My friend and our church pianist, Robert “Bob” Parrish, died recently and before I saw the obituary, I simply typed Robert Parrish into the search engine on my iPad to see what I might find.
The first response was a series of articles on “Sitting Bull,” a 1954 American-Mexican movie about the events leading up to the “Battle of the Little Bighorn” and “Custer’s Last Stand.”
Thinking my iPad had gone haywire, I read the article, and it turns out that a fictional Maj. Robert Parrish, played by Dale Robertson, was the youngest colonel in the Union Army during the Civil War, but he wasn’t a team player.
So, he was demoted to Captain and sent west where he survived the Battle of the Little Bighorn.
Later, he was sent to the Sioux lands and court-martialed twice because:
• he wouldn’t order his men to shoot and kill unarmed escaping Indians;
• he led Sitting Bull and the rest of the Sioux north to keep them from being slaughtered by the American troops.
Finally, Sitting Bull sent word that if Maj. Parrish was executed, there would never be peace in his lifetime.
Robert’s former Civil War general, almost father-in-law, and now President Ulysses S. Grant pardoned Maj. Parrish for helping forge a peace treaty with Sitting Bull!
Then, my mind began to wander, I began to think if Bob were an apostle, he’d be Peter.
“As Jesus was walking by the Sea of Galilee, He noticed two brothers, Simon who was called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen. And He said to them, ‘Follow Me (as My disciples, accepting Me as your Master and Teacher and walking the same path of life that I walk), and I will make you fishers of men.’
Immediately they left their nets and followed Him becoming His disciples, believing and trusting in Him and following His example.”
— Matthew 4: 18-20
I think Maj. Robert Parrish, Peter the apostle, our own Bob Parrish, and even the Lord Jesus Christ had something in common. They all were determined to say what they thought and think what they said. You knew where they stood and what they stood for.
They didn’t tolerate pretense!
Charles “Buddy” Whatley is a retired United Methodist pastor serving Dawson Street Methodist Church in Thomasville, Ga. With wife, Mary Ella, they are missionaries to the Navajo Reservation.
