In Exodus, Lord Yahweh is wrathful and threatening death, “You have seen for yourselves how I treated the Egyptians.” In Romans, Paul, relays that same Lord Yahweh, wrathful and murderous, “while we were still sinners Christ died for us… (and we) will we be saved through him from the wrath of God.” Jesus frees us from wrathful and murderous Lords and frees us for power, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, drive out demons.”
How do we live under the threat of wrathful and murderous Lords? The Divine Right of Kings is not an ancient predicament. It persists today among people who self-title as Christian. Some of us are just a few years being threatened by wrathful and murderous Lords, such as MAGA. Some of us have spent life times living under them – Founding Fathers, Confederates, Wilson’s Birth of a Nation cadre, Truman and his membership fee to the KKK, Eisenhower’s forced support of Brown vs the Board of Education, the LBJ/Hoover COINTELPRO program against Black lives, Nixon’s War on Drugs targeting Black communities, Reagan’s State’s Rights support, Clinton’s Welfare Queen depictions, up to current MAGA Confederate sympathies for renaming buildings and re-establishing monuments, J6 rioters with their Confederate flags, racist militia of Proud Boys, attacks on DEI, the recent Supreme Court ruling nullifying the Voting Rights Act, as well as the continued militarizing of police in Black communities. Given such a history, it makes sense that self-titled Christians of MAGA, the current wrathful and murderous racist Lords, do not celebrate Jesus’ Kingdom of God on this day or most other days. On this day they are celebrating the shared birthday of the wrathful and murderous Lord Donald who exercises the Divine Right of Kings under the flag of the U.S. Empire. Given the deadly rule by MAGA cult chieftains, acquiesced to by MAGA cult members, how do we live? Among those who answered the question was African American author James Baldwin (1924-1987). Like Josephine Baker, W.E.B. Dubois, Nina Simone, and Tina Turner, Baldwin decided he could only live by getting out of it, “The years I lived in Paris did one thing for me. They released me from that particular social terror… a real social danger, visible in the face of every cop, every boss, everybody.” Malcolm X, who along with his family was threatened with death daily, answered the question of how to live by advocating separation. He didn’t “want integration … nor segregation… that which is forced upon inferiors by superiors.” “He wants separation.” Whites live as “a separate community… the white man controls his own economy, his own politics, his own everything.” The Black man “lives in a segregated community… The white man controls all of the businesses… he runs the politics… (and) controls all the civic organizations in the Negro community.” “Separation is when… you control your own economy; you control your own politics; you control your own society; you control your own everything.” “We want the same for ourselves as you have for yourselves.” How difficult it is to live free of wrathful and murderous Lords. Across human history, the political system was designed by them and for them. If we decide to replace the system, we can only do so by living in community – like community members of Black Voters Matter, the NAACP, National Action Network, the National Urban League, Rainbow/PUSH, and numerous others. Like early disciples, they know their power to cure the sick and drive out demons.
“For my people standing staring trying to fashion a better way from confusion, from hypocrisy and misunderstanding, trying to fashion a world that will hold all the people, all the faces, all the adams and eves and their countless generations…. Let a second generation full of courage issue forth; let a people loving freedom come to growth. Let a beauty full of healing and a strength of final clenching be the pulsing in our spirits.” (For My People – Margaret Walker)
Prayer: Beautiful Spirit, in you we know our power.
Question: What communities do I belong to that energize my power in this time of wrathful and murderous Lords?
Sun, Jun 14, 2026 Gospel Mark 9:36-10:8 Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time
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