Tuesday, July 23, 2013

What Does the Lord Require??



What follows is an expanded for readability purposes version of a sermon delivered at New Song Community Church (Columbus, Ohio) on July 21, 2013, one week after the verdict of the George Zimmerman trial.
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God of Grace and Mercy and Might-be here now for these your people. I yield myself, all that I am, to your righteous will and way.  Let your message go forth to ears that would hear. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen. Amen.

I, like many of you, have had a tough week. This week, I found that I was so angry that I couldn’t speak.  Do any of you remember the “pressure cookers” they used to have back in the day? I don’t know maybe they still have those. You would put the food in the pot with the special lid, that had the little thingy on top that would spin and hiss every few seconds, so that the food in the pot would cook at a consistent pressure.   Made great pot roast as I recall!  That’s what I felt like--a mini pressure cooker.  I knew on some level that it wasn’t even safe for me to speak.  I intimately understand the power of words, and how words are alive and have creation power in them.  It wasn’t that I didn’t have words to say. It’s just that the words in my heart and in my mind were in conflict with my inner Christian witness. 

Truthfully, this pressure cooker in my heart and mind had been bubbling for a few weeks prior to the Zimmerman verdict.  As a Social Worker by trade and training, I was already pretty steamed by the gutting of the voting rights act that put the constitutional right to vote in jeopardy for thousands, potentially millions of the poor, the marginalized and populations of color.  Following that, the powers that be in this great state of Ohio blindsided us, we who are pro-reproductive freedom, with restrictions that set back the women’s movement by 40 years.  As if that wasn’t personal enough, the two by four upside the head of the Zimmerman verdict might have been enough to simply push me over the cliff of good sense. 

Fortunately, the steady and grace filled voice of Sybrina Fulton pierced through this place of righteous anger I was locked in, and by connecting with her grief; I was able to connect with my own.  Sybrina Fulton leaned to her faith by quoting her favorite scripture passage Psalm 3:5-6, which from the NIV reads:

Trust in the Lord with all your heart
    and lean not on your own understanding;
in all your ways submit to him,
    and he will make your paths straight.

And .. this  same passage from “The Voice”:

Place your trust in the Eternal; rely on Him completely;
    never depend upon your own ideas and inventions.
Give Him the credit for everything you accomplish,
    and He will smooth out and straighten the road that lies ahead.
And don’t think you can decide on your own what is right and what is wrong.
    Respect the Eternal; turn and run from evil.

Sybrina Fulton stood, not only as Trayvon’s mother, but also as the mother of us all in a way – teaching us that if she can stand there, head held high, with her heart breaking, with her dignity intact, then we as a people can do the same.  Trayvon Martin’s parents stood 
up for him, and became walking candles in the darkness … pointing the way, leading us …taking their place in line to STAND, not just for Trayvon, but for a long list of martyred children and adults in African American history.   

So, now, here, in 2013 we ask that age old question ….. what do you do when justice is denied? Do you fight? Do you flee? Do you bury yourself in food, drink, or potentially negative social engagements?  I couldn’t give energy to any of those actions or re-actions because there was nothing that I could step up or down to that felt effective for dampening my fury or to assuage my grief.

These two emotions were kissing cousins for the better part of three days before finally the grief won over, and I was quiet enough to feel the gentle nudge of the Spirit and to look to scripture for the balm for my own hurting heart.

I make an effort to follow along with the lectionary readings for a given week. And of course it is always my first stop when doing sermon prep. In my emotional turmoil, as I scanned “the text this week”, looking to scripture to grab hold of a little peace and calm, the last thing I needed was the prophet Amos (Amos 8:1-12) doing his smack down to Israel about their idolatry and inhumanity to the needy.  But for a while, I have to admit, it felt good to know and to remember that Almighty God is a God of justice, and is always on the side of the poor, the powerless, the marginalized and the oppressed. But God, in her infinite wisdom, will meet me at a place, only to take me to a new place where he wants me to stretch and grow and heal. 

What I also didn’t need was an image in my head of Jesus the Christ, arms outstretched and nailed to a wooden crossbeam, asking God the Father to “forgive them for they know not what they do”.  I didn’t want that image. I wanted something or someone to answer for this travesty. Yet that is the image that remained, firmly imprinted.

With that image, Holy Spirit spoke saying …. time to breath, time to let go of the rage, time to cry and sit with the grief – look at it from all sides—look and listen, make note of the ones talking, make closer note of the ones who are silent. 

In this place of tears, breathing and stillness … blessed and surprised was I to find the voices of those who didn’t share my culture or my history, but shared my pain; blessed and surprised was I to find that the God of Grace and Mercy and Might, had wrought a new thing right under our complacent noses.  So many progressive prayers and voices raising questions about judicial fairness and how the lack of it it serves to deny justice to the poor, the powerless and the marginalized. 

Iyanla Vanzant has a saying.. “All things are lessons that God would have us learn”.  So finally, my prayer and my plea, for you, and for me this week, was, “God, what would you have us learn out of this devastating turn of events?”  What, Dear God, do you require of us?  And when I say us, I don’t mean just any “us”. I mean the “us” that are the ones called to the way of Christ.  The ones who can put themselves at the foot of the cross and see the image of the outstretched arms of a dying Christ.

Hear this familiar reading from “The Voice”
Micah 6:6-8
Israel: What should I bring into the presence of the Eternal One
        to pay homage to the God Most High?
    Should I come into His presence with burnt offerings,
        with year-old calves to sacrifice?
    Would the Eternal be pleased by thousands of sacrificial rams,
        by ten thousand swollen rivers of sweet olive oil?
    Should I offer my oldest son for my wrongdoing,
        the child of my body to cover the sins of my life?
No. He has told you, mortals, what is good in His sight.
    What else does the Eternal ask of you
But to live justly and to love kindness
    and to walk with your True God in all humility?

And more from Psalm 15
O Lord, who may abide in your tent? Who may dwell on your holy hill? 2Those who walk blamelessly and do what is right, and speak the truth from their heart; 3who do not slander with their tongue, and do no evil to their friends, nor take up a reproach against their neighbors; 4in whose eyes the wicked are despised, but who honor those who fear the Lord; who stand by their oath even to their hurt

Many do not know, and choose to dismiss the hurt, the pain, the anger that fueled the wave of protest following the verdict. They have not lived our history. They do not know that the story of Trayvon Martin is a familiar one. They do not know and choose to dismiss that this grief of injustice has touched us intimately, and with this event, we are forced to relive our own unhealed history.

For many of us the grief of injustice has a name.  For my husband’s family the grief of injustice is named Gilbert Williams, Jr.—an older brother who, though unarmed, was shot down and killed by police some 40 years ago. These words from my brother-in-law were shared on our family Facebook page this week:  
“He had no weapon but did run and was shot in the back and killed.   
Remember how well natured he was? He was in the Navy, protecting our nation,
 right after the Viet Nam conflict. He was a wrestler, a member of the state 
championship 440 relay team. He was a good son, and he was my brother 
and my protector because I was the baby boy then. My father hired a 
private investigator to handle this case (a young Johnny Cochran) but 
two weeks into the investigation, Mr. Cochran gave my father his retainer back
 stating that he (Johnny) was told to leave this one alone… 
Why does Justice have to hide?” my brother-in-law asks.

Grief has a name … for me the grief of injustice is named Marqus Anthony Ware … 
a tall, proud, military veteran, also known as my godson, or my nephew, 
depending on who he was talking to. Marqus was the only son to 
my sister-friend who I’ve known since we were 15 and 16 respectively. 
I had known him all his life. Just as his mother and I were “sisters”, 
my daughter and he claimed each other as “siblings” or as “cousins”, 
depending on whom they were talking to.  Marqus was a natural leader, 
a loyal friend, a beloved son and confidant, one who loved hard. If he claimed you, 
he stood up for you.  He didn’t back down.  Three years ago he didn’t back down, 
and was shot and killed.  He was unarmed. The man who shot him 
was never charged. There was barely an investigation.  
 His life didn’t warrant an investigation. Just another Black man dead.

For many, many millions of us this day …. Grief has a name.  

TRAYVON BENJAMIN MARTIN.

And through these experiences, we carry our collective hurt and grief and our cry for justice, and God calls us to something else.  For this time, during this hour, I think God calls us not to stand our ground, but to stand and bear witness. I think God calls us to stand for our loved ones, stand for those who came before us, to speak our truth, but to stand as representatives or allies of living history. 
And while we do that, we draw strength from the knowledge that out of our pain, comes our purpose.

God reminds us that the way of the cross is not a journey of sweetness and light, meadows and wildflowers.  The way of the cross is rocky and rough shod.  But God does not leave us defenseless.  God asks us to lean not to our own understanding, but to yield to the call, draw strength from God, slap on our armor and war with the powers of spiritual darkness.  We war by staying prayed up – we pray for ourselves, we pray for our loved ones, we pray for God’s people everywhere.

We stand for justice.
We stand for the ones who have paid the price.
We speak truth to power.
We do not suffer in silence.

Here these words of Ephesians 6:10-18 from The Voice:

10 Finally, brothers and sisters, draw your strength and might from God. 11 Put on the full armor of God to protect yourselves from the devil and his evil schemes. 12 We’re not waging war against enemies of flesh and blood alone. No, this fight is against tyrants, against authorities, against supernatural powers and demon princes that slither in the darkness of this world, and against wicked spiritual armies that lurk about in heavenly places.
13 And this is why you need to be head-to-toe in the full armor of God: so you can resist during these evil days and be fully prepared to hold your ground. 14 Yes, stand—truth banded around your waist, righteousness as your chest plate, 15 and feet protected in preparation to proclaim the good news of peace. 16 Don’t forget to raise the shield of faith above all else, so you will be able to extinguish flaming spears hurled at you from the wicked one. 17 Take also the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

The bible commentary from this passage offers much:  Paul knows that the real battles and dangers we face are not against flesh and blood. The enemies we see are real enough, but they are animated by spiritual forces of darkness that stay strategically hidden from view. These powers often reveal themselves in institutional evils—genocide, terror, tyranny, and oppression—but the weapons needed to combat them are not earthly weapons at all. What is needed, Paul advises, is to stand firm in God’s power and to suit up in the full armor of God. Although the devil and his demon armies are destined for destruction, they are serious threats now and must be resisted and beaten back. For Paul, the best offensive weapons we have are the word of God and prayer.
18 Pray always. Pray in the Spirit. Pray about everything in every way you know how! And keeping all this in mind, pray on behalf of God’s people. Keep on praying feverishly, and be on the lookout until evil has been stayed.

These powerful weapons are tools we need to make sure that our fight remains righteous. We do not fight institutional evil with the world’s weapons of war. We who are called to the foot of the cross are the same ones who are called to be bold warriors on the battlefield of justice. We resist evil by not letting it stand unaddressed. Standing our ground means meeting the power of spiritual darkness with the power of a resurrected Christ. We cannot do that in silence.
There is work to do my friends. We have just been given a wake-up call. 

DO NOT GO BACK TO SLEEP.                    


And all of God's people said …Amen.

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