A GUIDE TO RECOVERY

A GUIDE TO RECOVERY

©Wendell Griffen, 2017

A Sermon delivered to

New Millennium Church, Little Rock, Arkansas

September 24, 2017 (Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost)

Isaiah 58:1-12

58Shout out, do not hold back!
   Lift up your voice like a trumpet!
Announce to my people their rebellion,
   to the house of Jacob their sins.
² Yet day after day they seek me
   and delight to know my ways,
as if they were a nation that practised righteousness
   and did not forsake the ordinance of their God;
they ask of me righteous judgements,
   they delight to draw near to God.
³ ‘Why do we fast, but you do not see?
   Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?’
Look, you serve your own interest on your fast-day,
   and oppress all your workers.
⁴ Look, you fast only to quarrel and to fight
   and to strike with a wicked fist.
Such fasting as you do today
   will not make your voice heard on high.
⁵ Is such the fast that I choose,
   a day to humble oneself?
Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush,
   and to lie in sackcloth and ashes?
Will you call this a fast,
   a day acceptable to the Lord? 

⁶ Is not this the fast that I choose:
   to loose the bonds of injustice,
   to undo the thongs of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
   and to break every yoke?
⁷ Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,
   and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover them,
   and not to hide yourself from your own kin?
⁸ Then your light shall break forth like the dawn,
   and your healing shall spring up quickly;
your vindicator^* shall go before you,
   the glory of the Lord shall be your rearguard.
⁹ Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer;
   you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am. 

If you remove the yoke from among you,
   the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil,
¹⁰ if you offer your food to the hungry
   and satisfy the needs of the afflicted,
then your light shall rise in the darkness
   and your gloom be like the noonday.
¹¹ The Lord will guide you continually,
   and satisfy your needs in parched places,
   and make your bones strong;
and you shall be like a watered garden,
   like a spring of water,
   whose waters never fail.
¹² Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt;
   you shall raise up the foundations of many generations;
you shall be called the repairer of the breach,
   the restorer of streets to live in.

        Isaiah 58 is a prophetic message to a society that took pride in being punctual about religion.  The prophet, speaking for God, observes that the society keeps religious holidays.  People would show up for religious services and behave with respectable piety.  Prayers were uttered.  Offerings were presented.  All the external trappings and features of religious ceremony and ritual took place. 

        Despite all the prayers, hymns, and fasts, and offerings, God had not delivered what the people expected.  The praying, hymn-singing, fast-making, and sanctimonious looking and sounding people were distressed that calamities continued to threaten despite all their religious services and events.  Why do we fast, but you do not see?  Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice? (Isaiah 58:3)

The prophet was directed to issue the divine answer to that question by a message that was loud and clear.  The problem, according to God’s direction to the prophet, was that the society was guilty of moral and ethical fraud and hypocrisy.  The accusation of fraud and hypocrisy was not to be issued in a mild way.  It was not to be made in a covert or subtle way.  No!  The prophet was directed to be bold, loud, unrestrained, and clear.

Shout out, do not hold back!  Lift up your voice like a trumpet!  Announce to my people their rebellion, to the house of Jacob their sins.  Yet day after day they seek me and delight to know my ways, as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness and did not forsake the ordinance of their God; they ask of me righteous judgments, they delight to draw near to God… Look, you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to strike with a closed fist.  Such fasting as you do today will not make your voice heard on high.  (Is. 58:1-2, 4).

Notice that the prophet was directed to speak, boldly and clearly, about persistent inequality and oppression.  Is this not the fast that I choose:  to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?  Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin? (Is. 58:6-7)

Prophetic people tell the truth!  Rituals and ceremonies are useless in the face of oppressive realities.  Rituals and ceremonies are worthless when people are being mistreated.

The truth is that while state and local big shots summon us to engage in “Reflections on Progress” concerning desegregation in Little Rock, they schemed to spend millions of dollars to create new schools with state-of-the-art features in west Little Rock –where affluent white families live whose children do not attend public schools in large part.  Meanwhile, McClellan High School and Cloverdale Middle School –schools attended predominantly by children from black, brown, and lower income families – have long been considered unsafe. 

Prophetic people tell the truth that the attendance zone for Little Rock Central High School is deliberately drawn so that white children who live in the affluent areas of Little Rock west of Interstate 430 and north of Markham Street can attend that high school in the center of Little Rock, as plainly shown by the 2017 high school attendance zone map for the Little Rock School District:  http://www.lrsd.org/sites/default/files/oldfiles/zones/2001hi.pdf.  

Prophetic people should declare that charter schools are not proliferating within the Little Rock School District because charter schools have a better record for educating children.  Charter schools are proliferating in the Little Rock School District – as in other urban school districts that serve black, black, and lower income children and families – because there huge financial rewards for establishing them. 

Prophetic people should declare the inconvenient truth that charter schools cherry-pick students.

Prophetic people should declare that charter schools do not provide free transportation for all children.

Prophetic people should declare that charter schools are not required to hire certified educators.

Prophetic people should declare that every time a student enrolled in public school is moved to a charter school, the public funds associated with that student shift to the charter school and its management company. 

Prophetic people should declare that charter schools are merely business ventures set up to produce profits for wealthy investors by siphoning funds, buildings, and other resources for existing public schools and placing them in the power of management companies set up by wealthy hedge fund investors. 

Making these prophetic observations is not about being negative.  Before any problem can be corrected or healed the condition causing it must be confronted and explained.  This is as true concerning moral, ethical, and social situations as it is for physical and mental diseases and injuries. 

Convenient lies are not a sign of good health.  Getting regular checkups doesn’t amount to much unless physicians tell patients the truth. 

The hard truth we must confront is that this community, state, and nation are guilty of moral and ethical fraud and hypocrisy concerning public education and inequality despite all the ceremonies, hand-shaking, back slapping, tours of Little Rock Central High, presentations of plaques and other formal declarations have occurred during the past sixty years.  Politicians, education officials, business owners, and other influential people carry on the rituals and profess devotion to equality, but it has been a sham.   Prophetic people must make that condemnation in messages that are bold, loud, and clear.

We must insist that people remember that the charter school movement got its big boost in 1998 when President William Jefferson Clinton - the person chosen to deliver the keynote address for the 40^th, 50^th, and 60^th anniversary commemorations for the desegregation of Little Rock Central – signed federal legislation aimed at creating more charter schools.  During the October 22, 1998 White House signing ceremony, President Clinton made the following comment:  

"When I took office in 1993, there was only one charter school actually operating in America… This legislation puts us well on our way to creating 3,000 charter schools by the year 2000."  (http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1998/10/22/charter.schools/)

Federal funding for charter schools increased under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.  During the last year of the George W. Bush presidency (2008), the federal budget for charter schools was $208 million.  During the last year of the Obama presidency (2016), the federal budget for charter schools was $333.2 million, an increase of $125.2 million.  

That money was not available to make improvements to existing public schools.  It did not go to give computers to traditional public school students.  It did not help students attending traditional public schools in Little Rock or elsewhere in the United States.  It was targeted for charter schools.

Earlier this year the Arkansas General Assembly, with active urging from Education Commissioner Johnny Key and assent (if not advocacy) from Governor Asa Hutchinson, passed Act 542 of 2017.  Act 542 allows property (including buildings) of public schools in districts that have been taken over by the state to be leased to charter school organizations.  Here is a link to that law:  http://www.arkleg.state.ar.us/assembly/2017/2017R/Acts/Act542.pdf.  This means that charter school organizations are now authorized by state law to operate from public school buildings that have been designated as "under-utilized."

Now remember that LRSD Superintendent Michael Poore announced months ago that he has decided to close Franklin Elementary School, Wilson Elementary School, Woodruff Preschool, and Hamilton Learning Academy Early Childhood.  Each of those schools served children from black, brown, and lower-income families.

It is not enough, however, for prophetic people to draw attention to social inequality and oppression in public education.  The guide to recovery must also include directions for healing.  If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday.  The LORD will guide you continuously, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong… [Y]ou shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in.  (Is. 58:9b-10, 12b). 

The key to our healing will also involve doing right by people who have been marginalized and forced to endure oppression.  That means focusing on children whose families have been historically under-served and dis-served. 

Instead of new schools in the north and west areas of Little Rock where white parents have chosen to live and send their children to private schools to avoid being around black, brown, and poor children, money should be spent replacing and improving schools in central and southwest Little Rock where   black, brown, and poor children live. 

Instead of closing schools, shutting down academic enrichment programs, and shifting teachers from schools in central and southwest Little Rock, more resources and the best teachers go to those schools.

Funds for public education should not be diverted to create a new charter school on the campus of Arkansas Baptist College – the only black Baptist liberal arts college west of the Mississippi River.  Let’s be honest.  That charter school isn’t required to hire certified teachers.  Most of the instruction is to occur online.  The biggest feature advertised about that school is a sixth grade football program, not proven teaching and learning strategies related to literacy, mathematics, science, social studies, and the performing and visual arts. 

Correcting racial inequality in public education will not happen by creating new pipelines for football coaches to exploit.  The problems of racial inequality require that we not be content with having prayer meetings and Bible studies, songfests, revivals, and worship spectacles featuring exciting preaching and choir exhibitions. 

Righteousness is always about justice, not religious ceremonies.  Righteousness is about caring for those who are being mistreated, not about catering to those who privileged. Righteousness requires that we tell the truth in ways that cause people to see who is profiting from injustice, and then do something about it. 

It isn’t enough to attend religious gatherings.  It isn’t enough to have prayer meetings.  It isn’t enough to quote Scriptures. Righteousness requires that prophetic people challenge our society to roll up our sleeves and get to work dismantling systems of privilege and oppression.  God calls us to this work.  God will give us strength for this work.  God will bless our faithfulness in doing this work.  And our society will be healed as we go about this work. 

Amen.

WE WILL NOT!

WE WILL NOT!

©Wendell Griffen, 2017

New Millennium Church, Little Rock, AR

September 17, 2017 (15^th Sunday after Pentecost)

Daniel 3:1-18

3King Nebuchadnezzar made a golden statue whose height was sixty cubits and whose width was six cubits; he set it up on the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon. ²Then King Nebuchadnezzar sent for the satraps, the prefects, and the governors, the counselors, the treasurers, the justices, the magistrates, and all the officials of the provinces, to assemble and come to the dedication of the statue that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up. ³So the satraps, the prefects, and the governors, the counselors, the treasurers, the justices, the magistrates, and all the officials of the provinces, assembled for the dedication of the statue that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up. When they were standing before the statue that Nebuchadnezzar had set up, ⁴the herald proclaimed aloud, ‘You are commanded, O peoples, nations, and languages, ⁵that when you hear the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, drum, and entire musical ensemble, you are to fall down and worship the golden statue that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up.⁶Whoever does not fall down and worship shall immediately be thrown into a furnace of blazing fire.’ ⁷Therefore, as soon as all the peoples heard the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, drum, and entire musical ensemble, all the peoples, nations, and languages fell down and worshipped the golden statue that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up.

8 Accordingly, at this time certain Chaldeans came forward and denounced the Jews. ⁹They said to King Nebuchadnezzar, ‘O king, live forever! ¹⁰You, O king, have made a decree, that everyone who hears the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, drum, and entire musical ensemble, shall fall down and worship the golden statue, ¹¹and whoever does not fall down and worship shall be thrown into a furnace of blazing fire. ¹²There are certain Jews whom you have appointed over the affairs of the province of Babylon: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. These pay no heed to you, O king. They do not serve your gods and they do not worship the golden statue that you have set up.’

13 Then Nebuchadnezzar in furious rage commanded that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego be brought in; so they brought those men before the king. ¹⁴Nebuchadnezzar said to them, ‘Is it true, O Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, that you do not serve my gods and you do not worship the golden statue that I have set up? ¹⁵Now if you are ready when you hear the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, drum, and entire musical ensemble to fall down and worship the statue that I have made, well and good.^* But if you do not worship, you shall immediately be thrown into a furnace of blazing fire, and who is the god that will deliver you out of my hands?’

16 Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered the king, ‘O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to present a defence to you in this matter. ¹⁷If our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire and out of your hand, O king, let him deliver us.^* 18But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods and we will not worship the statue that you have set up.’

       

One of the most popular television programs today is Game of Thrones, the Home Box Office (HBO) series about the struggle for power and supremacy in a mythical place called Westeros.  In the program, one way the leaders of the various factions try to overcome their adversaries is plotting and trying to carry out schemes aimed at conquering their adversaries through violent means such as assassinations and wars.  But another way is by trying, through various strategies, arrangements, and appeals, to persuade the leaders of would-be rival factions to “bend the knee,” meaning swear allegiance and be ruled rather than remain separate and autonomous.   This sermon is about three young people who refused to “bend the knee” and who defied overwhelming imperial power.

What makes a minority people refuse to cooperate with a majority group of oppressors?  This is big moral issue presented in the passage we ponder today from the third chapter of Daniel.  There we read about three young Hebrew exiles who defied a royal decree and the threat of death in a furnace by refusing to serve the gods and worship a gold plated statue set up on the order of their Babylonian conqueror. 

The Babylonian Empire ended long ago.  Most people do not speak of it, let alone speak about the Babylonian king known as Nebuchadnezzar.  But the story of how three Hebrew youth boldly defied an imperial command and refused to “bend the knee” to a royal order to worship the gods of their conqueror has survived the centuries thanks to the Bible.  Children in Sunday School and Vacation Bible School continue to be taught that God delivered “the three Hebrew boys” from the fiery furnace.   

The story of their bold defiance of majoritarian authority and popular sentiment challenges us.  The young men – black elders during my youth typically called them “the three Hebrew boys” or “the three Hebrew children” had been named Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah before they were taken to Babylon after Judah was conquered by King Nebuchadnezzar.  They are remembered by many people by the names they were assigned in Babylon:  Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.  

Where did you first hear that story?  How old were you?  Who told you about it?  What impression did it make on you then?  What does that story mean to you now?   Where do you see yourself in this story?  And what does the lesson about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego mean as Little Rock, Arkansas, and the United States reflect on racial justice on the eve of the 60^th anniversary of the desegregation of Little Rock Central High School?

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego show us what it means to be faithful to God for people challenged by others who believe in the supremacy of their notions of Empire.  Every empire tries to teach its citizens and force the rest of the world to believe that it is supreme.  Its military is the most powerful.  Its culture is the most enlightened.  Its economy is the most prosperous.  Its people are elite.  It is not enough to be equal.  Empires are built on notions of superiority and supremacy. 

That is why notions of empire are ungodly.  Faithfulness to God challenges every imperial claim of supremacy.  Whenever any empire calls on people who know God to “bend the knee” and swear allegiance to imperial claims of supremacy –whether it is American exceptionalism, white supremacy, religious nationalism, or anything else – rather than God, people who rest their ultimate identity and faith in God know better.  People who know God understand that the idolatry of empire always includes the heresy of imperial supremacy. 

In the United States, the idolatry of American exceptionalism includes the heresy of white supremacy.  White supremacy caused European adventurers to claim they discovered this land and disrespect the presence and right of people who were native to it.  That heresy was responsible for the wickedness that resulted in the human trafficking, murder, rape, theft, fraud, and other evils associated with how this nation treated Africans, Latinos, Asians, and every other population of non-white persons. 

White supremacy was the foundation heresy for Jim Crow segregation after the Confederacy was defeated in the Civil War.  White supremacy is why public education was segregated based on skin color, with white children and black children being denied the chance to receive free, fair, and education together.

And in 1957, the heresy of white supremacy led to the Crisis of Little Rock Central High School when nine black students, supported by prophetic revolutionary people, bravely became pioneers for desegregation in public education in Arkansas.  They chose to defy Governor Orval Faubus, the 1957 version of King Nebuchadnezzar in Arkansas.  They refused to pay homage to white supremacy and continue going to school under Jim Crow rules.  In the words of our text, the Little Rock 9 and the people of Little Rock and Arkansas who supported, advised, encouraged, prayed for, and otherwise embraced their entry into Little Rock Central said, in effect, “we will not serve your gods [segregation] and we will not worship the golden statue [white supremacy] that you have set up.” 

Fast forward sixty years to 2017.  The Little Rock School District is still the largest public school district in Arkansas.  But public education has been on a path toward re-segregation for decades thanks to overt and covert schemes, practices, and policies driven by white supremacy.  Sixty years later, a gala commemoration has been planned for this coming weekend.  The eight surviving members of the Little Rock 9 will be re-united.  Politicians, pundits, celebrities, and other people will be here.  Mavis Staples of the legendary Staples Family music group will present a concert.  The Little Rock School District and National Park Service are jointly sponsoring these and other events organized around this theme – Reflections on Progress.  

The issue for Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego involved keeping faith with God in the face of King Nebuchadnezzar’s claim about the supremacy of the Babylonian Empire and its set of religious deities.  The issue for the Little Rock 9 and the revolutionary prophetic people who supported their defiance of white supremacy involved keeping faith with their divine and civil right to equality and liberty in the face of Governor Orval Faubus’s effort to keep black and white children from attending public schools together.  The revolutionary defiance of Governor Faubus, white supremacy, and segregation was a Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego response by the Little Rock 9, by their parents, and by their small contingent of supporters to white supremacy in Arkansas and the United States.  It was a defining moment when people faithful to God said, in effect, “we will not serve your gods [segregation] and we will not worship the golden statue [white supremacy] that you have set up.”

Faithfulness to God demands a deep and abiding sense of identity – meaning knowing God, knowing who we are, and knowing what we believe about God and about ourselves.  This involves a lot more than being able to recite a religious formula, be it the plan of salvation so often mentioned by evangelists or something else. 

Knowing God, knowing who we are, and knowing what we believe about God and ourselves includes realizing that humans live in a moral universe with God.  We live in a universe established by God as a place of harmony – think of the word community – where all creation is entitled to equal dignity, respect, protection, and nurture and where God alone is worthy of unconditional loyalty, obedience, and trust. 

Let me be plain.  God alone deserves our unconditional loyalty and trust.  God alone deserves our absolute obedience.  God alone is our source for ultimate meaning and the target of our hope.  Anything that opposes that belief challenges God’s place in our lives. 

People like Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, the prophetic revolutionaries who inspired and supported the desegregation of Little Rock Central High, and other prophetic revolutionaries understand that humans do not live to serve empires.  We live, along with the rest of creation, to be in community with God!  Every human notion and manifestation of empire demands that we decide whether to live as people made free in a moral universe with God and established by God or live as subjects and slaves of empire. 

Beyond that, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego show that faithfulness to God produces a clash between people who trust the liberating and radically revolutionary power of God and people who have put their faith in notions of human empire.  When – not if – that happens, people who trust God will be required to choose between comfort, convenience, and conformity and hardship, persecution, and vilification.  For Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, that meant choosing to incur the fury of King Nebuchadnezzar and his threat to have them burned alive in a fiery furnace.  It meant risking the loss of their imperial titles, imperial perks, imperial dwelling places, and imperial privileges.

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were probably not the only people who took moral and ethical offense to the notion of Babylonian supremacy. According to the Biblical account, they were part of a larger contingent of people from prominent Jewish families taken to Babylon after Nebuchadnezzar conquered Judah in 605 B.C.  One might assume that other Jewish exiles were morally and ethically offended by the idea of worshipping Babylonian deities and bowing before a 90 foot statue erected in the name of Babylonian supremacy. 

What distinguished Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego is their defiant refusal to lend their moral authority as followers of God to the idolatrous heresy of Babylonian supremacy at the risk of all the Babylonian empire offered by their obedience and all it threatened by their defiance.  Empires depend on promises of privilege to those who submit and cooperate with imperial claims and threats of terrible consequences to those who resist their claims.  However, they always seek legitimacy and validation from people who have moral authority. 

Nebuchadnezzar needed Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego to comply with his imperial spectacle in order to make the idolatrous claims of Babylonian imperialism seem morally legitimate.  However, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego did not fear Nebuchadnezzar’s threats.  They were not willing to turn their backs on God and disown their identity as God-followers.  The issue for them was not whether they lived or died. The issue was not whether they retained prominent positions in Babylonian government.  The issue was whether they would disown God!  Would they put their moral authority on the side of Babylonian supremacy?  Their refusal to do so is a clarion call to faithful people in every age and place.  

What would Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego think of us?  What would they think about our eagerness to dress up, show up, and suck up for imperial claims of white supremacy and re-segregation disguised as a commemoration of the courage, faith, and bold witness of the people who desegregated Little Rock Central High School in 1957 under the bogus  Reflections on Progress theme? 

It is good that the surviving eight members of the Little Rock 9 will be re-united next weekend.  But prophetic people should, in the spirit of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, refuse to pay homage to the forces of re-segregation and worship the symbols of white supremacy associated with the Reflections of Progress hypocrisy planned for that reunion. 

Like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, we should say, “we will not!” 

·       We will not dress up and attend events designed to portray Little Rock and Arkansas as a progressive city and state.

·       We will not be charmed by the soulful singing of Mavis Staples into forgetting that agents of white supremacy on the Arkansas Board of Education dissolved the democratically-elected governing body of the Little Rock School District in 2015.

·       We will not lend our moral authority to ceremonies designed to pimp the commitment of L.C. and Daisy Bates, the Little Rock 9 and their families, and the other prophetic revolutionaries who defied segregation and white supremacy when schools that serve black and brown neighborhoods in Little Rock are being closed.

·       We will not pay lip service to “Reflections on Progress” when the current superintendent of the Little Rock School District and the Arkansas Commissioner of Education have apparently agreed to sell the former Garland Elementary School property to a charter school management affiliate of the Walton Family Foundation.

·       We will not pay lip service to “Reflections on Progress” when students in Paul Lawrence Dunbar Magnet Middle School – where each of the Little Rock 9 attended junior high school – are now threatened with loss of their gifted and talented classes and instructors.

Instead of attending the “Reflections on Progress” events, let us draw on the example set by Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.  Let us take on a “we will not” posture.  Like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, let it be said of us that we loved God so much, trusted God so much, and remained true to our identity as followers of God so much that we will not serve re-segregation. 

In God’s name, we will not stand on the side of oppression against the oppressed.

In God’s name, we will not be fooled.

In God’s name, we will not be bribed by trinkets, titles, jobs, photo opportunities, and perks.

In God’s name, we will not be pushed, pimped, or have our commitment to equality, liberty, justice, and love poisoned by ceremonies, songs, and speeches orchestrated by those who actively scheme against desegregation and equality.

In God’s name, we will not “bend the knee” to the heresy of re-segregation and idolatry of white supremacy.

This week is a Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego moment.  What will you do? 

Amen.

SEEING AND SPEAKING TO OUR SITUATION AS PROPHETIC PEOPLE

SEEING AND SPEAKING TO OUR SITUATION AS PROPHETIC PEOPLE

©Wendell Griffen, 2017

September 10, 2017 (Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost)

New Millennium Church, Little Rock, Arkansas

Isaiah 59

59See, the Lord’s hand is not too short to save,
   nor his ear too dull to hear.
² Rather, your iniquities have been barriers
   between you and your God,
and your sins have hidden his face from you
   so that he does not hear.
³ For your hands are defiled with blood,
   and your fingers with iniquity;
your lips have spoken lies,
   your tongue mutters wickedness.
⁴ No one brings suit justly,
   no one goes to law honestly;
they rely on empty pleas, they speak lies,
   conceiving mischief and begetting iniquity.
⁵ They hatch adders’ eggs,
   and weave the spider’s web;
whoever eats their eggs dies,
   and the crushed egg hatches out a viper.
⁶ Their webs cannot serve as clothing;
   they cannot cover themselves with what they make.
Their works are works of iniquity,
   and deeds of violence are in their hands.
⁷ Their feet run to evil,
   and they rush to shed innocent blood;
their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity,
   desolation and destruction are in their highways.
⁸ The way of peace they do not know,
   and there is no justice in their paths.
Their roads they have made crooked;
   no one who walks in them knows peace. 

⁹ Therefore justice is far from us,
   and righteousness does not reach us;
we wait for light, and lo! there is darkness;
   and for brightness, but we walk in gloom.
¹⁰ We grope like the blind along a wall,
   groping like those who have no eyes;
we stumble at noon as in the twilight,
   among the vigorous^* as though we were dead.
¹¹ We all growl like bears;
   like doves we moan mournfully.
We wait for justice, but there is none;
   for salvation, but it is far from us.
¹² For our transgressions before you are many,
   and our sins testify against us.
Our transgressions indeed are with us,
   and we know our iniquities:
¹³ transgressing, and denying the Lord,
   and turning away from following our God,
talking oppression and revolt,
   conceiving lying words and uttering them from the heart.
¹⁴ Justice is turned back,
   and righteousness stands at a distance;
for truth stumbles in the public square,
   and uprightness cannot enter.
¹⁵ Truth is lacking,
   and whoever turns from evil is despoiled. 

The Lord saw it, and it displeased him
   that there was no justice.
¹⁶ He saw that there was no one,
   and was appalled that there was no one to intervene;
so his own arm brought him victory,
   and his righteousness upheld him.
¹⁷ He put on righteousness like a breastplate,
   and a helmet of salvation on his head;
he put on garments of vengeance for clothing,
   and wrapped himself in fury as in a mantle.
¹⁸ According to their deeds, so will he repay;
   wrath to his adversaries, requital to his enemies;
   to the coastlands he will render requital.
¹⁹ So those in the west shall fear the name of the Lord,
   and those in the east, his glory;
for he will come like a pent-up stream
   that the wind of the Lord drives on. 

²⁰ And he will to Zion as Redeemer,
   to those in Jacob who turn from transgression, says the Lord.
²¹And as for me, this is my covenant with them, says the Lord: my spirit that is upon you, and my words that I have put in your mouth, shall not depart out of your mouth, or out of the mouths of your children, or out of the mouths of your children’s children, says the Lord, from now on and forever.

        Isaiah 59 may seem an inappropriate passage as Little Rock, Arkansas approaches the sixtieth (60^th) anniversary of the desegregation of Little Rock Central High School on September 23, 1957.  There is not much about it that is celebratory.  Instead, Isaiah 59 is a prophetic indictment against an unjust society.   This chapter does not commend the state of affairs in that society.  It denounces and condemns it. 

The prophet makes it clear from the outset, however, that the situation could not be blamed on God.  See, the LORD’s hand is not too short to save, nor his ear too dull to hear.  Rather, your iniquities have been barriers between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear (Isaiah 59:1-2). 

It is uncomfortable and unpleasant to think and speak about injustice and about systemic, organized, and calculated oppression.  And often when people manage to engage in such uncomfortable and unpleasant thinking and speaking together, we try to shift the blame for social injustice onto God.  We think God has let us down.  God has turned off the divine hearing aid.  God is not strong enough to make things right. 

The prophet in Isaiah 59 overturns those ideas.  According to the prophet, societal injustice is a barrier between us and God.  God is neither puny nor unaware of our situation.  According to the prophet, a society can become contaminated by its sins (unloving and unfaithful behaviors) and iniquities (depravity shown by preference for oppression, hate, fear, and deceit over fairness, love, hope, and truth).  When that happens, injustice runs unchecked because people are infected by it. 

From that prophetic perspective, Isaiah 59 is a fitting starting point for our reflection on the state of public education, despite however uncomfortable and unpleasant it may be for us to admit.  Sixty years after September 23, 1957 – when nine black students, supported by L.C. and Daisy Bates and other courageous people associated with the Arkansas branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), defied racial segregation in public education in Arkansas by entering the largest and most prominent public high school in the capital city of Arkansas – the harsh observations we read in Isaiah 59 apply to our society the same way they applied to the society to whom those words were addressed.

For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue mutters wickedness (Isaiah 59:3).  Those words remind us about the history of brutality and treachery carried out against the cause of fair, free, and inclusive public education in Little Rock over the past sixty years.  Politicians opposed the idea of black students attending public school on equal terms with white students so much they tried to block the Little Rock 9 from entering Central High School in 1957.  The next year those politicians shut down the entire school district. 

If we are honest, we will admit schemes have been concocted over the past sixty years to cheat all children in the Little Rock School District from the opportunity to receive a free public education in schools that are racially inclusive and fairly administered.  In 1957, the schemers openly opposed racially inclusive and fairly administered public schools.  In 1957, Governor Orval Faubus – pretending that he was protecting public safety – ordered the Arkansas National Guard to block the Little Rock 9 from entering Central High School.  In 2015, the Arkansas Board of Education dissolved the elected Little Rock School Board pretending that it was protecting public education.  In 2017, the Arkansas Board of Education – not the National Guard – is blocking children from attending public schools that are fairly administered and racially inclusive.  

If we are honest, we will admit that business, civic, and religious leaders in Little Rock have consistently schemed to frustrate efforts to provide children in the Little Rock School District with racially inclusive and fair public education.

 

School attendance zones were drawn for years to preserve some schools as enclaves for white students while maintaining all black schools until court decisions forced them to be redrawn. 

Real estate developers schemed with Little Rock civic leaders to expand city services to “white flight” developments westward.  City services must be provided to those upper-income neighborhoods, but the boundaries of the Little Rock School District were deliberately not changed.  This has allowed residents of those neighbors to live outside the School District and not have their property taxes go toward supporting the LRSD. 

Religious leaders and congregations claimed that public schools were not sufficiently moral, so they set up private schools where white parents could know their children would not learn alongside black children to any appreciable degree.  Again, those private religious schools have been established to the west of the Little Rock School District.

So, if we are honest with ourselves, we will confess that the words of Isaiah 59 apply to the state of public education in Little Rock over the past sixty years.  No one brings suit justly, no one goes to law honestly; they rely on empty pleas, they speak lies, conceiving mischief and begetting iniquity.  They hatch adders’ eggs, and weave the spider’s web; whoever eats their eggs dies, and the crushed egg hatches out a viper.  Their web cannot serve as clothing; they cannot cover themselves with what they make (Isaiah 59:4-5). 

The nature of an egg is not determined by its outward appearance, but by what is produced when the egg is hatched.   The efforts about public education by self-serving politicians, real estate developers, and religious hypocrites over the past sixty years have been harmful– like the eggs of serpents – and useless – like spider webs are for covering oneself from nakedness.    

Sadly, this perspective does not come through from publicized events planned by the Little Rock School District and the National Park Service this month to commemorate what happened in 1957.  The theme for those events is “Reflections on Progress.”  But rather than celebrate, we should embrace the prophetic perspective found in these words.  Therefore justice is far from us, and righteousness does not reach us; we wait for light, and lo!  There is darkness; and for brightness, but we walk in gloom.  We grope like the blind along a wall, groping like those who have no eyes; we stumble at noon as in the twilight, among the vigorous as though we were dead.  We all growl like bears; like doves we moan mournfully; we wait for justice, but there is none; for salvation, but it is far from us.  For our transgressions before you are many, and our sins testify against us (Isaiah 59:9-12a).

Prophetic people should beware the temptation to accept pleasant lies rather than face and proclaim unpleasant truth.  One of those pleasant lies declared in Little Rock and elsewhere in the United States – that white parents want their children to attend public schools with black children – has been obvious for the past sixty years. 

White parents, not black parents, moved out of Little Rock to Sheridan, Lonoke, Bryant, Benton, Cabot, and Conway.  Real estate developers planned communities to attract white parents who were looking to find houses in communities where black people would be a smaller minority of the population, meaning there would be fewer, if any, black students attending schools with white children in those communities. 

If we are true to our calling as prophetic people, you and I should, like the prophet in Isaiah 59, confront our society with the bitter truth that there has not been much progress toward racially inclusive and fairly administered public education in Little Rock over the past sixty years.  Staged ceremonies, events, and publicity stunts intended to show off the supposed “progress” cannot and will not change the truth we know too well.  That confession will set the stage for us to embrace some aspects of God we don’t often think and speak about. 

First, realize that God sees and is disgusted about the injustice others would have us ignore and deny.  According to the prophet, God not only sees injustice, God is disgusted by it.  Justice is turned back, and righteousness stands at a distance… Truth is lacking, and whoever turns from evil is despoiled.  The LORD saw it, and it displeased him that there was no justice.  He saw … and was appalled that there was no one to intervene (Isaiah 59:14-16). 

God is not pleased by ceremonies celebrating the courage of the black students who challenged racial inequality in public education in 1957when black and brown students in 2017 are shut out of advanced placement classes in high school.  God is not pleased by ceremonies touting “progress” when elementary schools that served black and brown neighborhoods are closed over the voices of the people who live in those neighborhoods.

That is good news!  It is good to know that God is disgusted by the things that disgust us.  To put it more colorfully, God is pissed!  God is sickened by the hypocrisy that passes for support for public education.  God is sickened by the games being played and lies being told.  God is sickened when people who have hijacked public education for profit-making claim they are doing so in the name of reform.  It is good to know that God is disgusted, appalled, and pissed! 

Jesus overturned the tables of money exchangers during Holy Week.  He chased the money exchangers from the Temple.  He called religious leaders hypocrites.  That conduct shows that we have divine authority to act with holy outrage about the systemic injustice and oppression going on in the name of public education!  Like Jesus, we have divine permission to be appalled, disgusted, and yes – pissed – about the hatefulness, hypocrisy, and deceit that is happening and that people want to conceal by using the surviving eight members of the Little Rock 9 as propaganda tools for their fake display of “progress!”  

God is not only displeased; God is determined to act when humans refuse to correct blatant and systemic injustice.  The prophet proclaimed in Isaiah 59 that God put on righteousness like a breastplate, and a helmet of salvation on his head; he put on garments of vengeance for clothing, and wrapped himself in fury as in a mantle (Isaiah 59:17).   

Fabricated ceremonies won’t fool God or stop God from holding the purveyors of injustice accountable.  According to their deeds, so will he repay; wrath to his adversaries, requital to his enemies … So those in the west shall fear the name of the LORD, and those on the east his glory (Isaiah 59:18-19).

Prophetic people should see and condemn the racial injustice that passes for public education in Little Rock and elsewhere in this society.  We should also declare that God is displeased about the way power and privilege have been abused to deny all children in this community to full, free, and fairly administrated public schooling. 

We should also proclaim God’s promise of prophetic presence and hope.  This is what comes in the last word of Isaiah 59.  [T]his is my covenant with them, says the LORD:  my spirit that is upon you, and my words that I have put in your mouth, shall not depart out of your mouth, or out of the mouth of your children, or out of the mouths of your children’s children, says the LORD, from now on and forever (Isaiah 59:21).  

Yes, there are purveyors of injustice, but they are not unchallenged.  The Spirit of God is upon us.  The Spirit of justice is upon us. 

The Spirit of truth is in our mouth to speak truth when others conceive and hatch lies. 

The Spirit of fairness and revolution empowers and guides us to confront and overturn systems of oppression. 

God’s Spirit inspires us with boldness.  God’s Spirit sustains our hope despite sixty years of schemes, lies, and setbacks.  The Spirit of God not only calls us.  The Spirit of prophetic challenge and truth and hope will not leave us.  It will not leave our children.  It will not leave those who come after our children, “from now on and forever.” 

Let us confront and challenge the propaganda campaign surrounding the 60^th anniversary of the effort to desegregate Little Rock Central High School in the power of that Spirit. 

Amen.