From Habukkak to the Cries in the Streets, A Difficult Sermon #PhilandoCastile
O Lord, how long shall I cry for help,
and you will not listen?
Or cry to you “Violence!”
and you will not save?
Why do you make me see wrongdoing
and look at trouble?
Destruction and violence are before me;
strife and contention arise.
So the law becomes slack
and justice never prevails.
The wicked surround the righteous —
therefore judgment comes forth perverted.
(pause)
These are words,
That have the capacity to dig and carve
Out of the soul of a fragmented being
Ultimately exposing the prayer lifted,
God,
Let these lamentations
Reach you
So that
We can
Move
From pacifism
To
Activism,
Living into what Jesus calls us into
“Cure the sick,
raise the dead,
cleanse the lepers,
cast out demons.
You received without payment;
give without payment”
(pause)
I don’t know about you,
But my soul
Is weary
And I am looking
For a WORD.
(pause)
In the Heidelberg Disputation,
Luther professes that as a theologian of the Cross
He “calls a thing
What it actually is”
Luther,
Was bold enough
Steeped in his faith enough
Empowered by his interaction and immersion in the Holy Spirit enough
To call out
The evil
That had a profound,
Wide reaching impact
Tearing an oppressed community
To oblivion
Why are we so afraid,
Even when Jesus Christ promises us
“I am with you,
Even to the end of the age”
That we are timid to call out
To expose
To challenge the systemic evil
That has gripped our collective lives together?
(pause)
I think our Bible Study group this week,
In studying Revelations
Got it!
The mark of the beast is not
The chip in the hand,
The mark of the beast in this world
Is HATE,
And sometimes
That mark
Doesn’t wash off so easily
Even in the Blood of the Lamb
(pause)
Humanity,
Is sick with what seems endless opportunities
To wealth
And access to money
And we do whatever we need to do,
To obtain it,
Even if it means,
Cutting corners on infrastructure
Violating building codes
All in the name of profit
Until our hate
Is exposed
In flames
(pause)
Humanity is sick,
With climbing the proverbial ladder
Achieving selfishly everything for ourselves
Because life is too unpredictable,
And because we can’t touch or see
Or get a monetary return on faith,
We must have complete control,
So, our lives will be secure
Therefore,
Instead of listening to Christ’s commandment
About loving one another,
We judge the worthiness of one another
We block and segregate our communities from one another
We teach hate and suspicion to one another
We embed this hatred into our human made laws
Based on our limited understanding of one another,
Until one day,
The elephant in the room cannot be contained any longer
And our hatred is exposed,
With the blood that flows in the streets
Simply because,
We have deemed
Only the powerful and the dominant will survive
And the “other”
Are subjected to subhuman status,
Because hate has drove us to mark the “other” with ugly labels
Leaving a child,
With fear in her eyes.
(pause)
Dr. King’s dream
Of one day people not being judged by the color of their skin
But,
By the content of their character
Seems to be permanently deferred.
And the question that is echoing
From the wilderness,
Is it too much
For people of faith,
To follow Jesus?
To live out these acts of discipleship
Here in our Gospel this morning,
Which are critical
To being the building blocks
To dismantle the hatred,
That has the potential
To infect all,
Healing
And
Liberation.
(pause)
My sisters and brothers in Christ,
There are no answers I can give you today,
Only that,
I too,
Know the Creator God will never abandon us,
That the Creator weeps with us
And that the Creator bears our burdens for us.
(pause)
So what comfort,
Does the Bible
Give us today?
What does the Bible
Remind us,
About where we are called into?
Because,
Let’s be clear,
We,
As children of God
As people of Faith,
Are indeed
Called into something!
Just as Jesus
“saw the crowds,
he had compassion for them,
because they were harassed and helpless,
like sheep without a shepherd”
What is our response,
To those who are routinely harassed
Regulated to the invisible
Left to fend for themselves
And the tatters,
Of those bootstraps
(pause)
Just as Jesus,
Charged His disciples
“The harvest is plentiful,
but the laborers are few;
therefore ask the Lord of the harvest
to send out laborers into his harvest.”
They also understood,
That this was not a call,
To simply blindly recruit people,
To simply get them to believe in Jesus Christ
In a vain attempt towards quantity,
Instead of relationship,
But to follow what Christ called them,
And us
To do,
Concretely.
I think as people of faith,
We miss the meaning
We get so wrapped up in conversion,
We don’t live into a spirit of encouragement
Empowerment
THAT,
Is what Jesus
THAT is what the Good News
Tasks of us, beloved!
(pause)
Just as Jesus,
Instructed the disciples,
With the hard but rooted work that needed to be done,
Because of Love,
“As you go,
proclaim the good news,
‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.
Cure the sick,
raise the dead,
cleanse the lepers,
cast out demons.
You received without payment;
give without payment,”
So too,
We should proclaim and profess,
Practicing public witness,
Not afraid of any repercussions.
Or is that the issue?
That the kingdom of God is approaching,
And we,
Are running away from it?
As people of faith,
Have we done all we can,
To work towards,
This vision,
Of transformation?
Who is still not present,
Invited,
At the Table?
Who is still withholding the seat,
That the Creator has meant
WE,
Should be giving up,
So that THEY,
Experience the goodness of not only the Creator,
But of our commitment to one another,
Regardless
Of the color of our skin,
Or the language of our voices
Or how we worship,
Or whether we live as lepers.
(pause)
The Kingdom of God,
Is near!
So we should not EVER be afraid!
The Holy Spirit,
Is NEAR
So we then are infused with the power to heal!
Healing through our presence with one another
In times of tragedy,
And violence
We, beloved
Have the power to cleanse those who are suffering
Cleansing through holistic prayers,
Through laying on of hands,
Through breaking bread
Through just being there
We,
As marked with the sign of the Cross,
We,
Have the power to cast out demons,
Yes,
If you seriously think that evil is nothing more than an abstract thought,
Then obviously, you’ve missed the mark of the beast,
That has plagued many, many places
In our collective history,
Through the attempted destruction of our Indigenous sisters and brothers,
From here on their land of native soil,
To the Aborigines of Australia
With violence against sacred bodies
And forced assimilation
Through the attempted annihilation of a peoples,
Of the African Diaspora,
From slavery to civil rights to now
With violence and intimidation
And erasure of our history
Through the attempted obliteration of a people,
Who shared with us, as followers of Christ,
A history,
The roots in which we, as Christians came from!
With violence heaped upon our Jewish sisters and brothers,
Simply because they indeed, heard the Gospel
And lived it!
Through the attempted eradication of a people,
Who also share a history with us,
Who understand about submitting to the will of God,
Simply because somewhere,
Someone didn’t take the time,
To translate Allah Akubah,
As a prayer of praise to the God we all serve
With blind violence,
Which surely is,
The worst violence of all.
(pause)
If we,
Claim to be Christian,
Claim to follow Christ,
Then because we are marked with the CROSS
Instead of the mark of the beast,
We have the power-
To cast out that which is demonic,
Which threatens to block our collective,
Communal
Pathways,
Which lead us
To the One,
Who hears,
Sees,
Loves,
And gave us
Liberation,
Through Jesus Christ
That we were not only able to live,
But that we would give of ourselves
To those that the Creator has charged us to,
Through the healing,
And liberation
Of the Gospel,
And of the Commandment
Of Jesus,
To love one another,
ALWAYS
Thanks be to God
