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.

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.