Category Archives: Church

Posted on

Greenleaf Recap Season 1 Episode 7: One Train May Hide Another…

mac

Hello World,

This week’s Greenleaf recap will focus on Robert “Mac” McCready, the general counsel of Greenleaf World Ministries and brother of Lady Mae Greenleaf as his inner workings were explored in this episode…

A little background before I jump in…Mac is on Grace’s hit list because she believes that he molested her sister Faith and the molestation was a contributing factor in her sister’s death although the rest of the family doesn’t seem to believe that Mac was molesting his niece…Now that you know that, we can move on…

It Was All a Dream…

This episode begins with Mac in his plush, modern high-rise apartment that was probably secured through tithes and love offerings. He is shown with a light-skinned black girl…I wonder who she is, but then he wakes up. So obviously he was dreaming about this pretty girl, who looks similar to Grace’s daughter’s Sophia…What is he doing dreaming about this young girl?

Anywho, once he wakes up, he gets dressed and heads downstairs to the lobby of his high-rise apartment complex where he sees this girl. Apparently, she lives in the building and is having a difficult time with her mother as she tells him that her mama is off her meds…Obviously, she feels comfortable in confiding in him for some reason….

Memphis Man of the Year…

Once he arrives at Calvary, we learn that he has been named “Memphis Man of the Year,” but while this accolade is a milestone in his career, federal auditors are in the building and are a threat to his standing. Obviously, this audit could be trouble for the Greenleafs, but Mac is trying to handle it. They request the minutes of deacon board meetings for the last three years! Simultaneously, Mac is also concerned about Charity’s new hire Carlton, the music director. He tells Charity that Carlton has filed lawsuits against previous employers and that he is concerned that Carlton may do the same thing at Calvary. However, Charity points out that Carlton filed those lawsuits because he was discriminated against due to his sexuality and how that won’t be a problem because everything is already out in the open. Mac is not convinced and determines they need to meet with Carlton.

Daddy Issues…

To his surprise and at the wrong time considering a camera crew will be arriving to highlight Mac for his award, Mac’s father, apparently a drunk, shows up on the Calvary campus. Mac’s father, who looks like a broke down Dick Gregory with a cane, waits for Mac in his office. His father congratulates him on being named “Memphis Man of the Year” as he read about in the local newspaper and tells him his mother would be proud of him if she was still alive. Mac barely responds except to put some money in his hand and get him out of the building. Apparently, Lady Mae’s father is not welcome for some reason.

Mac encounters Zora, Jacob’s daughter and Sophia, and they ask him questions about the validity of Jesus coming back from the dead and the existence of hell. Mac gives the answers you would expect to them, and Sophia says, “He doesn’t seem so bad.” Obviously, Grace has told her something about her great uncle.

Lady Mae also confronts her brother after she hears her father somehow got onto church grounds although he is not welcome. Mac assures her that he will take care of the issue and goes to see Noah Kendall, head of security, about the matter. Noah tells Mac that a new person on their security team was not aware that their father was not allowed on the Calvary campus. While in Noah’s office, Mac overhears Noah arguing with his fiancée Isabel about the cost of a wedding cake she wants to buy for their wedding. More on that later…

Speaking of daddy issues, Jacob is still trying to get back in the good graces of the Bishop after being removed from his post following his adultery revelation. Since Mac is a direct conduit to his father, Jacob meets with Mac to show him his business plan about getting his father back on television. As I said in last week’s recap, I wondered why his father hasn’t been on television before considering the success of his ministry. From Jacob’s conversation with Mac, it is apparent that Bishop Greenleaf has been on television before and something bad happened. Mac says the bishop “will never go on TV again.” Hmmm….I wonder what happened….Mac also gives Jacob a reality check despite the the fact that he presented a solid business proposal. He tells him now that Gigi is back, “there’s no way you’ll get reinstated.” Jacob questions Mac and says, “You’re still here.” So obviously, Mac did something that he could have been banished for but was kept on anyway….Maybe Grace is right about her unc.

There’s Something About That Name…

Although Mac is a somewhat agitated about the audit, he feels he is handling things until he shows up in the conference room with the minutes the auditors requested, but no one is there. Instead, he sees Grace’s business card on the table. Just her name is enough to get him riled up especially when he later discovers that the auditors are now requesting the personal tax returns of the Greenleafs for the last three years. They ask him to explain what are “love offerings” as the term appears several times on the minutes. Mac explains that love offerings are financial offerings that members bless the Greenleafs with above and beyond their usual tithes. The head auditor asks Mac if the Bishop has been reporting love offerings.

In the next scene, Mac stomps into Grace’s office and shouts, “You need to stay the hell out of business.” Grace is understandably confused about Mac’s anger and asks him to explain himself. He tells her what happened with the audit. She tells him that the auditors came to her and simply asked her if they had any programs for disabled vets. But Mac is not buying it. Obviously, their conflict has nothing to do with the audit, and his next words prove it. He says, “You don’t know what you don’t know.” But Grace tells him that she does indeed know and says her words so calmly even while he looks like he is about to blow up even when he is alone in his office afterward.

Flashing Lights…

Although Mac is amped enough to have a heart attack, he has to calm down because the camera crew has arrived and he is about to be interviewed about being “Memphis Man of the Year.” As expected, Mac says all of the right things in front of the cameras like giving credit to the Lord for his award and how young people should “read, study and stay in school” to achieve what he has achieved…

But after the cameras and lights are off, Bishop approaches Mac to have a private conversation with him in his office. (Aside, did you notice that Bishop’s new assistant is on the plump side and wears glasses?…obviously, she won’t be a temptation to Jacob like Alexa was…) Bishop is mad that he had to learn from the auditors that they are requesting his tax returns. He says, “When were you going to tell me? After they put me in prison.” So, up until this point, I wasn’t sure that the Bishop was a bad dude but this conversation has confirmed that the Bishop is not the upright man that my father, who is also a pastor, is. Oh well…He tells him that he needs to fix this issue and stop going all over town looking for people to save…Wonder what that means?

While Bishop is upset handing over tax returns, Lady Mae is incensed when her father has returned to Calvary again at the worst time. It looks like the “Memphis Man of the Year” reception is being held at the church because Mac is in a tux in this scene…The father has called Lady Mae, his daughter, a “high-yella whore.” Wow! Instead of just being drunk, Lady Mae’s father now has blood above his eyebrow. I wonder what happened. She says, “I cast you down in the name of almighty Jesus.” Mac tries to handle the situation by giving his father more money although Lady Mae tells him to not give him a cent.  After the father shuffles off with his wad, Grace stands there, staring at Mac, which is enough to get him all paranoid again.

In the midst of all of that, Mac calls Noah’s fiancée and tells her to order the $800 cake her and Noah were arguing about. He says the cake will be their wedding gift to them…It seems that he is always trying to find a way to buy loyalty…

Home Sweet Home…

After a long day at Calvary and the “Memphis Man of the Year” event, Mac returns home to see the young girl in the lobby. Apparently, she does not feel comfortable going to her place. This really grown man invites the young, forlorn, girl up to his place. Mac fixes himself some whiskey and gives the girl a non-alcoholic beverage initially. Mac tells her that he was once a disillusioned young person himself and even tried to commit suicide at 12 years old after his mother died on some train tracks. She was crossing the tracks in front of a train that was stopped, but she didn’t see the other train coming. Obviously, the title of this episode has to do with that incident.

Mac explains that the mother had a co-dependent relationship with him, and the train incident happened after he refuses to care for her in way that a child shouldn’t have to care for an adult. He says he told his mother that he had a girlfriend and wouldn’t be available to her in the same way. (Does this explain his pathology? Is this why he goes around town trying to save people like the Bishop said? Did his emotional growth stop at that age as a result, and that is why he is attracted to young girls? I don’t know. I’m no psychologist…) The girl, who seems suicidal herself, can relate to his feelings, and he agrees to give her “just a taste” of whiskey. The episode ends there….

So I’m convinced at this point that Grace is right about her Uncle Mac…

If you watched this episode, did I get this Greenleaf recap correct?

Below is a snippet of Mac’s office face0off with his niece Grace…

Any thoughts?

 

 

 

 

 

Posted on

Greenleaf Recap Season 1 Episode 6: Good Morning, Calvary

grace

Hello World,

Yes, I am writing recaps for each episode of “Greenleaf” for this first season at least and yes, I know I missed last week’s episode. But I have a great reason why I was unable to do so last week. I was getting my hair done and the appointment ran late. Yes, that late…smh…

Anywhow, I swear Oprah, her team of “Greenleaf” writers and OWN are determined to unearth every issue that has ever happened at somebody’s church throughout these not-so United States (right now, anyway). You will see what I mean…

Sisters of Tamar (not Tamar Braxton although she was named after the biblical Tamar I’m sure)…

This episode begins with a meeting of a sexual abuse survivors group that Grace formed. During this meeting, a woman named Stacy shares how her life seemed doomed from the moment she was born as her father felt he couldn’t afford another child. After her parents divorced, her mother began dating a man who became a father figure and began sexually abusing her. When Stacy’s husband comes to get her after the meeting is over, his aggressive tone suggests that although Stacy may no longer be abused by mother’s boyfriend, her husband has taken his place.

Jacob’s Ladder…

When you think of a ladder, you typically think about using it to climb higher, but if you’re already high, you can use a ladder to go lower even if you would rather not do so. That is the position that Jacob finds himself in during this episode. After Kerissa reveals that Jacob was getting it on with Alexa, Bishop Greenleaf’s assistant, in last week’s episode, the Bishop is now ready to deliver his punishment. Jacob will be relieved of all of his ministerial duties for 90 days.  Oh, by the way, the Bishop has fired Alexa as well. Jacob accuses his father as using his infidelity as a reason to make GiGi (Grace), obviously his favorite, a preaching pastor rather than just a pastor on the Calvary staff.

When the Bishop tells his wife Lady Mae that Jacob is on punishment, she says that Jacob is only human and it’s not like the Bishop hasn’t been human before. Was she insinuating that the Bishop has cheated on Lady Mae before? Could be….But I’m not sure at the moment. Like Jacob, Lady Mae is afraid that this is the Bishop’s chance to get Grace in the pulpit as he obviously wants.

The Bishop wastes no time in approaching Grace about preaching to the 4,000 people that come to Calvary’s Memphis location the following Sunday as he will be preaching in Calvary’s Birmingham location. Apparently, they have churches in Birmingham, Alabama; Little Rock, Arkansas; and Knoxville Tennessee. She says so, but then he commands, “You’re going to do it.”

When Lady Mae realizes that Bishop has convinced Grace to preach on Sunday, she goes to see her daughter privately and asks that she does not use her sermon as a “switch to punish us publicly.” I wonder why Lady Mae is so threatened by her daughter’s presence. I’m thinking she is uneasy with how much influence Grace has over her father and the fact that Gigi tells the truth whether or not church folk approve…

Trapped in the Closet…

Charity Greenleaf continues to clash with Greenleaf choir director Nigel so much so that she complains to her husband. I’m surprised that Kevin is able to tear himself away from his phone, as he obsessively peruses various gay dating sites, long enough to give her advice, but he does.  He suggests that he simply fire Nigel and find a suitable replacement. When she takes his advice, she is overwhelmed by the number of applicants. Kevin suggests that she treat the process like dating and simply and quickly subtract the applicants she knows she is not interested in and interview the remaining applicants. He should know since it seems he may be dating someone and not his wife in the near future. She bonds with one applicant so much that after they sing an impromptu rendition of “Jesus Be a Fence Around Me” (Jesus be a fence around your husband because he is going to get out…), she offers him the job during the interview. However, before he accepts her offer, he tells her he is openly gay and will be bringing his partner to church. Charity doesn’t mind his candor she says and he accepts her offer.

However, once Kevin learns of Charity’s selection, he does not approve as the choir director’s openness with his sexuality demonstrates how closeted he is…

Swing Out Sister…

With his sister poised to be hottest new preacher pastor at Greenleaf, Jacob realizes that he must have a plan B to secure his position. He meets some sort of business executive who could potentially guarantee that Calvary becomes a televised ministry. I’m surprised that as big as it is, the church is not already televised but maybe I’m missing something…Anywho, Jacob invites the business executive, whom he has bonded with over fantasy football, to the Greenleaf estate so the business executive and his wife can spend some time with Jacob and his wife. Well, the wife starts throwing herself at Jacob while her husband makes a play for Kerissa. When the evening is over, the flirty couple invites Jacob and Kerissa to enjoy their hot tub in a cabin as a foursome. Yes, they swing like that…

Once they leave, Jacob asks Kerissa if she is down for what this couple is proposing. She answers, “Who knows what your stock is going to be once [Grace] closes that Bible on Sunday?” Kerissa is such a team player! And Jacob appreciates her willingness to be on his team so much so that he tries to start something with his wife (hey Alexa is gone), but she is not trying to do that…In other words, Kerissa is willing to get down with another man for her husband but not actually with her husband…That’s deep and even Jacob realizes that…

So on the night that they are supposed to get together with The Swingers (since I don’t know their name) with Kerissa in a strappy little purple number, Jacob decides that he longer wants to meet them. He tells Kerissa he doesn’t want another man touching his wife and says, “You’re mine.” And just like that, Kerissa happily dissolves in her husband’s arms…Great scene!

Sermons on Demand…

As Gigi never wanted to preach a sermon in the first place, she is stumped about what what she will say on Sunday. Zora, Jacob’s daughter, says when her father doesn’t know what to say, he buys a sermon online and reads it in front of the church. Gigi doesn’t believe her and decides to google buying sermons. To her surprise, she finds a site where she can download a sermon on demand for a small fee of course. But before she can continue to think about her sermon, she gets word that Stacy was beaten up by her husband and needs a place for her and her daughters to stay for a while. When she cannot find a suitable location, she puts them up at a hotel. She is surprised to discover that Stacy doesn’t intend on staying away from her husband forever as she wants her daughters to have a father as she didn’t have one. Still Grace continues to hope that Stacy will have the strength to be able to stay away from him anyway.

At church on Sunday, Lady Mae, who is happy to see Jacob and his wife smiling and happy together, tells him that Grace will not be able to get the upper hand although she is preaching. She says, “Let not your heart be troubled. Believe in God and believe in me.” So that is a Bible verse: John 14:1 and refers to Jesus, but it seems that Lady Mae was referring to herself…So obviously, she has got a scheme planned. Her husband may be the head, but she is the neck which is how she was able to get Deaconess Connie Sykes back on as the head of the deacon board in this episode after the new head of the deacon board would not approve of the purchase of a new plane that the Bishop plans to buy…

So when Grace gets up in the pulpit, she begins to preach what seems to be a rather innocuous sermon she bought based on Matthew 6:28, but when she sees Stacy, donning sunglasses, sitting next to her abusive husband in the pews, she backs away from the New Testament and heads back to the Old Testament with Job 3:26.

I was not in safety, neither had I rest, neither was I quiet; yet trouble came.

Yes, Lady Mae has every reason to be scared of her daughter Grace which is why the Bishop met with Grace’s favorite aunt Mavis. He believes she can tell him why Grace really came back to town, but instead of answering his question, she tells him he already knows the answer to her question…What happens at night is always revealed in the morning….my words not her words…Good Morning, Calvary…

Check out Aunt Mavis and Bishop Greenleaf discussing Grace below…

I cannot wait until next week…

Any thoughts?

 

 

Posted on

Greenleaf Recap Season 1 Episode 4: Behind Closed Doors

bishop black lives matter

Hello World,

My new favorite family megachurch drama Greenleaf (is there another family megachurch drama?) on OWN did not fail to disappoint in this fourth episode!

Black Lives Matter vs. Back The Blue…

The writers of this episode obviously drew from the ongoing war being waged between the Black Lives Matter movement and the boys in blue. In the opening scene, Deputy Mayor Baldwin Leonard comes to see Calvary Fellowship World Ministries’ Bishop James Greenleaf privately in his office to ask for his public support of Officer David Nelson, a Memphis police officer who mistakenly shot an unarmed black teenager Kenny Collins to death. The deputy mayor’s initiative is called “Back the Blue.” Bishop Greenleaf is obviously conflicted about lending his support to such a controversial matter but becomes convinced when the deputy mayor tells him that he will be able to get the rights to additional land to build a pool and community center when the church’s original attempt to acquire the land was halted. Bishop Greenleaf remarks that another pastor in town doesn’t have a pool! After the meeting, Bishop Greenleaf wastes no time in telling his daughter Grace that he would like to meet with Officer Nelson. Grace is surprised by his sudden change of heart in meeting the officer when he had previously shown no interest in meeting with Officer Nelson when she originally approached him about it. I’m not sure if Grace truly knows her father, but the good Bishop always seems to have an ulterior motive for whatever he does…

A Marriage of Convenience…

Inspired by the love story of the two deacons at Calvary Fellowship, Kerissa feels like her marriage is dead and drags Jacob into counseling although he told he doesn’t want to go. When the counselor asks Jacob why he is there when his body language and silence show that he doesn’t want to be, he replies, “She would have made my life a living hell if I didn’t come.” I hate to say this since I love the fact that Kerissa is rocking a short natural do. But she looks more like his stiff, suited up older sister than his wife. Anywho, Kerissa admits that she knows her husband is a serial cheater and that he  knows that she knows and that he doesn’t seem to care. Jacob doesn’t say anything when the counselor asks him about Kerissa’s statements and she rightly assumes his lack of a denial confirms Kerissa is right. In another counseling session, rather than try to coax her husband into speaking, she chides him and says, “It’s like being married to a six year old” which further emasculates Jacob whom already feels like Kerissa run things…

However, in the next scene, when Jacob, who is wearing a crucifix chain, is laid up with his white and more feminine mistress Alexa, Bishop’s assistant, he cannot stop talking and seems like he doesn’t want to leave. In fact, Alexa has to tell him to go home.

Bishop James Greenleaf vs. Lady Mae Greenleaf…

When the Bishop tells his wife that he is going to offer his public support of Officer Nelson, she is shocked which shocked me because she seems just as much of an opportunist as the Bishop seems to be. He tells her that she should be objective and see both sides of the situation. She counters that the deacon board will not be pleased that he made such a controversial decision without consulting them to which he replies, “The deacon board doesn’t run the church, God does.” And Lady Mae shuts him down with these words. “You’re not in the mood to listen to Him either.” Game. Set. Match.  (Incidentally, my mom is named May and is also a First Lady!)

Another face-off about Officer David Nelson happens when Grace tells her daughter Sophia she cannot attend a Black Lives Matter rally in support of Kenny Collins the slain teenager. Then Sophia tells her mother to “shut my door, please” in an indignant tone that would have gotten me slapped across the room had I used it with my mother as a teenager.

Lost Faith…

Speaking of Grace, she learns just how lost her sister was before she committed suicide. Noah Kendall, the leader of the security team for Greenleafs and Grace’s teenage boyfriend, tells her that a random man who had been lurking around the Greenleaf estate left a flash drive with something on it that she needs to see. When she inserts the flash drive on her computer, she is stunned by photographs of her deceased sister in her underwear in all kinds of poses and caught in sexual acts. She calls the random man and offers him $5,000, what he requested, to meet with her to discuss the photographs and prevent them from being exposed. He agrees to meet with her, and she meets him in the woods.  When Grace asks the man why her sister allowed these photographs to be taken, he replies that she “would do anything to get high.” The man, who looks like a jittery junkie himself, also tells Grace that if you looked in Faith’s eyes, “nothing was there.” He then runs off with $500 rather than than the $5,000 as that is all the money Grace would give to him.

A Life for a Life…

Obviously still grieving the loss of her daughter Faith, Lady Mae looks through a photo album and stares at photographs of her daughter when she was an innocent little girl. Charity interrupts her reminiscing to tell her some good news. She tells her she is pregnant to which Lady Mae responds with, “That’s wonderful” and hugs her daughter. However, she continues to look at a photograph of Faith held behind Charity’s back as she hugs her. It seems that Charity’s baby may be a welcomed replacement for her dead daughter.

Don’t Mess With the Deacons…

When the Bishop’s plan to invite the city’s police officers to come to a church service as a way to publicly demonstrate his support finally gets back to the deacons, they are properly incensed! Deaconess Connie Sykes, backed up by the rest of the deacons, confronts the Bishop in a conference room. She explains to him that the deacons are supposed to operate in a system of “checks and balances.” Then she says, “You seem to be only interested in the checks.” She called it right! Finally, she says that if he goes through with the service, she and the rest of the deacons will be forced to walk out of the service in a public demonstration of their lack of support for the boys in blue.

Smells Like Teen Spirit…

Zora, Jacob and Kerissa’s undercover druggie daughter, convinces her cousin Sophia to defy her mother and go to the Black Lives Matter rally anyway. While there, they are spotted by the Bishop who seems to have attended the rally to get a better understanding of all of the issues surrounding the unarmed teenager being shot and killed by Officer Nelson. The bishop promptly takes his granddaughters back home where he promises he will not tell their parents on them. In a tender moment that made me miss my grandparents, he hugs them tight to him and they respond in kind.

Touch My Body…

Although Jacob is almost completely mute in the counseling sessions, it seems that he is listening because he is learning to process his feelings. He tells his mistress about an incident at Macy’s where he was followed around by a security guard and simultaneously ogled by a sales associate. The incident makes me feel like he is simply a body and the fact that his mistress seems to be content just sexing him without fighting to be with him further solidifies his belief that he is a body being merely used, he explains to her. So when Kerissa says they can stop going to counseling because he isn’t into it, he asserts himself and says that he will continue to go. Good for him…We are all cray cray in some ways…

Back the Blue Goes to Church…

Bishop tells his church essentially that all lives matter as he invites members of the church to support members of the Memphis Police Department many of which including Officer Nelson are in the audience in the Sunday church service. Charity leads the choir in singing “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” but Deaconess Sykes follows through on her threat as she leads the deacons in marching right out of the church in the midst of the hoopla!

Out of the blue, Bishop Greenleaf tells the deputy mayor in another closed door meeting in his office after the church service that he doesn’t want the land after all. Instead he tells the deputy mayor that the city needs to better control the police department. “Kill fewer of our children,” he says.

Meanwhile, Grace helps another pastor in the church get an office. I don’t know what it means, but since it was among  the final scenes of the episode, I’m sure more will be revealed in future episodes…

I can’t wait to see what happens next week!

So how did you like my Greenleaf recap?

Any thoughts?