Dr. Howard Thurman once wrote a powerful meditation called "Pain Has A Ministry." I have wrestled with this reality, not because I doubt the veracity of Dr. Thurman's words because I don't doubt them. In fact my Lord said "In this life you will have trouble, but take heart I have overcome the world." Yet there is still the struggle with the unknown; the pensiveness with the unexpected and the mind bending maze of misery from unmerited suffering.
I wrestle with this concept because Hurt does not halt at the door of Hope. I wrestle with it because brokenness does not bow to Belief. I wrestle because doubt does not disperse with Faith.
However wrestling is not a bad thing I have come to know that to wrestle and not act like I got it all together is first of all liberating. Liberating from the opinions of others who have not walked in my shoes. Liberating from old beliefs that don't align with the Bible that say "you ought not question God." Well Jesus sure did!
Wrestling is also not a bad thing because it means I am continuing the fight for Life. I am not sitting back wasting away in the whirlpool of worry. I am not self medicating myself with prayer tranquilizing placebos (I'm too blessed to be stressed-Bull). I am not letting name it and claim it soothsayers seduce me into the scandal of my problems are a result of my lack of faith. No I'm like Jacob wrestling with God at the river Jabok. I am fighting for what is good and "I will not let go Lord until you Bless me."
Finally to wrestle is to learn How much God really Loves me. God Loves me so much that he lets me struggle with him on subjects like these. God loves me so much that even though he could destroy me in the struggle he doesn't; he may cause me to limp so that I will remember I met him for myself but that is for my testimony to someone else. God loves me because he knows in my wrestling with Pain, with problems, with difficulty, disaster, despondency, brokenness and doubt I'm really fighting to help usher in the Kingdom of heaven. I am fighting for the day and the hour where God will wipe away all tears from our eyes, and where there will be no more crying, no more suffering, no more pain, and no more death. Pain does have a ministry but you might be surprised to find out how the ministry manifest itself. What do you think?
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Saturday, July 18, 2009
The Joke About Self-Responsibility
The Joke About Self-Responsibility
In one week, our new President delivered a speech in Ghana admonishing Africans there to take responsibility for their future and to stop blaming their present condition on colonialism, while admonishing blacks (the very next week) at the NAACP Convention to “get over it” and be responsible. Maybe he meant be “responsible” like Bernie Madoff and the other crooks who put the whole world in trouble, not just the black community.
At any rate, in that same week, while listening to that madness, Michael Hagos sent out an article entitled “Overcoming Caucasianization and Dehumanization.” He starts off his article with Steve Biko’s quote, “The most potent weapon of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.”
I recommend the entire article to you, but I want to call your attention right now to what Michael Hagos calls, “the ineluctable pain of blackness.” To put that phrase in context, Michael Hagos quotes Frantz Fanon who says,
“The Negro enslaved by his inferiority, the white man enslaved by his superiority [both behave in accordance with a neurotic operation.” Hagos argues that neurosis is, in this case, a by-product of alienation trumped truly human values -- -- in the case of the white man, self imposed and imposing, in the case of the Negro, imposed from the outside and then self-perpetuated.
These are the synoptic psychic factors underlying the need for overcompensation in the Negro, in light of his pathological need and relentless efforts to achieve the white existence in order to ease the necessarily ineluctable pain of blackness!”
Hagos is quoting from Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks. Hagos goes on to explain why he calls our pain “necessarily ineluctable.”
He says he uses that phrase because of the extremely destructive enduring legacy of European colonialism, which is compounded many times over by the white man’s refusal to apologize and make reparations for his monstrous, historical crimes [this is in the same week that Obama says the effects of colonialism are not really the problem any longer for Africans].
Hagos continues:
“Such a responsibility cannot be evaded given that the basic institutional structures (the nation-state system, capitalism, the Christian church and its disgraceful role in legitimating colonial policies with Christian missionaries having served as effective servants of empire) since the time of colonialism have remained essentially the same in the West, but also because the crimes committed at the time were so very consequential, with noticeable effects on contemporary African, Latin American and some Asian societies.”
Ron Daniels says that our President is well read. Ron Daniels says he is widely read. I just wonder what our President reads when it comes to the country of his father’s birth. Maybe his absentee father is causing some “absentee gaps” in his reading and in his thinking. They are certainly causing humongous gaps in his reasoning process.
Back to Hagos:
“This is why Thomas Pogge invokes the effects of a common and violent history ‘since the social starting positions are the worse-off and the better-off have [globally] emerged from a single historical process that was pervaded by massive, grievous wrongs.’”
Hagos then goes on to make a case in point:
“Most of the existing international inequality in standards of living was built up in the colonial period [are you listening, Mr. President?] when today’s affluent countries ruled today’s poor regions of the world: trading their people like cattle, destroying their political institutions and cultures and taking their natural resources….
“The relevant historical crimes were so horrendous, so diverse and so consequential that no historical-entitlement conception could credibly support the conclusion that our common history was sufficiently benign to justify even the radical inequalities in starting positions we are witnessing today. [Hence] we [in the West in general and in America, in particular] are not entitled to the huge advantages we enjoy from birth over the global poor, given how these inequalities have been built up [or, to put it differently] we affluent have no rights to property, however acquired, in the face of the excluded. Rather, they have a right to what we hold [because] the actual history [ie., the horrors of European conquests] is relevant.”
Hagos is quoting in this passage from “A Cosmopolitan Perspective on the Global Economic Order” that is found in Harry Brighouse and Gillian Brock’s (eds.), The Political Philosophy of Cosmopolitanism, Cambridge University Press, 2005, pp. 97-99; (The italics are in the original.).
Many years ago I preached a sermon entitled: Somebody Ought to Say Something! A lot of somebodies are saying something. The problem is I do not think the President can hear what they are saying.
In one week, our new President delivered a speech in Ghana admonishing Africans there to take responsibility for their future and to stop blaming their present condition on colonialism, while admonishing blacks (the very next week) at the NAACP Convention to “get over it” and be responsible. Maybe he meant be “responsible” like Bernie Madoff and the other crooks who put the whole world in trouble, not just the black community.
At any rate, in that same week, while listening to that madness, Michael Hagos sent out an article entitled “Overcoming Caucasianization and Dehumanization.” He starts off his article with Steve Biko’s quote, “The most potent weapon of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.”
I recommend the entire article to you, but I want to call your attention right now to what Michael Hagos calls, “the ineluctable pain of blackness.” To put that phrase in context, Michael Hagos quotes Frantz Fanon who says,
“The Negro enslaved by his inferiority, the white man enslaved by his superiority [both behave in accordance with a neurotic operation.” Hagos argues that neurosis is, in this case, a by-product of alienation trumped truly human values -- -- in the case of the white man, self imposed and imposing, in the case of the Negro, imposed from the outside and then self-perpetuated.
These are the synoptic psychic factors underlying the need for overcompensation in the Negro, in light of his pathological need and relentless efforts to achieve the white existence in order to ease the necessarily ineluctable pain of blackness!”
Hagos is quoting from Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks. Hagos goes on to explain why he calls our pain “necessarily ineluctable.”
He says he uses that phrase because of the extremely destructive enduring legacy of European colonialism, which is compounded many times over by the white man’s refusal to apologize and make reparations for his monstrous, historical crimes [this is in the same week that Obama says the effects of colonialism are not really the problem any longer for Africans].
Hagos continues:
“Such a responsibility cannot be evaded given that the basic institutional structures (the nation-state system, capitalism, the Christian church and its disgraceful role in legitimating colonial policies with Christian missionaries having served as effective servants of empire) since the time of colonialism have remained essentially the same in the West, but also because the crimes committed at the time were so very consequential, with noticeable effects on contemporary African, Latin American and some Asian societies.”
Ron Daniels says that our President is well read. Ron Daniels says he is widely read. I just wonder what our President reads when it comes to the country of his father’s birth. Maybe his absentee father is causing some “absentee gaps” in his reading and in his thinking. They are certainly causing humongous gaps in his reasoning process.
Back to Hagos:
“This is why Thomas Pogge invokes the effects of a common and violent history ‘since the social starting positions are the worse-off and the better-off have [globally] emerged from a single historical process that was pervaded by massive, grievous wrongs.’”
Hagos then goes on to make a case in point:
“Most of the existing international inequality in standards of living was built up in the colonial period [are you listening, Mr. President?] when today’s affluent countries ruled today’s poor regions of the world: trading their people like cattle, destroying their political institutions and cultures and taking their natural resources….
“The relevant historical crimes were so horrendous, so diverse and so consequential that no historical-entitlement conception could credibly support the conclusion that our common history was sufficiently benign to justify even the radical inequalities in starting positions we are witnessing today. [Hence] we [in the West in general and in America, in particular] are not entitled to the huge advantages we enjoy from birth over the global poor, given how these inequalities have been built up [or, to put it differently] we affluent have no rights to property, however acquired, in the face of the excluded. Rather, they have a right to what we hold [because] the actual history [ie., the horrors of European conquests] is relevant.”
Hagos is quoting in this passage from “A Cosmopolitan Perspective on the Global Economic Order” that is found in Harry Brighouse and Gillian Brock’s (eds.), The Political Philosophy of Cosmopolitanism, Cambridge University Press, 2005, pp. 97-99; (The italics are in the original.).
Many years ago I preached a sermon entitled: Somebody Ought to Say Something! A lot of somebodies are saying something. The problem is I do not think the President can hear what they are saying.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
When Friction Forms Faith
I don't know why it is but real depth in things of the spirit only come about through difficulty. I know, I know that is something modern day Christians do not want to hear. There are too many public figure preachers all too willing to water down the word of the Lord. Too many Christians are into "Name it and Claim it," "Blab it and grab it," "call it and haul it," slot machine Christianity to hear what I said. Too many televangelist talkers who are too willing to slide down the Pole of prosperity in order to coax superficial saints to put money in the "G" String of their Get more money gospel.
Beloved the Bible does not authenticate a stress free, problem free, faith. All deep Christians have had to go through great trials, great sufferings, great challenges to achieve a sensitivity to the spiritual subterranean treasures that run like still waters deep beneath the surface of life.
Jesus said "In this world you will have trouble..." In Matthew 11 Jesus also says, "From the days of John The Baptist until now the Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force." This ain't no Cozy Christianity; this ain't no Comfort zone faith; this ain't no battle free belief we share with our Lord. It takes struggle; it takes some fighting; it takes some friction to grow you into one whose name is worthy to placed in the hall of fame of the faithful found in Hebrews 11.
And Proverbs 27:17 says "As Iron Sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another."
In other words we need people in our lives who will stretch us. If you have assembled folks around you who are only soothing instead of creating some struggle in you then you are wasting a needed area in you that has yet to come alive.
We need allies who agitate us into achieving new heights and new experiences. If the folks you call homeys and home girls don't stimulate you because they are striving to be better and to do better then you will end up sinking into substandard thinking about yourself.
Finally we need Friends who will keep some creative Friction between us to help sharpen our spiritual skills. If you have people who will not hold you accountable, folks who will not call you on the carpet, folks who won't challenge you then you do yourself a grave disservice. "Iron Sharpens iron..." If you want Steel in your back then you need friends who love you enough to make you struggle. If you want a deeper prayer life then you need people who care about you enough to push you even when you don't want to be pushed. If you want to grow in Faith you need friends who create creative Friction to test your metal.
Anais Nin says "There came a time when the risk to stay in the bud was more painful than the risk to blossom."
Paul said it like this "We know that Suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us..."
Beloved gets some friends in your life who love you enough to create some creative Friction with you in order to strengthen you!
Beloved the Bible does not authenticate a stress free, problem free, faith. All deep Christians have had to go through great trials, great sufferings, great challenges to achieve a sensitivity to the spiritual subterranean treasures that run like still waters deep beneath the surface of life.
Jesus said "In this world you will have trouble..." In Matthew 11 Jesus also says, "From the days of John The Baptist until now the Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force." This ain't no Cozy Christianity; this ain't no Comfort zone faith; this ain't no battle free belief we share with our Lord. It takes struggle; it takes some fighting; it takes some friction to grow you into one whose name is worthy to placed in the hall of fame of the faithful found in Hebrews 11.
And Proverbs 27:17 says "As Iron Sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another."
In other words we need people in our lives who will stretch us. If you have assembled folks around you who are only soothing instead of creating some struggle in you then you are wasting a needed area in you that has yet to come alive.
We need allies who agitate us into achieving new heights and new experiences. If the folks you call homeys and home girls don't stimulate you because they are striving to be better and to do better then you will end up sinking into substandard thinking about yourself.
Finally we need Friends who will keep some creative Friction between us to help sharpen our spiritual skills. If you have people who will not hold you accountable, folks who will not call you on the carpet, folks who won't challenge you then you do yourself a grave disservice. "Iron Sharpens iron..." If you want Steel in your back then you need friends who love you enough to make you struggle. If you want a deeper prayer life then you need people who care about you enough to push you even when you don't want to be pushed. If you want to grow in Faith you need friends who create creative Friction to test your metal.
Anais Nin says "There came a time when the risk to stay in the bud was more painful than the risk to blossom."
Paul said it like this "We know that Suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us..."
Beloved gets some friends in your life who love you enough to create some creative Friction with you in order to strengthen you!
Monday, July 6, 2009
Body Language
You can tell a lot about a person from their body language. In fact 70% of communication is non-verbal, your expression, tone of voice and posture. Beloved your Body language betrays what you really feel and your Behavior Broadcast what you truly believe. when I worked as a police officer this became an invaluable tool to read a person's Body Language. It could mean health or safety. In many ways the song was right, "Your Body is talking to me..." For instance if a person is attentive to what is being said, they tend to sit close to the edge of their seat, or lean forward, eyes fixed on the speaker while making attention noises. What are attention noises? they are "uh huh," "mmm," or in the Black Church tradition, "amen," "Preach it," "Yes Sir," and "I Know dats right." Conversely when a person is inattentive, hostile or not interested they tend to cross their arms over their chest, lean back with a blank stare or they will fiddle with something, or doodle with a pen.
Your Body Language Betrays how you really feel and your Behavior Broadcast what you truly Believe.
Those are individual examples of Body Language but there is a kind of collective Body Language displayed by a Nation, People, Community, group or family. For instance when our nation refused to attend the conference on racism in Switzerland, or when our Nation refuses to speak out against the killing of African Christians in the Sudan and the American people do not raise up in protest it sends a collective Body Language message to the world that we are uncaring and unfeeling about the oppression of other peoples in the world.
When The Black community, Black politicians, Black churches are not rising up and demanding action concerning the obscene numbers of Black Children dying on the streets; when children are pulled off buses and beaten in the South by the KKK; When a 9yr. old boy is burned by 3 older white males in Indiana and they are not charged; when a minister of the Gospel in Benton harbor Michigan is incarcerated for quoting the bible and the Black people, Black leaders, Black grass roots cannot collectively come together and demand change that we can believe in, our collective Body Language as a people says that we are worse off than ever before.
When the Church is no longer public space for the hurting to gather and find hope. When the church is fixated on confusing "Bling Bling" with God's Blessings we say with our collective Body Language that we have dismissed Jesus to the vestibule while we carry on business as usual. When Preachers, Pastors and lay will only Preach Jesus and not what Jesus Preached which was a word of rebuke to the "haves and have mores," Hope to the Hopeless and Truth to Power about the inequalities, injustices and evil from persons in high office it says collectively with our Body language that we are disconnected from the mind of Christ.
Your Body Language betrays how you really feel and your Behavior Broadcast what you truly Believe.
The African Apostle Paul said "let this Mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus our Lord..." What mind Paul? Paul replies, "He Humbled Himself..." Our collective Body Language as the Church of Jesus Christ should speak Humbly to the Hurting. There but for the Grace of God go I. We collectively, church by church, person by person, denomination by denomination should collectively speak Humility to others in need of compassion.
The Collective Body Language of God's Church should also say to the World Sacrifice is our Sacred duty. We always think in terms of giving one's life, that is true but more often than not it means being gracious; it means being forgiving; it means voting to spend money on ministry to the homeless, hungry and helpless rather than amassing large endowments. It means taking time to listen to the story of someone you don't like (and Listening means attentively letting what is said touch your heart). Jesus said "Deny yourself daily, take up your cross and follow me."
Ultimately having the mind of Christ where our Collective Body Language will speak Love! Not sentimental, Biological love, but Love that will stand in the storm with a struggling saint. Love that will stay on the wall against City Hall, The state House or the White House if it means the disenfranchised, The Dispossessed, and The Disinherited can receive Deliverance because we Love them enough.
Love that may not agree with someone else but Loves them unconditionally anyway; Love that puts the Church right in the midst of the mess so that God can make miracles out of the mess; A Love that wilt not let go of those dangling from distress, dis-ease and despondency. A Love that will Love the Hell out of your haters because the Church (churches individually & Collectively) will not return evil for evil and will continue to "Cry Loud and Spare not" when it comes to eradicating Racism in all its forms.
Remember your Body Language Betrays what you really feel and How you Behave Broadcast what you truly believe! Love is not what you give me, but Love is what you are willing to give up for me. Jesus not only gave up Heaven but he gave his life-"Wherefore [because of that] God also highly exalted him and gave him a name that is above every other name. that at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow and tongue confess that Jesus is Lord!"
Your Body Language Betrays how you really feel and your Behavior Broadcast what you truly Believe.
Those are individual examples of Body Language but there is a kind of collective Body Language displayed by a Nation, People, Community, group or family. For instance when our nation refused to attend the conference on racism in Switzerland, or when our Nation refuses to speak out against the killing of African Christians in the Sudan and the American people do not raise up in protest it sends a collective Body Language message to the world that we are uncaring and unfeeling about the oppression of other peoples in the world.
When The Black community, Black politicians, Black churches are not rising up and demanding action concerning the obscene numbers of Black Children dying on the streets; when children are pulled off buses and beaten in the South by the KKK; When a 9yr. old boy is burned by 3 older white males in Indiana and they are not charged; when a minister of the Gospel in Benton harbor Michigan is incarcerated for quoting the bible and the Black people, Black leaders, Black grass roots cannot collectively come together and demand change that we can believe in, our collective Body Language as a people says that we are worse off than ever before.
When the Church is no longer public space for the hurting to gather and find hope. When the church is fixated on confusing "Bling Bling" with God's Blessings we say with our collective Body Language that we have dismissed Jesus to the vestibule while we carry on business as usual. When Preachers, Pastors and lay will only Preach Jesus and not what Jesus Preached which was a word of rebuke to the "haves and have mores," Hope to the Hopeless and Truth to Power about the inequalities, injustices and evil from persons in high office it says collectively with our Body language that we are disconnected from the mind of Christ.
Your Body Language betrays how you really feel and your Behavior Broadcast what you truly Believe.
The African Apostle Paul said "let this Mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus our Lord..." What mind Paul? Paul replies, "He Humbled Himself..." Our collective Body Language as the Church of Jesus Christ should speak Humbly to the Hurting. There but for the Grace of God go I. We collectively, church by church, person by person, denomination by denomination should collectively speak Humility to others in need of compassion.
The Collective Body Language of God's Church should also say to the World Sacrifice is our Sacred duty. We always think in terms of giving one's life, that is true but more often than not it means being gracious; it means being forgiving; it means voting to spend money on ministry to the homeless, hungry and helpless rather than amassing large endowments. It means taking time to listen to the story of someone you don't like (and Listening means attentively letting what is said touch your heart). Jesus said "Deny yourself daily, take up your cross and follow me."
Ultimately having the mind of Christ where our Collective Body Language will speak Love! Not sentimental, Biological love, but Love that will stand in the storm with a struggling saint. Love that will stay on the wall against City Hall, The state House or the White House if it means the disenfranchised, The Dispossessed, and The Disinherited can receive Deliverance because we Love them enough.
Love that may not agree with someone else but Loves them unconditionally anyway; Love that puts the Church right in the midst of the mess so that God can make miracles out of the mess; A Love that wilt not let go of those dangling from distress, dis-ease and despondency. A Love that will Love the Hell out of your haters because the Church (churches individually & Collectively) will not return evil for evil and will continue to "Cry Loud and Spare not" when it comes to eradicating Racism in all its forms.
Remember your Body Language Betrays what you really feel and How you Behave Broadcast what you truly believe! Love is not what you give me, but Love is what you are willing to give up for me. Jesus not only gave up Heaven but he gave his life-"Wherefore [because of that] God also highly exalted him and gave him a name that is above every other name. that at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow and tongue confess that Jesus is Lord!"
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