Excerpt from Ella’s Song
Composed by Bernice Johnson Reagon, copyright: Songtalk Publishing Co.
Refrain:We who believe in freedom cannot restWe who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes
Verse 1Until the killing of Black men, Black mothers’ sonsIs as important as the killing of White men, White mothers’ sons
We who believe in freedom cannot restWe who believe in freedom cannot restuntil it comes
John 1:29
The next day he saw Jesus coming to him and said, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”
“Behold the Lamb of God.” The Jews who had gathered around John the Baptist understood exactly what he was talking about. The proclamation of faith must be incarnational, because the Word became flesh and dwelt among us—we beheld his glory, so the Lamb of God signals that a spiritual transformation is upon us. This is more than a mere offering of sacrificial lambs, and goats and bulls.
The Word comes to each group, each nation, and each race in a special way. The entire third chapter of Joel, Isaiah 66:16, and Psalm 110:6 inform us that God will judge ethnicities/racial groups, the Greek translation of “ethnos” or races.
Why will God judge us as nations, as races? Because the Word, the Christ of God has come to us in our own skin, in our own experience, in our own tragedies, in our own stories, in our own music, in our own understanding of the cosmos. That’s how we can identify it, because as Dr. James Cone wrote in Black Theology and Black Power, it is a Word that takes on the drama of our situation, the reality of our suffering, our struggle, and our journey as a people.
When John said, “Behold the Lamb of God,” they understood this language and that is was a pivotal proclamation of a new reality. Leviticus 5:1 defined sin as guilt—“the guilt of those who do not speak up when they hear a public charge to testify against something they have seen or learned about, they will be held responsible.”
The sacrificial lamb and the sacrificial scapegoat were used by ancient Israel to deal with (1) guilt for silence in the face of evil and (2) guilt for participation in the very act of evil. In Leviticus 16:15 -17 the goat or lamb was slaughtered and its blood sprinkled on the altar to atone for sin.
In verses 21 and 22 a second animal or scapegoat was placed before the priest, he put his hands on its head and confessed the sins of the nation, and then someone was chosen to guide the goat away from the city, the community, to take it to a remote part of the wilderness where it could not possibly find its way back and leave it there.
The first sacrifice is removing the guilt of sin from the community. The second sacrifice involves bearing it, the sin away so that it is removed from memory and can never be practiced again. Jesus accomplished both as the Lamb of God and we can accomplish both as incarnations of the Christ of God, if we will complete the sacred work of bringing our nation to repentance.
This is a grave, serious matter and any proclamation of the Gospel that ignores it is what Dietrich Bonhoeffer categorized as “cheap grace”—which seems to be flowing like polluted water down a stream in American churches. Behold the Lamb of God. The collective burden of a nation, a race, an ethnicity must come to terms with the all-embracing efficacy of God through Jesus Christ. But how do different races find this efficacy? How do they get the burdens of their specific guilt, the heavy weight of their specific sins as a people, alleviated on the shoulders of the Lamb of God?
Marissa Alexander, abused by her husband, fired a warning shot at the wall to defend herself in her own home. She didn’t hit or harm anyone, yet the same district attorney who prosecuted George Zimmerman, told her that she should have run out of her home, not “stand her ground.” The white jury in Sanford, Florida sentenced her to 20 years in prison—a sentence she is now serving. Drunken neo-Nazis who, high on meth shouted racist-transphobic slurs at her, and slashed her in the face with a bottle, which required 11 stitches, chased Cece McDonald down the road. She defended herself with scissors as a last resort. She was sentenced to 41 months in prison.
The man who killed Trayvon stalked this unarmed child who was walking home to his family, even after being directly told not to by a 911 dispatcher. He murdered Trayvon. Was not charged of the killing for weeks, received donations from white Christians to cover his legal fees, and used the same “stand your ground” defense that Black Marissa and Black Cece had used. Free to kill again. In a real show of white racist pride and cynicism his gun was returned to him in the courtroom with a smile.
The Bible is indeed God’s revealed Word, and in order for repentance, the collective and individual turning towards Christ that the incarnation and its proclamation requires, these sins must be spoken and confessed and repented of by the people of the context who are committing them. That’s what Jesus required, because he also preached repentance before faith.
Without repentance—without metanoia, the turning away from silence, from the collusion of knowing that evil has been done and allowing it to continue without protest, without outrage, without “Hell no--we will not let this go”-- if we do not pick up Ella Baker’s song, “we who believe in freedom will not rest until it comes,” then the sin of the white race against the people of Africa, known as Black Americans remains.
All of us, must free America from the sin of its misguided, moronic, demonic obsession with the ideology of white supremacy. It is an ideology born out of the negation, the godless philosophy that emanates from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the knowledge of the oppressor, the knowledge that puffs up and stand in opposition to God’s claim over the children of God.
This is the counterfeit knowledge that passes itself off as enlightenment in opposition to the spiritual reality of the Christ in us, which alone can free us to live in the spirit, the image of God, the form in which all life was created. These spiritual powers of darkness have encouraged those who oppress and suppress and seek to dominate others to use this reified knowledge to dispossess all creation of its beauty, its radiance, its glory and its wonder.
The great reformer Martin Luther wrote, “If you deal with all the intricacies and nuances of the Gospel of grace, of repentance towards Christ, and of a life of gratitude in anticipation of the world to come, and yet fail to deal with the evils of your time, then”—said Luther—“you are not preaching the Gospel at all.”
Both writer and prophet James Baldwin and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. believed that Black American African were the one group who truly believed in an Almighty Sovereign God (Cecil Cone), that could lead the scapegoat, which carries the sin of white supremacy and all its manifestations, out of the community, out of the nation called America so that we would once and for all be free of it.
Dr. King, revising a theme first set forth by Phyllis Wheatley, even went so far as to consider this our destiny, the very reason why God allowed some of us to come from Africa, to save this nation, this people misguided by one of the Tree of Knowledge’s ideologies, which like every fruit on that tree is deluded by a focus on material rather than spiritual reality, in this case the incidence of skin color.
Will we lead the sin goat, the scapegoat out of the camp so that our nation might yet be saved? Isaac Watts wrote, “Yes I must fight if I should reign, increase my courage Lord.”
Trayvon Martin is now before us as a typological Lamb of God, calling us once again to stand up and take responsibility for guiding America to repentance. His death, his sacrifice reminds us that repentance has not happened in America, and the salvation of this nation, and the majority who continue to live by the creed of racist “just-us” instead of biblical justice, who perpetuate attacks against our children, who fight against our right to vote, to work to have a decent livelihood, all that wickedness cries out as a stench before God.
Our enemies and their many terror cells are already at our gates, in our cities. Not all the military might in the world has protected us from the same. Corporate espionage and unscrupulous international interests threaten the economic survival of our nation as a world power. If we do not stand against this evil, if we do not make this horrendous crime a turning point in our passive acceptance of the annihilation of our own kind, then there is no hope for America, and the judgment God decreed in Amos 8:1-12 against Israel will become a reality for us.
Jeannine Amber of Essence Magazine wrote in a recent Time Magazine editorial—
"Certain events have a way of changing everything, reorganizing life into an unforgettable before and after. For Black parents, the new demarcation between before and after was the moment we watched George Zimmerman walk free after being tried in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed 17 year old. Before the jury announced its not guilty verdict, black parents understood what we were up against as we sought to protect our sons.
'We knew our boys, adored and full of promise, might be treated like criminals by police even though they had committed no crimes. We were painfully reminded of this danger by the deaths of other people’s sons, like Sean Bell, who was shot and killed on the morning of his wedding in 2006 by New York Police who incorrectly thought their was a gun in his car, or Oscar Grant, III, who was fatally shot in 2009 by a transit cop in Oakland, California, while restrained and facedown; or unarmed college student Kendrec McDade, who was killed in 2012 when San Francisco police saw him clutching his waistband and assumed he had a firearm. . . . .
"We may never know exactly what happened that night Zimmerman shot Trayvon, but black parents know this: A neighborhood-watch man saw a brown-skinned teenager—a boy who could have been one of ours—wearing hoodie pulled up against the rain and assumed he was up to no good. That suspicion set into motion a chain of events that left the boy dead. How do we protect against that?
'Do we tell our children to run if they are being followed? Or should they stop and turn around? Do we tell them to defend themselves, as Trayvon appears to have done or to get on the ground like Oscar Grant? Both tactics ended in their deaths at the hands of grown white male supremacists.
'Studies have shown that police are likely to shoot at an African American suspect faster than at a white one. What about the untrained civilian? Armed with bias and a handgun, how likely is he to see a threat where none exists? Before Trayvon, we had the Talk to guard our children against danger. After Zimmerman’s acquittal in his death, we realize with anguish there may be little we can do to protect them.'
So are we really ready to proclaim, Behold the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world? Are we ready to protest and write and march and picket and boycott and raise hell until our children are safe, until the scapegoat of white supremacy is once and for all carried into the wilderness of time until it becomes but a faint memory? Do we have the courage to assert our blessedness, to call for repentance concerning Black life in America?
Dr. Michelle Alexander in a recent viewpoint feature in Time Magazine wrote, “Trayvon Martin will not be the last black boy who dies or goes to jail or gives up on his life because he was viewed and treated a nothing but a problem. We are all guilty of being too quiet for too long. Let it be said hereafter that we were quiet no more.'
Have you reached a turning point? If the death of Oscar Grant, III was not your turning point here in Northern California, you now have another opportunity to get on board and proclaim to the world, “Behold the Lamb.
You as an incarnation of the Christ can carry this heinous sinful demonic ideology away, by your standing strong, because God in Christ is able to make you strong. Or will you go on chewing on the fruit of white oppression? Will we who believe in freedom, not rest until it comes?
Behold the Lamb of God! Who will watch, fight, pray, fight, watch and pray until Satan is cast out of our nation? Who will drag the sin-laden goat of white supremacy out of our our community, our country, our world? Are there any soldiers of the cross left in our midst, or are we content to play church while we are entertained by and with some fake "mamby-pamby Jesus" of the sewing circle (this last quote taken from sermon by The Rev. Peter Marshall)?
1 Kings 17:1
Now Elijah the Tishbite who was of the settlers of Gilead, said to Ahab, “As the Lord, the God of Israel lives, before whom I stand, surely there shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except by my word.” (2) The Word of the Lord came to him, saying, (3)“Go away from here and turn eastward, and hide yourself by the brook Cherith, which is east of the Jordan. (4) “It shall be that you will drink from the brook, and I have commanded the ravens to provide for you there.” (5) So he went and did according to the Word of the Lord, for he went and lived by the brook Cherith, which is east of the Jordan. (6) The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning and bread and meat in the evening, and he would drink from the brook.
In the beginning was the Word (the Christ), and the Word (Christ) was with God, and the Word (the Christ) was God.
Obviously John is talking about something else other than the writings in the Bible. He is speaking of a Word that has priority over the Bible. It is a divine Word, the Christ presence, the light that God is bringing to humanity that we might fulfill our original purpose, to walk as children of light, to be light and salt in the earth.
In the Bible we have written words, written revelations that relied on human authors to get it right, to make sure that not too much human personality, weakness and bias got through. They did a pretty good job of it, but they were human, what they said is time-bound, limited by chronos (chronological space-time), limited by their own personal experiences.
What Moses often said and wrote reflected his own personal frustration with Israel. His expression tends toward negative “shall nots,” harsh laws and teachings with numerous curses and punishments, stonings, exclusions from the community for all who fail to follow them. All of the revelations that created the Bible contain meanings, contexts, circumstances that no longer exist in the same form and are lost to us.
This is why the Word, the Christ, must become flesh, must set up tent in us. Knowing the Bible is a first and necessary step, but knowing how it reads gives us a foundation on which to understand the Word (the Christ presence) as it speaks to us through the Spirit. We, like Jesus become tents of the Christ-to seek and share a new and living Word, interpreted, revealed and renewing for our time and situation.
For that reason Bible study is necessary to discern to clarify, to separate progressive revelation from final revelation, to separate spiritual musings from revealed absolute truths. Without the Christ: words are just words
But the Word that John speaks of in this first chapter is not a written Word, but a spiritual reality—a transforming life force. It is the Word that God gave Peter when he told him, "Rise, slay and eat," and Peter had the temerity to challenge God, saying, “By no means, Lord, for I have never touched anything unholy and unclean.” After this vision returned three times and God had said the same thing three times through the angel, Peter was troubled. He was perplexed of mind as to whether this vision was really from God or not. How could a Word from God contradict what was clearly in the Book of Leviticus?
How could God’s word to him concerning going to and preaching to and receiving this Gentile as he would receive a Jew, so clearly contradict the laws and precepts as he had been taught them in Leviticus and Deuteronomy.
Common Ravens are omnivorous and highly opportunistic: their diet may vary widely with location, season and serendipity. In some places they are mainly scavengers. Not equipped to tear through large bodied birds as well as birds such as hook-billed vultures, they must wait for the prey to be torn open by another predator or flayed by other means before they can eat themselves. Plant food includes cereal grains, berries and fruit. They prey on small invertebrates, amphibians, reptiles, small mammals and birds. Ravens are regular predators at bird nests, brazenly picking off eggs, nestings and sometimes adult birds when they spot an opportunity. They have been major foil in the State of California’s attempts to preserve the condor.
Jesus Christ is the incarnation of God’s creative, life-giving power in the world. All who receive him in this life, who fully accept him into their lives, get the opportunity to participate in this life-giving creative process. John presents the miracles of Jesus in a specific order to demonstrate the progression of God’s power and authority over every aspect of human life and finally with the raising of Lazarus, life itself.
The first miracle in the Gospel of John is revealed in the first chapter, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father full of grace and truth. John uses the imagery of the tabernacle, the tent of meeting where Israel would gather to offer praise and hear from and experience God as a community.
This tent was God’s MASH unit, a Mobile Army Spiritual House. Before the temple, before the shrine, before the synagogue, before the church, before the cathedral, there was the tent. The Word, the divine creative, energizing wisdom, power and might of God pitched its tent among us in the form, Jesus of Nazareth, revealed ultimately as the Christ of God.
This same Christ, this creative power of God, commanded the ravens, against their own natural predatory instinct, to gather food for Elijah rather than to keep it for themselves. God can intervene in the normal order, the normal outcomes, the logical sequence, the expected conclusions—and do something new, something different. God.
Once Elijah had pronounced the prophecy, no dew, no rain, nothing until God tells me different, he still needed to eat and drink. God brought the socio-economic condition, draught, famine, upon the entire nation. Elijah was not exempt from the trouble. But God made a way for him to survive in the midst of trouble. God re-created the consciousness of the ravens. He transformed their behavior and nature from predatory: greedy, eager to steal, to prey upon, to nurturing, generous, magnanimous in sharing.
God desires to transform the behavior of "the ravens" in our lives and experiences. God will bring them to subjection to His plan for us, if we are subject to God's plan and will for our lives. Ravens can be many things in our lives, they prey on us, threaten us, seek to rob us of the goodness of life.
This is the power of the Word that God can release in our lives. It is a matter of faith, of acceptance, of allowing the Spirit to direct us and work through us.
After God tells us something new and different, the definition of strange, he does not give us long to act. While Peter still wondered whether or not this vision, this Word, this new understanding could be from God, the Spirit said to him, “Three men are coming to take you to Cornelius the Gentile.” Then there was a knock at the door. He was informed, “O yeah, that vision you had and have been questioning, well there are some guys at the gate who said their master just had the same vision.
After Peter had gone to his house, had preached, had witnessed the Holy Spirit come on Cornelius, his relatives and close friends. The circumcised believers, the first followers of Jesus, the Jews, when they saw what God had done were amazed, “for they were hearing them speaking with tongues and exalting God.” He asked, "Can anyone here give reason why they should not be baptized (accepted into the church as persons of faith)? Can we?
Praise god for the first miracle of Jesus—The miracle of the Christ in human form.—Christ in you, the hope of glory. Amen.
For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” . ... “So I say walk in the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh
(Galatians 5:14, 16).”
No sooner had the church begun to grow than conflict emerged. Satan is never idle. With every success, every victory, every movement forward, we can count on the principalities and powers, the high princes of the world’s present evil, to send messengers of chaos, confusion and doubt and conflict. As more and more “unclean” Gentiles came to the faith, the Orthodox Jews who followed the way of Jesus had a concern. “They are not following the Law of Moses.” They did not follow the ritual cleansings. They did not prohibit homosexual relationships. They ate foods considered “unclean.” They did not circumcise their children.
The question is not whether or not conflicts will come but how do disciples of Jesus discipline ourselves, so that we can learn to deal with conflict appropriately. The discipline of Jesus is often neglected, but Jesus made it clear in Luke 9, “If you want to be my disciples, then forget about your biases, your preferences, your presuppositions, your personal comforts, forget about self-interest, “let the dead things, the things of this world, be of concern to someone who is obsessed (OCD) and hence dying with them.
They are not to be your obsession. I already told you, do not worry about what you shall eat, what you shall wear, where you shall live. Unbelievers focus on all this to the exclusion of real life. You don’t have to because God will take care of your self-interest. When you surrender them to God they become God’s interests. You know longer have to worry about them, because God wants you to live carelessly. It should seem to others that you don’t have a care in the world, only then are you living as my disciples—living carelessly.
Acts 15:1-2; 5-10
The Council at Jerusalem
15 Certain people came down from Judea to Antioch and were teaching the believers: “Unless you are circumcised, according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved.” 2 This brought Paul and Barnabas into sharp dispute and debate with them. So Paul and Barnabas were appointed, along with some other believers, to go up to Jerusalem to see the apostles and elders about this question.
5 Then some of the believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees stood up and said, “The Gentiles must be circumcised and required to keep the Law of Moses.” 6 The apostles and elders met to consider this question.
7 After much discussion, Peter got up and addressed them: “Brothers, you already know that God did not discriminate between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith. 10 Now then, why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of Gentiles a yoke that neither our ancestors nor we have been able to bear? 11 No! We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are.” 19 “It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God. Jesus concluded, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God (9:62).”
Living carelessly requires letting go of self-interest, of judgmental attitude toward others, in favor of embracing God’s interests, God’s love, God’s mercy. How can I do this if I don’t know what God’s interests, love and mercy are? How do I know when I am?
Paul writes an answer to the church at Galatia, a new mixed race Gentile and Jewish Christian community, “Walk in the Spirit: Live a life habitually controlled and guided by God’s spirit.”
Our discipline is not following laws, but making it a habit to surrender everything to God. It sounds simple but our flesh, our human nature will react negatively to this. It fears that if we surrender, somebody else will get ahead of us-somebody else will be noticed before we are noticed- someone may miss dealing with our issues, our rights, and our place in the kingdom of life.
Living carelessly is developing the habit of surrendering everything to God. How do we know when we have developed this habit? Paul answered: The whole law, the real goal that God has in mind for us is summarized in one idea,
“You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
I was driving over the detour around the tunnel in old downtown Richmond, and as I turned south on Washington and headed for the sharp curve down the hill toward the beach, a sign posted by a neighbor read, “Drive as if your children were out here playing.”
Jesus said, “As you would have others do unto you, do also unto them.” Instead of the “me first and foremost” agenda, put the needs, the hopes, the aspirations, the concerns, the prayers, and the longings of your neighbors in place of your own.”
Jesus let us know clearly that to live with total disinterestedness, to live a life wholly focused on God and the well-being of God’s creation, would give us the careless life, the abundant life, the spirit-filled life, the life of peace and joy and faith and hope in the midst of every storm, every challenge, every conflict, every calamity. But it will also move us away from judging our neighbors as to whether or not they measure up.
Peter had to remind the church that God had already demonstrated that he fully accepted Gentiles as believers, as made righteous through Jesus Christ, even though they knew nothing of the law and did not and probably would not follow it (Acts 10-Gentile Cornelius). He then declared that they should not put a burden (adherence to the Law of Moses) on Gentiles when even they, as Jews, had never been able to follow it. Peter concludes that both Jew and Gentile are saved, delivered from the stain of the human condition called sin, not by following the law but by accepting the full love, forgiveness and acceptance of Jesus Christ.
If God has accepted us fully, even though we didn’t measure up, then God accepts them, too. God accepts every human being because of Jesus’ righteousness, not human righteousness.
Our prayer is that one day, Christians in our time will fully accept this truth, and will no longer insist that full adherence to the Law of Moses, the same error that these early Christian “Pharisees” made, is necessary to live in complete acceptance, love, faith, harmony and joy with God. Thanks be to God for his unconditional, all-consuming love.
Listen to Dr. Guest's Lecture on Living Carelessly
(this will download an audio file to your desktop)
Father's Day was inaugurated in the United States in the early 20th century to complement Mother's Day in celebrating fatherhood and male parenting Sonora Dodd was the driving force behind its establishment.
She initiated its celebration in Spokane, Washington at the YMCA in 1910. Having been born in Arkansas, Sonora Smart Doddborn in Arkansas chose June 19, 1910, even though initially she wanted it celebrated June 5, the date of his birth.
Her father, Civil War veteran William Jackson Smart, raised six children as a single parent. After hearing a sermon about Jarvis' Mother's Day in 1909, she told her pastor that fathers should have a similar holiday honoring them. The pastors did not have enough time to prepare their sermons, and the celebration was deferred to the third Sunday of June.
After a short hiatus from promoting the day while she matriculated as a student at the Art Institute of Chicago, Dodd returned to Spokane in the 1930s and started promoting the celebration again. Since 1938 she had the help of the Father's Day Council, founded by the New York Associated Men's Wear Retailers to consolidate and systematize the commercial promotion.
Americans resisted the holiday during a few decades, perceiving it as just an attempt by merchants to replicate the commercial success of Mother's Day, and newspapers frequently featured cynical and sarcastic attacks and jokes. But the trade groups did not give up: they kept promoting it and even incorporated the jokes into their adverts, and they eventually succeeded.
By the mid 1980s the Father's Council wrote that "(...) [Father's Day] has become a 'Second Christmas' for all the men's gift-oriented industries."
In 1957, Maine Senator Margaret Chase Smith wrote a proposal accusing Congress of ignoring fathers for 40 years while honoring mothers, thus "[singling] out just one of our two parents". In 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson issued the first presidential proclamation honoring fathers, designating the third Sunday in June as Father's Day. Six years later, the day was made a permanent national holiday when President Richard Nixon signed it into law in 1972.
Several churches, ironically all Methodists, made early attempts to promote and establish Father’s Day. "Father's Day" service was held on July 5, 1908, in Fairmont, West Virginia, in the Williams Memorial Methodist Episcopal Church South, now known as Central United Methodist Church. Grace Golden Clayton was mourning the loss of her father when, on December 1907, the Monongah Mining Disaster in nearby Monongah killed 361 men, 250 of them fathers, leaving around a thousand fatherless children. Clayton suggested her pastor Robert Thomas Webb to honor all those fathers. Clayton chose the Sunday nearest to the birthday of her father, Methodist minister Fletcher Golden.
In 1912, there was a Father's Day celebration in Vancouver, Washington, suggested by Methodist pastor J. J. Berringer of the Irvington Methodist Church. They believed mistakenly that they had been the first to celebrate such a day. They followed a 1911 suggestion by the Portland Oregonian.
God and God’s love is ultimately illustrated by Jesus in the story of a father (representing God), whose wayward son (lost humanity) is fully and unconditionally embraced, after the son “comes to himself,” realizes that all he lacks or needs is with his father (Gospel of St. Luke 15:4-32). We read of God’s unconditional love as a father in verse 20ff, “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was moved with pity, tenderness; and he ran and embraced him and kissed him.”
As we celebrate Father’s Day, let us be reminded that the essence of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is that God has sought us out, in Christ, while we were “still a long way off.” Secondly that God is love. Divine love is responsive to us in whatever circumstance of birth and life we find ourselves in.
Jesus said, “All who come to me, I will in no way reject (Gospel of St. John 6:37).” God is moved by our human condition, no matter what and whatever it is. God has nothing but compassion for us and longs to embrace us and be intimate with us. “Behold I stand at the door and knock, if anyone hears, listens, gives heed to my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will eat with him, and he/she with Me (The Book of Revelation 3:20)."
Happy Father’s Day!
This is my Father’s world—
O Let me ne’er forget
That tho’ the wrong seems oft so strong
God is the ruler yet.
This is my Father’s world!
The battle is not done;
Jesus who died shall be satisfied,
And earth and heaven be one.
Maltrie D. Babcock
Every Memorial Day, we remember men and women who have died while serving in the United States Armed Forces. It is an important observance in the United States of America, because it originated after the American Civil War to commemorate the Union and Confederate soldiers who died in the Civil War. It was an attempt to heal the divisions in a nation that had been engaged in one of the deadliest and costliest civil wars in history.
This holiday was designed to remind every soldier that the battle is never over with simple victories. There is no real victory in killing another human being, in winning territory, in crushing opposing forces. That is only the beginning of the process.
Following each military victory there is the task of realizing the gains of battle. If it is indeed a righteous cause, then the victorious, believing that what they achieved will bring a better society, a better world, will endeavor to reconcile with their enemies, to assist the vanquished in rebuilding in a new way, so that the contradictions created by former conditions will not occur again. Hence Reconstruction (however short-lived) was an attempt to build a new south based on absolute principles of equality, freedom and justice for all.
In theory this is wonderful, but this world is not yet capable of actualizing such utopian dreams. Reconstruction failed in the south, because the greed of Northern Industrialists, addicted to cotton, rubber, sugar and tobacco required that servile cheap labor be employed to insure their profits.
This meant that a new form of feudal system (sharecropping for Black American Africans and poor unemployed Western European Americans--Tenant Farming for “reconstructed" Western European middle and lower middle class farmers) had to be reinstituted. It could not happen as long as Federal troops were in the South establishing a rehabilitated society, so the troops were withdrawn, and some argue a way of life worse than slavery was instituted in the former Confederacy. Even before this, President Andrew Johnson was impeached on dubious grounds, because he believed that a more conciliatory attitude toward former “Confederates” would enable a smoother transition to a new society, without resentment and hostility.
Paul reminds the disciples of Jesus’ way in Ephesus,
For we are not wrestling with flesh and blood
(we are not contending with physical opponents)
but against rulers, against the powers, against the
Master spirits of the world, the rulers of this present
darkness, against the spiritual forces of
wickedness in the supernatural sphere.
Ephesian 6:12
Babcock reminds us that “Yes.” Ultimately this is God’s world. Jesus’ death on the cross broke the barrier between God and the former souls of light that he created to rule the earth. His resurrection demonstrated that God is the real power, that the forces described in Ephesians 6 have been neutralized. The ultimate victory however is in the hands of those redeemed souls of light. So
The battle is not done. Jesus who died will be
satisfied, And earth and heaven be one.”
The prayer, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” is not a passive idea. It is a reminder to God, that as He has been victorious in defeating the powers of darkness, that we, too, living out our lives through faith in Jesus Christ, might accomplish what is necessary in the war to return this planet and this universe to its rightful owners, God’s people—us—the souls of light.
Paul reminded the Ephesian community, that prior to knowing Christ,
when you were slain by your trespasses and sins—
following the course and the fashion of this world,
following the prince of the power of the air, you
were obedient to demon spirits that still
constantly work in the sons of disobedience.
In Second Corinthians 4:4 we read,
For the prince of this world has blinded the unbelievers’
minds, preventing them from seeing the illuminating
light of the Gospel of Christ, who is the image and
likeness of God.
We who adhere to, trust in and rely of God through our faith in the work and witness of Jesus Christ, are soldiers of “the new image,” the “new human being,” the eternal Son of Light who has brought Light back into the world. We who believe are once again returned to the Adamic state as the "imago dei" the image of God, the daughters and sons of "Light."
The battle is not over until God decides that we have sufficiently demonstrated and displayed that light in the world. Yes. Through the soldiers of light—through those of us who are so filled with God’s Spirit that the love of our benighted world and unbelieving brothers and sisters in it will compel us to reach out to them with faith, hope and love, continue as soldier's in the army of God, standing against an enemy whose weapons have already been rendered harmless and ineffective before us, "Jesus who died will be satisfied. Earth and heaven will be ONE.'
"Thy will be done on earth, as it is in the transcendent realm." In memory of the saints who have passed on, who rest from their labors, and who wait to greet us in final victory.
Pastor Guest
Strong Mother God, working night and day,
Planning all the wonders of creation,
Setting each equation, genius at play;
Hail and Hosanna! Strong mother God!
Warm father God, hugging every child,
Feeling all the strains of human living,
Caring and forgiving till we’re reconciled;
Hail and hosanna! Warm father God!
Great living God, never fully known,
Joyful darkness far beyond our seeing;
Closer yet than breathing, everlasting home;
Hail and Hosanna! Great living God!
Brian Wren, 1989
One of the most controversial contemporary figures on the American scene, is actor, director, producer, writer and Hollywood Mogul Tyler Perry’s “Madea.” Known in full as Mabel “Madea” Simmons. In one respect, Madea is vindictive in nature, quick to not only stand up for herself, but also get even in a bad way. Madea is willing to threaten the use of deadly weapons; destroy property; use violence; take on the law; and use any and all means necessary to show up an offending party. Perry’s Madea has repeatedly landed herself in court, anger management classes, house arrest, and even prison.
Amazingly, in spite of all the cultural criticism of this character as a “racial stereotype, denigrating our culture, and worse a clear sign that Blacks need to produce more positive stories about black mothers and fathers,” the masses of Black American Africans as well as a sizeable percentage of the rest of the American population, flock to the theaters for “Madea” movies. When Perry has tried to make so-called positive, uplifting films, where he was not only the hero, but a positive role model and uplifting image—films like Alex Cross and Good Deeds, these have been box-office failures.
So how do we reprise Madea? We are using reprise in the sense that it means a return to an original theme. To reprise Madea, we need to ask “What is it about Mabel “Madea” Simmons that draws us, that makes us laugh and cry at the same time?”
We are drawn to Madea because, in the words of her creator Tyler Perry, she represents “Big Momma” and to others “mother dear” or Ma-dea, a positive cultural icon in many Black American families that Perry wants to celebrate in his works. She is and has been a real positive symbol of the tri-generational grandmothers and grandfathers who have had to stand in for defeated, down and out, drug addicted, incarcerated, selfish, self-destructive and narcissistic children, carried away with the so-called “freedom” and willingness to live by the “hustle” or ust be as thoroughly “American” as the rest of the country. That Madea is depicted as loud, prone to violence, and ruthlessly blunt, is, in our minds, overshadowed by her motherly nurturing and occasional use of sass and threats of corporal punishment, to get the intended recipient of the same to behave, to change, to see a different way of being. She is a God figure, presence and archtype of God in the Black American African family.
The average black audience knows these negative depictions are really absurd, untrue and finds more laughter than humiliation in the fact that whatever the exaggerated stereotype, big momma and occasionally big poppa, can always be counted on when all else has failed. The Perry movies are not really focused on Madea, as much as they are the real life dramas and crisis situations, broken relationships and traumas of our families that this God-figure/Big Momma has the efficacy to change and transform for good.
The black audience knows all this already, although much of the white audience unfortunately does not, and accepts this comic relief as truth, having already accepted as fact the pathological stereotypes of black women and black people in general. I would argue that these pathological stereoitypes are neither created nor reinforced by Perry and other Black American African producers, but as he pointed out in an interview, “The majority culture will continue to believe these negative images, no matter what he portrays. As Frantz Fanon wrote three generations ago, these pathological views of Blacks and Black life are forged in the dark distorted collective unconscious of white racists, nurtured in the ideology of white supremacy (Black Skin, White Masks). Until whites and “wanna-be imitation whites” stop running from Blacks, making blacks invisible and start attempting to learn from and interact with Blacks, these will persist.
The theme of Madea as a Black cultural icon of motherhood, exploited for commercial success is well illustrated in Acts 16. Paul and Silas, on their way to the place of prayer in Philippi, encounter a young slave girl who had a gift of divination and brought her owners a great deal of money by fortune-telling.
Contrary to some biblical commentators, there is no evidence she was demon-possessed. The spirit she had was a gift. African people are used to having such gifts and using them for good in the community. The scriptures teach that human beings were given gifts that were taken from fallen angels after Satan was cast down to the ground with the other angelic beings that rebelled against God.
Until we know Christ as savior and Lord, these gifts can be exploited, just as the image of big momma and big poppa can be exploited for negative attacks on the nature and quality of Black American African life.
Because she had this prophetic gift, albeit one not under the control of the Holy Spirit, she cried out repeatedly, “These men are slaves of the most high God, who proclaim to you the way of salvation.” In her unregenerate state, she was focusing the attention on Paul and Silas as messengers, rather than on the message they were presenting. Further, Paul found all her constant crying out to just be plain annoying. “He ordered the spirit out of her in the name of Jesus Christ.” She didn’t experience convulsions or die; she just was no longer a profit to her owners.
No matter how we may protest that the majority culture will embrace racial stereotypes as truth, these negative images will continue as long as they are profitable. The issue for her owners was that they could no longer make a profit, so Paul and Silas were arrested and brought before the officials of the marketplace. In other words, they were dragged before the corporate moguls to answer for this disruption of Philippian commerce.
When the sitcom Good Times was created by black writers Michael Evans (whom we know as the first “Lionel” on the sitcom The Jeffersons, and Eric Monte, the latter of whom we are familiar with as the writer of his own semi-autobiographical story, Coolie High, they created a family living in the Cabrini-Green housing projects of Chicago. Producer Norman Lear could not adjust his and America’s pathological racial stereotypes of “black fatherless families” and “sassy ignorant combative wives-mothers”—such as the vile, outspoken mother portrayed regrettably by the late fine actress, Lynne Thigpen, in movie Lean on Me. This unnecessarily negative and fictional “parent” was portrayed as an angry Black American African parent who antagonized Principle Joe Clark and called in the white authorities on him. Hollywood goes to great lengths to pit Black American African men and women against each other, even adding fictional characters to real life stories to do so.
After a year of fighting against negative depictions of black fatherhood, Evans and Monte were fired as writers of Good Times, John Amos was fired as the father, and Esther Rolle was later fired as the mother as she continued to fight against Norman Lear’s racist pathological depictions and stereotypes in each episode.
The Devil loves pathological stereotypes of black and brown and red mothers. Our communities are already economically and socially at risk, and the promotion of our selves and our people as pathological assures that the people locked in them will never rise and be free from his Satanic grasp. The Devil wants us to accept negative images of ourselves, of our abilities and of others like us, negative stereotypes about what is possible and not possible for us as human beings, even negative beliefs about what is possible for us as children of God, heirs of God who have been set free, made righteous, made wonderful, by the blood of Christ.
The reprised Madea is none other than the image of God, of “our Mother God” in our midst. She is the words of English songwriter Brian Wren. a “strong mother, working night a day, the genius of our creation”--a nurturing mother, who wants to gather us as her children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings. This is the Gospel of the Lord. “Strong mother God—Warm father God, hugging every child, Feeling all the strains of human living, Caring and forgiving till we’re reconciled.” This is the reprised “Madea” we seek, even in the Tyler Perry movies. Though we are somewhat frustrated by the negative stereotypes included as comic relief for commercial success—we keep on going to see who Madea is going to free next, what family she’s going to set on the right course, What crooked politician or greedy developer she is going to outwit, what mother she is going to restore to her children, what children she is going to restore to their mother, what father she is going to beat and browbeat and love into fatherhood in the end.
Yes, the reprised Madea, our Big Momma/Big Daddy is the “great living God, never fully known, Joyful darkness far beyond our seeing; Closer yet than breathing, everlasting home.” Through faith, we reprise Madea, we find our home in her motherhood, in his fatherhood, in our great living God.
Thank you Tyler Perry. God is using you, notwithstanding the demands of the marketplace, and the misguided plantation oriented criticisms of middle and upper class critics and “academics.”
Have a wonderful Mothers' Day celebration.
These are highlights and excerpts are from a sermon delivered by Rev. Donald Guest, Pastor of Easter Hill United Methodist Church in Richmond, CA. If you would like to hear the entire sermon please contact Easter Hill at (510) 235-4226 and ask for a CD for the worship date. Or better yet, visit Easter Hill UMC every Sunday at 8AM or 10:30AM to hear The Word live.
From Sermon "The Colors of Love" - Sunday, January 6, 2013
Paul writes in verses 9-11:
God has sent me to enlighten all human beings. To make plain to them God's plan. The plan is that through the church, the complicated, many-sided wisdom of God in all its infinite variety, innumerable aspects might now be made known to the angelic rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. This was in accordance with God's eternal purpose, which he has carried out in Christ.
In 1 Peter 1:12 we read, that "the Holy Spirit, through the preaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, has announced things into which angels long to look."
It is a reminder that we as a church of Jesus Christ have a great opportunity. What we do and say can reveal what angels long to know. We are God's miracle. The miracle is that through us, God enables all varieties of human beings to experience love in their own color.
We know from the study of chromatics or color science that the color of an object depends on spectrum, illumination and reflective properties of a surface, as well as the angles of illumination and viewing. So what we see as a specific color may not be that color at all. So, the kind of light environment, the angle of illumination and the angle of vision all determine the color we think we actually see and perceive. Hence surface judgments are misleading. The wisdom of God is complicated, many-sided with infinite variety. God has different approaches for different people. None of us has been convinced of the truth of God in the same way, and none of us will. It is not our job to judge but to love.
We (Christians, followers of Jesus Christ) are the prisms through which God scatters the light of the Holy Spirit so that others can see love in their own color, from their own perspective. There are many colors of God's love because God's love is for all. God's love knows no bounds.
We have been given the wonderful opportunity to display the many colors of love through the prismatic light of God's Holy Spirit. It has attracted each of us, and will attract many more. Glory to God in the highest!
