.
Jeanette’s father looked him over, sized him up, realized he was already feeding the boy on a regular basis, so he ought to get something out of him, went ahead and said okay. Cle then went and asked Jeanette if she would marry him.
Jeanette didn’t take long to make up her mind and this handsome young black man, and thus began a journey that would last 46 years filled with laughter, with tears, with joys, with sorrows, with victories, with defeats and most of all with a commitment to be with each other until death did them part.
That was not always an easy task. Cle and Jeanette found themselves blessed with three daughters whom they loved and adored. Tammie, Constance and Aliesha. All three girls loved their father for his ability to listen and provide them with counsel, even when they got tired of him telling them some of the same things again and again. Yet they found their was wisdom and prophecy in their father’s words.
Now Cle was not always the easiest person to get along with. He’d get upset over his dinner. When he got home he was ready to eat. He couldn’t understand why his wife would wait till he got home to ask him what he wanted to eat. That meant he had to wait another hour and a half for her to cook it. Cle also did not want his food served to him on no paper plate.
Now one quality Cle did have that was good, was his willingness to go to work. But one day Cle got fired from his job, and he was scared to hear what his sweet wife was going to say about it. So he did what many brave men would do, he didn’t tell her but came up with a scheme instead. He was sure he could find another job, before she found out he had lost his last one.
For two weeks he got up every morning, took the lunch she had fixed him and pretended to go to work. He came home at just the right time. But the bible says, “your sin will find you out.” Jeanette just happened one morning to go down by Superior and see the family car parked. She went down to check it out and there Cle was talking with his buddies eating his lunch.
When caught in the very act of not being at work and confronted the Jeanette, Cle being the humble person that he was, Lied and said, “they let me come down here for lunch today off the job.” Sweet Jeanette, was not that sweet on that particular day so I will not tell you what her reaction was, knowing there were three mouths at home to feed with no pay check on the way.
Now Cle was known for some of his famous sayings. “Girl”, “Fool”, “Man I’m telling you”, “You’re going to wish you had of listened,” “and that woman”, “But there’s an end to this”, “but you daddy know”, “you are going to be graveyard dead”, “but you daddy ought to be able to you something”, “she knows everything”, “I done lived all these years, I ought to know something.”
One of the things that drew Cle away from the Lord was the seduction of alcohol. It practically destroyed him and his family as he traveled down the path to being an alcoholic. Cle could put together a car from just having a frame, and there was a reason he had to be able to do that. He wrecked more cars from drinking and driving that just about anybody.
Cle even made going to church a faith building event for anybody in the car as he drove up on the sidewalk, barely missed parked cars, and crossed over into both lanes. He knew God had spared his life time and time again because some of the things that he did behind the wheel should have landed him in a cemetery.
Cle told me that one day a neighbor called him over and told him, son I’d like to talk to you. He said I’ve been watching you for some time now. You’ve got a nice a wife and a beautiful family and you’re wasting your life just throwing it away because of a bottle. When are you going to wake up and realize you’re hurting yourself and everybody around you.
Now I got a meeting I want you to go with me to, so that you can change this thing around. Cle went to that AA meeting, and thus began a life of sobriety. Cle knew when he was set free from his addiction to alcohol that God had smiled on Him. He become even more of the husband, the father, and the grandfather that God had called him to be.
Now when I’ve seen Cle decked out in his suit with his white hats and nice cars, I just knew that Cle was one of the big spenders. But the reality Cle was on the cheap side when it came to letting go of money. I don’t care how big a wad was in his wallet, it took a miracle to get him to take out more than a $20 bill. Even with a miracle, $40 was tops.
Whenever Jeanette would say I need some money for something, “Cle would ask her “when do you get paid.” She never answered the question so he started asking other people in the house, “when does your mama get paid.” When they didn’t come up with an answer, he finally said, “I don’t know why that woman goes to work, she ain’t never got no money.”
Cle is one of the few people who could win money every time he played the lottery. How he did it was, he’d give you money to go play his list of numbers, and every time you got to the window his money for the numbers would be short, so you’d have to pay for it out of your pocket.
Cle and Jeanette loved to be together. They would leave in love on Saturday to go do their driving and come back fussing away at each other. About an hour later, Cle was saying let’s go for another ride and off they would go as though the argument never took place. Cle claimed his wife was the smartest woman in the world. He’d often say, “I just want to take her to a psychiatrist to find out how it is she knows everything.”
Jeanette you are to be commended for your faithfulness with your vow till death do us part. It was your commitment of coming back to Christ, that led the way for Cle to find his way back into the life of the church these past few years. It was your nudging, your inviting, your encouragement that got him to remember that God that he had forgotten.
Although he made jokes about you becoming a minister at the church, and that soon you’d be joining pastor Toby and I in the pulpit, he was watching what God was doing in your life. It made him realize something was missing in his own.
Slowly but surely, that man in the white hat started showing up for worship. At first just a little, and then it was more often. He found his way into Men Who Excel and then into the Men’s Group. He found himself talking to others about Jesus Christ. He was becoming a spiritual leader on his job. We thank God that He had found his way back to the Lord before he found out about his cancer.
When the two of you discovered his cancer, I believe that was the first time I heard him say, “ Pastor Rick, God has smiled on me.” He faced the news, not with despair, but with his new found faith. I remember him telling me, “I will look unto the hills from whence comes my help, my help comes from the Lord who made the heavens and the earth.”
Cle was very proud of the way those in the church and outside the church stood with him. He had invested 24 years into his job at the Cleveland Water Department, a job he loved greatly. He was so proud when his boss gave him the option of retiring or just staying on and doing what he could do without pushing himself .
The freedom and flexibility he received from his boss meant a lot to Cle as he shared it at Men Who Excel Meeting. He raised his hands and said, “now that’s got to be God.” Once again he reiterated his testimony “I know God has smiled on me.”
What would you do with the knowledge that the doctors had given you six months to live? Would you give up in despair? Would you cry out in anger, “God how could you let this happen.” Or would you do like Cle Hereford, who said, “I don’t really know how much time I have left, but I’m going to God the best of what I have.” When it came time for us to nominated deacons who are among the hardest workers we have in the church, Cle asked, could my name be considered for nomination.
He was nominated and he was elected and he served until he could not come back. There were Sundays when he did not feel well, but he still made it to church. He was a fighter up to the end. When he saw the faithfulness of his wife through this ordeal, he knew, that on that day back in 1956, “God had smiled on him when she said “I do.”
I think the only regret Cle may have had, was that he did not find his way back home to the Lord sooner than he did. But we can rejoice this day knowing, that he made it back to the Lord. But what about you. God is at work in your life, but have you responded back and given your life to Him. Cle made a commitment to follow Jesus Christ, and because of that, it’s all right with his soul.
Cle Hereford has left behind a life that truly indicates that God smiled on him through good days and through some rough ones. You may think that because of how well liked Cle was and all the good that he did for his family and friends, and with all the love and commitment he gave to his wife, children, and grandchildren, Cle certainly deserves to go to heaven.
But if could speak to us today, he would say that’s not quite true. You see, according to the Bible, none of us deserves to go to heaven. Did you know that according to Jesus, most people will not go to heaven?
Jesus said in , Mat 7:13 "Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.
Entering into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ is the only way to enter that narrow gate. All you have to do is to admit, "God, I have done a lot of things I should not have done. I realize I cannot pay for all that I have done. I ask you for forgiveness. I accept that when Jesus Christ died on the cross, He being holy and righteous, paid the penalty for my sin. I invite him to come into my life and take control of it." Cle made that decision a few years ago and has not regretted it since.
You will make numerous decisions in your life between your birth and your death. But the only decision that will still be personally affecting you a 1000 years from today, is what did you do with Jesus Christ. The Bible teaches there will certainly be a resurrection of everybody from the dead, and then comes the judgment of God.
Cle Hereford is prepared for that Judgment. Like his favorite new testament writer the Apostle Paul, Cle can say, and the time has come for my departure. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day--and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.
