BLACK LIVES MATTER IS NOT A THREAT GROUP!

BLACK LIVES MATTER IS NOT A THREAT GROUP:

How will you respond to the lie that it is one?

JUSTICE IS A VERB!

©Wendell Griffen, 2017

October 19, 2017

On October 13 members of my court security team attended a training session for court security officers in Hot Springs, Arkansas.  I learned from a member of my team that Instructor Ronnie Boudreaux of Advanced Law Enforcement Readiness Training (ALERT) referred to the Black Lives Matter movement as a hate group “like the KKK” while leading a session on court security.  When members of my staff questioned Instructor Boudreaux about his comment, he identified Black Lives Matter among a list of “threat groups.”  

I issued a letter objecting to Instructor Boudreaux’s mischaracterization of Black Lives Matter to the Director of Court Security for the Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) – the agency that oversees court administration in Arkansas – last Monday (October 16).  My letter included the following observations.

The Ku Klux Klan is a domestic terrorist organization that arose during the Reconstruction period following the Civil War.  Its history of terrorism has been the subject of federal legislation.  Instructor Boudreaux, ALERT, and your office can easily verify this information by reading the following Internet based article:  http://www.history.com/topics/ku-klux-klan. 

By contrast, Black Lives Matter is not and has never been designated a terrorist organization by Congress, or any state or federal law enforcement agency.  I invite you, Instructor Boudreaux, and the director of ALERT to cite any law that has ever identified Black Lives Matter in ways that resemble how the Ku Klux Klan has been identified.  Black Lives Matter does not and has not endorsed or condoned violence against law enforcement officers or anyone else, for that matter.  No authorized spokesperson for BLM has done so, and BLM has explicitly condemned hateful comments by others that have suggested or encouraged that anyone engage in violence against or toward law enforcement officers. 

Instructor Boudreaux’s characterization of BLM as a “hate” or “threat” group is baseless, however much he or others may believe it.

I am pleased by the response of Marty Sullivan, Director of the AOC, to my letter of protest.  When he was contacted by the media, Director Sullivan immediately disavowed the remarks made by Instructor Boudreaux, and agreed that Black Lives Matter is not a threat group (see https://m.arktimes.com/ArkansasBlog/archives/2017/10/16/judge-objects-to-trainers-references-to-black-lives-matter).

However, Michael Thompson, the president and a co-founder of ALERT according to its website (http://www.alert10-04.com/instructors1.html), compounded the cultural incompetence demonstrated by Instructor Boudreaux’s mischaracterization.  I share below what Max Brantley of the Arkansas Times reported concerning his conversation with Mr. Thompson:

… I talked with Mike Thompson, a former deputy U.S. marshal who owns Georgia-based ALERT, which he said has been providing training sessions for court bailiffs and other court officers for 20 years.

"I've heard Ronnie teach and there's not a racist bone in his body," Thompson said. "If anyone said anything out of line, it was a misstatement." He said he'd check with Boudreaux and said he'd be happy to talk to Griffen.

Thompson said in 20 years of teaching such courses, "it's the first time anyone has ever lodged a complaint such as this." He said he took pride in the quality of his company's instruction and added, "I wouldn't have anyone working for this company who is prejudiced."

He said ALERT, as a favor to a former student and friend who works in Arkansas, had put on the course Friday at cost, about $2,200, for about 70 court bailiffs. He said Boudreaux, a former U.S. marshal in Louisiana, talks about many groups that can present potential threats to court security. He said Black Lives Matter had recently been added to the list.  But he said the talk focused mostly on drug cartels and "sovereign citizens" as most dangerous. But he acknowledged that all groups mentioned, from tax protesters to Aryan and Nazi groups. were seen as having committed violent acts or acts that have "created a problem for law enforcement."

But he said, "We don't focus on any one group." He said he was sorry anyone took offense at the mention of Black Lives Matter.

Thompson’s responses to Max Brantley’s inquiry about Boudreaux’s characterization of Black Lives Matter reveal several disquieting realities.

·         Thompson confirmed that Black Lives Matter has recently been added to a list of groups seen as having committed violent acts or acts that have “created a problem for law enforcement.”  Who compiled and maintains that list?  What conduct or stances have been taken by Black Lives Matter that amounts to committing “violent acts” or acts that have “created a problem for law enforcement?”

·         Thompson confirmed that Boudreaux, a former U.S. Marshall in Louisiana, talks about many groups that can present potential threats to court security and that Black Lives Matter had recently been added to the list.  What incidents have been reported, not to mention confirmed, that involve Black Lives Matter movement people presenting threats to court security?  Who reported these “potential threats?”  When did the “potential threats” arise?  Who investigated the “potential threats to court security?”  Who verified the “potential threats” mentioned by Boudreaux and later repeated by Thompson?

·         Thompson’s statement that he was sorry if anyone took offense at the mention of Black Lives Matter exposes another troublesome, and troubling, reality.  Thompson skirted the whole question about the mischaracterization of Black Lives Matter as a group that has committed violent acts, acts that have “created a problem for law enforcement,” or acts that posed any threat to court security. 

Far from disproving my objection to Instructor Boudreaux’s mischaracterization of Black Lives Matter, Mr. Thompson’s response to Max Brantley’s inquiry confirmed that his organization views Black Lives Matter among groups that have committed violent acts and/or that have created a problem for law enforcement.  According to Thompson, Boudreaux, and (presumably) all other ALERT instructors, Black Lives Matter is similar to domestic terror groups similar to the Ku Klux Klan, Aryan Nation, and neo-Nazi white supremacist groups known for engaging in violence. 

According to its website, ALERT holds its instructors out as “subject matter experts” about court security.

The court security seminar provides law enforcement officers working in courthouses with the most current evidence-based practices used in securing courthouse complexes and protecting judicial personnel.  The program is a three-day comprehensive course that offers a wide range of training modules designed to reinforce the fundamentals of court security, enhance existing skill sets, and incorporate contemporary issues challenging America’s courthouses and the officers protecting them.  As subject matter experts, the instructors bring their experience to the classroom through lecture and practical exercises..,

 

This is a classic case of cultural incompetence that is subsidized with public money. 

Black Lives Matter is a social justice movement that arose to protest abusive and homicidal law conduct by enforcement agents, with special focus on abusive and homicidal law enforcement conduct and practices towards black, brown, and other persons of color.  Without citing a single verified report of violence endorsed, condoned, threatened, or committed by Black Lives Matter, Thompson, Boudreaux, and other ALERT instructors of court security officers and other law enforcement officers are perpetrating the false, untrue, - as in outright lie – message that Black Lives Matter poses an ongoing threat to court security and to law enforcement in general. 

Cultural incompetence happens when seasoned law enforcement instructors falsely accuse a social justice movement to protest abusive and homicidal conduct by publicly sworn and compensated law enforcement agents of being a threat to law enforcement and court security.

That cultural incompetence exists no matter how many years it has been practiced.  No matter how many years Boudreaux, Thompson, or anyone else has worked in law enforcement, lying about whether a social justice movement is a threat to law enforcement and court security is lying. 

The cultural incompetence doesn’t arise because my court security officers and I properly took offense to Black Lives Matter being falsely labeled a “threat” group.  It exists because Thompson, Boudreaux, and other ALERT instructors cannot tell the difference between exercising the freedom to demand that law enforcement officers not engage in abusive and homicidal conduct – a freedom enshrined in the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States – and committing criminal acts of violence and intimidation. 

Black Lives Matter has the right under the First Amendment – ratified in 1791 to the U.S. Constitution – to protest abusive and homicidal law enforcement behaviors, the people who engage in them, and the system that enables, protects, and attempts to justify abusive and homicidal law enforcement practices and policies.  Black Lives Matter is not a threat group, no matter what Ronnie Boudreaux, Michael Thompson, and anyone else may claim (whether associated with ALERT or not). 

How many other times have ALERT instructors made similar untrue claims about Black Lives Matter? 

How many law enforcement officers and court security officers have been misled by those claims?  

How much money has been paid to ALERT by taxpayers to send law enforcement and court security officers to be misinformed by Boudreaux and other ALERT instructors about Black Lives Matter? 

                           

When will public officials and members of the general public stop paying ALERT and other “subject matter experts” on law enforcement and court security to misinform law enforcement and court security officers?   

My court security officers and I are not the only persons who should be offended by what Instructor Boudreaux falsely claimed about Black Lives Matter.  I am not the only person who should insist that the propaganda spouted by ALERT about Black Lives Matter be denounced and condemned. 

Judging from the reaction by Mr. Thompson of ALERT, it is unlikely that ALERT will stop referring to Black Lives Matter as a “threat” group?  The question is whether the rest of us will stand by while public funds are paid to ALERT to spread that lie and misinform court security and other law enforcement officers. 

We can’t stop ALERT from being culturally incompetent.  We can and should insist that ALERT not be awarded public business and paid public funds for that incompetence.    

What will you do? 

PEOPLE IN THE PRESENCE OF FRUSTRATED GOD

PEOPLE IN THE PRESENCE OF FRUSTRATED GOD

©Wendell Griffen, 2017

A sermon for October 8, 2017

New Millennium Church, Little Rock, AR

Isaiah 5:1-7

5Let me sing for my beloved
   my love-song concerning his vineyard:
My beloved had a vineyard
   on a very fertile hill.
² He dug it and cleared it of stones,
   and planted it with choice vines;
he built a watch-tower in the midst of it,
   and hewed out a wine vat in it;
he expected it to yield grapes,
   but it yielded wild grapes. 

³ And now, inhabitants of Jerusalem
   and people of Judah,
judge between me
   and my vineyard.
⁴ What more was there to do for my vineyard
   that I have not done in it?
When I expected it to yield grapes,
   why did it yield wild grapes? 

⁵ And now I will tell you
   what I will do to my vineyard.
I will remove its hedge,
   and it shall be devoured;
I will break down its wall,
   and it shall be trampled down.
⁶ I will make it a waste;
   it shall not be pruned or hoed,
   and it shall be overgrown with briers and thorns;
I will also command the clouds
   that they rain no rain upon it. 

⁷ For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts
   is the house of Israel,
and the people of Judah
   are his pleasant planting;
he expected justice,
   but saw bloodshed;
righteousness,
   but heard a cry!

Matthew 21:33-46

33 ‘Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a watch-tower. Then he leased it to tenants and went to another country. ³⁴When the harvest time had come, he sent his slaves to the tenants to collect his produce. ³⁵But the tenants seized his slaves and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. ³⁶Again he sent other slaves, more than the first; and they treated them in the same way. ³⁷Finally he sent his son to them, saying, “They will respect my son.” ³⁸But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, “This is the heir; come, let us kill him and get his inheritance.” ³⁹So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. ⁴⁰Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?’ ⁴¹They said to him, ‘He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time.’

42 Jesus said to them, ‘Have you never read in the scriptures:
“The stone that the builders rejected
   has become the cornerstone;^*
this was the Lord’s doing,
   and it is amazing in our eyes”?
⁴³Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom.^* 44The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and it will crush anyone on whom it falls.’^*

45 When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they realized that he was speaking about them. ⁴⁶They wanted to arrest him, but they feared the crowds, because they regarded him as a prophet.

        Frustration is the English word we use to name a sense of not achieving what we have expected.  The verb in English is frustrated, meaning to prevent someone from achieving what he or she intended, as in to make the effort to achieve it useless.  As we ponder these passages from Isaiah 5 and Matthew 21 today, think of them as lessons about humans frustrating God, as in actively working to prevent God from getting what God expects. 

In these lessons, God is represented as a landowner who planted a vineyard.  Planting anything is an act of hope.  We plant hoping to harvest.  People pick ground, cultivate, fence it, put and put grape vines on it expecting to eventually harvest grapes.  They expect results.  They hope. 

But in these passages, God’s hopes are frustrated.  In Isaiah, the frustration is like that of a disappointed lover.  Let me sing for my beloved my love-song concerning his vineyard.  My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill.  He dug it and cleared it of stones; and planted it with choice vines; he built a watchtower in the midst of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it; he expected it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes [Isaiah 5:1-2].  In other words, despite all the attention and care God invested in Judah, God’s attention and care was spurned.  The society behaved in unloving and oppressive ways, as if it had not been favored by God.

The prophet explains the allegory at verse 7:  For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel, and the people of Judah are his pleasant planting; he expected justice, but saw bloodshed; righteousness, but heard a cry!  Despite all God had invested in Israel and Judah, the people refused to produce justice.  Instead, God found widespread violence (bloodshed) and suffering victims because of systemic oppression (heard a cry).   God is presented as frustrated.

Jesus made the same point in our lesson from Matthew 21.  There God is presented as a landowner who decided to plant a vineyard.  But in this lesson, God isn’t frustrated by the grape vines.  God is frustrated by the tenants to whom the vineyard was entrusted.  God expected the tenants to care for the vineyard, harvest the grapes when they ripened, and produce wine, as shown by the wine vat on the property. 

But when the vineyard owner sent employees to collect the income produced by the vineyard, the tenants intentionally and consistently mistreated them:  But the tenants seized his slaves and beat one, killed another, and stoned another.  Again he sent other slaves, more than the first; and they treated them the same way.  Finally he sent his son to them, saying, “They will respect my son.”  But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, “This is the heir; come, let us kill him and get his inheritance.” So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him [Matthew 21:35-39]. 

These lessons present God as frustrated, disappointed, spurned, rejected, defied, and even violated.  God is mistreated.  God is defied. God is spurned like a jilted lover.  In Matthew 21, God sends servants – prophets – to plead God’s cause.  But the prophets are mistreated.  Even God’s child is not respected. 

Dr. Marvin McMickle (President of Colgate Rochester Crozier Divinity School [CRCDS] in Rochester, New York)[1] has observed that the idea of rejecting and frustrating God, as shown in these lessons, is repeated in various ways in our time.  According to Dr. McMickle, some people reject the very idea of God as Creator and Sustainer of the universe.  Some people have chosen to disavow involvement with God in any personal sense of commitment in favor of “spirituality.”  Then there are the people who, according to Dr. McMickle “two-time the Lord.”  The point he makes is that these passages challenge us to see the various ways we reject God, frustrate God, defy God, and even do violence to God.[2] 

God is frustrated most of all by humans.  Humans alone in all the creation have the moral capacity to disobey, defy, and even make war against God.  Despite all that God has invested in us, humans frustrate God’s goodness.  We frustrate God’s love and justice.  Humans are the greatest threat to peace and hope in the world.  Despite all that God has done for us, with us, and on us, humans frustrate God! 

We frustrate God by the way we treat each other.  We frustrate God by mistreating the creation and other creatures on this planet.  We frustrate God by the ways we mistreat people who are vulnerable, marginalized, and helpless.  We frustrate God by embracing ideologies and ways of living that demand allegiance we only owe to God, what Marvin McMickle termed as how we “two-time God.” 

We don’t frustrate God accidentally, inadvertently, or by mistake.  These lessons force us to ponder the ways we deliberately, systematically, and knowingly live in opposition to God’s love and purposes.

Allan Boesak is on target when he makes the following observation in his latest book:

The wrongs we see are not just happening; they are caused to happen, and they are happening to the vast majority of God’s children who are vulnerable, targeted, and excluded from human consideration.  They are not happening randomly, they are deeply systemic, deliberately built into systems of oppression, domination, and dehumanization. And we must not be afraid to say it.[3]

These lessons were addressed to people who held themselves out as followers of God!  Isaiah and Jesus did not focus their attention on pagans, but on people who claimed to believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses. 

When we consider these lessons in that light, we cannot escape knowing that they apply to the religious attitudes and conduct in this society and that dominate throughout its culture. 

When one thinks of all God has invested in this society, why should God not be frustrated?  This nation is rich in natural resources.  The climate of this land is not only suitable for humans to live in, it is fruitful.  There is enough land and water to sustain and nourish every person who inhabits this society.  We live in a land with abundant resources.  Yet, many people suffer gut-wrenching poverty, hunger, and are homeless despite all the hymnals, Bibles, Bible study groups, and “soul-winning revivals” we see and hear about.  God is frustrated.

God has sent prophets to call this society away from our addiction to greed, violence, and oppression.  But instead of hearing and heeding Martin Luther King, Jr., this nation branded him a moral and political threat before it killed him.  This nation deliberately labeled Dr. King, Malcolm X, the Black Panthers, Angela Davis, Cesar Chavez, and other activists for peace and equality threats when they challenged racism, materialism, classism, sexism, imperialism, and other forms of injustice.  God is frustrated.

With unmistakable and deliberate conceit and hypocrisy  our nation twice committed the greatest act of mass murder known to humanity – within only three days – when it dropped nuclear bombs on children of God living in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. 

On August 6, 1945, our self-professed God-fearing nation deliberately dropped a nuclear bomb on Hiroshima, a city with an estimated population of 330,000 children of God.  The death toll from that bomb by December 1945 is estimated at between 90,000 and 120,000 people!  Three days later (August 9, 1945), the United States dropped a second nuclear bomb on Nagasaki, with its estimated population of 250,000.  The death toll from that bomb by December 1945 is estimated at between 60,000-80,000 people![4]  God was frustrated by what this nation did to the world when we cold-heartedly committed mass murder using nuclear weapons.  

God is frustrated by the usual religious suspects of our time – the Bible thumping cheerleaders who enable and encourage oppressive actions against immigrants, people who are hungry, homeless, sick, afflicted by physical, emotional, and other conditions of impairment. 

God is frustrated by religious bigotry against women, children, and God’s LGBTQ children.  God is frustrated because the usual religious suspects have co-signed that violence. 

The usual religious suspects elected a ruler who refused to show kindness and empathy for Hurricane Maria victims in Puerto Rico. 

The usual religious suspects cheered, campaigned for, and celebrated the election of a ruler who termed racial and ethnic bigots “fine people.” 

The usual religious suspects cheered when that ruler issued a pardon to a former law enforcement officer who used his office and power to terrorize Latinos in Arizona. 

Now the usual religious suspects are cheering as women and girls are being denied access to contraceptive care and services and celebrate while God’s LGBTQ children are threatened with loss of federal protection from discrimination at work and when they seek healthcare.[5] 

According to these lessons, the time comes when  entrenched opposition to divine love, mercy, peace, and hope is intolerable even for God. 

Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the scriptures: ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the LORD’s doing, and it is amazing in our eyes’?  Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruit of the kingdom.  The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, and it will crush anyone on whom it falls.”  Matthew 21:42-44. 

According to Jesus, God always has other options when we will not produce justice!  God has the option to turn to other people – meaning not the usual suspects – to produce the fruit of justice, peace, and hope God expects in God’s world.   

God has the option to work through other people – meaning not the usual suspects – who will be faithful and humble stewards of creation and God’s natural resources.    

God has the option to work with other people – meaning not the usual religious suspects – who will show the world how love is supposed to act.

God has the option to work with other people – meaning not the usual suspects – who will show that a prosperous society is defined by how poor, sick, persecuted, elderly, helpless, and immigrant people are treated with dignity, hospitality, respect, compassion, and tenderness, not how privileged people enjoy luxury. 

The religion of Jesus is the religion of “not the usual suspects.”  It is the religion of unconditional and inclusive love.  It is the religion of extravagant hospitality.  It is the love of fierce advocacy for the oppressed.  It is the religion of love and life in community with other children of God, not war and empire. 

God is calling us, in Jesus, to become part of a holy movement for love, peace, hope, justice, and compassion toward all.  God is calling us, in Jesus, to forsake the values and vices of the usual religious suspects.  Rejoice, beloved, because God is raising new servants who are replacing the usual suspects. 

Black Lives Matter is replacing the usual suspects.  The peace movement is replacing the usual suspects.  Faithful people are challenging the imperial vicious pretensions of the United States in this society and across the world because God is replacing the usual flag-waving, bomb and bullet worshipping, hymn singing, and hate-loving religious suspects.

Do you see it happening?  Can you sense how the usual suspects are uneasy?  The usual suspects are no longer considered trustworthy voices about love, truth, justice, and hope.  They are deadly afraid of being replaced because they sense that their age of male patriarchy and white supremacy is passing away!  They are fired up about “Make America Great Again” because they know their days are numbered! 

This is the Lord’s doing and it is amazing in our eyes!  Amen.   

---

[1] Dr. McMickle’s bio can be read at https://www.ats.edu/marvin-mcmickle.

[2] Feasting on the Word:  Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary (David J. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, general editors), Year A, Volume 4, pp. 142-43 (Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville, KY, 2011).   

[3] Allan Aubrey Boesak, Pharaohs on Both Sides of the Blood-Red Waters:  Prophetic Critique on Empire-Resistance, Justice, and the Power of the Hopeful Sizwe—A Transatlantic Conversation (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2017), p. 81.

[4] See Children of the Atomic Bomb: at http://www.aasc.ucla.edu/cab/200708230009.html. 

[5] See http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/politics/ct-trump-religious-rules-birth-control-lgbt-20171006-story.html. See also, https://apnews.com/3a4ee88a804446f48ba360ae29a98451. 

ENCOURAGEMENT FROM REV. DR. ALLAN AUBREY BOESAK

ENCOURAGEMENT FROM ALLAN AUBREY BOESAK

Justice Is A Verb!

October 7, 2017

South African theologian Rev. Dr. Allan Aubrey Boesak is a humanitarian, social justice activist, author of numerous books and scholarly articles, and a leading authority on liberation theology.  I am blessed by his friendship and loving encouragement of my efforts in ministry as a pastor, preacher, public theologian, and advocate for social justice.  He wrote the foreword for my 2017 book The Fierce Urgency of Prophetic Hope (Judson Press, Valley Forge, PA, 2017).  And, Dr. Boesak was delivered a lecture at New Millennium Church on Holy Saturday (April 15) and proclaimed the sermon on Easter (April 16), 2017.  The lecture and sermon can be viewed on the New Millennium website (www.newmillenniumchurch.us) by clicking on the Sermon Archive folder.

Dr. Boesak sent me the following e-mail message from South Africa earlier today after learning of my federal civil rights lawsuit against the Arkansas Supreme Court for permanently barring me from being assigned to, presiding over, and deciding civil and criminal cases involving capital punishment, the death penalty, and the method of execution in Arkansas.  With his permission and my gratitude, I now share his prophetic observations with you.

Dear Wendell,

…So often in the past days I have thought about you, knowing I should write to encourage you as you take on the forces of Empire in Arkansas, where you have lived so boldly and have taken your convictions from your prayer room to the pulpit, from the pulpit to the bench and from all these to the streets of injustice and struggles for peace, justice, dignity and life.

Of course they cannot let you be, you disturber of false peace; you exposer of officialised mendacity; you mocker of make-believe progress; you foolish prophet of righteousness, who think believing in Jesus actually makes a difference. So their ire rises as filth flourishes in stagnant water: trumped-up charges, persecution under the guise of judicial propriety, bludgeoning of the truth through the law as if the law truly mattered to them. Assassination of your character by gorging on your soul hoping to break your spirit. Begrudgingly having to recognize you as their colleague, but being too intelligent, independent, and strong to be their peer, they are forced to look up to you. 

So they resort to what they know best: to niggerize you through their blunt abuse of white power.Trying to smother your prophetic power with their damp, suffocating arrogance. Trying to still your voice by waterboarding you with public humiliation. Trying  to befoul your Godly work with the stench of their hypocrisy. They speak of "impeachment" but their lips drip "destruction" and their hearts drool "lynching". They pretend to speak with a civil tongue, but their blood lust gets in the way.

But their true desires are already known, and these shall not be fulfilled. But do not give in to them, my Brother. They shall fail ignominiously. Do not be afraid, "Those who are with us, are more than those who are with them." I think I know a little bit of what I speak. In my darkest days my mother, over and over, implored me to read Ps. 91. I pass that plea to you.

…

Allan

PROPHETIC ANSWERS IN A DIVISIVE TIME

PROPHETIC ANSWERS IN A DIVISIVE TIME

©Wendell Griffen, 2017

2017 T.B. Maston Foundation Award Banquet

Honoring

 Suzii Paynter

Executive Coordinator – Cooperative Baptist Fellowship

Friday, October 6, 2017

Dallas Baptist University

Dallas, Texas

David Morgan (Chair, T.B. Maston Foundation Board)

Current and former Maston Trustees

Suzii Paynter, the 2017 Maston Foundation honoree

Ladies and Gentlemen

        It is a special pleasure to attend this banquet and join others who acknowledge the dedication, discipline, and fiercely amiable courage of Reverend Suzii Paynter.  I have not known Suzii as long as many of you.  However, I find myself unable to think of any other living soul who has given me more personal joy in being Baptist. 

Suzii, congratulations on this well-earned recognition!  Beyond that, thank you for accepting and doing the important and often difficult work of leading Cooperative Baptists at what I have come to term “a divisive time.”  Thank you for leading us with dignity and courage.  Thank you for being an advocate, and for being a prophetic soul for and to our faith group with its uneven history – at best – of recognizing and heeding prophetic leadership.    

        I will speak tonight from the subject Prophetic Answers in a Divisive Time.  You do not need me to persuade you that we live in a divisive time.  After all, we are Baptist people.  Our history – and perhaps our habit (if not our heritage) – is defined by divisiveness. 

        At the risk of inviting your disappointment, if not your disagreement, I do not believe we are living in a time that is more divisive than past eras.  Humans have always managed to quarrel, dishonor, and try to oppress one another.  Every age has its candidates and competitors for imperial supremacy.  In every age, people have tried to steal and kill their way to dominance.  In every age, new ideas have been met with doubts, derision, and attempts to persecute the people holding them.  In every age, those who are strong have used their strength to oppress others who are vulnerable. 

In every age, immigrant people have been targeted for exploitation and persecution.  In every age, religion has been used as an agent for hating people we should love, and claiming that doing so is proof of fidelity to God. 

We are not the first people to live in a time of intense racial and religious discord.  Has there ever been a time when humans did not argue, break fellowship, and even wage war among themselves about notions of religion and beliefs about ethnic and ancestral identity?  I think not.

I could mention other examples to illustrate that divisiveness is not new in this society or elsewhere for that matter.  That reality is clear from secular and sacred history.  Ours is not the first era to witness divisiveness. 

We are the first, however, to witness so much divisiveness in real time on a constant basis.  We are the first humans to live when it is possible to know within minutes about tragedies that happen around the world.    And that makes us the first humans to be able to live knowing about tragedies affecting countless others yet behave as if we do not care or cannot find the means to do anything about them. 

How shall you and I, as followers of Jesus, provide answers to so many people concerning so much suffering?  Where do we find strength to face the suffering, let alone encourage those who suffer?  How do we deal with our own sense of inadequacy, the painful lessons of past times of crisis, cruelty, timidity, and even mendacity that cause so many people to distrust God, disavow faith in God, and distance themselves from opportunities to become community with other persons for the glory of God? 

Let me offer a couple of suggestions.  They are not original.  They are insights from Howard Thurman, the African-American mystic and pastor who inspired Samuel DeWitt Proctor and Martin Luther King, Jr., and from Allan Aubrey Boesak, the South African theologian who labored alongside Desmond Tutu and others to confront racism, materialism, and militarism in South Africa. 

Writing in n The Inward Journey, Howard Thurman made the following observation. 

We keep a troubled vigil at the bedside of the world.  We cannot accept its sickness as unto death but we cannot grasp the meaning and the hope of a cure that will make life all about us hale and well.  The contemplation of the destruction of the world at our hands confronts even our little lives and their little part with a guilt too vast to assuage and too overwhelming to manage.  Thus we clutch the moment of intimacy in worship when we become momentarily a part of a larger whole, a fleeting strength, which we pit against all the darkness and the dread of other times. 

         I think we who are often called on to speak up for the unheard, show up for the overlooked, and cry out for those whose cries have been disregarded must take care that we hold onto a sense that we are what Thurman termed “part of a larger whole.”  No matter what powers and problems we face, whether they stem from forces inside us or forces around us, we must always remember that we are not alone. 

We are part of a larger whole.  God is doing something big, no matter how little we think of ourselves or how little others think of us.  God is up to something.  Through Jesus, we have reason to believe we’re supposed to be involved with it. 

Whenever your prophetic strength seems inadequate to the oppressive realities that seem to cause so much divisiveness and suffering, remember we are part of a larger whole.  You and I are only a part of what God is doing.  God is doing more about whatever troubles us than we know.  God’s Spirit is working in ways we do not know.  God’s grace is moving on people in ways we do not know.  God’s mercies are operating in places we do not know. 

We are little parts of God’s BIG WORK!  Do not be disappointed if the work seems bigger than we are.  It is not bigger than God!  It is not bigger than God’s grace.  It is not bigger than God’s purposes. 

I move quickly to add a stirring word from Allan Boesak.  His latest book is titled Pharaohs on Both Sides of the Blood-Red Waters and sub-titled “Prophetic Critique on Empire:  Resistance, Justice, and the Power of the Hopeful Sizwe.”At Chapter 2, Boesak calls for prophetic people to not be afraid to speak a different language concerning what he and Pope Francis have termed “the globalization of indifference.”  Boesak joins Pope Francis in calling on prophetic people “to not be afraid” to speak a different language about human suffering, in these words.

We are in no position to offer comfort, compassion and justice to a suffering, bleeding humanity overwhelmed by a petrifying indifference, if we do not believe that there is good news they should hear.  And we cannot speak a language of hope and resilience, of resistance and redemption, if we do not unlearn the language of imperial compliance: of domination and subjugation, of carelessness and indifference, of diplomatic evasion.

We are no longer in a position to deny that the pope is right:  something is wrong, and it is more wrong today than ten or twenty years ago.  The time has come for us not to be afraid to say it.  I am not talking about simply mentioning, enumerating, or bemoaning the wrongs we see.  To not be afraid to say it has everything to do with how we say it.  Do we say it with truth, with courage, with compassion, and with faithfulness to those who suffer?  The wrongs we see are not just happening; they are caused to happen, and they are happening to the vast majority of God’s children who are vulnerable, targeted and excluded from human consideration.  They are not happening randomly, they are deeply systemic, deliberately built into systems of oppression, domination, and dehumanization.  And we must not be afraid to say it.

…

We must not only break the silence.  We must speak a different language.  Our language must be a courageous, liberating, transformative, healing, inclusive language … We should learn to resist the temptation to see the global realities through the eyes of the powerful and privileged, but rather through the eyes of the suffering, the weak and the vulnerable, the dehumanized and the demonized, the outcasts and the excluded…

We must be much more alert in our awareness … that our global reality is an imperial reality… Empires not only create realities of dominations and subjugation; they also create myths:  of invincibility, endless power, infinite duration, great beneficence, and divine incarnation.  Crucial to all these is what Walter Wink called the “myth of redemptive violence.”  Instead of acknowledging the violence it uses because it is needed for continued domination, subjugation, and exploitation, the empire “enshrines the belief that violence saves, that war makes peace, that might makes right.”  Consequently violence is not only necessary; it is the only thing that “works.” [1]

I agree with Allan Boesak that prophetic people must stop being afraid to speak the language of anger, courage, and audacious hope.  This is the language of Matthew 23 that dares to condemn the idolatry of empire.  This is the language of Jesus, John the Baptist, and the other Hebrew prophets.  This is the language of Martin Luther King, Jr., Clarence Jordan, Jeremiah Wright, and Marian Wright Edelman. 

This is the language of the gospel.  This is the language that must be heard and heeded by people who sincerely seek answers from prophetic people in our divisive time. 

When we are not afraid to speak this language, we will be vilified and persecuted.  When we are not afraid to speak this language, those who define religious effectiveness by attendance, buildings, and cash will leave us.

But then we will speak like Jesus.  We will sound like Jesus.  We will be heard as Jesus was heard.  And the redeeming results of our witness will endure long after our words and our voices have passed from memory.  

Amen.

---

[1] Allan Aubrey Boesak, Pharaohs on Both Sides of the Blood-Red Waters:  Prophetic Critique on Empire-Resistance, Justice, and the Power of the Hopeful Sizwe—A Transatlantic Conversation (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2017), pp. 81-82.   

THE WEIRD WAY GOD WORKS

THE WEIRD WAY GOD WORKS

©Wendell Griffen, 2017

A Sermon Delivered

October 1, 2017 (17^th Sunday after Pentecost)

New Millennium Church, Little Rock, Arkansas

Ezekiel 2:1-7

2He said to me: O mortal,^* stand up on your feet, and I will speak with you. ²And when he spoke to me, a spirit entered into me and set me on my feet; and I heard him speaking to me. ³He said to me, Mortal, I am sending you to the people of Israel, to a nation^* of rebels who have rebelled against me; they and their ancestors have transgressed against me to this very day. ⁴The descendants are impudent and stubborn. I am sending you to them, and you shall say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God.’ ⁵Whether they hear or refuse to hear (for they are a rebellious house), they shall know that there has been a prophet among them. ⁶And you, O mortal, do not be afraid of them, and do not be afraid of their words, though briers and thorns surround you and you live among scorpions; do not be afraid of their words, and do not be dismayed at their looks, for they are a rebellious house. ⁷You shall speak my words to them, whether they hear or refuse to hear; for they are a rebellious house.

Jeremiah 1:4-10, 17-19

4 Now the word of the Lord came to me saying,
⁵ ‘Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
and before you were born I consecrated you;
I appointed you a prophet to the nations.’
⁶Then I said, ‘Ah, Lord God! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy.’ ⁷But the Lord said to me,
‘Do not say, “I am only a boy”;
for you shall go to all to whom I send you,
and you shall speak whatever I command you.
⁸ Do not be afraid of them,
for I am with you to deliver you,

says the Lord.’
⁹Then the Lord put out his hand and touched my mouth; and the Lord said to me,
‘Now I have put my words in your mouth.
¹⁰ See, today I appoint you over nations and over kingdoms,
to pluck up and to pull down,
to destroy and to overthrow,
to build and to plant.’ ¹⁷But you, gird up your loins; stand up and tell them everything that I command you. Do not break down before them, or I will break you before them. ¹⁸And I for my part have made you today a fortified city, an iron pillar, and a bronze wall, against the whole land—against the kings of Judah, its princes, its priests, and the people of the land. ¹⁹They will fight against you; but they shall not prevail against you, for I am with you, says the Lord, to deliver you.

Matthew 5:10-16

10 ‘Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

11 ‘Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely^* on my account. ¹²Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

13 ‘You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled underfoot.

14 ‘You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hidden.¹⁵No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. ¹⁶In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.

Acts 17:1-7

17After Paul and Silas^* had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews. ²And Paul went in, as was his custom, and on three sabbath days argued with them from the scriptures, ³explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Messiah^* to suffer and to rise from the dead, and saying, ‘This is the Messiah,^* Jesus whom I am proclaiming to you.’⁴Some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a great many of the devout Greeks and not a few of the leading women. ⁵But the Jews became jealous, and with the help of some ruffians in the market-places they formed a mob and set the city in an uproar. While they were searching for Paul and Silas to bring them out to the assembly, they attacked Jason’s house. ⁶When they could not find them, they dragged Jason and some believers^* before the city authorities,^* shouting, ‘These people who have been turning the world upside down have come here also, ⁷and Jason has entertained them as guests. They are all acting contrary to the decrees of the emperor, saying that there is another king named Jesus.’

        The “Reflections on Progress” events have concluded.  The eight surviving members of the Little Rock 9 have been honored, photographed, acclaimed by politicians, again.  They have been questioned by journalists, again.  The Little Rock 9 have, again, been recognized for the brave and steadfast ways they entered, endured, and survived their ordeal as the first black children to enter Little Rock Central High School in September 1957.   The festivities have ended.  People have returned to their routine pursuits. 

        What happens now that this city, state, and nation has finished the sixth decennial exercise of civic, cultural, political, and religious posturing about our professed belief in racial equality and justice?  And what does this have to do with people who believe in the justice, truth, peace, and hope of God?

For the past three Sundays I’ve tried to shed some prophetic light about racial injustice in public education from the context of the 60^th anniversary to commemorate the desegregation of Little Rock Central High School by the Little Rock 9.   This is the fourth and final sermon of the series.  Now that the hoopla has ended, let us ponder together how God works concerning injustice and oppression.  Doing so will help us understand what we need to know and do about the idolatry of racism and heresy of white supremacy concerning public education in Little Rock.  I hope this sermon will inspire us to ponder what people like us – followers of the Palestinian Hebrew prophet called Jesus – can do about racial inequality in public education now that public attention has shifted from Little Rock Central High and the Little Rock 9. 

The passages from Ezekiel 2, Jeremiah 1, Matthew 5, and Acts 17 are not like the celebratory and festive stuff we heard from politicians, pundits, and the other disciples of the white supremacy empire known as public education in Little Rock, Arkansas, and the United States.  Each of these four passages brings us face to face with the weird way God works concerning injustice, oppression, and empire. 

God works on injustice through prophetic people – salt and light people – not pawns of empire!  Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Jesus, and Paul are not remembered – in religion or otherwise – as agents of political, cultural, commercial, or even religious empire.  They are remembered as prophetic personalities.  These people somehow had the notion that God was up to something concerning the human situation of their times and locations.  Nationalism, economic oppression, militarism, and classism were some of the major forces Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Jesus, and Paul faced.  Somehow, they thought God had something to say to them and something for them to do that impacted their situations. 

Ezekiel declared that a spirit entered into me and set me on my feet; and I heard him speaking to me.  He said to me, Mortal, I am sending you … to a nation of rebels who have rebelled against me; they and their ancestors have rebelled against me to this very day.  The descendants are impudent and stubborn.  I am sending you to them, and you shall say to them, “Thus says the Lord GOD.”  Whether they hear or refuse to hear (for they are a rebellious house), they shall know that there has been a prophet among them.  Ezekiel 2:2-5. 

Jeremiah claimed that the word of the LORD came to me saying, “… I appointed you a prophet to the nations…. Do not say, ‘I am only a boy’; for you shall go to all to whom I send you, and you shall speak whatever I command you.  Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you, says the LORD… Now I have put my words in your mouth.  See, today I appoint you over nations and over kingdoms, to pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant… But you, gird up your loins; stand up and tell them everything that I command you… And I for my part have made you today a fortified city, an iron pillar, and a bronze wall, against the whole land – against the kings of Judah, its princes, its priests, and the people of the land.  They will fight against you, but they shall not prevail against you, for I am with you, says the LORD, to deliver you.”  Jeremiah 1:5,7-8, 10, 17-19.

I dare not address the weird way God works without mentioning Luke 4:18-19, where Jesus read these words from Isaiah 61 when he returned to Nazareth at the beginning of his public ministry.  The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.  Then we find these words at Luke 4:21:  Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” That inspiration caused Jesus to deliver the Sermon on the Mount we read in Matthew’s Gospel.  That inspiration is what made Jesus describe the common people he lived among – people like us –  the salt of the earth and the light of the world. 

     

 Paul and Silas preached and led men and women from diverse backgrounds into prophetic community in the name of that prophetic Palestinian called Jesus at Thessalonica as we read in Acts 17.  The prophetic Palestinian Hebrew named Jesus had by that time achieved such an impact that agents of empire in Thessalonica said “These people who have been turning the world upside down have come here also… They are all acting contrary to the decrees of the emperor, saying that there is another king named Jesus.”  Acts 17:6-7 

God works through prophetic people like Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Jesus, and Paul – salt and light subversives and outcasts from empire!  Salt is a sanitizing agent.  Light illuminates. God works through prophetic salt and light people – who are actually people like you and me – to make liberating differences for love, truth, justice, peace, and hope in the world.

Injustice always requires both salt and light to be overcome.  God’s prophetic people are the forces of salt and light in society.  Prophetic people – yes, people like you and me – bring the salty and stinging message about the wickedness of white supremacy, racism, and other forms of oppression and injustice.  And we shine light on how to dismantle oppressive systems and restructure power in order to achieve justice.

But prophetic - salt and light – people are not pawns of empire!  They can’t be pushed around.  They don’t permit themselves to be positioned in order to satisfy imperial designs for oppressive power. 

Prophetic people also aren’t stage props for empire.  I doubt that Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Jesus, and Paul would have fought for a photo opportunity with the rulers of their time.  They were salt and light critics of the rulers, not pawns and props for ruling authorities and their unjust schemes and actions. 

Don’t expect truth about racial inequality in public education from agents of empire. Don’t trust insights about justice from people who have spent their entire lives sucking the breast of white supremacy.  Don’t think that white supremacist iniquities and inequities about public education will be exposed – let alone challenged and corrected – by politicians and preachers who have majored in white supremacy theology, white supremacy religious doctrine, white supremacy politics, white supremacy chamber of commerce initiatives and practices, and white supremacy education ideas and traditions. 

Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Jesus, and Paul illustrate how God calls prophetic people – the people Jesus described as the salt of the earth and the light of the world – to confront, expose, and lead the effort to overcome injustice.  God’s prophetic “salt and light people” have strange wheels turning in their heads.  They move to the beat of a different drummer and hear subversive messages.  God sends them to show up – often unexpected and uninvited – to speak unconventional and inconvenient truths.

 

The next weird thing about how God’s works involves repentance.  Whenever God sends salt and light prophetic people to address injustice, expect them to call for repentance.  Now that isn’t what we hear from the empire crowd.  The empire crowd likes to talk about things like reflection, renewal, reconciliation, and re-engagement.  Salt and light people call for repentance. 

Reflection without repentance is like trying to treat appendicitis by engaging in nostalgia rather than performing surgery to remove an infected appendix.  Our unjust situation in public education requires surgery.  We must dismantle and discard unjust system and policies.  Then we must restructure public education to produce fair and free education for all children.  That won’t happen as long as we fool ourselves by paying attention to people who engage in fraudulent reflections about the past and falsely claim those reflections amount to progress.      

Repentance about racial inequities in public education involves facing the truth that public education in Little Rock has always been poisoned by white supremacy and racism.  God needs need prophetic people to declare the salt and light message that repentance means dismantling the structures and arrangements of white supremacy and racism in public education that have always worked to deprive black, brown, and poor children equal access to the money, teachers, facilities, and programs traditionally reserved for children who are white and from affluent families. 

Repentance will require that prophetic people de-bunk the lie that justice is “color blind.”  Public policy has never been “color blind” in the United States, in Arkansas, and in Little Rock concerning education or anything else.  People who insist on “color blind” approaches to addressing racial injustice in public education are not going to expose and dismantle white supremacist structures and schemes.

And repentance will require that prophetic people present a counter-narrative for justice.  Our opposition to the immoral takeover of the Little Rock School District by the State Board of Education must be joined with salt and light approaches to dismantle unjust systems and establish just ones. 

Salt and light prophetic educators should help people see how to resist existing unjust systems and create subversive alternatives that produce just educational outcomes for the whole society, not merely children who are white and affluent.  Salt and light community leaders should help develop voter education and outreach strategies.  Salt and light religious people should help convert religious spaces into after school academic and social enrichment centers. 

Finally, God’s weird way involves sending prophetic people to declare God’s message of repentance in the face of rejection.  The Spirit of God told Ezekiel, “I am sending you to … a nation of rebels…. Whether they hear or refuse to hear (for they are a rebellious house), they shall know that there has been a prophet among them. And you, O mortal, do not be afraid of them, and do not be afraid of their words, though briers and thorns surround you and you live among scorpions; do not be afraid of their words, and do not be dismayed at their looks, for they are a rebellious house.

The Spirit of God told Jeremiah, “They will fight against you, but they shall not prevail against you, for I am with you…”

Jesus told his followers, “Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.  Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” 

Don’t expect the chamber of commerce crowd to join our call to dismantle the school to prison pipeline. Expect opposition.  Expect criticism.  Expect to be falsely accused of being a race baiter because you refuse to go along with the conventional myth about “color blind” policies.  Expect to be treated like Jesus, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Paul, and other prophetic salt and light people across the ages. 

We aren’t working for the empire.  We’re working for God.  We’re not looking for approval from the empire.  We’re living to do justice for God.  God has called us to turn the world of public education upside down.  God has called us to shake the foundations of white supremacy and racism.  God has sent us to be fierce agents of healing and hope for people who are suffering the effects of generations of racism, generations of false promises, generations of stolen resources, generations of unfair treatment, and generations of despair. 

God is sending us to be salt and light.  God is sending us to sanitize and illuminate public education.  God is sending us, yes, I said us!  As weird as it seems, this is the way God works.   

I’m glad God has called us.  I’m glad God is sending us demand that this community, state, and nation repent from its long history of white supremacy and racism concerning public education.   I’m glad we do not do this work alone.  God is with us! 

God is with us when people criticize and mistreat us because we are working to dismantle oppressive systems and practices that cause racial inequality in public education. 

God is with us when we struggle against the rich and powerful forces of empire. 

God is with us when we are falsely accused.  God is with us when fake friends abandon us.  God is with us even when religious folks denounce us. 

God works through prophetic people to overcome unjust and oppressive situations and systems.  God works through prophetic people who demand and actively work to produce repentance so that oppressive situations and systems are dismantled and restructured for justice.  God works through prophetic people who demand and work to produce repentance while facing threats, persecution, and other forms of opposition. 

This is the weird way God works to overcome injustice.  Let’s join God in that work.

Amen.