Defiant Imagination, Part 2: Frank Ocean's "Moon River" and Seeing Possible Worlds

As the final episode of When They See Us was coming to a close a song began to play that grabbed my attention.  It was a new arrangement and performance of an old standard.  It had been foreshadowed earlier in the episode by a recurring appearance of an unknown prison inmate ("Singing Inmate") who took every opportunity to sing "Moon River" as loudly as he could.  In those scenes, he was singing it with the powerful intonations of a golden-throated crooner.

I should include a comment on the type of writing I am doing.  I do not intend in offering my interpretation of a song's lyrics and music to be telling you what I think is in the mind of the composer.  I am not even claiming to know why the song was included as part of the movie soundtrack.  I am writing about possible meanings of the lyrics and musical structure, intertwined with the scenes of the film, and filtered through the interpretive context of my own viewing.  I'm not saying that it is arbitrarily subjective, but I am saying that interpretation of texts and films is multivalent.  The song's performer and the soundtrack composer may have different perspectives.  Yet I am analyzing musical lines, harmonic relationships, and actual words and sentences which do guide the interpretation.  So, don't take me as saying that I am offering the authoritative meaning of this song or soundtrack.  I am offering a reasonable and reasoned set of insights into a powerful creative composition of music, lyric, and film.  Now back to the song discussion.

Lena Horne, Barbara Streisand, Frank Sinatra, Johnny Mathis, Pat Boone, and especially Andy Williams had made this song part of their performance repertoire.  Some artists like Louis Armstrong, Aretha Franklin, and Eric Clapton with Beck, gave it their own twists.  "Moon River" is one of those songs that was pervasive in popular entertainment throughout my childhood, but I did not really learn the song or know much about it.  Vague memories of watching the movie Breakfast at Tiffany's suggest that I must have once known that Aubrey Hepburn sang it in the movie.  I mainly remembered the song as a standard sung by Andy Williams who was on television all the time in those days.  Beyond the opening line, I couldn't have told you the lyrics.

I think I listened carefully to the song for the first time after hearing the Frank Ocean version during the epilogue of the final episode of When They See Us.  This new cover of "Moon River" played as images of the actors faded into the actual exonerated men, with text overlays describing the current life situation of each of them.  Looking upon the bodies and faces of these boys who became men while wrongly imprisoned presses the viewer's consciousness into recounting specific events and relationships portrayed in the four-episode film, linking the visual narrative to flesh and blood.  In the context of these men's experiences of interrupted youth, injustice, and eventual exoneration to face a life so different from their plans, the song's lyrics opened up a wide space for imagination.



The song's lyrical images portray looking across a river toward what may be on the other side.  Getting across a mile-wide river is a daunting challenge, at the end of which one cannot be sure what she or he will find.  Then, the image shifts to traveling on the river, representing moving toward dreams of one's future.  The dreams are accompanied by heartbreak and the narrator's uncertainty about what's around the next bend.  As poetic imagery often does, the song starts mixing metaphors: the words speak of chasing the end of the rainbow as equivalent to flowing with the river's direction around bend after bend.  The narrator is pursuing what he or she longs for, not fully knowing what that is.

Thus the river is portrayed first as a barrier between the protagonist and the future.  Is it even possible to get across to the other side?  What will the other side bring?  Second, the river is a path upon which to journey.  The journey finds a sojourner facing an uncertain future, hoping, longing for what could be, but without assurance of what actually may appear.  And finally, the river is also the companion.  The narrator describes "two drifters off to see the world" who are "chasing after the same...rainbow's end."  The caring companions, the fellow-travelers, equally facing the unknown, sharing and bearing their hope and burden together--this may be the deepest message of the song.  If I step out into this river, it will bear me along toward its destination.  We will travel the same direction and meet the same obstacles and vistas, whatever they may be.

Ocean adapted the lyrics to his own version of the song.  It's a "crazy world" that they will see, not just "such a lot of" world.  Things won't always make sense how they turn out, but even the nonsensical is something we may find and see and experience.  With reference to the end of the rainbow, Ocean adds the phrase "chasing after" to give an even stronger sense of desire and longing.  Believing that there is something good to find, the protagonist passionately chases a dream yet not clearly formed.

He doesn't use the word "huckleberry," but says simply "my friend."  He omits there a reference in part to Mark Twain's famous character, for any number of reasons that could include the often racist language of that story from another era.

A final major lyrical change is the addition of more concrete lyrical descriptions of the formation process of one's life.  "What I see, who I become" echoes behind the lines about traveling on the river journey.  Ocean is making explicit that by joining this river journey, his life is taking a particular form through the experiences and growth specific to the river's path.  He says "Life's just around the bend."  It's not only the figment of imagination, the rainbow's end, that is around the bend.  With or without the rainbow's end, the protagonist's life will emerge from the contingent circumstances, the unanticipated relationships, and the mystery of the world encountered on the journey.  This practical language presses the viewer's mind toward the unexpected world unfolding for the exonerated men, filled with challenges and also possibilities.

The performance itself brings intellectual and emotional challenges to the listener.  The surprising opening stanza sung by a child's voice drills into the emotion of how the tragedy of this story explodes into the lives of children who went to the park one afternoon.  It's not an untrained voice, but neither is it a smoothly polished voice.  Quickly, another voice joins with harmony for a phrase--but the harmony turns out to be another melodic line in a different key, a beautiful dissonance of open harmonics.  Soon a kind of improvisational polyphony emerges as the mode in which the song progresses.  Going from solo line, to rich harmonies, to echoed motifs and improvised riffs, the performance partly deconstructs the traditional crooning ballad.

At times staggered entrances to melodic lines, fractions of beats apart, give a sense of fragmentation, a center that cannot hold, a whole that is invisible and out of reach.  These stuttering entrances and rhythms especially appear in relation to the lyrics about the uncertainty of the river's direction and destination, through heartbreak and uncertainty.  This performance itself touches a deep consciousness of the injustice and unreasonable path the young men's lives have taken.  

Yet the repeated motifs, the sense of a hopeful if uncertain destiny, are powerful themes and echoes throughout.  The polyphonic structures feed toward longer homophonic phrases of multiple layered harmonies.  Ultimately the richest, most intense harmonies and elaborate ornamentational riffs occur on the lyrics about chasing what is around the bend.  These unproven hopes, the deeply held conviction that even in a world that has been snatched away, where hopes are crushed, there is yet something worth finding up ahead.  It is a liberative theme, a recognition that the world as it is is not the world as it should be.  That better world, even if only partial and fragmented, still calls us forward.

This particular song drew me into recognizing how much a role the soundtrack had played for interpreting the film.  So I went back to review the soundtrack, making note of other songs that had projected an interpretation of the story.  In the process, I realized the way that the defiant imagination was at work in the music and the story.  "Moon River," like "What a Wonderful World," challenges the realities of a world dictated by white supremacy and white vision.  The river, always a potentially dangerous realm of currents, darkness, and hidden dangers, also represents the flow of life, the structures of how land and sea flow one into the other, the constancy of change and possibility of the new.  Ocean's interpretation recognizes both meanings, yet casts its lot with the someday, the dream, the chasing after what may and must be there for us.   Rivers have been a fruitful image to narrate the experiences of African Americans resisting oppression in the U.S.

Mavis Staples sang about lynched black bodies floating in the Mississippi River, that harsh and hateful world in which no black person is safe.  The song of lament was itself an act of defiance for putting into words and music the truth about life and death under a system of racist oppression.  Dissonant tones emphasized the incomprehensibility of such hate.  The lament ends with a call to action to "stop them from going in the river."

Other traditional songs such as "Roll, Jordan, Roll" and "Deep River" recognized the danger of a great river's treacherous current and deep waters.  Yet they also saw also great promise in the power of a river that can carry one from harsh circumstances to beauty and joy, even overwhelm an army of enemies.  They sang of a river deep and wide that marked the passageway toward relief from suffering and fulfillment in a land of peace, a true home, a welcome table, a banquet at which they were honored guests.  As we know, all such songs point not only to an afterlife, but also to a promise of goodness toward which the defiant person can strive in this lifetime.  Not only eschatological Jordan, but the Ohio River or the Detroit River as markers of emancipatory power, are part of such songs.

One of my favorite songs and another river song, Kate Campbell's "Lanterns on the Levee" has much in common with this version of "Moon River."  The coming together of two people, by Kate described as the falling rain which enters the river's flow, is again a central message.  Hardships, falls, failures, disappointments, heartbreaks, can be isolating.  They can feel as if one's very life is dissipating, dissolving.  But joined with the strength of the river's strength, that life takes on new possibilities.

You can fall like the rain
And I will be a river, winding forever,
Strong and true.
I'll carry you away to the peaceful waters...

Perhaps Campbell's lyrics possess a different degree of optimism about what may be around the bend, that it will be peaceful.  Yet the offer of shelter recognizes more storms will come, even from beyond the horizon.  The path is winding, and goes on and on toward new horizons.  What it will bring is unknown, but whatever comes will be better through solidarity among those on the journey.

"Moon River" reflects a kind of defiance which looks beyond the so-called realism of the world and sees a truth much deeper.  In a recent conversation with local artist and community leader Pierce Freelon, we discussed something he had said about "creating black spaces without asking permission."  This is part of the defiance I see in this work of art.  Recognizing that the young men who were falsely accused and wrongly incarcerated found themselves at the mercy of a world which saw them as evil, the film and song also help open one's consciousness of building possible worlds that differ from the world that powerful people seek to impose on the rest of us.

A world made for everyone cannot ultimately be hoarded and controlled by a few.  In the midst of the horrors of a world with its designs on breaking, throwing away, and killing young black men, there is yet a remainder of truth, beauty, and goodness which one can glimpse and place one's hope on, just around the bend.  Look around at all those on the journey with you.  Chase the dream with all you've got.

Barber, Like Hope, Does Not Disappoint

Last March at the Alexander-Pegues Minister's Conference of Shaw University Divinity School, one of the outstanding speakers was Rev Dr William Barber II.  Barber has become well-known for his leadership in the Moral Mondays/Forward Together movement that began in North Carolina and has spread across the USA.  He has long been known for his abilities as a preacher, and his preaching has always been linked to a concern for social justice.  Many people would be aware of his leadership of the North Carolina NAACP and the movement to bring together a coalition of groups from around the state through the annual Historic Thousands on Jones Street gathering.  Moreover, his partnership with Rev Dr Nancy Petty to resist the dismantling of effective desegregation policies in Wake County Schools displayed a new confidence and focus on taking a stand against those who would seek to undo the progress made in civil rights.

Barber has become an iconic leader in the current political situation.  When many feel that all they can do is shake their heads and wish for a day when people seemed to care for the common good and for protecting the poor and marginalized, Barber has become symbolic of a politics that says we cannot wait to start the fight for justice.  Now is the time, even if it seems the deck is stacked against us.

Barber has become ever more focused on this message of challenging citizens to read the signs of the times, to listen to the cries of the poor, and to use the strength they have to build beloved community.  That was the message he brought to ministers at Shaw last March.  His words, his sincerity, and his intensity did not disappoint.  He highlighted four biblical passages which he says pose four critical questions for every minister of the gospel.  Some of you who have heard him speak recently have probably heard some of these themes echoed.  I will briefly review these texts.

Psalm 94  Who will stand up?

This Psalm cries out for justice.  It's arguments echo the complaints of Isaiah's prophecy against the leaders and powerful people of his day.  "How long shall the wicked exult?" the psalmist asks.  They crush the people, kill widows, orphans, and immigrants.  But the psalmist knows that God sees and hears and will act.  Finally in v 16, the psalmist asks, "Who rises up for me against the wicked?  Who stands up for me against evildoers?" 

One clear answer is "The Lord."  But the implication can't be swept away that we must rise up against those who do harm to the poor, who destroy the lives of the weak.  "Can wicked rulers be allied with you, those who contrive mischief by statute?"  The writer recognizes that we owe no obedience to those who use the power of government to benefit themselves and the wealthy.  A crime called a law is no less a crime against justice.  We may not sit by and watch this kind of violence take place.  Who will stand up?  If we do stand, the psalmist reminds us that God will be our stronghold and rock of refuge.

Jeremiah 22 Who will leave the sanctuary and go to the seat of power?


In case the ministers listening might believe that their task is done when they stand in the pulpit to speak a word against injustice, Barber went on to this text from the Prophet Jeremiah.  This long chapter combines a series of harsh oracles against the ruling family of Judah.  The great King Josiah, a reformer who had sought to turn back to the ways of the Lord, had ended his days as powerful empires to the north and south began to battle for dominance in the region of Palestine.  Josiah was succeeded by three sons and a grandson as the Kingdom of Judah crumbled.

God gave Jeremiah another hard task in this text.  Jeremiah seemed always to be sent to deliver a hard message to people who would not want to hear it.  Often it was full of devastating news.  That is the case in this chapter.  In it, he delivers castigating words to the rulers of Judah.  Each one he speaks of will find a humiliating end.  None will share in the blessings they had assumed would go with sitting on the throne of David.

Each of Josiah's descendants receives chastisement for his unjust ways.  Wage theft and slavery amass wealth in the royal household.  Oppression and violence toward the marginalized--widows, orphans, immigrants--accompany outright murder of the innocents by a corrupt law enforcement system.  They turned away from Josiah's ways of looking out for the poor and needy, protecting them through laws and fair policies.  This will bring all of them to utter destruction.

Jeremiah probably delivered these collected indictments together before the last of the Kings of Judah, Zedekiah.  He reminded him of the empires who took away his brother Shallum (Jehoahaz) and nephew Coniah (Jehoiachin).  He recalled the judgment against his brother Jehoiakim, who died in disgrace.  The same fate awaits Zedekiah.  A great repentance is necessary, and a change of domestic and foreign policy, but Zedekiah will not change.  All of this makes Jeremiah a very unwelcome visitor.

The chapter begins with Jeremiah getting the instructions to "Go down to the house of the king."  The Temple, where the priests did their service, was on the highest ground.  Thus, Barber reminds us, that Jeremiah's priestly work took place inside the sanctuary.  For many priests, carrying out the mandates of priestly service in the Temple seemed enough.  Jeremiah might also have wished for that life.  However, the unjust systems all around him required another type of work.  Jeremiah had to leave the confines of Temple service to go to the house of the king.  The message had a specific recipient, and this servant of God needed to deliver it.  Barber insists that we are in such a time, when the oppression and injustice of our world demand we not merely preach inside the walls of the church, but we take the message to the seat of power.

Amos 6  Who will refuse to be at ease in the world?

Barber's next text speaks to those who would be satisfied to marvel in the critique of injustice while living in comfort and waiting for change to come.  A term for this way of addressing social justice has emerged in social media:  slacktivism.  Combining slacker with activism, this term points to those of us who get great satisfaction reading about and commenting about injustices in the world without ever getting beyond pixels. 

For ministers, it could take the form of gravitas in speaking against injustice when preaching or in a gathering of church people, but otherwise enjoying the benefits of a good salary, a nice car, a comfortable home, and access to prestige and the good life.  To be "at ease in Zion" was what Amos called the wealthy and powerful people who believed God was on their side.  They had convinced themselves that they would never have to worry about losing their privileges.  But Amos reminded them they needed to be more aware of the crisis all around them.  Injustice and oppression were destroying the people, but the privileged were ignoring it.

If we really do believe that God demands justice, and that it should "roll down like waters," like a mighty torrent that sweeps away the barriers to its victory, then we cannot remain at ease.  Staying comfortable and cheering on the few who are in the struggle will not be an adequate response from those called to preach the gospel.  Barber says we must not be at ease.  We must be ready to be inconvenienced.  We have to shift priorities and rearrange schedules and show up when it is time for action.

Luke 4  Who will yield to the Spirit's agitation?

The fourth text is from the New Testament.  It is, by my estimation, the central text invigorating various theological turns toward liberation in the late twentieth century.  To recognize the position of Luke 4 in the narrative of Jesus' life and ministry challenges many of the false and distorted ways that Jesus has been proclaimed by the church.  Centering on this text portrays Jesus in a particularly liberative mode.

Jesus reads from the Isaiah scroll to say that he came for a specific purpose:  to bring good news to poor people, to set prisoners free, to liberate slaves, to bring good things to the marginalized.  He describes the kind of restorative justice that the tradition of sabbath years and Jubilee taught Israel would be the right way to make sure there was no permanent debtor class, no enduring oppression, no monopolistic enterprise, no land barons and blood-built mansions.

Jesus quotes this text to say that he will pursue this ministry because the Spirit of God has stirred him to do it.  This is his calling.  He has been agitated to act.  No wonder the listeners that day, putting aside their initial interest in his words, began to consider violence against him.  The Spirit agitated him that day to challenge the powers that be, the wealthy who benefited by not returning land to its rightful owner, the ones who did not pay a fair wage.  Rather than walking away, Jesus took the text given to him and took the calling laid upon him.  He spoke truth to power on that day.  Barber asks ministers whether we will be ready to let the Spirit agitate us to action.

After looking at all four of these texts--no it was not a brief sermonic offering--Barber pointed his challenge directly at all of us who listened.  In this time when injustice is on the rise, will we answer these four questions as we must?  Some will not, and they will end up as preachers who go to their graves with no record of standing up, going out, refusing a vacation, and yielding to the agitation.  Their greatest accomplishment will be to have stayed in their sanctuaries in comfort and made sure the praise team was good.  I like a good praise team.  Don't get me wrong.  But will that be enough for me to offer to my Lord?


I would hope that many more preachers will be listening to these texts Rev Barber has brought to our attention.  Any preacher worth her or his salt should be able to find at least four good sermons from this set of questions.  Having the discipline to study them, teach them, and proclaim them from the pulpit should also help to build up the resolve, the courage, and the companionship necessary to go out and deliver a prophetic message in the seat of power.  Continuing to be in the walls and at ease in a time of rampant injustice will not lead to a good result. 

If any of this stirs you to wonder what you should do, let me also mention that an outstanding learning opportunity is coming.  Barber and some of his co-workers in the Forward Together movement will be leading an intensive learning opportunity on October 29-30, 2015.  The Moral Progressive Organizing Leadership Institute Summit will take place at a retreat center in Whitakers, NC.  The theme of the retreat is "Repairers of the Breach," taken from one of the powerful social justice texts of the Bible in Isaiah 58.  Experts in many fields of policy along with ministers and organizers will teach and train leaders to continue the struggle for justice in this important time.  Information about the conference is available at repairersofbreach@gmail.com.

"I'll give you three minutes to disperse and return to your homes or to your church."

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When I first preached on "The Regard of God" in February, it was in preparation for joining the Moral March to the Capital with Historic Thousands on Jones Street.  A few weeks later, I had the opportunity to preach again, and this message seemed appropriate for the occasion, Shaw University Divinity School's Alexander-Pegues Ministers Conference.  This year's theme was "Resurrecting the Dream:  The Gospel and Socioeconomic/Political Freedom."

Since I preached it the first time, I had opportunity to hear the Mt. Level MBC seminary intern, Tyler Joshua Green, preach an excellent sermon on Matthew 17 and Jesus' struggle and determination to challenge the deadly structures of injustice in the world.  As he moved toward his conclusion, on the fiftieth anniversary weekend of the Selma march, he drew a powerful insight from John Lewis's descriptions of the events of Bloody Sunday.  It was a theologically powerful claim about the nature of the church.  I just kept thinking about it, and decided to rewrite the sermon with a different ending, expanding and "riffing" on what TJ Green had said.  So what you have below, in the spirit of Markan scholarship, the "alternate ending" of my sermon on "The Regard of God," offered at the early morning session of the Ministers Conference on March 10, 2015.  The text for this sermon was Isaiah 40:21-31.

When the economy crashed half a dozen years ago, the easiest thing to do was to relegate economic injustices to the realm of things too complicated for action.  Church people too often shrank back from the challenges the world was throwing at us and said, “[Sigh!] All we can do is pray.”  When I hear that, it often seems to be a way of saying, “We give up, and we don’t plan to use our energy trying to make a difference.  We will just leave it to God and ask God to fix it without us.”  That is a sad kind of prayer.

Praying is actually a big thing to do, if we do it right.  Praying, contrary to much of our actual practice, is not about changing God’s mind.  It is about God changing our minds.  If we had prayed seriously, we would have come out of prayer meeting working on a plan for action against economic injustice.  If God hates injustice, then praying ought to ignite hunger and thirst for justice in us.  That hunger and thirst should stir us to walk and not faint.  A congregation cannot do everything, but it can do something.  We can do the obvious things of offering relief to those who struggle, but we can also do the less obvious things of economic development, forming credit unions, insuring the health of our poor members, creating business incubators, growing fresh and healthy foods, investing in our neighborhoods, providing job training and jobs, shutting down the usurious lenders, pressuring businesses and governments to act justly toward the people.

For all the talking we professors do, you might not realize how much we learn from our students.  I came to Shaw University with an almost lily-white, bleached-out education.  My first day teaching undergraduates sent me to the library and the bookstore.  When I got the chance to teach in the seminary a few years later, I had to intensify my study to be able to teach black theology as an integral part of theology class.  Conversing with my students brought me step by step down a road of deeper understanding.  So if you hear me saying something worth remembering, be assured that my students’ hearts and voices are echoing throughout my words.

I say that because on Sunday at Mt. Level Missionary Baptist Church, we had a first-year seminarian named Tyler Joshua Green preach.  I need to credit him with the next move I’m going to make in this sermon.  He was bringing his text into conversation with the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Selma to Montgomery March.  He drew my attention to a specific quotation from Congressman John Lewis.  Lewis retold key events of Bloody Sunday, and the one I want to point out was the warning he says Major John Cloud of the Alabama State Troopers gave them.

"I'll give you three minutes to disperse and return to your homes or to your church."  Six hundred people, two-by-two, had stepped out of the Brown Chapel AME Church in Selma, to carry their case to the seat of power in Montgomery.  At the front of the procession were the young John Lewis, a contemporary and fellow-soldier with our distinguished Dean Forbes, and Hosea Williams of the SCLC.  TJ Green pointed out the irony of Major Cloud’s instructions, and I’ve been thinking hard about that ever since.

Cloud told John Lewis, Hosea Williams, and the many who stood behind them that they had three minutes to leave and return to their homes or to their churches.  It seems pretty clear that the Major misunderstood what he was talking about.  Major Cloud thought the churches were a place to go and hide from the world, to escape from the world’s troubles, to ignore what goes on outside their walls and doors.  But the churches were not like that. 

Lewis, Williams, and so many more had been in church praying.  They seem to have known what prayer was about.  Through their prayers they had been drawn up into the mission of God.  Their hearts had become unsatisfied with the warm feelings they could get in the pews and aisles of their sanctuaries.  Their eyes saw through the stained glass windows and brick walls into a world where the beloved children of God struggled for a crust of bread to eat, for a book to study, for a job to earn with dignity, for a voter registration card to affirm their citizenship, for a safe street to walk without being shot down by vigilantes or police.  They saw a place where Jesus had walked among the outcast, the despised, the wretched of the earth.  Their prayers fortified their wills to be followers of Jesus.  They found sweet communion with a savior who walked in the dangerous and barren places of the world, and they did not want to miss out on a minute of being right where Jesus was walking.

The churches may have been a refuge in the storm, but they were, Oh, so much more than a refuge.  They may have found joy in singing and praising, but they were praising a God who was calling them to walk and not faint. The churches were not a place of irrelevance for the shape of the world of politics.  They were ground zero for the in-breaking of the Reign of God.  They were the launching pad for a Holy Spirit invasion of every stronghold and power base of evil in God’s world.  The churches were a place to see a new vision.  They were the strategy room to plan and prepare for taking on injustice.  They were the School of Truth that this Christian Band would be speaking to power.  They were the dressing room for any who would be clothed in righteousness.  They were the supply depot for any who would put on the whole armor of God.  They were the sign-up desk for everyone who would embrace the mission of God's Reign, saying, “Here I am!  Send me!”  They were the breeding ground of a liberating gospel that revolutionizes the world through a simple prayer, "God's will be done on earth!"  They were an empty tomb where dreams are being resurrected.

So when this conference is over, take Major Cloud’s advice and go back to your churches.  But don’t go back to hide and cower.  Don’t go back to ignore and doubt.  God has regarded our worship and our faithfulness.  God’s regard goes beyond those walls of the building and to all God’s children.  Therefore, go back to stage the next wave of gospel change.  Go back to live in the regard of God, to pray and be changed, to walk and not faint. 

Isaiah, if you are listening there in our great cloud of witnesses, this is what we will do.  We will go into the world because we have known.  We will make sure the poor in our neighborhoods have health care because we have heard.  We will stand up against the killing and locking away of our children because it has been told to us from the beginning.  We will create opportunities for education and jobs because we have understood from the foundation of the world.  We will go into the world because it is a sign of who we are and whose we are–those who belong to the One who spread the heavens as a tent for us to live in.  We do our Kingdom work as a foretaste of the new age God is bringing among us, who brings princes to naught and strengthens the powerless.  We go into the world under the everlasting, unsearchable regard of God. 

God is the one who has regard for us.  The everlasting God, creator of the ends of the earth, created our little corner of it too.  God has regard for us.  We walk in the regard of God who does not faint or grow weary.  We go to our churches to be transformed and become part of a long walk to justice, to love, and to community.  Let’s plan to walk and not faint, thankful that we live and move and have our being in the regard of God.

Presidents and Deans in Theological Education: How Must You Lead in These Times?

Our Dean at Shaw University Divinity School, was pleased to host a gathering of the African American Presidents and Deans in schools of theological education this week.  One of his initiatives was drafting a document that was edited and became an open letter, signed by those in attendance.  It addresses the issues of racial and ethnic disparity in the contemporary setting.  The context of progress and lack of progress in civil rights becomes the basis for reflection, as well as the impetus for a call to action. 

It harks back to a landmark of the South African churches' uniting against apartheid, the Kairos Document.  The challenges of injustice in that time are similar to our time, though the events and details may be different.  Mass imprisonment, repressive policing, differentiation of outcomes by race, law and order rhetoric, tragic and wrenching public killings, widespread fear and anger--these conditions ought to drive the church back to its convictions and its knees.  Searching our faith should also compel us to proclaim the love that has taken hold of us, so that we no longer see one another as those formed by the world see one another.  "God was in Christ, reconciling the world to God's own self, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation" (2 Corinthians 5:14-19).

It's a brief statement offering many subjects for thought and action.  It is neither a comprehensive treatise nor a call to a single strategic act.  It speaks to theological educators and their institutions about the way we teach the blessed texts and traditions of a faith that follows one who came to set at liberty those who are oppressed.  Take a moment to attend their words for our time.  And notice in the second paragraph that the person mentioned is Shaw Divinity's Dean David Forbes, who as a Shaw undergraduate was part of the initial gathering at Shaw of what would become the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, guided in part by Shaw's own Ella Baker.

(This Open Letter represents a collective effort by African American Presidents and Deans in Theological Education. A full list of the authors is at the bottom of the letter.)

January 15, 2015

An Open Letter to Presidents and Deans of Theological Schools in the United States,
At its annual meeting at Shaw University Divinity School in Raleigh, NC, African American Presidents and Deans of theological schools in the United States issued a call for action in light of the current state of social justice in the United States of America.

One of our leaders, a founding member of the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), noted that the socio-economic and political realities that led to the establishment of SNCC at Shaw University 54 years ago are actually eclipsed by the realities of this day. In 1960 there were lynchings and robe-wearing Klansmen. Today lynchings occur, but in different forms. Klansmen today bivouac without robes and hoods. Slavery still exists but under the auspices of a prison industrial complex. Discrimination thrives, with no intent or program for relief. As was true in the 1960's it is time for citizens of good conscience to once again rise up and rally to the cry for freedom and justice for all.

From a manger in Bethlehem, a Bantustan in Soweto, a bus in Montgomery, a freedom Summer in Mississippi, a bridge in Selma, a street in Ferguson, a doorway and shots fired in Detroit, a Moral Monday in Raleigh, an assault in an elevator in Atlantic City, an office building in Colorado Springs, a market in Paris, a wall in Palestine, a pilgrimage to the shrine of Rincon and a restoration of ties between Cuba and the United States on December 17th, the kidnapping and assault of young school-aged girls and the reported killing of 2000 women, children and men in Nigeria, a new generation of dream defenders, a transgender teen's suicide note, to our abuse of the environment - God sends a sign - a Kairos moment. The racial climate in the United States, and the respect for our common humanity everywhere, is clearly in decline.

How can Americans acquiesce, remain silent, passive and neutral as African-American men and women are slain in the streets of Ferguson, Staten Island, Cleveland and beyond? How can people of conscience be still when African-Americans quake with fear to walk without harm in their own cities and towns? How can we remain docile when leaders of our nation, especially the United States Congress abdicate their civic and moral responsibility to set a tone of civility and humanity?

How can we abide a justice system, which is neither blind nor equitable? How can we suffer a justice system that victimizes African Americans and Latinos by jailing them disproportionately?

How can we sit idly by while our children are slaughtered in the streets without provocation?

How can we as United States citizens claim that we are "created equal" and that we are committed to "freedom and justice for all" while injustice is rampant in the land?

How can we continue with business as usual in our theological schools in the midst of so many egregious injustices?

We believe that citizens of good conscience must arise and call our nation to assess and address the rising tide of injustice throughout our legal and criminal justice systems.

There must be restraint to those who shoot, kill, and maim innocent young men and women in the streets of our nation. And so . . .

We call upon the leaders of our nation to reaffirm the founding principles of this nation: liberty and justice for all.

We call on all freedom loving Americans to reaffirm a commitment to "the beloved community," where the freedom and rights of all are respected and protected.

We call on the United States Congress to set a civil and moral tone in the way they respect our twice-elected president.

We call on leaders on the national and local levels to join citizens of good will to reject practices, legal and adjure, which mar the American dream of liberty and justice for all.

We call on our churches and every house of faith to challenge their members and communities to live out an inclusive commitment to love God, self, the neighbor-enemy, and creation across any and all boundaries that would dehumanize, alienate, and separate.

We call on all Americans of good conscience who gather across the country to speak out for liberty and justice for all... always. As our modern day prophet, Martin Luther King, Jr. noted, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

We invite our colleagues -- presidents, deans and leaders of all divinity and theological schools -- to arise from the embers of silence and speak up and speak out as the prophet of old, "let justice run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream" (Amos 5:24). We encourage you to endorse this statement by responding in your own particular context to our theological call to action with curricular programs, public forums, teach-ins, calls to your congressional leaders, writing op-ed pieces, and more.

We recognize this Kairos moment and stand in solidarity for "liberty and justice for all."

Yours in the struggle,

African American Presidents and Deans in Theological Education

List of Signatories

• Dr. Willard W.C. Ashley, Dean of the Seminary, New Brunswick Seminary
• Dr. Brian K. Blount, President, Union Presbyterian Seminary
• Dr. Marsha Foster Boyd, President Emerita, Ecumenical Theological Seminary
• Dr. Michael J. Brown, Academic Dean, Payne Theological Seminary
• Dr. Gay L. Byron, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, Howard University School of Divinity
• Dr. Leah Gaskin Fitchue, President, Payne Theological Seminary
• Dr. David C. Forbes Sr., Interim Dean, Shaw University Divinity School
• Dr. Charisse L. Gillett, President, Lexington Theological Seminary
• Dr. Thomas W. Gilmore, Coordinator of Education, Cleveland Center, Ashland Theological Seminary
• Dr. Mark G. Harden, Dean of the Boston Campus, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary
• Dr. Kenneth E. Harris, Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean, Ecumenical Theological Seminary
• Dr. Barbara A. Holmes, President, United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities
• Dr. Carrie D. Hudson, Associate Dean for Academic Advising and Scheduling, Ashland Theological Seminary
• Dr. Vivian L. Johnson, Associate Dean of Academic Affairs, United Theological Seminary
• Dr. John W. Kinney, Senior Vice President & Dean for the School of Theology, Samuel DeWitt Proctor School of Theology
• Dr. Vergel Lattimore, President, Hood Theological Seminary
• Dr. James W. Lewis, Dean, Anderson University School of Theology
• Rev. Stephen Lewis, President, Forum for Theological Exploration
• Dr. Paul M. Martin, President/CEO, American Baptist Seminary of the West
• Dr. Myron F. McCoy, former President, Saint Paul School of Theology
• Dr. Marvin A. McMickle, President, Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School
• Dr. Rosemary Bray McNatt, President, Starr King School for the Ministry
• Dr. Joy J. Moore, Associate Dean of African American Church Studies, Fuller Theological Seminary
• Dr. Deborah Flemister Mullen, Dean of Faculty and Executive Vice President, Columbia Theological Seminary
• Dr. Evelyn L. Parker, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, Perkins School of Theology
• Dr. Alton B. Pollard, III, Dean, Howard University School of Divinity
• Dr. Angela D. Sims, Dean of Academic Programs, Saint Paul School of Theology
• Dr. Emilie M. Townes, Dean, Vanderbilt University Divinity School
• Dr. Edward P. Wimberly, President, Interdenominational Theological Center
• Dr. Robert S. Woods, Vice President of Academic Affairs/Dean, Memphis Theological Seminary
• Dr. Mary H. Young, Associate Dean, Samuel DeWitt Proctor School of Theology

Public Reading of Scripture

It's the last day of the Shaw University Divinity School Ministers' Conference.  This morning was my morning on the dais.  I was scheduled to offer the Invocation.  One of our alumni was called away, so I also filled in to read the Scripture Text.

Some of you who know me realize that public reading of scripture is one of my favorite forms of worship leadership.  Having grown up in church, I have been hearing people read aloud from the Bible all my life.  In children's Sunday School classes, it was a challenge, a duty, and sometimes a competition to see who could get through some verses without stumbling over big Bible words.  We excellent readers and pronouncers felt smug toward the ones who couldn't sound out Nebuchadnezzer or Amalekite.

Eventually, it came to be the "gracious" thing to do to allow anyone to "pass" or "prefer" not to read publicly.  We learned that we should not force people to do something they were not comfortable doing, lest they feel humiliated by struggling with the words and sentences.  I never got completely comfortable with that policy, thinking that we ought to show the grace through loving one another enough to encourage everyone to continue to grow and improve in public reading.  That was a kind of internal white church conversation.

At Mt. Level Missionary Baptist Church, I came to see that there was another kind of conversation about public reading of scripture to which I had not been privileged.  I don't know the story as a participant, although I have had some opportunities to study in books or listen to testimony about that different world from the one in which I was raised.  What I did learn was that the social function of public reading of scripture at Mt. Level carried with it a communal memory of injustice:  the injustice of being denied the sacred text and the training to be a reader of it.

So at Mt. Level, when a person stands to read the scripture publicly, it is not the same kind of pressure to perform flawlessly to prove one's pedigree that might have fed our competitive spirits in Sunday School where I grew up.  It takes on more of a shared consciousness of liberation struggle, as people whom outsiders might not expect to read sophisticated texts join hearts of encouragement to read and hear the sacred writ.  Almost any time a young person or child reads publicly, there is an outpouring of congratulations and encouragement for achieving this important task.  Now the feeling about children's public reading is not so different than what I grew up with, but the expression is more overt through words of praise and applause.  Getting an education is not something to take for granted, and gaining the skill to handle sacred things is a reason for gratitude to God who made a way where there was no way.

As a seminarian at Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary, I gained another insight into public reading of scripture.  Certainly, I had experienced different styles of reading as I grew up.  Some people read in a monotone, giving little emphasis while making sure to get all the words correct.  Others put on a "church voice" or "preacher voice" and read with a different tone than conversational speech.  It may include certain efforts at emphasis, although as a whole it offers little insight into the particular text, and in a way makes all texts sound the same, each verse and sentence and paragraph adopting the same "officious" or "elevated" tone of voice.  Some readers adopt a sing-song phrasing that gets to be very predictable and at times causes the mind to relax and drift away.  A few readers show evidence of trying to read with contextual understanding, yet most such reading either takes on idiosyncratic interpretive emphasis (such as highlighting a transitional word like "but" or "therefore"), reading excessively slowly, or singling out one or two phrases in a passage for emphasis.

While in California, I was blessed to become part of a congregation that was unusually populated by people who gave serious attention to how scripture should be read publicly.  Among many with gifts, some who stood out were Jerene Broadway, Kyle Smith, and Jane Medema.  One thing I learned from these and others was to look at a text for its particularities:  conversational speech, story-telling, poetic phrasing, and musicality.  I listened as readers varied the speed of their speech cadence, stretched out particular words, raised and lowered the pitch or tone of phrases in unexpected ways rather than in the same way with each line.  I saw that scripture gives clues about the emotive character of its words, so that fear, excitement, anger, or sarcasm may need expression.  Some words may need to be shouted and others whispered.

From that point on, I came to see that worship planners should engage two concerns when calling on people to lead through public reading of scripture.  First, I retain my baptist egalitarianism that tells me everyone who wishes to have opportunity to read scripture publicly should get to do so.  Reading scripture is a practice of all of our lives in discipleship, and no one has to be a professional to share in that practice.  Whether it is read with a more mumbling monotone, a stumbling cadence, or articulated in all its detail, the people of God do the work of God by reading scripture publicly.  Second, churches should identify those with gifts to read with expression and convey the depths of the text and have them read regularly and often.  Moreover, those who understand how to study a text and draw out an oral interpretation of it should offer training to others so that more members of the congregation can offer gifted leadership in public reading of scripture.

I also learned at seminary that many traditions of Christian worship read multiple texts in worship.  I grew up hearing the scripture read as a preparation for the sermon.  Whatever text the preacher planned to use was the one we heard.  Then I found out that some churches read an Old Testament Lesson, a Psalm, a New Testament Lesson (or Epistle), and a Gospel Lesson every Sunday.  Of course, in our small-town Texas Baptist self-assurance, we were not aware of the Lectionary and such things.  I remember my fellow-seminarian Dan Ratliff saying to me that for all of our baptist talk about being Bible-based, we mostly let people say their own words in worship.  He helped me see that in this multiple-text liturgical approach, we could give God's Word a chance to speak more often, more diversely, and more extensively than our anti-liturgical pattern had led us into.

All of which leads me to say that I was overjoyed to get to read from Acts 8:26-39 today and try to make the text come alive.  I always know the English teachers and speech teachers out in the congregation because of the way their eyes light up.  One woman greeted me after the service to say, "You read that scripture just like I would have told you to read it!"  So I knew I was talking to someone who thinks about how to interpret texts orally.  If this is the text we claim can tell us the story of our lives and guide us in the way we should go, then there is a value in letting the words operate in our mouths and ears with the same liveliness of the conversations we carry on with one another.  They are sacred texts, but that does not mean they must sound like drudgery.

So anytime you want to ask me to read the scripture publicly, don't be surprised that I say, "Yes."

Good Friday

Jesus of Nazareth challenged the ruling authorities, drew dangerously large crowds, made inroads among leadership, remained blameless before the law yet a threat to the standing order because he would not stop challenging the sinful domination system:  after months of plotting they executed him.  It was government sanctioned political assassination.  No remote God was happy or felt avenged.  The God who had drawn near in this humble, poor Jewish man knew sorrow and was acquainted with grief at the betrayal and rejection of relentless love.

What Are We Waiting For? Part 2

Here is the second part of the sermon, continued from the previous post.

What Are We Waiting For?
Part 2

Romans 8:12-25

Paul wrote in verse 19 that all creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God. He goes on to say that creation groans in labor pains for redemption, for the renewal of creation, the new creation that God has already set in motion in the redeeming work of Jesus. All of creation groans. We try to make our way in life by using fossil fuels, but the system of manufacturing and consumption spins out of control until the world’s climate starts to be changed, pollution affects our air and waterways, and finally competition over limited supplies of fuel drives gasoline prices higher and higher. Creation groans in labor pains for redemption.

The two young men long for a world in which people treat one another well; they long for it without hope that it can really happen. The people across the Middle East and Africa long for rulers who will not sacrifice the lives of the people of the land in order to hold on to their power. They long for the powerful nations of the world to stop playing power games over their resources and lives. All creation groans for the children of God to be revealed. The poor people of this country long for their leaders to invest in people’s health and lives rather than more and more weapons. Creation is groaning all around us. The children of the world long for the opportunity to eat, learn, be healthy, and grow up to have families and homes, rather than being forced to work in sweatshops, to wander as refugees, or to be kidnapped to become child soldiers or part of the modern slave trade. All creation groans, longing for redemption.

Two Sundays ago, I had the opportunity to visit a former Duke Divinity student who is a pastor at a small town on the north side of Burlington, Vermont. Driving down through Vermont, along Lake Champlain and across the three large islands in the northern part of the lake, I had the privilege of seeing another piece of the beauty of God’s creation. This week in Kentucky a group of professors I was meeting with hiked up into the mountains to see a natural stone arch formed by the power of waters which once flowed where now there is a deep gorge and a thick forest. We don’t have to look very far beyond our parking lot at Mt. Level to see the great variety and complexity of the vegetation, animals, and landscape that make up the earth on which we are blessed to live.

Maybe if I could just step outside, get out of the rat race, and look at the beautiful countryside, I might be able to convince myself that things are just fine in the world and that nothing remains to be redeemed. But even in the midst of this beauty, I suspect you could tell me why what seems to be beautiful and complete falls short of perfection. Divisions among people because of skin color, social status, and economic opportunities no doubt affect the lives of people in Vermont just as they do in North Carolina. Economic and political decisions made in Washington, D. C., Beijing, Moscow, London, New Delhi, Jerusalem, and Teheran play a role in how many refugees are compelled to seek asylum or a new start. Offshore outsourcing of industry has turned the economy of places like North Carolina, Kentucky, and Vermont upside down, as factories close and jobs go away. Creation groans for our redemption.

Yes, all creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God. Who are these children of God? What will we see in their revealing? What are we waiting for? First we should note that they are joint-heirs with Christ. They have been adopted through a new birth into the very family of God. They are God’s children. Previously they were orphans, living without love or hope, with no purpose or meaning, nothing in which to place their faith. But having been adopted, now they are heirs of all that God has given in creation. They are a new race of God’s children, acknowledging with Paul in Athens that God has made all nations of people of one blood. They are joined to Christ as the beloved of God, and they are joined to Christ in the mission of God’s love. They have received the Spirit of God that sets them free.

Why is the gift of the Spirit a gift of freedom? Having been joined to Christ and the Spirit, the children of God can set aside their fears of what the powers of the world might do to them. They can give up their fears of people who are different from them. They are free to live and love with the kind of self-giving commitment Jesus had. They can give up their own privileges for the sake of others as Jesus did. With their lives joined to Christ and the Spirit, nothing can destroy them. They can even risk their livelihood and their lives, knowing that God will be with them in life or in death. The whole of creation awaits the revealing of the children of God, a people who like Jesus are willing to suffer if they must to see God’s demands for justice carried out. They know that the blessings they receive from God are not for hoarding but for sharing. I think I would like to know that kind of person. I’d really like to have that kind of person live in my neighborhood. I’d be eager to meet a group of people who lived that way.

I hate to say it, but when I read about church people, I don’t always see people like this. When I talk to church people, I don’t always hear about the risks they are taking for the poor and marginalized, the beloved of Christ. Too often, so much attention and effort goes into managing the organization that the church forgets about being God’s plan to display the character and nature of God in the world. We may be the only image of Jesus that people ever see, so we don’t want to be out of focus and blurry.

Paul teaches us in Romans and elsewhere that the community of people who live God’s way are the very definition of the glory of God. He says that as we grow in grace, as we grow in our Christian lives, as we grow as God’s people, we will be transformed from one degree of glory to another. In this way, it will be as if we see the glory of God in a mirror. Did you get that? The glory of God is something Paul says we should see in the mirror, not because God is satisfied with us to stay stuck where we were on the day of our baptism, but because God will walk this road of life with us to change us to be more and more in the image of the true humanity revealed in Jesus Christ.

Jesus, our joint-heir, is the measure and standard of our humanity. He is the firstborn of many brothers and sisters who bear a family resemblance. Joined to him in baptism, we commit ourselves to become like him in his humility, his generosity, his faithfulness, his gentleness, his peacefulness, his patience, his kindness, his meekness, his hunger for justice, his purity of heart. People who do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God are the very purpose God had for creation, the true image of God in humanity, the revealing of the glory of God. This is why all creation groans, longing for the glory of God to be revealed in the children of God.

So on the day of your baptism, you probably could not see all that God intends for you to be. Even years later, we see our failures and our shortcomings. We have far to go to take hold of that for which God has taken hold of us. So we press on toward the high calling. We run with perseverance the race set before us because of the glory that is being revealed to us and in us. We hope in Christ, for Christ is the hope of glory. With patience, we await that for which we have hoped, a creation which measures up to the goodness, beauty, and justice God has intended from before the foundation of the world.