Sermon in response to Shootings in Charleston, June 17, 2015

“Living God’s Story” (2 Cor. 6:1-13; 7:2-4)

 June 21, 2015

        Paul pleads with the Corinthian Christians, “Make room in your hearts for us. … I have great pride in you; I am filled with comfort. In all our affliction, I am overflowing with joy” (7:2, 4).

        In this church, rich Christ followers looked down upon impoverished Christ followers and sometimes flaunted their wealth.  Within this church, there was serious misunderstanding about appropriate sexual ethics for followers of Jesus.  The Corinthians Christians struggled with how spiritual gifts should be exercised worship.  In some cases people with particular gifts were elevate above others even though the gifts were supposed to be from God.  The Corinthian Christians struggled in their understanding of resurrection.  And they did not know how to leave behind paganism and polytheism and give full devotion to Jesus.

        The reason much of the best practical teaching in the New Testament comes from Paul’s letters to Corinth is the believers in that church struggled in so many areas.  Paul was at his wits’ end trying to show these new believers how to live as a community –the body of Christ, the family of God.  Furthering complicating his task were other teachers who came claiming that the Corinthians should ignore Paul.  These others who, according to Paul claimed to be “super-apostles,” made his task of shepherding this complicated group even harder. 

        At times Paul came down quite hard on the Corinthians.  Numerous commentators I have read believe he saw himself as a spiritual father to the Corinthians and the father’s discipline is apparent in both letters.  Yet, he tenaciously holds onto joy. 

Make room in your hearts for us. 

I have great pride in you.

I am overflowing with joy.

Today, churches across America must cling to joy and love and fellowship.  We must cling to who we are in Christ tightly for I fear what is coming.  Recently a 14-year-old African American girl at a pool party was roughed up by a stressed out white police officer.[i]  This was the latest in an unfathomable string of racially-motivated incidents.  I know authorities say it wasn’t about race.  They always say it isn’t about race.  Yet, coincidentally, these stories have a consistent theme; unarmed minority youths are bullied, abused or killed by armed white people, often white law enforcement officers.  The story Texas was the latest until this past Wednesday, June 17. 

On that day, Emmanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, SC was doing what thousands of churches across America do on Wednesday night.  They were having Wednesday night prayer service.  I have probably been a part of close to 1000 of these services in my life.  It is an activity that is a normal part of church life in many traditions.  In this case, it was a small group, all African American.  And a white man came asking to see the pastor.  This church community did what the church does.  They brought the man in, welcomed him, took him to the pastor, and made him feel like he was a part. 

Clearly he looked different, but when we are in Christ, our differences are signs of God’s beauty.  We celebrate our uniqueness as we join our hearts to one another.  They were doing what churches do.  That’s what really gets me about this story.  The Emmanuel Church was creating safe space for Dylann Roof to seek God.  He sat in that safe space for nearly an hour, and then violated it as he killed 9 people who were welcoming him into their circle.

When we recite the names – Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and the rest, and the places – Staten Island, Cleveland, Baltimore, Missouri – and now we add this sad chapter, I fear America is on a collision course with a violent explosion in racial tension.  I believe the worst is coming.  But that does not have to be all that is coming.

We who bear the name ‘Christian’ can to take this time to show what it means to be ‘in Christ.’  We must do this.  We have to go out of our way to hold up a competing narrative to the one that’s ripping across our nation.  We have to stand in the power of the Gospel and say, “There is another story, one in which people, black and white, Asian and Hispanic, male and female celebrate one another and love each other.”  We have to tell that story as the story of racism rages loudly. 

A part of our proclamation of the Gospel is to weep for Clementa Pinckney, Daniel Simmons Sr., Cynthia Hurd, Sharonda Singleton, Myra Thompson, Tywanza Sanders, DePayne Middleton-Doctor, Susie Jackson, and Ethel Lance.  These people are brothers and sisters – our brothers and sisters in Christ.  When our family dies, it hurts.  When death comes as the church is being the church, we weep loudly and deeply.  That must be part of our statement of faith.

So too we must commit to being the safe space where all can come and find the love of Jesus.  Make room in your hearts for us, Paul said. I am overflowing with joy.  Even now, even through tears, anticipating days of darker violence, we have joy in Christ. 

I have had the experience the pastor at Emmanuel had.  Someone comes asking for the pastor.  The person appears to have some things very wrong in his life.  When the pastor responds to the unsettled individual, there is no telling what will happen.  That is the point where a voice in my head says, ‘this could get very interesting.’ 

I talked for over an hour to a suicidal man who thankfully finally allowed me to escort him into the hospital emergency room.  I have received bomb threat phone calls.  I testified in a court in trial involving gang-violence.  These personal experiences of mine by extension are the experiences of the church. I, no we, have been through these things.

I have read articles about churches being “soft targets.”  That is kind of the point when I say we need to be safe space.  “Safe” means it is emotionally and spiritually safe in the same way Jesus was a welcoming presence to the most sinful of people.  In his day, the religious institution, represented by temple and synagogue, had become corrupt.  Sinners did not find hope in these places but rather condemnation.  The religious powers that be were not safe for people whose lives were a mess.  They would come broken and ben made to feel worse. 

On the other hand, Jesus was safe for people who had major problems.  People who had really failed in their lives could come to Jesus and receive love and hope, not condemnation.  Thus, Jesus’ church must be safe for lost people including those who are hurting, unstable, unbalanced, and maybe even dangerous. 

Emmanuel Church was Jesus to Dylann Roof, a mass murderer.  They extended his grace.  Paul tells the Corinthians, “We appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain.”  The word “vain” can mean empty.  With all the struggles the Corinthians had, Paul feared they would receive the grace but never live graced lives.  They would continue to live as pagans, to listen to competing preachers who put Paul down, and show no signs that they were filled with the Spirit of God.  They would mouth words of belief in the Gospel but it would make no difference in their lives. 

America is about to explode in racial violence.  I pray the welcome Emmanuel Church gave to Dylann Roof was not in vain.  I pray their hospitality does not come up empty.  I pray the story of churches across America is a story of God’s people standing up to hatred and violence with love, compassion, hospitality, and grace. 

At some point, anger will reach a boiling point in some African Americans.  How could it not?  That anger will bubble over into violence.  Some in white America will respond defensively or judgmentally.  Others in white America will try to insulate themselves from the struggle.  This will especially be the case in more affluent communities.  If the violence, the blowback, and the indifference and isolation become the defining narratives and only stories told and heard, we will have failed as people charged with proclaiming the gospel.  The grace of God we have received and Emmanuel Church showed will be in vain.  Grace comes up empty.  The world is fallen. The stories of violence and hate will play out.  They cannot be the only ones. 

We have a better story to tell.  Paul tells the Corinthians, “now is the acceptable time.  Today is the day of salvation” (6:2).  He doesn’t mean today is the day one decided to entrust his life to Jesus, although that is a starting point.  When Paul says in 2 Corinthians 6 that “today is the day,” he means today is the day to live into the salvation we have been given.  How do we do that?

As I discussed these matters with church friends at VBS this past week, one said in response to the Charleston shootings, “I want to do something.”  I understand how she feels. I hope others feel this way.  I suggest reading stories.  Pray until your knees wear out.  Participate in marches and community discussions.  Travel to Charleston and sit in on memorial services.  Go out of your way to develop friendships with people from backgrounds different than your own.  Try to see the world from a perspective that is different that your culture vantage point.  Acknowledge your own prejudices and ask God to help you get those biases out of your life.  Do all these things. 

If you hear this and you don’t have any emotion and you don’t find in yourself any sorrow over what happened, check your heart.  Jesus is weeping at the death of his children.  If we call ourselves Christians, then we weep when He weeps.  We grieve as deeply as He grieves.

Live into salvation.  How?

I want to do something?  What?

We as a community of faith have to tell the alternate story – the grace story.  In the middle of the coming story, we have to be the story of hope.  We do this by opening our doors and ourselves to the lost and hurting people in the world.  Yes, churches are soft targets because broken people need a soft place to land.  Hurting people need to meet Jesus in an atmosphere of love. 

Paul knew the Corinthian Church was full of heartache.  In chapter 6 verses 4-10, he recites all the difficulties he has faced as a servant of Christ.  Yet he said to them, “Our heart is wide open to you” (6:11).  And he begged them, “Make room in your hearts for us” (7:2a).  He risked being wounded again because he hoped he could help the church become the community where people meet Jesus and come to life, a life lived eternally in love and grace.

By being a safe place, a soft target, we risk everything.  Dylann Roof could walk in here.  Or someone without a gun but with a dangerous agenda could attempt to infiltrate our community.  Our commitment to being a people who welcome all leaves us open to such risks.  But we embrace that because God has given us a particular mission.  God calls us to live a story in which people of different backgrounds are brothers and sisters who embrace each other in the love of Jesus.  God calls us to stand in the midst of the violence, throw open our doors, and say to the world, “Come in, you’ll be loved here.  You’ll be valued here.  You have a place here.  In the heart of God, in God’s Kingdom, you have a home.

In coming days, it will become harder for us to tell this story and live this mission.  But we will do it no matter the cost because God enables us as God calls us.  And we will do it with great joy because God’s story is a grace story and a joy story.  The hope for the world is in the telling and living of that story.  Now is the time.

AMEN

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[i] http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/10/us/mckinney-texas-pool-party-video/

Joining the March

Joining the March

            A few weeks ago, women who have suffered the worst heartache imaginable – the death of their children got together in Washington DC (http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/05/09/million-moms-march-demands-end-to-police-brutality-and-racial-injustice/27038289/).  These are African-American women whose sons have been killed by the police.  The trend is terrible and obvious – unarmed young black males are killed by law enforcement when the situation could have been deescalated without injury or loss of life.  This is systemic racism. 

            These moms, wrapped in grief, gathered to lean on each other’s shoulder, to cry and pray together, and to march up Pennsylvania Avenue to the department of justice (http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/million-mom-march-in-dc-draws-hundreds-demanding-police-reforms/2015/05/09/4f5fa952-f501-11e4-bcc4-e8141e5eb0c9_story.html).

            Joining this effort was a first of a kind experience for me.  Part of white privilege is the reality that when you live in the middle class, you have education and a good job, and you have no need to fear how the police will treat you, you can just ignore the systemic racism in America.  You don’t feel it.  So, I have spent time turning a blind eye.  But the increase of violence and the climbing number of unarmed black kids killed by police is something I can no longer avoid.  I never should have in the first place.  I have an adopted son who is black and it horrifies me that I will have to teach him how to act around cops in a way my dad never had to teach me.

            I want my son to know I care.  I thank God that my boy has awakened me to something I should have cared about all along.  I went on May 9, and I marched.  I intend to do more.  And as a pastor, I intend to bring my church along.  But for me, May 9 was to time to add my own feet to the walk and it was a time to observe and learn.  I saw a lot.

            First, I saw what happens when an event is not well organized.  One of my friends who is black and who usually informs me about protest movements did not even know this was happening.  Nor did most of Washington DC know.  If you were not on Pennsylvania Avenue between 4^th and 9^th streets, you would have missed this entirely.  As we walked by the Newseum, I saw far more people on the streets as tourists doing what they might do any Saturday in DC.  That this event was happening and that Michael Brown and Tamir Rice and the rest have died appeared to mean nothing.  People of all races went about their normal lives, mildly inconvenienced by the commotion on Pennsylvania Ave. 

            Second, I looked around the crowd of marchers (a few thousand people, not a million), and I saw a group of people whose lives are in many ways unlike mine.  Obviously I am not a woman, I am not black, I am not the mother of young black men, and my children are all alive.  I lacked shared life experiences with those leading the march. I felt like the outlier in the crowd.  There were people from the Nation of Islam.  I don’t fit that group and they wouldn’t want me.  There was a group of Episcopalian clergy.  I most closely identified with them, but they are DC Episcopalians.  I am a Baptist from North Carolina.  One of the speakers was a woman from the Green Party.

            I have no affiliation with any of these groups.  There were groups holding up banners for the Unitarian Church.  I am neither Unitarian nor Universalist.  There were groups of Lesbians.  I am straight and male.  There were people filtering through the crowd selling Socialist newspapers.  I did not bump into any Southern Evangelicals.

            In a crowd where I was in the extreme minority, I had the opportunity to experience up close how others experience and think about the world.    I did not mind being unlike those around me.  What bothered me is that no one like me cared enough to come.  Where were my peers?  Where are the white, evangelical Christians?  Our cause is Christ and He identifies with the ‘least’ in society.  In the word ‘least’ think least advantaged or least recognized.  The ‘least’ are not lower in value than anyone else, but they have been devalued by those in society who hold power.  Jesus locates himself with those at the bottom of society’s ladder. 

If we evangelicals want to see where God is at work and join Him then we need to go where the hurt is greatest.  Is any hurt greater than losing a child and knowing it is the police who took the child’s life?  This ought to matter to people who do what I do, who live where I live, and whose lives look like mine.  Why did my peers, people like me, completely ignore this event?  That really bothered me and continues to bother me.  Evangelicals want to follow in Jesus’ footsteps, but we stop short if it feels different from what we think we know.  That is not good.

            After my observation about the lack of organization and my observation about how most people did not care about this event, a third observation is about myself.  As the crowd marched along, they shouted over and over “I believe that we will win.”  And they chanted other slogans.  I figured out that I am not a stand-in-the-crowd-and-chant type of guy.  I half-heatedly tried to join the chanting, but I found it weird.  I began analyzing the slogan.  Who is “we?”  And what does it mean to “win?”  I found it noisy and unproductive. 

I allow that I could be way off base.  But I just do not see what it accomplished by walking and chanting.  I don’t want to be a voice in the crowd mindlessly repeating a slogan.  My position on this may be critiqued and I invite that.  Here I am simply sharing an observation about my own make-up as a person.

            I learned and observed other things that Saturday, but here I describe a moment in the walk that I think epitomized this particular problem as it exists in America.  The marchers walked to the department of justice at the corner of Pennsylvania and 9^th and began shouting demands for justice.  I supported this.  It is why I walked.

            Across Pennsylvania Avenue and back toward the Capital there was an outdoor ceremony going on.  There were probably as many people involved with it as there were involved with the march.  I think it was a navy retirement ceremony.  A lot of naval officers were there in their dress uniforms and the chairs in rows were filled.  I stepped out of the march and sat on a wall to take it all in. 

I thought, is this happening?  Over one shoulder, sailors were seated in uniform in orderly fashion to honor someone who had given a life of service.  Across the way, another group of people, a riotous crowd, shouted because young men have lost their lives, killed by people in uniform.  Pennsylvania Avenue is wide enough that the two events could happen simultaneously in view of each other without disrupting either. 

            However, after a while, the marchers decided it was time to head back down Pennsylvania to the starting point, John Marshal Place Park at Pennsylvania and 4^th Street.  As wide as Pennsylvania Avenue is it is not wide enough for marchers to walk down the middle of the street yelling without attracting the attention of those on the sidewalks.  One the walk resumed, the retirement ceremony would be affected.  I rejoined the crowd and walked and saw something I could not believe.

            As we walked by the ceremony, a small, gray-haired white woman ran into the crowd of marchers.  She had on a lanyard.  I believe she was one of the organizers of the retirement ceremony.  She started running up to people in crowd who were shouting through bullhorns.  She was shushing them.  She pointed toward the dais where the ceremony was happening and pleaded with the protestors to be quiet.  I have never seen anything so absurd.  These people were protesting because men in uniform had killed their kids.  She was asking them to stop their protesting and quietly respect men in uniform (albeit different uniforms).  A group of angry marchers being chastised and shushed by a little old lady; you cannot make this up.

            As an aside, I want to at least offer a best guess as to the perspective of this woman.  From her point of view, I believe she (and so many I know who share her mindset) loves America.  How does she show this love?  She weeps when she hears the Star - Spangled Banner.  She respects the flag.   And she honors soldiers and sailors, men and women in the armed forces.  I am sure it was an offense to her that these marchers would interrupt something as solemn as a military ceremony.

            But this is the point of disconnect in our country.  That woman cannot connect at a head or heart level to the moms who sons have died in Baltimore, Ferguson, Milwaukee, Cleveland, and other places.  That navy-loving woman thinks she is America, but this crowd of marchers is an America she does not know.  She is completely out of touch with them and does not want to learn.  She does not think this crowd has anything to offer. 

            For their part, those in the crowd are as a distant from her as she is from them.  She cannot understand their pain.  They don’t understand her love of military (which she would call love of country).  Neither group – protestors or the military retirement ceremony – gets the other group.  And neither comes close to representing the majority.  Who are the majority?  It is the crowds of people walking the streets of DC trying to decide if they should visit the Capital or the Lincoln Memorial or if they have time, both. 

            The majority are the tourists and the DC residents who say, “Oh, a navy retirement ceremony.”  And they shrug their shoulders.  “Oh, a protest of some kind.”  And they shrug their shoulders.  The majority of Americans do not want to get their hands dirty or have their lives inconvenienced in the work of fighting for justice and brotherhood and peace. 

            I hope a prophet will arise.  My prayer is someone will stand up, someone who speaks with the power and authority of Moses, of Paul, of Luther, of King.  A lot of people admire Mother Theresa.  Few join her.  Many speak glowingly of Martin Luther King Jr.  Few recognize that he is gone and we need someone who will champion the cause of the marginalized people in society as effectively as he did. 

            The only person I can imagine who might call the world’s attention to the need for justice (and the need for change) is Pope Francis.  I don’t know if he is the prophet God is raising for our day.  I don’t know if God is raising anyone to speak with such authority that people will hear and listen and heed.  I pray that person will arise.  Humanity needs it. 

            For my part, I will preach to the 115 or so people who come to my church each week.  I will announce the gospel and include themes of justice.  I will name society’s evils and call upon the church to pray.  I will continue to march and invite my church to join me.  And I will pray.  I don’t want there to be any more Michael Browns or Freddie Grays.  I pray America will enter a new season, one of uplift, one in which poverty declines dramatically.  I pray this will come about.  I pray God will show me my part in bringing this about.  

Pain

Pain

            I had a periodontal procedure.  #cringealert!! 

The periodontist scraped flesh off the roof of my mouth and then grafted it onto my receding gums.  I had the same procedure in 2007.  That was long enough ago and it worked well enough that I only remembered the success, not the pain.  This past fall, I had procedure, and it didn’t quite work.  So I had to have it again just a little less than two weeks ago.  Let me tell you, right now, the pain is very present.

            I had visions of using this as a season of spiritual discipline.  I knew what I was getting into and I hoped the throbbing on the roof of my mouth would push me deeper into prayer.  That has happened – a little.  I have prayed more lately.  The throbbing has also pushed me to codeine and ibuprofen and lots of it.  

            Philip Yancey and Paul Brand wrote a great book called The Gift of Pain.  Pain is a messenger.  It tells the body something is wrong.  The thing that hurts the lepers Dr. Brand worked with in India was lack of pain or feeling of any kind.  Numbness in their extremities prevented these poor people from realizing their hand was burning in a fire or being gnawed by a rodent or becoming infected from a wound.  Small injuries festered until digits fell off because of a lack of an alert system – pain!

            Our nation has been awakened by one of our “pain-induced alert systems” – the pain of our citizens of color who have been abused and murdered by the police who are supposed to protect and serve.  Ferguson and the backlash; Staten Island and Eric Garner; Cleveland and Tamir Rice; and now Baltimore and Freddie Gray; each case is an instance of societal pain.  Are we in America nearing some kind of tipping point?

            Do whites in America (people like me) feel this pain?  Middle class whites can pretend that these stories are not relevant to them.  But we are all part of the human race.  If a person’s skin color or income or zip code makes him feel immune to this pain and thus renders him indifferent to the situation, he is like that leper who cannot feel his numb fingers as rabid rats chew on them.  The screams of pain from persecuted communities will eventually bring serious hurt to us all. 

            We need to react to the alerts the pain is sending.  We need to pull our hand away from that which bites or burns it.  We need to see that when unarmed people are targeted and killed just because of their skin color, it hurts us all.  We need to link black arm in white arm.  We need to stand shoulder to shoulder, brother to brother, and sister to sister.  We need confront injustice in tangible ways: law enforcement injustice; educational inequality; lack of economic opportunity.  We need to say a resounding no to it all.

            I know how clichéd this all sounds.  I know how easy it is to sit at my keyboard and type.  I know how hard it is to transfer these true but tired bromides from wishful thinking into real action.  I don’t exactly know how to do it.

            So, I am starting with what someone else is doing.  May 9 is the Million Mom March on Washington (http://www.mothersforjusticeunited.org/p/march3.html).  I know I am not a mom, but I ache for those who have lost their children because their children happened to be African American and caught in the path of the wrong policemen.

            There are thousands of good men and women who are officers of the law.  One of my best friends in the world going back to when I was 13 is a law enforcement officer.  I trust him to be fair and honest, and I hurt for all the honest cops whose names and reputations have been tarnished by the actions of a few of their racist, bullying peers.   So many law enforcement officials are heroes who would put their lives on the line to protect the public – everyone in the public.  But, a few bad apples have inflicted enormous pain on America.

            And it is more than a few bad apples.  The bad apples are able to ruin the bunch because our system in America is set up to advantage one group and hold back another.  The strongholds that perpetuate this evil are systemic. 

Systemic racism is also aided by the lazy, cowardly silence from people like me – middle class whites not interested enough to get involved.  But to ignore the problem is to turn my back on Jesus.  When Jesus Christ died on the cross, he numbered himself with the abused and the disenfranchised of society.  Where was Jesus when death visited Freddy?  And Tamir?  And Eric?  And Michael?  And Trayvon?  With nail holes in his hands, he wrapped his arms around them and continues to wrap his arms around their families and the communities afflicted by our 21^st century manifestation of racism.

            I cannot call myself his follower and then now follow.  He stands with the victim.  So too must I.  On May 9^th, I will march because I feel the pain.  I am part of the body and I feel the creeping of the infection – the infection of violent racism.  I cannot ignore the pain nor I can I turn a deaf hear to the wailing of mothers in mourning, nor can I pretend my Lord has not commanded me to step forth.  I must join in.

I pray you will join me.  If you have plans this Saturday, change them.  Come march, and add your voice to chorus singing for justice, equality, and love.  Come, be part of a new declaration.  Be part of the moment when America declared racism would lose its voice in the 21^st century.  

God Expects Justice

Sunday, January 25, 2015

Isaiah 45:8 (CEV)

⁸ Tell the heavens to send down justice
    like showers of rain.
Prepare the earth for my saving power
to sprout and produce justice
    that I, the Lord, create.^[a]

Isaiah 45:8 (NRSV)

⁸ Shower, O heavens, from above,
    and let the skies rain down righteousness;
let the earth open, that salvation may spring up,^[a]
    and let it cause righteousness to sprout up also;
    I the Lord have created it.

          God created the world, the universe, you, me.  A few atheists have sold a lot of books rejecting the existence of God.  By far most scientists, even those who aren’t at all religious would not claim science does away with God or the idea of creation.  That’s not territory covered by scientific research.  Church goers agree that God created everything.  We may debate the mechanisms by which God created, but we can agree God is the creator.

          Anyone who studies the Bible knows God creates intentionally.  God had a vision in Eden.  The culmination of God’s work came in creating one in his image, the human, the woman and the man. 

          God creates.  God creates with a plan.  God sees humans as His greatest creation and the center of his plan.  We know God as Father, Son, and Spirit, three in one.  The trinity exists in relationship as God is relational.  Human to God, human to creation (nature), human to human, and human to society; we live as God intended when we construct our lives around relationships.  We do our everyday work with relationships in mind.  When we live in humility, peace, and most importantly in love, then things are the way God wants them to be. 

          Look around the world.  Are things the way God wants them to be?  In some cases, yes.  Overall, no.  So what does God do?

According to Isaiah in the exile, God makes it rain. 

“Tell the heavens to send down justice like showers of rain.”

“Shower, O heavens, from above, and let the skies rain down righteousness.”

Prolific writer and preeminent scholar Walter Breuggemann cites Isaiah 40-55 as the foundational word of God that comes out of the exile.[i]  Any people utterly defeated in battle on their homeland and then dragged to slavery 1000’s of miles away would be overwhelmed and disoriented.  In 586 BC Israel was. 

Israel had, prior to the fall at the hands of Babylon, been guilty of systemic idolatry and systemic injustice.  The wealthy few prospered while the most vulnerable of society suffered.  The prophet Amos and the earlier chapters of Isaiah both take up this point. God’s response to his own people’s generational, systemic disregard of his way was to allow Babylon to rise in power and crush Israel.  The prophet interpreted Israel’s pain as coming not from Babylonian cruelty, but from God’s punishing hand.  Babylon was God’s instrument.

The exiles perceived themselves to be defeated and by extension, their God, the God Abraham had been defeated by Babylon’s gods.  No, Isaiah said.  All the horrors are a result of turning from God.  And, now, the punishment is over.  As bad as things look, God is bringing a new day.

This is Isaiah of the exile.  This is the word from the exile on which all other words from that time stand.  Isaiah comes onto a scene of depression, despair and rage, and into that he speaks hope that transforms and praise that recognizes who God is.

          Brueggemann calls Isaiah’s prophetic poetry ‘invitational.’[ii]  Isaiah calls Israel to a new hope, a hope for a new reality.  The Holy Spirit animates Isaiah’s message as we read it.  In Isaiah we are invited to be washed in the rain God sends.  But what is it exactly that falls on us when we are the rain God sends?

          In two English versions of Isaiah 45:8, we see a word in the original language translated in two different ways, once as ‘righteousness’ and once as ‘justice.’  Which is it?  Is this a matter of one translation being correct and the other wrong?

          Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance says this Hebrew word, ‘tsedeq’ means righteousness.  However, The New American Standard Exhaustive Concordance in a more expanded definition says the word can mean ‘righteousness’ or ‘rightness,’ and it belongs to a family of meanings that includes ‘fairly,’ ‘just cause,’ ‘justice,’ and ‘vindication’ in addition to the definitions already noted. 

          Just as the best way to construct our reality is in terms of relationships – to others, to God, to creation, to human society – the best way to take in these Hebrew words and concepts is in how they relate to other concepts and in how they are lived out.  It is not a matter of a precise definition so much as in the idea lived out relationally in the world as God created it and intends it to be.

          I offer a few other Hebrew terms.  First ‘mishpat.’  This term is used three times in Isaiah 42 and is translated ‘justice.’ One commentator describes is as God’s absolute divine right, true religion as lived out in everyday life.[iii]  Next, ‘Hesed,’ which is God’s loving kindness.  Throughout the Old Testament, God is known by ‘hesed.’  It is this loving kindness that drives God to rescue his people from exile even though their sins of inequality and ill-treatment of the poor, widow and orphan are what got them in trouble in the first place.  And finally, ‘shalom.’  This can mean peace but a fuller meaning is life in which all is in harmony and all is well.  This is life that prospers. 

‘Tsedeq,’ ‘mishpat,’ ‘hesed,’ and ‘shalom;’ in the way these terms play off each other in describing God and God’s expectations for human life, we see justice, mercy, love, peace, and hope. 

Please note, whatever this means for our activity, justice does not come because we work for it.  We should.  We should be advocates for justice.  But it originates with God.  God brings justice.  In Isaiah’ terms, God rains justice down.  Also note, in Isaiah’s day, God did this through human agency, not by way of miracles.  The agent of God’s justice was the Persian emperor, Cyrus.  He led the defeat of Babylon and he freed the exiles to return home.

Some Israelite did not appreciate that God would accomplish God’s purposes with a gentile pagan.  God responded, “Woe to you who strive with your maker, earthen vessels with the potter.  … I made the earth and created humankind upon it; I stretched out the heavens, and I commanded all their host.  I have aroused Cyrus in righteousness and I will make all his paths straight” (45:9, 12-13).  How awful!  Will God do this by way of some Persian who doesn’t even pray?

Today, are we ever opposed to works of justice because we don’t like the people at the microphone?  I don’t know how you feel about Al Sharpton.  As the story of unarmed Michael Brown being shot by Officer Wilson unfolded, the dominant theme was the horrific trend of African Americans being killed by police instead of protected by those commissioned to protect and serve.  Add to that the alarming reality that African Americans are far more likely to be arrested for crimes where whites are likely to get off with no prison time for the same crime.  We have injustice – systemic injustice. 

But, I hear many Christians I talk to say they don’t like Al Sharpton.  I don’t know why he’s the voice at the microphone.  I am not hear to defend or criticize him.  But when a white guy gets community service for a crime and a black guy gets 6 months to a year for the same crime and it happens all the time, that’s injustice.  When there is a trend of unarmed young black males getting shot by white policeme, we have a problem.  When one of those killed is the same age as my 12-year-old white son and he was shot doing the kinds of things my boys does, I get scared.  I have a black son who will be 12 soon.  We who follow the God that insists upon human beings living in peaceful and loving relationships with each other cannot bicker about our distaste for the voice at the microphone. 

This is not about Al Sharpton or Bill O’Reilly or whomever.  Nor is it about recent tension in the United States.  That is one of our current signs of rampant worldwide injustice.  Racial inequality is an example but not the only one.  And it is not even about injustice.  This is about God.  God demands justice as a norm among the people He created. 

In describing the concept of justice in the Old Testament, Brueggemann says that it recognizes that “the well-being of the community requires that social goods and power to some extent be given up by those who have too much for the sake of those who have not enough.”[iv]  The very first Christians did this in sharing resources so everyone in the church could flourish (Acts 2:44-45). 

A core New Testament value is generosity.  The book Philemon takes this to an extreme where the Apostle Paul subverts an accepted first century practice, slavery.  He tells the slaveholder, Philemon, ‘Your man, Onesimus, is no longer your man.  He is God’s.  He was a slave, but now, you, he, and I are all in one family, brothers in Christ.’  Paul did not condemn slavery as an institution in and of itself.  He envisioned something grander.  In Paul’s view everything in life is re-imagined in light of Christ.  When we are in Christ, racism, slavery, poverty – these are all unthinkable.  The God who rains down justice and righteousness, peace and harmony has no place for suffering and hunger and inequality.

So, if we say justice is from God, not a result our works, then where is it and what are we to do?  Where was God when Michael Brown was shot, when Eric Garner strangled?  I read this that the richest 10% of the world’s population owns 87% of the world’s wealth.  Maybe that doesn’t bother you.  When I think of the Old Testament concept of distributive justice and when I think of the core value of generosity in the New Testament and when I hear Jesus saying that when we share with the poorest of these his children we are sharing with him, I am deeply troubled by this reality.  A few people are ridiculously rich and seemingly without concern for the billions who struggle with malnutrition, lack of educational opportunities, and inadequate housing.  Where is God?  Where is the God who rains down justice?

And if justice comes from God, what do we do? 

First remember that our understanding of ideas like justice is in terms of relationship.  We are connected to the orphans in Ethiopia, to the immigrants lacking documentation who are expelled from America, to Michael Brown’s mother.  In God’s view, human beings are connected to one another in relationship.  So, our first action is to see how one person’s pain is an injury to God’s creation. 

Second, as we read Isaiah, and imagine his words of hope as words for us, we remember that God is present in the world today in Spirit – the Holy, and in body – the body of Christ which is the church.  So, yes, justice is a work of God, and God does His work through the people who make up his church.  Our prayer life has to be one that moves from silence before to the action of love and compassion given to women and men. 

This becomes specific when a disciple’s life is full of relationships of compassion that are based in volunteer efforts.  We don’t just sponsor an orphan in Ethiopia.  We write letters.  We send pictures.  We pray for the child by name.  As much as we can we enter the child’s life relationally.  We don’t just volunteer to help build a ramp on someone’s home who cannot afford to hire contractors.  When we go, we talk to that person.  We hear her story.  We are blessed by sitting with her.  We don’t just enter protest movements, walk in marches, or sign petitions.  We befriend people whose lives are different than ours.  We enter their stories and take them into ours. 

We think about injustice relationally, and this includes the complete elimination of “us” and “them” language.

We follow God from prayer to action.  In this our action is always based on relationship more than project completion.

Third, we think of justice with an eye toward human flourishing.  A few years ago, the youth group was in Atlanta helping underprivileged inner city kids improve their reading.  Our partnership with the CBF missionaries there helped a multiple levels but one persistent theme is that if these kids master literacy and comprehension, they will be able to succeed in school.  If they succeed in school, they might be able to get good jobs that enable them to shed the label “underprivileged.”  Instead of surviving, these kids, today called “poor,” having learned love and developed academic skill may be able to thrive professionally and relationally.  The justice and compassion works that fill our lives and connect us to people are carried out with an eye toward human flourishing. 

 We won’t bring justice to world, not even as the body of Christ doing the work of God.  When Jesus was present, the world did not change.  But those around him did.  The world continued to sink in sin, but he was present, offering a new hope, just as Isaiah offered a new hope.  Now, we lived between the resurrection and the final day when God will set everything right.  Now, we are the voice that points the world to God.  We who believe in the resurrection God and the glorified future he promises are “unstoppably motivated to work for that new world in the present.”

Justice will always be a dominant theme in the prophet’s words and a defining characteristic of the church.

AMEN

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[i] Brueggemann (1978), The Prophetic Imagination, Fortress Press (Philadelphia), p.70.

[ii] Brueggemann (1997), Cadences of Home: Preaching among Exiles, Westminster John Knox Press (Louisville), p. 46

[iii] K. Keil (1890) in Commontary on the Old Testament in 10 Volumes, translated by James Martin (reprinted 1973), William B. Eerdmans (Grand Rapids), p.175.

[iv] Brueggemann (1997), Theology of the Old Testament, Fortress Press (Minneapolis), p.737.

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[i] Brueggemann (1978), The Prophetic Imagination, Fortress Press (Philadelphia), p.70.

[ii] Brueggemann (1997), Cadences of Home: Preaching among Exiles, Westminster John Knox Press (Louisville), p. 46

[iii] K. Keil (1890) in Commontary on the Old Testament in 10 Volumes, translated by James Martin (reprinted 1973), William B. Eerdmans (Grand Rapids), p.175.

[iv] Brueggemann (1997), Theology of the Old Testament, Fortress Press (Minneapolis), p.737.

A Conversation ... about Humanity

A Conversation … about Humanity

          Ferguson, Missouri; Staten Island; Cleveland; it has happened.  Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice were each killed, black males killed by white police officers.  This is the latest sad chapter in America’s history of problems between races. 

          At HillSong Church, we cannot solve the problem.  No church or pastor can or group or individual can.  To the ears of the world or to those who have been wounded by Christians that fail to act as Christ would, this sounds trite or empty.  But, the only hope is Christ.  The only hope for the tension that rips humanity apart, that leads people to hate each other because they from different backgrounds or different groups, the only hope is Jesus taking over the hearts of women and men.  That is the only hope.

          At HillSong Church what we can do is join our hearts to each other as we pray together.  And we can listen to one another.  On January 21, we will begin a 4-week conversation about race using new Cooperative Baptist Fellowship curriculum written by a diverse group of scholars, thinkers, and pastors.  These conversations will take place on Wednesday nights, 6:30-7:45.

          Please join us and bring a friend.  Bring someone who will bless our conversation.  Bring someone who will be blessed by our conversation.  And bring your own desire to see people live as brothers and sisters in Christ.  I have been telling people this is a conversation about race, but really, it is a conversation about humanity.  We are those made in the image of God commissioned to be His image bearers in this world He has created.  Be a part of this conversation and help us figure out to live well as brothers and sisters who are responsible to love and care for one another.