Why Jeremiah is Wright

A Sermon delivered by Reverend Marlin Lavanhar
at All Souls Unitarian Church in Tulsa, OK
Sunday, April 6, 2008

The last time I stepped into the pulpit this upset, someone came up to me after the service and said, “Marlin, you’re so much more fun when you’re angry.”  I hope that’s true, because I’m heading that direction again.

            I can’t believe the ignorance in our country about the prophetic traditions of the Bible and of the black church.  The firestorm that has erupted over Barack Obama’s pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., due to some sound-bites from his sermons, taken out of context, is more than a political ploy, it’s a character assassination of a man whose 36-year ministry has been, on the whole, prolific and profound.  To understand Rev. Wright’s preaching we need to understand the prophets of the Bible and the role of the black church in America.  But before I turn to Rev. Wright and the Hebrew prophets, let’s talk about Moses.

Remember what it took for Moses to lead his people out of slavery?  The Bible says he parted the waters of the Red Sea.  Now I realize there are people who say, “well it was actually the Reed Sea, a kind of marshy area that can be walked over at certain times, etc, etc...”  But this explanation misses the larger point, which is that it takes something truly extraordinary – nothing short of a miracle – to overcome the forces of oppression and domination.  It takes something truly extraordinary to break the chains that bind us, even when those chains are something like drug addiction, an abusive relationship, hatred, prejudice, greed or overwhelming grief.  There are chains that bind us.

The Hebrew prophets knew something about what it takes.  These peculiar men used fiery, incendiary and excessive rhetoric to get the attention of their society.  They had a breathless impatience with injustice of all kinds.  The prophets’ violent outbursts are often harsh, relentless and alarming.  And it’s because the Hebrew prophet believes nothing less than the soul of his nation is at stake.  The Hebrew prophet sees that his people have turned their backs on the ideals of their nation.  His people have a covenant with God to create a just society, and their covenant is being broken by greed and arrogance and lies.  And so, to get the attention of the people, his words can be vile and slashing and are designed more to shock than to edify.

For example, the prophet Jeremiah calls his nation Israel everything from a prostitute, to a harlot, to a donkey in heat, to a corrupt vine, and he goes on to curse their children and grandchildren.  And this is just in the first few chapters!  At this point, he’s just getting warmed up.  But how do we go about wrenching people from their addiction to corruption and greed?  How can we conquer callousness and arrogance and ignorance?  Have you ever tried to convince an addict to stop doing drugs?  Or tried to make an alcoholic quit drinking?  If so, you know it’s like banging your head up against a wall.  Now imagine an entire nation of people inebriated by a culture of violence.  (Well come to think of it, that shouldn’t be too hard for Americans to imagine.)   And imagine a society that exploits and neglects the poor and the immigrant.  And does it under an illusion that they are the righteous of the world.  (I guess that’s not too hard for us to imagine either, is it?)

Hopefully you’re getting the point of what the Biblical prophet’s were up against.  What can anyone do to wrest people’s attention when they believe that civilization could come to an end and that the human species could and might just disappear?  It takes something truly extraordinary.  If only one could separate the waters of the sea, then maybe people would stop and pay attention.

Yet, the prophet’s work is even more improbable.  He needs to separate a people from their delusions and selfishness.  A prophet believes that people must be aligned with the will of God or else they will face total destruction.  The prophet reminds his people that by sowing the seeds of immorality they will reap their fatal and noxious fruits.  But behind the stinging and sour words of the biblical prophet, there is always a deep and abiding love for his nation and its people.  He’s not calling down the wrath and damnation upon his people, as some misunderstand.  He’s trying to get them to wake up and change their ways to avoid such doom.  His message begins with disaster, but concludes with hope.

Yet, in their zeal and hysteria, the prophets of the Bible, are known for overstating their case.  They are known for hyperbole and for making broad and sweeping generalizations.

Jeremiah in the Bible says:

Run to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem,

look and take note!

Search her squares to see if you can find one man,

one who does justice and seeks truth;

every one is greedy for unjust gain;

and from prophet to priests, everyone deals falsely… 

(Jeremiah 5:1, 5; 6:13; 8:10)

Were all the people of Israel greedy and unjust?  Of course not.  But the prophets’ wails are not about accuracy – they’re about attention.  We see it in Amos, Isaiah, Micah, Jeremiah and all the prophets of the Bible.  But we must keep in mind that these men believed (as many Americans believe) that their nation was to be a moral exemplar to all the nations of the world.  And when their nation acts immorally and illegally, it can only lead to one thing: great destruction.  Because if they don’t set a high standard, who will? 

Yet the cost of prophesy was high for the prophets in Biblical times, just as it is for prophets in all times.  They always provoked the hostility and outrage of their contemporaries.  Rabbi Abraham Heschel, one of the great Jewish scholars of the 20^th century explains that, in their time the Hebrew prophets were seen by patriots as pernicious, by the pious as blasphemous, and to the men in power they were seditious.[i]  Prophets like Amos and Jeremiah were often mistaken as enemies of their people.  The Hebrew Jeremiah was considered a traitor and he received death threats from priests and villagers. (26:11; 11:21). 

One reason people became so upset with the prophets was that, when their country was attacked, instead of cursing the enemy, they condemned their own nation for their actions that led to the attack.  The prophets constantly call on their own countrymen to look at what they had done to bring on the wrath of other nations – which they equated with the wrath of God.  A prophetic voice, in any era, is meant to challenge and to raise questions that society needs to consider and talk about.  A prophet’s job is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. 

We have a proud history of such prophetic leadership in this country too.  Frederick Douglass, after escaping American slavery, went on to challenge the hypocrisy and failures of this nation.  "I will hold up America to the light and scorn of moral indignation,” he said.  “In doing this I shall feel myself discharging the duty of a true patriot; for he is a lover of his country who rebukes and does not excuse its sins."

We could ask, “How does one separate a government and a nation from a culture and economy, based on centuries of slavery and racial degradation?  If we ask Frederick Douglass, he’ll tell us it takes something truly extraordinary.  It may seem even more incredible than parting the waters of a sea.

Then there’s Martin Luther King Jr., who said of America: "[T]he greatest purveyor of violence in the world today – [is] my own government."  In his speech to sanitation workers in Memphis he said, “If this nation does not change its ways, it is going to hell.” 

How does one get a nation to give up a culture of white supremacy and racial apartheid?  It takes something truly extraordinary.  Of course, despite their chafing rebukes of our nation, both Frederick Douglass and Martin Luther King Jr. are considered two of the greatest and most influential Americans that ever lived.  Yet, like the Hebrew prophets, they were both highly controversial in their own time.  Like the prophets, they were viewed by many to be a threat to the nation, and as unpatriotic.  So, the uproar over Rev. Jeremiah Wright needs to be seen within the context of prophetic religion both in ancient Israel and in America.  And it needs to be understood within the context of the black church in America. 

Just recently, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in a Washington Times interview:

“Black Americans were a founding population.  Africans and Europeans came here and founded this country together – Europeans by choice, and Africans in chains.”  You see, in founding this nation, Europeans brought their religion, while Africans were intentionally stripped of theirs.  For generations African slaves were kept from Christianity and they were separated from each other so they wouldn’t practice their tribal faiths.  When they finally were introduced to Christianity, the church taught them that being a slave was ordained by God.  So was respect for one’s master.  They were taught that they were a people cursed by the sins of Ham, the son of Noah.  And thus, their divine punishment was to be enslaved, and their reward, if they were obedient, would come in the next world.

At first, slaves could only attend white churches.  It was an arrangement that didn’t work well for either group.  In the minutes from the Presbyterian Synod of South Carolina and Georgia in 1834 it reads:

The Gospel, as things are now, can never be preached to the two classes successfully in conjunction.  The galleries, or the back seats on the lower floors of white churches, are generally appropriated to the Negroes, when it can be done without inconvenience to the whites.  When it cannot be done conveniently, the Negroes must catch the Gospel as it escapes through the doors and windows.^[ii]

Of course, black Christians desired more than the white man's convenience would allow.  Black Christians wanted places of worship more compatible with their sense of freedom and dignity.  However, black churches were considered dangerous and were outlawed in every Southern state and were suppressed and severely regulated by law until the Civil War.  Before then, black church meetings would happen in secret, in the swamps and bayous and under the cover of darkness.[iii]

 

So, black churches emerged in response to white racism.  Black Christians created their own churches so they could meet God on their own terms.  Because God, as mediated through the white church’s theology, scorned and subjugated black people.  Just as Moses separated the waters of the sea to lead his people to freedom, black Christians had to separate themselves from the white churches in order to create a path to their own freedom and dignity.  They had to separate themselves from a Christian religion that tried to make their dehumanization seem reasonable and inevitable.  They had to separate themselves from preachers who would teach them how the Apostle Paul rebuked a slave who wanted to become Christian to first return to his master.  They needed to break free from a church that told black people their captivity and debasement was ordained by God.

And now, today, when a proud and powerful black church is on trial in the media, it is imperative for Americans to remember that the black church was born at a time when most white churches were preaching a gospel that was evil in the ways it subjugated and debased non-white people.  And in many ways the black church and black leaders have helped call Christianity back toward the truth and the light that all people are children of God.

We have to remember that black churches affirmed black people as human and beloved, at a time when the society told them they were nobody.  And it was the only public institution where black people had total authority.  It was the only place in society where a black person was not just seen as someone’s servant, janitor or maid, but was seen as a blessed child of God. Scholar Eric Lincoln writes of the importance of the black church in that it:

[B]ecame the community forum, the public school, the conservatory of music, the place where the elocutionary arts, the graphic arts, the literary arts, and the domestic arts were put on proud display.  It was the Lyceum and Gymnasium as well as the sanctum sanctorum  It was the prime developer of black leadership. 

[One historian wrote]:

[I]t became to the Afro-American race what Faneuil Hall was to the Anglo-American – the cradle of liberty.  It produced Nat Turner and it produced Martin Luther King Jr.  [T]he black church has been a womb and a mother to a vast spectrum of black leadership in every generation since its inception. ^[iv]

And it’s important to note, as Lincoln does, that:

[D]uring the slave era, the black churches were monitored by the white man, and not infrequently closed or destroyed if he considered them a threat to his interests or well-being. ^[v]

And it feels like they’re being monitored today.  As sound-bites are being compiled and used for character assassination against a prominent black preacher.  The message to all black preachers is, “We're watching you!  Watch what you say, because were going to take it, out of context if we have to, and broadcast it to the world in order to discredit or demean you.  And in order to demean the members of your church, including popular political leaders.”

And that's why I’m preaching this sermon today.  Because it's become clear that the majority of people in this country have no idea about the importance and the role the black church and the prophetic tradition have played in advancing the American ideals of democracy.  Not just in advancing the interests and ideals of black Americans, but the interests and ideals of all Americans.  That's why the black church had to separate itself, like Moses separated the waters of the Red Sea, because it took something that extraordinary to lead all of us and our nation out of captivity.

But the story doesn’t end with Moses parting the waters.  And our work isn’t over either.  Moses lifted his hand a second time once his people were free, and the waters rushed back together to swallow the powerful forces of the Pharaoh that were oppressing them.  Ultimately, if racism in this country is to become a thing of the past, it will require black people and white people and people of all colors, hues and ethnicities to feel at home together in work, in worship and everywhere.  In other words, the only way we’ll be able to permanently drown the evil forces of racism will be for our communities to truly reunite as one human race.

Now some people will say (like the old Nike ads) let's “just do it!”  But here's the problem:

The goal is not integration as much as it is inclusion.  I heard a Methodist Bishop, Forrest Stiff, on the radio this week and he said, “Integration puts us together, but inclusiveness makes us community together.”  For real inclusiveness to happen, white people need to come to terms with how and why the sea got separated the way it did in the first place.  From the reaction to Rev. Wright, over the past few weeks, it’s clear that most Americans don’t understand the role of black anger or the role of the black church in leading this country toward the Promised Land. 

Fortunately there are people in America today who are pointing us in the right direction.

There are people who are calling for a national and local dialogue on race.  A dialogue that for the first time might make room for both black people’s anger and white people’s frustrations without the conversation breaking down.  And the very fact that a black man is winning the majority of votes and delegates in a major political party for the presidency says something is shifting in America.

But there are other people, and forces at work, that are calling us back toward Pharaoh.

The sound-bites of inflammatory lines from Rev. Wright’s sermons, taken out of context and shown over and over on the news and turned into character assassination on the internet is one such negative force. 

But let’s remember that Moses became such a great liberator because he was a border-walker.  Moses had a foot in two worlds.  He was a Jew, but he was raised in the Pharaoh’s home.  He knew both cultures and this prepared him to lead his people to freedom.

Martin Luther King Jr. was a border-walker.  He was raised in the black church and black schools in the south and was also educated in elite white institutions in the North.  And this background in two worlds prepared Dr. King to lead this entire country closer to its dream.  Mahatma Gandhi was a border-walker.  Gandhi was raised in a traditional Indian family, but was educated in British schools.  We need more border-walkers like Moses and King and Gandhi, people who understand the complex dynamics of race and history.

You and I need to become border-walkers too.  By at least learning as much as we can about the complete history of this country, including the Black, Native American, Latino, European, Islamic, Jewish and Asian contributions.  Because these are truly extraordinary times.

By the way, did you ever notice that there are prominent pastors in this nation who preach misogyny, homophobia, anti-Semitism, anti-Catholicism and Islamophobia every day?  And Fox news isn’t questioning those preachers -- or the presidential candidates who sit in their churches and take their endorsements.  There’s a double standard in this nation.  There always has been.

And that’s why it’s time for a change.