The Prophetic Imperative by Reverend Zakir Henson

2010-01-20T20:47:00.000-08:00

Call to Worship:
On the eve of his assassination Doctor Martin Luther King jr. delivered these words.
“Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people will get to the promised land. And I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.”
In the honor of all those who suffered loss and injury, of those whose compassion exceeded any concern for their own safety, of those who paid with their own lives for the sake of the rights and dignity of all, I call the congregation to worship.

The Prophetic Imperative

One of the problems of planning sermons far ahead is that events step in to change the picture. One day an insult to dignity like California’s proposition 8 is the topic and another 50,000 people are being buried in mass graves after an earth quake hits where it hurts the most. There are times when I feel numb to the pain and suffering in the world and others when I thank the spirits that my biggest problem is trying to find a fork I use for cooking which is missing after my move. Is there something wrong with me? Am I callous or am I overwhelmed? For the past few days I’ve felt like Ben Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars when the death star destroyed an entire planet. So many dying in such a short time creates a disturbance in the force. I would like us to pause for a moment to hold all those innocent souls in our hearts and to pray to ourselves for those who suffer.

About ten years ago, or so, I was wandering around Iliff after a morning class, going to the library, and taking care of several things. I decided to go to the Star Market, a deli catty corner from the DU campus on Evens near the corner of University. It was a Friday. I remember because I used to like to check Star Deli on Fridays for their barbecued rib special. Now, having grown-up in Oklahoma and having traveled across much of the south and west Texas by the time I was 16 I knew good ribs. So, as I walked over to Star Deli my mind was naturally going to the little road side shack in Big Springs, Texas; Slick’s in Muskogee, possibly the best barbecue I’ve ever eaten; Wilson’s and Latimer’s on Apache in north Tulsa, J&L’s in my little home town, Elmer’s It Be Bad, on Peoria in Tulsa; Pete’s Drive Inn in my home town, Bryant’s in Kansas City; that little hole in the wall in Mobile Charles Morrison took me to when I was 15. You get the idea, you know me; I was dreaming down my list thinking of the stories that were a part of every place.

I walked in and there at one of the tables near the door was my friend David Kaslow, a horn professor at DU, and Will Gravely, a history professor I had met when I taught a humanities class at DU as a guest lecturer. David immediately waved me over and asked if I knew Will. I said I did and said hi to everyone and sat down. As we talked, David acted as though Will had a secret document in his possession. What he had was a leather folder with papers in it. David told Will to show me his newest acquisitions. Though Will was a little uncertain, he opened the folder to reveal several photographs and a few newspaper clippings. I knew what was coming. I knew Dr. Gravely had, in his office the most complete collection of photographs and accounts of lynchings in the country. Sure enough, Will had about a dozen black and white original photos of black men being lynched. One Ill never forget, showed a young man hanging from a branch dead, the crotch of his pants wet where he had lost control of his bladder as he died and four white men in pressed shirts and dungarees posing with him.

I looked at some of the newspaper clippings and read a few of the statements gathered at the lynchings and a few accounts of court cases against the men who did the hanging. One of the men in one of the clippings, when asked how he felt about lynching a man said, “it’s only a negro.” There are many things about that statement that would offend any decent person, but one thing struck me and that was the word “only.” Used this way, it diminishes anything it is directed toward. It’s only, you fill in the blank. I don’t need to explain that.

The chance meeting, though it made an impression on me was just one of many I experienced during that time frame. I met the woman who was a 13 year-old girl who was shoved out of the way in the door of a store in Birmingham just as the store keeper shot at her with a shotgun. An Episcopal priest took the full blast meant for her. His was the first of several deaths which culminated in the killing of Reverend James Reeb, a Unitarian Universalist minister on a Birmingham street one night. Reeb’s death precipitated the seizing of the Alabama government by the National Guard and the United States Army at the orders of Lyndon Johnson.
I hadn’t thought of that day in the Star Deli for years until the other day when I heard that word “only” applied to a dog. It was only a dog. Now most of you know me fairly well and some of you know that I am an animal person. There probably isn’t a child in this congregation who hasn’t petted Penny or tried to anyway. You know that Penny is not “only” a dog, though in reality she is. I, like many in Grand Junction, have been outraged at the killing of the dog Buddy in the National Monument, but I’ve been more outraged by the admitted perpetrator’s response to the trouble he’s in. Remember, I’m from one of those little counties in Oklahoma where messing with a person’s dog is almost a capitol offense. When I was young, I’m not sure sheriff Slim Weaver would have even gone out on a complaint of man shooting someone who shot his dog unless he killed that man. Pir Vilayat used to say, anger is natural, rage is to intense to hold so it must be transformed into outrage and then one must confront, first, one’s self in order to set things right. I’ll come back to Buddy in a few minutes after I’ve made a case for something beyond the desire for revenge I initially felt.

When I think of Dr King’s speeches and writings, one thing strikes me over and over. He and most of the leaders of the civil rights movement in the south did not demonize their oppressors. Nor did he ever preach a gospel of dominance. King was not interested substituting one oppressor for another. He was a vision of all of us sitting together, eating together, working together, loving one another as one people. The most brilliant example of the healing King wished for the world I’ve seen was the truth and justice commissions in South Africa after the fall of apartheid. Example after example of murder, rape, torture, theft, abuse, and terror was brought before the panel of judges. names were name and incitements were handed down and trials were held. In one highly publicized case, a woman told of a man who was famous for his brutality coming to her home in the middle of the night and taking her son away. The young man was later found tortured to death. As the woman told her story, she drew in the entire audience; the commissions and hearings were public. The man who had been part of the state police had to sit and face the woman and the crowd and silently listen to her story. He then had to face other accusers and hear similar stories repeated again and again. Eventually, he broke down in remorse and fear. There was no way he could defend or justify himself other than say he wanted to preserve order, the status quo.

Many of us who followed the trials know that the one thing the new government sought was healing and peace. With the consent of the victims of his crimes he was given a light sentence but was also sentenced to participate in a restorative justice program designed to make a whole class of people whole again. The murdered children, husbands, wives, mothers, grandmothers, fathers, grandfathers could never be replaced, but the people who committed the crimes could be forced to get to know the people they so hurtfully damaged. The community would be made whole. Justice would be holy.

Is it possible to make Buddy’s killer whole with the community? I don’t know. I do know that I need time to be with this horror and I need to realize that things like this are happening all the time and I don’t know about it. Go back to my first statements. I’m feeling overwhelmed. What I also know is that we human beings have an impulse to justice. We find this impulse in religious literature in the minor prophets such as Amos, whose words formed the choir’s music this morning. We find it in Micah and in others. Words that create visions but were spoken through an impulse we call divine. In our time, we are understand the nature of our minds better every day. Ethical philosophers use what we call imperatives to describe impulses to moral and ethical behavior. Imperatives are more arguments and less psychological impulses unless we talk about religion. Those 6th century prophets articulated what we call the prophetic imperative. One must understand that when theologians speak of prophetic writings they are not talking about predicting the future. A prophet is a harbinger of change and usually change which bends the arch of history toward justice.

Most of us here are familiar with Maslow’s needs hierarchy, but how many know that the five basic needs are part of a lower hierarchy he called deficiency needs and that there is another list of being needs? These needs are of self transcendence, infinite openness, limitless primordial freedom and fullness, a timeless now, being completely available in the present. When we lose our fear and act out of that impulse toward justice Dr King spoke of in our call to worship we will cease our petty squabbles and reckless wars, our materialistic grasping that threatens our environment, and our need to demean others by naming them and making them less than human. It is then that we will fully understand what Amos meant when he said those words from this morning’s music, We will find a way to restore one who so demeaned himself as to drag a poor innocent animal to death to the human community again. We say we promote and affirm the worth and dignity of every person, but we cannot impose worth and dignity upon those who would shed it with violence and cruelty. It is by reaching beyond ourselves that we will find transcendence and meaning. It is through compassion and a generous heart that we will be propelled beyond self actualization and into that risky place where we do indeed act on our faith and not our fear. It is then that we can look at four men posing with one whom they just murdered and not feel rage and disgust but compassion for the corruption in their hearts. It is the then that we can look into our own hearts, see our brokenness and begin to heal our rage. I now know that is what Pir Vilayat was talking about.

The task starts right here.

Just as we begin our service with a call to worship, we end with a call to being; a call to being more, doing more, reaching beyond the illusions we call our puny grasp and to claim our place as in the prophethood of the faithful and justice will “roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

Going Everywhere, Like Sunshine

2010-01-04T21:37:00.000-08:00

"Be ours a religion which, like sunshine, goes everywhere; its temple, all space; its shrine, the good heart; its creed, all truth; its ritual, works of love; its profession of faith, divine living."

-- Theodore Parker

Here we stand at the beginning of a new decade during one of the most astonishing periods of information sharing in human history. I know several people who have personal blogs, and many of us have accounts on Twitter, Facebook, and other social networking sites. It seems so many people are getting information from the Internet that newspapers and other printed media are struggling to survive. Change is in the air, or at least it's on the web. Let ours be a religion which, like sunshine, goes everywhere... even the great Internet beyond.

Hence, the new UUCGV blog. Here is a forum where you'll be able to read some thoughts from our minister, director of religious education, members, and friends. If you'd like to post something, please email your thoughts, poetry, stories, and photos to uucgvblog@gmail.com

Blessings, Jana Rossier

Give Life Meaning

The Prophetic Imperative by Reverend Zakir Henson

Going Everywhere, Like Sunshine