We Real Incomplete: Interrogating the Lack of Queer Voices in Black Masculinity
Book Review on “We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity” by bell hooks
Ever since my formative days in undergrad, I have long been enamored by the clout associated with the name bell hooks, particularly in my Political Science classes which sought to reframe the political dialogue of African Americans to include voices present within the Black Liberation, Feminist, and Womanist movements. We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity has long been on my list of books to read. The title in conjunction with my limited knowledge of bell hooks promised to render a fresh assessment of the state of black manhood and ways in which black men can move from woundedness to wholeness.
hooks offers ten chapters that systematically expose the ways in which “imperialist white-supremacist capitalist patriarchal culture” have attacked the life possibilities of black men and boys and prevented from being able to construct more holistic and healthy expressions of black masculinity. Specifically, in this treatise, hooks discusses the ways in which current notions of black masculinity affect the way black men relate to each other (often through a “gangsta culture” that requires violence to assert control), to black women (too often in violent and abusive relationships out of a fear of a loss of status), in sexual relationships (where hooks describes the ways in which black men have internalized the sexualization placed upon during slavery and associate sexual dominance as a sign of masculinity), to their families (who are often the recipients of the lack of emotional connection and aloofness commonly associated with popular notion of manhood), and to the larger society (often internalizing the own hate placed upon them by society.
In the end, hooks seeks to offer ways through which black men can move from woundedness to wholeness through a commitment to “being real.” hooks frames being real as a complete reframing of notions of manhood the commonly associated such as a lack of emotion, disproportionate relationality between one’s body-self and mind where the body is valued more than the mind, and a lack of desire to be a nurturing parental figure along with other “suspect” behaviors. She issues a challenge for black men to reimagine was of expressing black masculinity in broad terms that allow black men and boys to be themselves within a culture that currently attempts to stamp out the nuances of “self” in favor of a homogenous and stifling definition of black manhood. She advises that black men externally process and speak to their hurts, broken dreams, and the “intense loneliness” in order to facilitate the first steps of “being real” and moving towards healing.
While I can applaud hooks’ desire to speak to a broad spectrum of black masculinity, I am appalled at the way she engages the queer community. Throughout much of this book, the queer community is non-existent. The few times that she mentioned queer men, it seems to be in her references to “suspect” behavior found in black boys and in the few black queer scholars that she uses to buttress her own argument. The culmination of her superficial engagement of the black queer voice occurs when she quotes James Beam, author of In the Life, an anthology of black queer men. Beam writes
I dare myself to dream… I dare myself to dream of a time when I will pass a group of brothers on the corner, and the words “fucking faggot” will not move the air around my ears, and when my gay brother approaches me on the street we can embrace if we choose.
There does not seem to be an intentional engagement of the queer voice within black masculinity which ostensibly reifies the notion that somehow black queer men are not really men at all. Although hooks claims to speak from a liberated black feminist point of view, her refusal to engage the queer black male voice only speaks to her collusion with current heterosexist and heteronormative hegemony.
While this book offers a critique of “imperialist white-supremacist capitalist patriarchal culture” and strategies for black men and boys to overcome the nihilistic threat this culture produces, the lack of black queer male voices leaves this book incomplete not only in its scope of black masculinity, but also in its strategic engagement of “soul murdering” culture. The reader should engage this book knowing that this is an incomplete analysis of black masculine culture and reflect on ways to broaden this discussion to include more voices and experiences. She ends this book discussing the Egyptian myth of Isis reassembling the dismembered body of her brother/lover Osiris in order to facilitate his resurrection and posits that this is the way in which black man and boys and those who love them should engage in the task of reassembling black masculinity; however, by negating to include the voices of black queer men, the body of black masculinity can never be fully reassembled.
The Strange Fruit of Christianity and the Nuances of Inclusive Discourse
Book Review of Kelly Brown Douglas’s What’s Faith Got to Do with It?: Black Bodies/Christian Souls
I have long been a fan of Kelly Brown Douglas ever since my introduction to her while reading her seminal treatise against the hegemonic discourse in the Heterosexist Black Christian tradition entitled, Sexuality and the Black Church: A Womanist Perspective. After reading this first academic work, I noted to a professor that “this book has freed me. I feel more confidence in my ability and commitment to being fully and intentionally myself.” With this in mind, I was excited when I walked into the bookstore and found a new book with her name on it. This book, entitled, What’s Faith Got to Do with It?: Black Bodies/Christian Souls was written as Douglas sought to wrestle with the question presented by one of her students, “How can you, a black [sic] woman, possibly be Christian… when Christianity as often contributes to your oppression as a black [sic] and as a female.”[1]
As she engages this question, Douglas does so by broadening the discourse beyond simply gender and racial terms and is intentional about being inclusive of sexuate realities within this dialog. Per her characteristic, methodical nature, Douglas systematically and meticulously builds her case about the realities of a platonic Christian tradition that seems to be an affront to authentic Christian religious expression and she indicts this tradition as a main culprit for the ways in which the Christian faith colludes with hegemonic power and resulted in the historic oppression of bodies, particularly Black bodies. Specifically, Douglas illumines the ways in which the American Christian tradition ostensibly condoned, if not actively participated in the lynching of Black bodies. According to Douglas, this is done because of the flesh versus spiritual dualism that is present within the platonic Christian faith tradition (as expressed in the Pauline epistles) that offers sacred canopy for the attacks on the bodies of a sexualized people.
As she begins to conclude her argument, Douglas does so offering solutions that she proposes will help reframe the flesh/spirit paradox and help the Black Christian faith tradition speak about their faith in more inclusive, egalitarian, and communal terms. The problem arises as Kelly Brown Douglas seeks to discuss Black(ness) in more inclusive, liberative terms. As a student of James Cone, Douglas struggles to discuss Blackness as something other than a racialized reality. Douglas does attempt to discuss the notion of ontological Blackness, that is, Blackness that is a state of being opposed to the hegemonic and oppressive forces of whiteness; however, her fluidity between these definitions exposes a lingering truth about the liberative theological discourse – the difficulty of engaging in liberative theological discourse that is inclusive while still maintaining the images, language, and concepts that are important to maintaining and affirming the agency of selfhood an oppressed community. Furthermore, as currently constructed, Blackness is framed in opposition to whiteness, which still utilizes racialized \
gtlanguage to discuss the complexities of oppression. This relationship precludes the other manifestation of oppression and serves to limit our discussion of oppression to chiefly, if not solely, racial terms. Douglas herself says, “It is important to move beyond the boundaries of race and gender to confront the issues that involve the life, dignity, and freedom of black [sic] women and men in particular and other humans in general.”[2] Despite her willingness to do so, she unwittingly found herself mired in problematic language that has the possibility of reifying the oppressive, hegemonic delineations that we seek to overcome.
Future and current theologians must then grapple with the task of framing liberative discourse in ways that both affirm the lived experiences and historical realities of persons and communities while offering an inclusive framework and language. How can God be exclusively Black in a world where oppression is being framed along gender, sex, socio-economic, and sexuate terms. Are we to reframe Black(ness) as the sum total of all oppression, and if so what does this say to all the other ways in which persons are oppressed? What other language becomes possible in addressing the overarching principles and precepts of oppression while still acknowledging the particular nuances of oppression situated within specific contexts? One should read Douglas’s What’s Faith Got to Do with It? with these questions in mind, and take seriously Douglas’s challenge to “move beyond the boundaries of race and gender.” One should also read this treatise mindful that this seeks not to be a final volume in the ever-increasing liberative anthology; rather, this work simply seeks to add more questions in order to help move the dialogue forward.
[1] Kelly Brown Douglas. What’s Faith Got to Do with It?: Black Bodies/Christian Souls (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2005), xi.
[2] Ibid., 210.
Go! Tell It!
19 When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.”
20 After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.
21 Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”
22 When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”
John 20:19-22
Fear is a powerful weapon. Not all fear is bad or detrimental to the human existence. Appropriate and managed fear is necessary for survival. In his sermon “Antidotes for Fear,” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. asserts, “If man were to lose his capacity to fear, he would be deprived of his capacity to grow, invent, and create. So in a sense fear is normal, necessary, and creative.”[1] However, unchecked fear can cause noble and valiant women and men to shrink to the smallest form of themselves, away from their innate greatness towards a more acceptable, more palatable, self. Fear can stifle the voices of the oppressed and erode the zeal of the most zealous women and men. Fear, if left unchecked, can cause a people to settle for the crumbs that fall from the masters table, instead of dismantling the table and demanding equality, freedom, and liberation. Fear is a power weapon.
Crucifixion was just this – an instrument of fear. The Romans would crucify criminals along busy roads, near busy cities, always in the view of the populace in order to insure their loyalty, or at least their obedience and compliance. The crucifixion of Jesus was no different. It was a signal to any other would-be revolutionaries – Caesar is in charge. It’s amazing that as much as things change, they stay the same because it was with this same motivation that White Americans undertook the diabolical task of lynching Black men and women. The very word lynch or the presumption that a lynch mob was coming was enough to keep the population of newly emancipated Blacks subservient and oppressed. Fear is a powerful weapon.
It is here that we meet the disciples. Even after Simon Peter and the other disciple had come back and reported that Jesus’ had risen, they were still locked in the room, the Bible says, for “fear of the Jews.” Even after Mary of Magdala had come back to the place where the disciples were and reported on the miraculous sight that she had seen, the disciples still remained locked in the room, the Bible says, for “fear of the Jews.” Surely the image of a lynched Jesus was still seared on the retina’s of their collective and individual consciousness. Even after experiencing Easter, the disciples were still stuck on the horror of Good Friday and the silence of Holy Saturday. Even after experiencing Jesus changed, that is resurrected, the disciples still refused to spread the Gospel for “fear of the Jews.”
Three years ago, many of us began this seminary journey holding on a miniscule theology, a myopic cosmology, and a crippling Christology. The process of seminary systematically, and sometimes not so systematically, stripped many of us of these toxic theologies and gave us the tools to begin building a sustaining faith, a more unified community, and a more whole self. I have spoken with many members of the senior class who can testify that Jesus has been transformed for them. Personally, I have been invited into a deeper, more authentic relationship with the Son of God who invites all of me into a relationship with God. We have experienced the liberative and transformative Gospel of God at work in our lives and the lives around us. Why then are we locked in the room? Why are we not out sharing this liberating Gospel? Why are we only reifying the current cycles of oppression within our churches?
The Disciples had witnessed Jesus’ actions for three long years. As they sojourned throughout the Judean countryside healing the sick, raising the dead, challenging popular religio-cultural ideologies of the day, feeding multitudes, and proclaiming the coming of the Reign of God. Yes, they had seen Jesus in action. They had seen his great deeds. They had seen his miracles. Yet, with all that they had experienced, their fear of “the Jews” kept them locked in a room, paralyzed by fear, silent and powerless.
Let’s be clear: The Resurrection of Jesus Christ was a radical divine response to the evils of Jesus’ day. The Resurrection of Jesus Christ was God’s response to Temple system. In his “getting up,” Jesus signified where the real temple was and destroyed the myopic theologies of the Sadducees. The Resurrection of Jesus Christ was God’s response to Empire. His resurrection ultimately sent a message to the ruling authorities that the Reign of God supersedes any earthy dominion any day of the week. The Resurrection of Jesus Christ was also God’s response to society. In his glorious resurrection, Jesus Christ showed that the “arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” The lynch mob was not going to have the final say. This collective Gospel of Christ’s life and ministry, death and resurrection, is the Gospel. This Gospel challenged every eschalon of society on a whole new level, scattering the pride in their conceit, casting down the mighty from their thrones, lifting up the lowly, filling the poor with good things, and sending the rich away empty. This is the Gospel the Disciples were to go out and tell, but they stayed, shut up in their room “for fear of the Jews.”
Through this journey, many of us have experienced the challenges of this Gospel. We have experienced a Gospel that nullifies the oppressive ideology that says, “suffer not a woman to preach.” We have experienced a Gospel that abolishes the notion that our Lesbian/Gay/Bi-Sexual/Transgendered brothers and sisters are not fit to proclaim the Gospel in our churches. We have experienced a Gospel that affirms our African identity, that decries the notion that Blackness is a blighted condition and insists that we are Children of God. We have experienced a Gospel that refutes the Prosperity Gospel that does not collude with American capitalism and materialism but declares, “Μαχαριοι οι πτωχοι τω πνευματι, Highly honored or highly esteemed are those who are poor in spirit!” We have experienced a Gospel that calls us out of darkness into light, out of bondage into freedom, out of self into community. We have experienced a Gospel that destroys our little shelters, lowers our little walls; destroys our little altars, and crucifies our little gods and calls into a more inclusive, liberative, and transformative way of being in the world.
How many of us have sung the words of the great Gospel anthem, “We are not ashamed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, for it is God’s power of salvation, to everyone that believes it, to everyone that receives it, he/she shall have everlasting life.” We sing it, but if we really believed in the power of this Gospel, fear would not keep us shut up in a room even after experiencing our radical transformations as a result of our contact with this Gospel.
Fear of what? We don’t preach this Gospel for fear of Bishops and ordination committees. Fear of what? We don’t preach this Gospel for fear of moderators and overseers. Fear of what? We don’t preach this Gospel for fear of not receiving an appointment or a call. Fear of what? We don’t preach this Gospel for fear of being stuck out on a limb by ourselves. Fear of what? We don’t preach this Gospel for fear of being called “too extreme” when at its core the Gospel is an extreme reorganization of the status quo. Fear is a powerful weapon!
Aware of the trepidation of his disciples, the newly resurrected Jesus visits them on Easter Evening and says, “ειρηνη υμιν – peace be with you.” Can you imagine the scene? The disciples are huddled in a small room. The windows are shut and the door is locked. There is little, if any light in the room and grief, fear, and panic cast an overwhelmingly depressing tone throughout the space. Suddenly, the risen Lord appears in this space and speaks “peace.” Isn’t this just like the savior to come into our lives when we least expect him and speak a word of encouragement? Isn’t this just like the Master to break into our gloomy places and bring light? Isn’t this just like the Lord to enter into through our fear and speak peace? If you walk this pilgrim’s path long enough you will find that even the most secure among us needs the Savior to come in and encourage us. If you walk this lonesome valley long enough you will find that every now and then faith begins to falter and courage runs in short supply. Knowing this, Jesus breaks into the room and says, “ειρηνη υμιν – peace be with you!”
After the disciples rejoiced in seeing the Lord, Jesus again repeats, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” Now before we rejoiced prematurely, let us realize what Jesus is saying to them and ultimately to us. This Jesus was sent by God into a world that reviled him, rebuked him, refused him, and ultimately crucified him. The ministry that Jesus was called to do would make him a political revolutionary, a religious heretic, and a cultural derision. It is with this in mind that Jesus says, “As my Father has sent me, so I send you.”
This same commission is what Jesus gives us today. Dr. Lisa Allen says it like this, “The road of ministry ultimately and intentionally leads us to Calvary.” The hymn writer declares,
King of my life I crown thee now,
Thine shall the glory be;
Lest I forget thy thorn crowned brow
Lead me to Calvary.
Lest I forget Gethsemane,
Lest I forget thine agony,
Lest I forget thy love for me,
Lead me to Calvary.
When we refuse to suffer for righteousness and choose to follow the path of comfort rather than conviction, we hear Jesus say, “Μαχαριοι – Highly honored/Highly esteemed are they which are persecuted for Righteousness sake: for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.” This is the journey to which we have been called. Not the cars, cash, and commodities of this world. Not our fancy churches or big budgets. But to real, transformative, liberative ministry! Ministry that brings good news to the poor, proclaims release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, and lets the oppressed go free! Ministry that proclaims the year of the Lord’s favor! Ministry that tells our sisters and brothers living with HIV/AIDS that we love them unconditionally and that we will work together to find a cure. Ministry that welcomes persons who may be homeless into our churches as full members. Ministry that uncovers the Imago Dei, the image of God, in each and every person. Ministry that challenges our government to respect the dignity of every human being regardless of race, class, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, or creed. King says,
Christianity has always insisted that the cross we bear precedes the crown that we wear. To be Christian, one must take up his cross, with all of its difficulties and agonizing and tragedy-packed content, and carry it until that very cross leaves its marks upon us and redeems us to that more excellent way that comes only through suffering.[2]
So what’s the Good News? The Good News is two-fold. First, the same God who was there on Good Friday, also raised Jesus up on Easter. Death is not the end; therefore the threat of death is not an excuse. Second, the Good News is that we are not alone. After Jesus commissioned the disciples, the Gospel writer declares that he “breached on them and said them, ‘receive the Holy Spirit.’” This was not simply an emotional, religious event – this was empowerment. Jesus empowered the disciples to do this magnanimous work. So, too, are we empowered. Through our encounter with God in this place, we are being empowered to go out and do the work that we have been called to do.
So preacher, preach the word! Pastor, embody the word! Christian Educator, teach the word! Sister, share the word! Brother, speak the word! Go! Tell it until our communities are restored and our people are revived! Go! Tell it until every valley is lifted and every mountain is made low! Go! Tell it until the lion lies down with the lamb! Go! Tell it until we beat our swords and plowshares and study war no more! Go! Tell it until we realize that the violent death of even ONE child of God, whether it be our brother or sister being shot down on the corner or Osama bin Laden himself, is one too many! Go! Tell it until the cross ceases to be an ensign of war and becomes a symbol for peace! Go! Tell it until “Justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.” Go! Tell it knowing that because God is greatest power, we cannot be defeated!
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Senior Chapel – ITC
Strength to Love: Forgiveness, Justice, and the Death of Osama bin Laden
May 1 will be yet another day that will make an indelible imprint in minds of our generation – the day that the death of Osama bin Laden was announced to a world who had been terrorized by his image, his words, and his call to incite warfare based on skewed religious concepts and a myopic understanding of the family of humanity. I can still remember where I was when this news of the horrific September 11th attacks broke across the television – 10th Grade English class. Let me be clear, I believe Osama bin Laden was responsible for the death of thousands of Americans as a result of the horrific September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the downed aircraft in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. I am clear about the fact that prior to this, Al Qaeda operatives had involved themselves in a war on America which played out in several other terrorist attacks and attempted terrorist plots throughout the world. Let me be clear, I am not making a claim of that Bin Laden be acquitted of these horrific crimes against humanity. With all of this in mind, upon receiving the news of Bin Laden’s demise, a generation took the streets and celebrated, chanting “God Bless America,” singing the “Star Spangled Banner,” hugging, crying, and cheering.
I must admit that this whole image seemed a bit eerie to me. A hodgepodge of Americans descending upon the White House gates in the middle of the night to celebrate. As the news reporters interviewed the celebrators, some made comments such as “I hope he [Bin Laden] rots in hell,” and “now that he’s [Bin Laden's] finally dead, it feels good.” The former President of the United States, George W. Bush said,
This momentous achievement marks a victory for America, for people who seek peace around the world, and for all those who lost loved ones on September 11, 2001. The fight against terror goes on, but tonight America has sent an unmistakable message: No matter how long it takes, justice will be done.
In his prepared remarks, President Barack Obama echoed this same claim that “justice” had be done to Osama bin Laden. As the rest of my American countrymen celebrated, I began to reflect. Almost immediately I reflected on the sermons that I read from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in his book Strength to Love. I began to reflect on this whole idea of retributive justice and Jesus’ call to radical forgiveness. I began to reflect on the non-violent Civil Rights movement led by King. I began to reflect on the state of the world and my place in it.
In Matthew 5:43, Jesus says, “You have heard that is was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” In his sermon “Loving Your Enemies,” King asserts
I am certain that Jesus understood the difficulty inherent in the act of loving one’s enemy. He never joined the ranks of those who talk glibly about the easiness of moral life. He realized that every genuine expression of love grows our of a consistent and total surrender to God. So when Jesus said, “Love your enemy,” he was not unmindful to its stringent qualities. Yet he meant every word of it. [1]
As one who is intentional about following the ways of Jesus Christ, I take this command very seriously, the command to love those who don’t love me. By placing these words into their cultural, historical, and social context, we can gain a better understanding of the radicality of this statement. Jesus, a first-century, poor, Jewish male living in Roman-occupied Palestine would have seen and experienced first-hand the brutality, not only of Rome, but of those facets of Jewish society that had allied themselves with empire. As Rome bled the provinces the feed the aristocracy and ruled the fringes of the empire with an iron fist, the space had been created for violent, revolutionary fervor to spring up. Instead of colluding with this cause, Jesus chose a different path – one of radical forgiveness. Jesus called his followers to forgive those who were starving them, abusing them, exploiting them, disrespecting them, and in many cases killing them.
Before I go on to elucidate my claim regarding the fallacy of retributive justice and the need to pursue forgiveness, let me first state that the actions of the United States of America have created the same environments throughout the world that I briefly explicated above. The American consumption machine has siphoned resources from the rest of the world to fill out SUVs, grant us the rich variety of food we believe we are entitled to, and provide us with an endless supply of “disposable” material goods that we feel we “need.” The American political machine has sought to impose American ideals upon a world that is struggling to maintain its own autonomy and rich diversity. The American religious heritage has sought to polemicize any religious tradition that is not Protestant, White, Middle-class, and Evangelical and has exported this myopic theological tradition into many cultures which has resulted in the destruction of ways-of-being for many peoples. With these and more, America has waged war on the world, a war that created the climate for the rise of an “Osama Bin Laden.”
Earlier I mentioned the fear and hatred that the name “Osama Bin Laden” connoted. We have been made aware of his disdain for Americans. We are all aware of his role in the September 11th terrorist attacks. We are all aware of his role in other terrorist attacks; however, this does not comprise the totality of who Osama Bin Laden was. King claims, “We must realize that the evil deed of the enemy-neighbor, the thing that hurts, never quite expresses all that he is. An element of goodness may be found even in our worst enemies.” [2] As Americans, and to some degree the rest of the world, we attached so much “evil” to Osama Bin Laden that, to us, he ceased to be human. Instead, he became the latest of an incarnation of evil that needed to be eradicated.
In her book, What’s Faith Got to Do with It?: Black Bodies/Christian Souls,
Kelly Brown Douglas highlights the effects of the dehumanizing persons. She claims, “Christianity’s classical atonement tradition makes Christians at least open to the notion that humans can serve as ‘sacrificial mediators’ between God and humanity – either as a way of exorcising evil from a particular community or as a way of pleasing God.” [3] With America’s “platonized-Christian center” (a collusion between early Christian theology and Platonic philosophical ideology) it is not far-fetched to believe that Americans could openly celebrate a death with religious impunity, especially if the death was believed to “exorcise evil” from the community or “please God.”
It’s ironic, then, that Douglas claims that this notion is one of the underlying ideologies the motivated White Americans to undertake the diabolical task of lynching Black men and women. As American’s celebrated the death of Osama, I reflected on the White Americans who celebrated the death of Black men and women who were believed to be threats to their community. As American’s chanted “God Bless America” upon hearing the news of Bin Laden’s death, I couldn’t help but reflect upon those White Americans who would leave their churches, go out and lynch Black people, and then go back inside as if God not only condoned, but celebrated these ghastly events.
Let me make one thing clear. The vast majority of Black men and women who were lynched were innocent of whatever crime they were “convicted” of. Even those who were “guilty” of looking at a White woman, “talking back” to a White man, or posing any threat to White power didn’t deserve the death called for by the retributive justice of their day. On the contrary, I believe Osama was indeed guilty of orchestrating terror plots throughout the world which resulted in the death of thousands; however, does his guilt make him less human and less worthy of forgiveness? At what point does one no longer become worthy of forgiveness?
I understand the lofty, almost elusive, quality of this question. Osama was imaged as the total, unrepentant, incorrigible, Anti-American and, with the collusion between Americanity (American civil religion) and Christianity, Anti-Christ; however, in the words of Dr. King, Bin Laden’s “terrorist” image does not comprise the totality of who he was. Let us not forget, even the most incorrigible criminals are Children of God and thus our brothers and sisters.
We have many modern examples of humanity’s attempt to live up to Christ’s mandate of radical forgiveness. One of the greatest examples of intentional and radical forgiveness took place in South Africa after the dismantling of the Apartheid system. Under the leadership of Archbishop Demond Tutu, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission took on the noble task of reconciling the White, Colored, and Black sects of South African society into a more cohesive, united, and communal society. In her book, Country of My Skull: Guilt, Sorrow, and the Limits of Forgiveness in the New South Africa, news reporter Antjie Krog recounts the testimonies of those who were both victims and perpetrators of the Apartheid regime. In one testimony, Krog recounts the words of Thomzama Maliti who was recalling the brutal, burning death of Nombulelo Delato. Maliti says,
The word “reconciliation”… is my daily bread. Compromise, accommodate, provide, make space for. Understand. Tolerate. Emphathize. Endure… Without it, no relationship, no work, no progress, is possible. Yes. Piece by piece we die into reconciliation. [4]
Despite the hurt, pain, and disillusionment caused by centuries of brutal mistreatment on the part of Europeans, Archbishop Tutu and his Truth and Reconciliation Commission sought to create space for the building of the human family through forgiveness and reconciliation. This was a difficult task, to be sure; however, it is a task that was necessary to create a society in which “the lion can lay down with the lamb.”
Having said this, I will end by elucidating why I did not celebrate the death of Osama Bin Laden; rather, I took the time to reflect and pray. I did not celebrate because I am believer the all life is a sacred gift from God. I did not celebrate because a community that believes that death is the only way to bring closure, is a community that will eventually implode on itself. I did not celebrate because retributive justice posits a way of being that would leave the whole world “blind and toothless.” I did not celebrate because Jesus Christ invites me to participate in radical forgiveness, forgiveness that necessitates reconciliation and when reconciliation is not possible, I mourn the break in human relationship and respond by reflecting. I did not celebrate because I am fully aware that America’s idea of justice is still being reframed and restructured in an increasingly pluralistic and diverse culture. I did not celebrate because Osama Bin Laden was my brother and I am called to be my “brother’s keeper.”
I will conclude this reflection with words from Dr. King’s sermon entitled, “A Good Neighbor.” King states,
Too seldom do we see people in their true humanness. A spiritual myopia limits our vision to external accidents. We see men as Jews or Gentiles, Catholics or Protestants, Chinese or American, Negroes or whites. We fail to think of them as fellow human beings made form the same basic stuff as we, molded in the same divine image. [5]
The Word of Marcus for the People of God…
[1] Martin Luther King, Jr. Strength to Love (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1963), 44.
[2] Ibid., 45.
[3] Kelly Brown Douglas. What’s Faith God to Do with It?: Black Bodies/Christian Souls (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2005), 60.
[4] Antjie Krog. Country of My Skull: Guilt, Sorrow, and the Limits of Forgiveness in the New South Africa (New York: Three Rivers Press, 1998), 50.
[5] King. Strength to Love, 24.
It’s Just a Season
I will not be daunted by an interval.
These eight words have been all I’ve had to hold on to for the past few days. I have found that I am in a very weird, pensive space. Disappointment after disappointment, frustration after frustration have amassed themselves all around me. There have been many times that I feel that giving up would be a lot easier than going on. To some it may sound like a lack of faith, but it’s more of a lack of support – from community and even from God. There were times when gratefulness gave way to anger, joy gave way to sorrow, and contentment gave way to frustration. I felt like Smokie Norful’s words,
Sometimes I feel like giving up, It seems like my best just ain’t good enough. Lord if you hear me, I’m calling you. Do you see, do you care all about what I’m going through?
I was at my breaking point. Either God had to speak or I was going to walk out. Then I remembered that I am not the only person to every be frustrated and angry with God. So when I picked up Howard Thurman’s The Inward Journey and opened it up, the title “Not Daunted by an Interval” immediately spoke to me. As I read, I reflected on my life and about the journey that I had been through up until this point. I thought about how I had grown increasingly frustrated and angry and recent weeks. I thought about how at the time when I needed my friends the most, most of them were too busy to check on me, sit with me, and just be present with me.
Then the words from my first sermon that I preached in seminary flooded back to me – “This is not the end of my story.” I may be angry and frustrated right now, but this is not the end of my story. I may feel isolated and alone right now, but this is not the end of my story. This is not the end of my story because scripture tells me that the same God that brought Jesus to Good Friday also “got him up” on Easter morning.
The power that enables a person to resist the terrible necessity for scaling down his faith, his hopes, his dreams, his commitment, to the level of the event which is his immediate experience – this is finally the meaning of the triumph of life over death, of strength over weakness, of joy over sorrow, of love over hate. This is the power of the Resurrection, which is rooted in the life of Go, available to all men in every age, in every faith, everywhere. [1]
Don’t allow your present circumstances to cause you to give up on your God-sized, God-given dreams. Remember that what ever your story sounds like right now, it is still being written. This is just a season! Keep dreaming! Keep running! Keep believing! Keep trusting!
The Word of Marcus…
[1] Howard Thurman. The Inward Journey (Richmond, IN: Friends United Press, 1971), 71.
Surrendering the Controls
I read an interesting quote today that I had somehow overlooked from years ago. In Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil that I had originally read while traveling up to New Jersey a few summer ago, Du Bois makes a powerful statement. After reflecting on recent challenges in his life, he says,
I was ready to admit that the best of men might fail. I meant still to be the captain of my soul, but I realized that even captains are not omnipotent in unchartered and angry seas. [1]
This statement, first penned in the early 20th century rung especially true to me. It’s not hard to admit that I enjoy being in control. I’m one of those “If you want something done right, do it yourself” kind of people. This manifests in personal and vocational relationships, academic endeavors, extracurricular activities, and other areas of my life. The problem comes in when this DIY mindset infiltrates my spiritual life. I am tempted to believe that I can control God and I have the audacity to believe that I am in ultimate control of my life; however, every now and then life will throw something at me almost as a reminder that ultimately I am not in control.
After finally getting the opportunity to go on a hospital visit as a part of my Clinical Pastoral Education, my proclivity to control went into overdrive. On the way over to the hospital I scripted out the whole conversation. ”I’ll start by saying this…” then “I’ll pause here…” then “we won’t say anything here, it’ll be the ministry of presence.” With this script in my Pastoral Care toolbox, I sauntered confidently into Grady Memorial Hospital and arrived at the correct room. I walked in the room and said “Hi Nate, my name is Marcus Halley from the Church of the Common Ground. Pastor Mary sent me down here to talk to you.” The patient and I struck up a wonderful conversation. The surprise came a few moments later when I found out that I had been talking to the wrong person. He wasn’t Nate. Nate was behind the curtain. I was embarrassed to say the least; however, even in all of my embarrassment the Holy Spirit was still speaking, “Remember, you can’t control everything.”
I am reminded of a statement from Howard Thurman’s The Creative Encounter. Thurman writes, “The surrender of the self at its center gives to the life a new basis for action. It provides an integrated basis for action. Here at last the individual has a core of purpose for his life and for his living.” [2] Learning that we we don’t have ultimate control of our lives, that somehow we are a part of something grander, is both humbling and comforting. Humbling in that we realize that every now and then we must take our hands off the controls and allow God to do the driving. Comforting in that we realize that God has a far better vision of where we are going.
The Word of Marcus…
[1] W.E.B. DuBois. Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil (New York: Schocken Books, 1969), 20.
[2] Howard Thurman. The Creative Encounter (Richmond, IN: Friends United Press, 1972), 72-73.
John the Baptist: From Doubt to Remembrance…
John the Baptist plays an integral, if often downplayed and nebulous, role in the development of Jesus Christ. This abrasive, offensive, quick-witted, zealous, and magnanimous character called John has intrigued me as of late, particularly in the role that he has played both before the arrival of Jesus Christ (Advent) and his direct role in the development of Jesus as “The Christ.” Now one can recount the high points and recall the high points of John’s life such as his miraculous annunciation by Gabriel to his father Zechariah as he was offering incense in the temple or the massive length and breadth of this ministry that bespoke of the dawning of a new consciousness – the manifestation of the Kingdom of God. These are all well and good, but in a recent Bible study that I facilitated, one of the themes that kept resurfacing around John the Baptist was his humanness. Sure, the annunciation of the birth of John the Baptist was as supernatural and numinous as they come, rivaling that of Sarah and Abraham’s son Isaac or Elkanah and Hannah’s son Samuel. We can even highlight his call for the people to “repent, and believe the good news… the Kingdom of God has come near…” [1] However, even for all these shining moments, periodically we would be reminded of the humanness implicit to John’s story.
Zechariah, John’s father, was a priest in the temple of the Lord. He served faithfully in this position until one when Gabriel came and told him that he and his wife Elizabeth would bare a son despite the fact that both he Elizabeth was older in age and she had been barren. Instead of responding with superhuman faith, Zechariah responds from within the finitude of his humanity; he responds with doubt. After John the Baptist is born, goes out into the world preaching repentance and baptism for the forgiveness of sins and finds himself in jail after proclaiming the coming of and baptizing Jesus, he responds to Jesus out of the finitude of his humanity; he responds with doubt. After proclaiming the coming of God’s Kingdom and all but hinting to the people that Jesus was the one to bring this Kingdom into fruition, John looks up from his jail cell and realizes that the dramatic imposition of God into history that he had predicted and hoped for had not come. Rome was still in power. The people were still oppressed. The Kingdom of God was not as near as he had thought. Or was it? From his prison cell, John the Baptist sends his disciples to ask Jesus, “are you the one or who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” Instead of responding to the miracles that Jesus was performing with adoration and confidence, John responded humanly – with timidness, skepticism, and doubt.
John’s response bespeaks of a larger response from humanity as a whole. Despite the fact that throughout history God has revealed God’s divine self through signs and wonders, prophets and sages, great men and women of God, the finitude of our human consciousness beckons us to doubt and to forget. The relentless rhythm of life can sometimes cloud the eyes of hearts and close the ears of our souls to the ways in which God is active, dynamic, and moving in the world. We hear stories about how God “moved” and what God “did” but forget that the same God that “moved” and “did” is still “moving” and “doing” and will continue to “move” and “do.” Every now and then we have to be reminded of this. Zechariah had to reminded that the God that he was serving in the temple was still moving in the lives of his beloved children and was smashing through the impossibilities of his life. John had to be reminded of God’s actions in the world even when it was right in front of his face.
It is so easy for doubt to settle in and for us to forget God’s actions in the world and in our lives; however, isn’t it good news to know that every time we forget God is loving enough to tap us on the shoulder beckoning us to “remember…” God is always calling us to remember. In your dark moments, remember that God is a light. In your lonely moments, remember that God is a companion. In your moments of hunger and want, remember that God is bread in a starving land and water in dry places. Remember when other throw you away and leave, God promised never to leave you. In your moments of insurmountable impossibilities, remember that God crashed through the impossibilities of humanity and came down to us as Jesus so that we could be brought up to God. Remember…
The Word of Marcus for the People of God…
[1] Mark 1:14 (NRSV)
Unlocking the Gates of Heaven
In a recent blog post on his blogsite, “Leaven: Inspiration for Leaders,” my rector, The Very Rev. Robert C. Wright drew a connection that I had never thought about before. He said, “If Heaven has pearly gates, then Heaven is a gated community.” Now, while this blog posting goes on to illustrate the radical significance of Christ’s coming, showing the “downward mobility of God” to make possible “the upward mobility of humanity,” the first sentence of this blog stuck with me as I began to reflect on the implications of Heaven as the ultimate gated community.
Being from a medium-sized, economically and racially diverse, southern American town outside of Charlotte, North Carolina, I have seen my fair share of gated communities. Even living in Atlanta, Georgia now, I still see many gated communities. In fact many apartment complexes currently being built are touting the fact that they are secure, gated communities. Gated communities are a result of a society that is economically, racially, and culturally stratified and “accepted” and “othering” are the order of the day. Gated communities offer the residents therein a certain amount of security because the entrance to the community is controlled. Gates are meant to keep unwanted people out – those deemed “riff-raff,” “hoodlums,” “thugs,” “niggas.” So now lets put this in conversation with the image of heaven as having “pearly gates” and we can see that a problematic image arises. Heaven becomes the ultimate gated community where only those whom are deemed “acceptable” are allowed in while the others are simply thrown away. This can easily transition into a soteriological debate; however, what I want to elucidate more than anything else “acceptance” and “othering” by the dominant community espousing heaven, i.e., Christians.
Almost from its inception, the Christian Church has struggled with the temptation to “other” and condemn those deemed unacceptable. The writers of the Epistles struggle with what makes one an acceptable member of the community – circumcision or non-circumcision, adherence to Jewish dietary restriction and feast days or not, etc. This human inclination to “accept” and “other” had played out throughout the history of the Church. Throughout history acceptance by the community was based on race, nationality, economic status, gender, and sexuality. Bishop John Shelby Spong says, “The Church throughout its history has always looked for a new community to victimize.” Depending on what community held hegemonic sway over the Christian faith, these communities have found ways to close the gates of Heaven to others not understanding that the same “Hermeneutic of Exclusion” that they use on others can be used on themselves. Rather than Heaven being a beacon of hope for a world pining for salvation, it is being taken up as a weapon snatch the hope from the bludgeoned hands of humanity.
The “Hermeneutic of Exclusion” exists within the Christian community as well. A few days before Christmas I was listening to a lady state how “‘Christians’ who celebrate holidays like Christmas and Easter were hellbound” because neither of the holidays were “Biblical.” My initial thought was, “if God is that quick to send people to Hell, then I’ll take Hell for $200 because that’s not the God of my understanding.” After further reflection on these comments, I discovered a far larger issue than the threat of Hell. The larger issue is the way in which we within the Christian community are inclined to condemn each other to hell over what amounts to foolishness. Every church claims to have a monopoly on orthodoxy and all other churches who don’t pray a certain way, follow a certain liturgy (or none at all), baptize a certain way, or administer communion in a certain way are not “as Christian” as they are. Even this assertion begs an even larger question – what does it mean to be Christian?
The word “Christian” first appears in Acts 11, which states, “…and it was in Antioch that the disciples were first called ‘Christians [1].’” Prior to being referred to as “Christians,” this community were “Followers of the Way” or “Disciples.” It is important to note that this community was referred to as Christians without a highly developed eucharistic or soteriological theology. No great ecumenical councils or synods had discussed the finer points of Christology at this point and Trinitarian theology was not even being seriously debated, yet they were Christians. It is also likely that the term “Christian” was first given to this community as an insult from the Jewish religious authority who wanted to differentiate themselves from this “heretical” movement. They were identified with Christianity even though their theological and ideological understandings were nuanced and not always harmonious. They were called “Christian” because of their identification with Christ.
I dare not distill the ancient and sacred tenets of the Christian faith to a simply code of morality. It is my belief that it is the Holy Spirit that makes us Christian, sealed as “Christ’s own for ever [2].” My point is that perhaps the definition of what it means to be “Christian” is much broader than is often communicated. What makes me Christian is not the fact that I was baptized by immersion or aspersion. What makes me Christian is not the fact that I celebrate twelve days of Christmas, one, or none. What makes me Christian is not the fact that I believe the consecrated communion elements become the real body and blood of Christ or that they are a memorial of Christ’s sacrifice. Perhaps a broader definition of “Christian” will help the ecumenical relationships within the corpus of the Christian church as we struggle against a world teetering on disaster, a planet looming dangerously near an environment apocalypse, and a humanity “hell-bent” on self-destruction. And perhaps a broader definition of Christian will help us to see that “Heaven” is not meant to be a gated community. Christ’s numinous descent into humanity shows us the radical way in which God has flung wide Heaven’s gates and invites us all in.
The Word of Marcus for the People of God…
[1] Acts 11:26b
[2] Book of Common Prayer, 308.
Through the Blood of the Slaughtered: Reclaiming a Contextual African American Hermeneutic
There is a popular adage that attempts to provide an over-simplified, general hermeneutical understanding of the Biblical witness. The adage says:
The Bible says what it means and means what it says.
This is probably true; however, when one takes into account the thousands of voices crying out from thousands of years ago and the distance from and positioning of the reader, how one interprets what is said is another issue all together. This is analogous to the old riddle “If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” Scientifically the answer is no. Sound is defined as a “mechanical radiant energy that is transmitted by longitudinal pressure waves in a material medium (as air) and is the objective cause of hearing.” Basically in order for “sound” to be take place, it must be perceived by the ear. Likewise then it is with the Biblical witness, it may be “saying” a lot of things, but what matters is what is perceived and “heard” by the individual or community engaging the biblical narrative.
The aforementioned adage attempts to ameliorate the perceived problem of the thousands of contemporary voices laying claim to the Biblical canon with often varying and conflicting interpretations of the same passages. One seeking some semblance of “absolute truth” would be hard pressed to find it among that academy that is struggling to hold together Womanist, Black Liberationist, Queer, African Liberationist, and other modes and manifestations of contextual theology in some sort of workable tension. The reason this appears to be the case is because of the different communities that are all seeking to find something sustainable and powerful from one source – the Bible. Each of these communities doesn’t approach the Biblical canon the same way; rather, based on the lived and transmitted experiences of the community, the community will read and interpret from that lens.
The African American community is no different. Throughout our long history in the Americas, every since the first slaves were catechized shortly after stepping of the slave ships, the enslaved Africans found ways of interpreting their aural religion in light of their circumstances. I use the word aural because the earliest slaves did not have access to the Biblical canon as a book, they were exposed to its stories, poems, parables, and epistles via sermons, hymns, or other audible forms of communicating faith. While analyzing the work of Vincent L. Wimbush (New Testament scholar, formerly a professor at Union Theological Seminary), Michael J. Brown, professor of New Testament and Christian Origins at Emory University, makes the claim that, “[African American slaves] appropriated the symbols, concepts, and language of Christianity to suit their own existential condition… African Americans engaged the broad stories of the Bible rather than the textual details [1].” Renita Weems, Womanist Theologian and professor of Old Testament at Vanderbilt Divinity School, says,
What the slavemasters did not forsee, however, was the the very material they forbade slaves from touching and studying with their hands and eyes, the slaves learned to claim and study through the powers of listening and memory… once they heard biblical passages read and interpreted to them, they in turn were free to remember and repeat in accordance with their own interests and tastes.[2].
On one level, as I mentioned previously, African slaves did not have access to the actual text of the Biblical canon even if they were
desirous of dealing with the “textual details;” however, on the other hand, African slaves were generally wary of the “Book religion” of the slave masters and dominant White culture. African traditional religions in general were lived, experiential religious systems in which the individual and the community became the repository of the faith system. The idea that a “book” contained these elements stood in diametrical opposition to what the African slaves had been accustomed to.
Due to the situations in and around their enslavement, enslaved Africans had to craft a faith system from a largely aural transmission of the Biblical canon and because of this, they took free literary license with the stories therein. It was not uncommon for enslaved Africans to conflate two different stories or even two different Testaments of the Biblical canon as witnessed in the spiritual:
Oh Mary don’t you weep, Tell Martha not to mourn, Pharoah’s army drowned in the Red Sea. Oh Mary don’t you weep, Tell Martha not to mourn
This spiritual calls upon two seemingly unrelated stories in the Bible; the story where Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead and the Exodus narrative. These two stories were joined by the need of the enslaved Africans to see retribution to the slave master, or “Pharaoh,” for the wrong inflicted upon them. Enslaved Africans had no need for a physical resurrection to life because the life that they lived was so bleak and terrible. This spiritual is just one example of the literary license wherewith enslaved communities reformed the Biblical narrative to suit their own needs for affirmation and survival.
The ways in which enslaved Africans appropriated the biblical canon served as an informant for later theologies that emerged out of the African American experience, such as Black Liberation Theology and Womanist Theology. The enslaved condition of Africans in the 16-, 17- and 1800s became a part of the lived and transmitted experiences of subsequent generations of African Americans who struggled to cope with effects of emancipation, Jim Crow, Civil Rights, Black Power, etc. As descendants of a people who bore the brunt of arguably the most brutal manifestation of slavery in human history, the cries, songs, laments, and stories of our ancestors became germane to our existence, something that could not, and should not, be forgotten. It is from this place that African Americans approach the biblical witness.
So what happens when a people still suffering from the effects of Post Slavery Traumatic Syndrome encounter texts that either explicitly state or allude to slavery? Carrying the legacy of our ancestors we should immediately decry the texts that call for us to be slaves of God (Exodus) or “doulos Christi” (slaves of Christ, a concept attributed to Paul the Apostle) as extremely problematic and work to present clearer, less oppressive images of God and self with the hope of raising the consciousness of our communities toward liberation. Instead, many African Americans have discounted their stories, lived and transmitted experiences as inferior to the dominant strain of biblical interpretation which seeks to gloss over problematic terms as somehow unproblematic. Brown states, “scholars have a tendency to diminish the harsh realities of life in the ancient world. This tendency is passed on to preachers and Christian educators, who attempt to explain the texts in a manner that is more palatable for modern readers and hearers [3].” Problematic texts are often glossed over in order to smooth over the problematic portions of the biblical witness and in the end the voices of the oppressed and marginalized are lost in favor a more “generalized” reading of the text.
I recently had a conversation with a ministerial colleague in which we debated the impact of the inclusion of images derived from slavocracy within the biblical witness. My colleague ia a young, African-American woman and a recent seminary graduate. She fixed her argument around the fact that I was reading more into the word “slave” than was meant by the author(s) of the biblical texts in question. She emphatically stated that since the author(s) of Exodus attached the word eved (the Hebrew root for “slave”) to the tetragrammaton (YHWH) that somehow God “redeemed” the institution of slavery. She made a similar claim that the Pauline writer’s connection of the word doulos (Greek for “slave”) to the title Christi (Christ) somehow redeemed the institution of slavery. She stated that “If I was a slave, I would’ve been happy to know that Pharoah is not my slavemaster, that I have a higher slavemaster – God.” As the conversation progressed, I was admittedly surprised that an African American, female, seminary graduate was able to make a defense of the institution of slavery, that somehow slavery had the possibility of being a beneficent institution. I could get into an exegetical argument about the ideologies underlying these two texts; however, I will simply stick the with the problematic images elicited by the inclusion of divinely ordained slavocracy into the biblical narrative.
The idea that slavery was a tool by which God redeemed humanity was a clear, underlying ideology supporting the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. True, there were other political and economic advantages to the system, but the theological underpinning of the rape of Africa was that God ordained the institution of slavery to save the “heathen” Africans from eternal damnation. Riggins Earl, professr of theology and ethics at The Interdenominational Theological Center, posits “Slavery was… believed to be the best means of conditioning souls of Africans to serve God in heaven… Slavery was understood as an institution that was ordained by God… [4]” The slave trade wasn’t just passively condoned; rather, it was actively supported by many European churches who held the notion that slavery in the name of God was a beneficent institution. The notion that God ordained slavery comes directly out of the concepts and words of the biblical canon itself.
Brian K. Blount, professor of New Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary, underscores the power of language in interpretation. Brown alludes to Blount’s linguistic understanding when he writes, “Language is the tool through which human beings are socialized into their cultures. It transmits values, beliefs, and worldview [5].” Because of the lived and transmitted cultural experiences of the African American community, certain words carry certain values. The word slave is one of those cumbersome words. The word slave carries with it images of vicious assault upon Black bodies, Black women and men being raped and tortured, Black families being torn apart and sold, lynch mobs, economic and cultural exploitation, humiliation, dehumanization, and utter dispair. For an African Amerian to attempt to somehow read around this fact is to ignore the voices of those who lived through it and entrusted us with their stories.
What happened to engaging the biblical witness through the lens of lived and transmitted cultural experiences? I would argue that now that the African American community has achieved some level of equality, that the stories of our people have been forsaken in favor of assimilating into the larger American culture. By assimilation I mean the process by which a minority group disregards what makes them culturally unique and adopts the cultural practices of the dominant class in order to gain access to the power and prestige that comes along with membership in this class. By-in-large the dominant White culture has taught us that somehow our stories are deficient, particularly when juxtaposed against biblical monoliths such as Paul and the Exodus narrative; that the fault doesn’t lie in the biblical narrative but in the lens of the one engaging the narrative. We have been taught to subtract certain, less attractive segments of our stories in order to fall in line with a more general, less “offensive,” understanding of the text. We have become assimilationists, no longer interested in telling our stories; rather, we are only interested in buying into the power system of White culture. We have adopted a hermeneutical approach to scripture that is no longer baptized in the blood of Black suffering. Our modern appropriations of the biblical witness completely ignore the stories of Harriet Tubman, Ida B. Wells, Frederick Douglas, David Walker, Richard Allen, Absalom Jones, Olaudah Equiano, Sojourner Truth and many other nameless ancestors who bore the crushing yoke of a slave system that continue to effect us to this day. By buying into and adopting the hermeneutical approach of the dominant culture, we have relegated the voices or our own ancestors to the peripheries and margins of our existence in favor of a more palatable appropriation of scripture.
James Weldon Johnson harkened to this very idea when he wrote:
We have come over a way that with tears has been watered. We have come treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered.
The history of the African American community is written in blood and tears of our ancestors and our hermeneutic should be thoroughly baptized in the blood of Black suffering lest we forget where we have come from. If liberation is the focus of the Black church, then images that conflict with that goal should be expunged and replaced with images of liberation. We must not only seek to be iconoclastic in our approach to scriptures that support support slavery, but also scriptures the support xenophobia, misogyny, heterosexism/homophobia, and the marginalization of any group because of difference. The contextualization of the biblical canon to suit the needs of the oppressed African American community is not a new concept; however, the art of a contextual African American hermeneutic that speaks to the need for African Americans to be truly free needs to be recovered. There are a multiplicity of voices speaking from and speaking to the biblical witness. Are we going to silence the voices of our ancestors or are we going to allow their cry for freedom to ring loud and clear as we “march on til’ victory is won?”
The Word of Marcus for the People of God…
________________________
[1] Michael Joseph Brown. 2004. Blackening the Bible: The Aims of African American Biblical Scholarship (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International), 71.
[2] Renita J. Weems. 1991. “Reading Her Way through the Struggle: African American Women and the Bible,” in Stony the Road We Trod: African American Biblical Interpretation (ed. Cain Hope Felder; Minneapolis: Fortress Press), 62.
[3] Brown. Blackening the Bible, 65.
[4] Riggins Earl. 2003. Dark Symbols, Obscure Signs: God, Self, and Community in the Slave Mind (Knoxville, TN: The University of Tennessee Press), 27.
[5] Brown. Blackening the Bible, 123.
The Just Shall Live by Faith
5 The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!”
6 The Lord replied, “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, “Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.
7 “Who among you would say to your slave who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep in the field, “Come here at once and take your place at the table’?
8 Would you not rather say to him, “Prepare supper for me, put on your apron and serve me while I eat and drink; later you may eat and drink’?
9 Do you thank the slave for doing what was commanded?
10 So you also, when you have done all that you were ordered to do, say, “We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done!”
St. Luke 17:5-10 (NRSV)
1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, for the sake of the promise of life that is in Christ Jesus,
2 To Timothy, my beloved child: Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.
3 I am grateful to God—whom I worship with a clear conscience, as my ancestors did—when I remember you constantly in my prayers night and day.
4 Recalling your tears, I long to see you so that I may be filled with joy.
5 I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that lived first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, lives in you.
6 For this reason I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of my hands;
7 for God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.
8 Do not be ashamed, then, of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the gospel, relying on the power of God,
9 who saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works but according to his own purpose and grace. This grace was given to us in Christ Jesus before the ages began,
10 but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.
11 For this gospel I was appointed a herald and an apostle and a teacher,
12 and for this reason I suffer as I do. But I am not ashamed, for I know the one in whom I have put my trust, and I am sure that he is able to guard until that day what I have entrusted to him.
13 Hold to the standard of sound teaching that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.
14 Guard the good treasure entrusted to you, with the help of the Holy Spirit living in us.
II Timothy 1:1-14 (NSRV)
“Increase our faith, Lord; Increase our faith!” This was the response the disciples had after Jesus issued them a challenge of living a life of forgiveness and love. It’s as if the disciples, looking at the daunting challenge that Jesus just issued them, looked at their situation and realized that they needed some help, and so they cried out “Increase our faith, Lord; increase our faith!” Jesus gives us the same challenge – a challenge to live Christianly in a world increasingly tilting away from common decency and general good will; however, as we look at the direction that our world seems to be headed in, we too like the disciples may find ourselves crying out “Increase our faith; Lord, increase our faith!” As we look at how hatred is spewing out of the mouths of political pendants, preachers, and so-called “prophets” we may find ourselves crying out “Increase our faith; Lord, increase our faith!” As we analyze the way in which prejudices once worn as proud badges of American citizenship have now become secret identifiers of an undercover society, we may find ourselves crying out “Increase our faith; Lord, increase our faith!” As we discover the way in which our society is becoming increasingly fragmented and fractured along political and ideological lines, social class, and religious identity, we too may find ourselves crying out “Increase our faith; Lord, increase our faith!” As we see our lives inundated with images of materialism and greed all the way from Wall Street, to Main Street, to Martin Luther King Drive, we too may find ourselves crying out, “Increase our faith; Lord, increase our faith!” As we witness the global Church being assaulted by scandals, division, sex, lies, and videotape, we may find ourselves crying out “Increase our faith; Lord, increase our faith!” As we witness our culture devolving more and more into a culture more concerned with the “Me and the mine” than the “we and the ours” faced with the shear pressure of living Christianly in THIS world we may find ourselves crying out “Increase our faith; Lord, please increase our faith!”
The truth is we can be lured into the trap of believing that our task of living Christianly in the world is an impossibility, that God is asking too much of us, that we will never reach the bar the Jesus has set for us. And out of the sheer weight of the anxiety that we face, out of our own since of inadequacy, out of our own insecurities we cry out “Increase our faith; Lord, increase our faith!”
This is surely how the disciples felt in the aftermath of Jesus’ daunting challenge. In response to their request, Jesus chastises his disciples by stating that even with “faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.” Here, Jesus is basically stating, “It doesn’t take Mega-faith to do what I’ve told you to do – all you need to do it do like Nike says and ‘Just Do It!’” How many times have we talked ourselves out of doing something because we felt an internal sense of inadequacy in relation to the task? How many times have we defeated our own selves before even being faced with the challenge? How many times avoided the opportunities for growth and development because of our own sense of smallness? Here Jesus beckons us into a new, grander sense of self – a self capable of doing the seemingly impossible! This new, grander self is what Marianne Williamson spoke to when she said:
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear
is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness,
that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous,
talented and fabulous?
Actually who are we not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small doesn’t serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking
so that other people
won’t feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine as children do.
We were born to make manifest
the glory of God that is within us.
It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone.
And when we let our own light shine,
we unconsciously give other people
permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear,
our presence automatically liberates others.[1]
In this Gospel text, we are being summoned by Jesus Christ himself into a more glorious self, a self capable of living into Christ’s commandment to live Christianly in a world hell-bent on hatred, racism, division, materialism, individualism, and greed! A grander self that is able to understand that to live into the call of Christ doesn’t take Mega-faith… JUST DO IT!
As Jesus normally does, he doesn’t just end his teaching there, he carries his teaching to a new level by inserting a story – a parable. He includes a story involving a slave and a slave master which is meant to convey this point – we are to do what we are expected to do. For Christians, it should be our daily routine to love those whom society calls unlovable, forgive those whom society deems unforgiveable, to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to comfort the sick and the dying, and to work toward the manifestation of the Reign of God. This is our Christian duty! It doesn’t take Mega-faith to do it! Just do it!
So then the question becomes, where does this life sustaining faith come from? Paul gives us a glimpse into the origins of faith in his second letter to Timothy. He writes, “I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that lived first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, lives in you.”[2] In this faith genealogy, Paul reveals to us that faith is passed down from the faithful saints of old – those that came before us. Our faith is based upon the collective witness of generations past that are passed down to us in the form of stories, spirituals, and songs – all methods for conveying and communicating faith! Spirituals like:
Keep a-inchin’ along,
Keep a-inchin’ along,
Jesus will come by and by.
Keep a-inchin along like a po’ inch worm,
Jesus will come by and by.
James Weldon Johnson knew something about the art of conveying faith when he wrote these words:
Lift every voice and sing, till earth and Heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise, high as the listening skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
Let us march on till victory is won.
As Christians, the Bible is the ultimate volume of the testimonies of a people of faith striving with God, wrestling with the divine, and abiding in the tense moments of life! From these life experiences, their stories of tragedy and triumph, highs and lows, sin and salvation, these prophets and priests, men and women, kings and judges, apostles and martyrs speak to us from beyond the grave to convey to us the ultimate gift – the gift of faith! Faith enters through our ears, descends into our hearts, and exits our hands as we put our faith into action! Faith – the mysterious thing that radically transfigures the impossible to possible, the intangible to tangible, the invisible to visible, and the unbelievable to believable. Faith – the stories of our people that relay to us how God has been faithful in the past, and thus reminds us of God’s perpetual faithfulness. Faith – that which breaks through the gloom of doubt within our souls and reveals to us the light of God’s presence. I’m talking about faith! I’m talking about the faith that the hymn writer referenced when he wrote:
We’ve come this far by faith,
Leaning on the Lord.
Trusting in His (God’s) Holy word.
He’s never failed me yet.
But the hymn writer couldn’t just leave it there, he transitions from the past into the present when he emphatically declares:
Oh, Oh, Oh, Can’t turn around!
We’ve come this far by faith!
It doesn’t take Mega-faith to live Christianly, all we have to do is recall the stories of those who have come before us. We must recall the stories of the faithful throughout history – the Abrahams, the Sarahs, the Davids, the Jobs, the Esthers, the Marys, the St. Pauls, the St. Augustines, the Thomas Cranmers, the Harriet Tubmans, the Absalom Joneses, the Martin Kings, the Rosa Parks. We rest on the shoulders of the great giants of our faith! The great men and women of God who stood boldly against the forces of this world that would seek to destroy and proudly proclaimed and lived into the Reign of God. As the Hebrew writer declares:
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.[3]
The just shall live by faith! But not just any faith, the Just shall live by the faith that has been past down to them from ages past, from this great cloud of witnesses the surround us, protect us, and encourage us to “run with perseverance the race that is set before us!”
[In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit… Amen]
Absalom Jones Student Center & Chapel
September 29, 2010
[1] Marianne Williams. “Our Deepest Fear”
