Is Reverend Ambrose Right?

To be perfectly honest, I wasn't too fond of the reverend when he first joined the team to help Jefferson. It might have been a bit of my own prejudice against religion -- I'm not religious, so I personally can't understand the benefit of meeting with a reverend and preparing to enter heaven if you know you'll be dying soon. And Jefferson didn't seem particularly interested in meeting with the reverend, so I viewed him as more of a nuisance than anything else at the beginning of the book. If Jefferson didn't want that kind of help, why should he get it? 

Besides, the reverend wasn't exactly making much progress with Jefferson. Perhaps I'm biased because we didn't really see the reverend's meetings with Jefferson, but the biggest changes we saw in Jefferson's attitude came when he was focused on being a person/man with Grant, not prepping for heaven with Reverend Ambrose.

But after reading chapter 27, I've come around to the reverend a bit. I used to think he was just getting in the way and that Grant was doing fine on his own, but I think the point the reverend raised about education is fair. Grant doesn't know a lot about the people around him -- his interactions with family and friends at the start of A Lesson Before Dying leave readers wondering if he actually cares about them. He's irritated about having to help Jefferson (an understandable sentiment: getting attached to someone who you know will die soon will only make it more painful) but doesn't stop to think of why the others want him to help Jefferson, only acts cranky about it the entire time and hurts Miss Emma and Tante Lou through that. He doesn't consider Vivian's life outside of him, constantly making her leave her kids with poor Dora, who's practically another parent to these children at this point. 

And like the reverend says, Grant doesn't even know himself. He doesn't know his place in the world. He knows he doesn't like it, and he knows that the system is rigged against him. He knows he's pretty much following the path white people want him to take, and he knows that even though his life isn't what most black people's lives are like in his community it's still what's expected of him. He knows he's not different and he knows he's not breaking any patterns. But he doesn't know what to do from there.

Reverend Ambrose is right: Grant's lack of knowledge regarding people is a shortcoming. Social intelligence is not Grant's strong point, for sure. But after his talk with the reverend, he does make an effort with Jefferson to emphasize doing this for Miss Emma (to be fair, he was already talking about that before this point, but there's definitely a connection between the reverend telling him about the sacrifices those around him make to Grant telling Jefferson how much Miss Emma has done for him). So to that extent, I think the reverend is right to talk about the other people involved and doing it for them. But I don't think his approach is quite right.

All Reverend Ambrose is really concerned about is the religious aspect of Jefferson's predicament. He cares about whether or not Jefferson will go to heaven, and the way he does that is to talk to Jefferson about he doesn't need earthly possessions anymore and how he needs to be a sacrificial hero for everyone around him. 

But Jefferson has a bit more respect for Grant than Reverend Ambrose. He says in his diary that nobody's ever made him think he was somebody except Grant. The way Grant has interacted with Jefferson over the course of A Lesson Before Dying has been unequivocally human and trying to get to know Jefferson as a person. As far as we can tell from what we've heard about Reverend Ambrose's interactions with Jefferson, he's only been talking to Jefferson about what comes after his life is over. That isn't much different from Jefferson's entire life: from what we can glean from his diary, he feels no one has actually cared about him as a person. It's just him in the grand scheme of things -- even making him into a man at the end of his life isn't for his personal pride, it's for his community. 

So Grant's focus on just Jefferson does make sense. It's the way to get through to him, to make him listen, because it's different. For his entire life, Jefferson has been framed in a larger context of his community. He hasn't been an individual with self-pride. He can't stand up and be the hero the community needs because he doesn't think he's capable of it. Within the greater community, he's small. Grant is what he needed to make him feel that he actually mattered to at least one person, not just because he's the hero they all need, but also because Grant cares about Jefferson for who Jefferson is.

In the end, I'm not sure who was right about the approach needed for Jefferson. Grant's approach is what could get through to Jefferson, but at a certain point Reverend Ambrose is right in that it's too self-centered at times. Without Grant helping Jefferson realize he matters, he couldn't do what Reverend Ambrose wants him to do for his community. Without Reverend Ambrose pushing the interpersonal aspects of this journey, Jefferson wouldn't be the man who stands up nobly at the end. 

But I still respect/appreciate Grant more than the reverend. Something about reading Jefferson's diary made me realize how much Grant did for Jefferson in terms of learning to appreciate himself and believe in himself. Jefferson isn't nearly as deeply reflective as Grant is, but we can read between the lines. Jefferson does not have a lot of self-esteem or really thinks people care about him (beside maybe Miss Emma). He really just thinks he's insignificant, and when everyone visits him because they care, he's absolutely overcome with emotion and cries. 

Yes, it's important for Jefferson to do things for those around him. But finally, Grant teaching Jefferson that he does matter for reasons beyond being a distant hero for his community is the most important thing in the end.