From Sunday’s Old Testament reading we know of the claim that “all nations” will worship “the Lord.” Western history would seem to bear this claim out. For example, the U.S. continues to show a majority of people still worshiping the Bible’s “Lord.” We also know from the Old Testament and Sunday’s second reading, that “whom the Lord loves, he disciplines; he scourges.” We therefore know “the Lord” is abusive.
People’s worship of an abusive heavenly “Lord” begins with scripture’s worship of abusive earthly Lords who invented a mirror-image deity to sanctify their abuse. If abused people, slaves, didn’t comply with demands for God-like worship and obedience, scourging, more abuse, ensued. To this day much of humanity is indoctrinated to obey, if not worship the Bible’s abusive slave owning “Lords” who “scourged” those they “loved.” For example, we know U.S. slave owners used the “Lords” of the Bible to justify their “scourging” of slaves whom they “loved.” So it is we are still indoctrinated to revere if not worship abusive slave owners such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, and others. We know something of these abusive “Lords” through what Frederick Douglass knew, “(M)y master attended a…camp-meeting…and there experienced religion.” “I believe him to have been a much worse man after his conversion than before. Prior to his conversion, he relied upon his own depravity to shield and sustain him in his savage barbarity; but after his conversion, he found religious sanction and support for his slaveholding cruelty.” We know it is that same Bible sanctioned cruelty that abusive “Lords” still use to “scourge” every African American’s life; human trafficking, family separation, slavery, torture, terrorism, lynching, convict leasing, black codes, land theft, slave patrol style policing, church bombings, discrimination, white race riots, red lining, vote theft, predatory lending, unfunded/defunded schools and businesses and health care, media stereotyping and bias, mass incarceration, and being the most frequent targets of hate crimes. The scourging makes use of every possible weapon; physical, verbal, psychological, economic, and spiritual. Abusive “Lords,” whom many continue to worship still do the scourging. Politically it includes Reagan, the Bushes, the Clintons, Mitch McConnell, Donald Trump and others. Religiously it includes Jim Bakker, Jerry Falwell Jr., Franklin Graham, Robert Jeffress, and others. All these many “Lords,” in different degrees, want us to know they are good Christians and that the U.S. is a good Christian nation. But what we need to know is that all “the Lords” in varying degrees have built a plantation of white supremacy that continues to scourge African Americans. We know this.
“I am a believer in the power of knowledge.” (Toni Morrison (1931-2019) – Rest In Peace)
Prayer: Spirit, with your power we will love Lords into conversion.
Question: Knowing the pain that shapes the life of African Americans what are we doing to end it?
August 25, 2019 Gospel Luke 13:22-30 Twenty First Sunday in Ordinary Time