**This sermon was delivered on June 7, 2020 after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
Let the redeemed of the LORD say so, whom He hath redeemed from the hand of the enemy (Ps. 107:2).
There is an old song that the church sang that said, “If we ever needed the Lord, we sure need Him now. I need Him every morning, I need Him at night, and I need Him at noonday, when the sun is bright.”
“We need Him when we are happy, we need Him when we are sad, we need Him when we are burdened, just to make our hearts glad.”
We do need Him now to make our hearts glad, and to give up some peace during this turmoil.
The events over the past week are heartbreaking. We watched a man asking for his breath for his life, and he was given more pressure by a knee. He became another casualty of a senseless death at the hands of one that supposedly was there to serve and protect. We had not got out of our system the death of Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia, who was running for his health and it became a run that ended his life.
We were still reeling and rocking from the death of an EMS young lady, Breonna Taylor that was gunned down innocently in Louisville because the police had the wrong address of a drug dealer. So, the cup was already full, and then the Minnesota moment happens, and things just erupted.
Then our sadness was compounded by the behavior of those who went to the streets under the banner of protest, and it became something far from the intent of the protest. What was supposed to be a march of honor and community concern, was turned into dishonor and community chaos.
King was right - riots are the language of the unheard. And might I add - is the language of the underprivileged and the oppressed, and those who are tired of promises that are empty and the repetition of the same old thing. Riots are the explosion of those who were already on a short fuse.
And all this pain happens during an unknown virus that is causing death, unemployment, confinement, and fear. So, we are being attacked by what we do not know and understand, and we are attacked by what we have known all the time and have not found a vaccine. And so, the heat of hurt and anger, and the repetition of the same thing that keeps happening, it just boiled over. It boiled over not just among the brown, black, but the fair-skinned as well.
- But we know that two wrongs will never make a right!
- Right is right even if no one is doing it, wrong is wrong even if everyone is doing it.
- You do not need religion to have morals. If you cannot determine right from wrong then you lack empathy, not religion. If you just understand the secular meaning of doing unto others, (not the biblical meaning) as you would have then done to you.
There is a generation or two who are not necessarily appreciative or do not give reverence to the history, struggles, and the price that was paid for Civil Rights. Therefore, they are angry and energetic but do not know how to channel that anger and energy in a positive context. And they do not place the highest value in understanding the plight.
And then there is that generation that knows about the struggle, the history, and the price. They lived it, saw it, and have seen and enjoyed the fruits of that labor, and we wondered what happened given the advances and the distance that we have come. Given the lessons and the accomplishments, why are we still living in an Emmett Till era?
We join Mays when we think about it. Mays said it so well, “We have mastered the air, conquered sea, annihilated distance and prolonged life, but we are not wise enough to live on Earth without war and hate.”
How can we have made all these amazing advances on Earth, in society? How can we be so bright and brilliant over here, and yet living in the dark ages of what we thought should have been solved by now?
How can we be so good with machines and technology and so bad with human contact?
It was in that movie Apollo 13 starring Tom Hanks; you know it revolved around the real possibility that those 3 men could have died in space because the heat shield was blown off during the launch. And the entrance into Earth was a risky one; it was life and death. One of the NASA engineers says to Gene Kranz, who was the man that called the shots at the center, if the crisis could be the darkest hour in the history of NASA? Gene responds with an epic response, “No sir. This is going to be our finest hour.”
This could be the church's finest hour if it acts in the way that it was designed to be.
Let the redeemed of the Lord say so! What a challenge and what a charge that we are commanded to act!
The text says that the redeemed of the Lord should say so! The redeemed should have a voice. The redeemed should not be silent, but speak. I do not just limit that in talk, but in action.
I. The Church is Challenged to be that Light During Darkness!
- Our job is not to be political but to be powerful and proactive about that which is just, fair, that which is good for all.
The church does not need to be the echo in the community, state, nation; it needs to be the consciousness of what is right from the church perspective.
A. No problem can be solved from the level of consciousness that created the problem.
- You cannot send a fox to inspect the hen house.
B. Sometimes when you are the light, you cannot be selective on where you are going to shine. That light must shine everywhere and on anybody.
C. The redeemed has a voice, and the redeemed has a truth and reason.
Ida B. Wells said the way you right the wrongs are by turning the light upon them (turn the camera).
Our challenge in this season is to be that light, not just on Sunday, but daily. It may require joining hands and hearts with others in other houses of worship and figuring out how can we get dry bones to live. How we get bones to engage in the system that when used properly brings about change. How we get those in the streets to protest peacefully and then get them to the voting polls powerfully. When we can fill the streets and cannot fill the polls we lose. The march on Washington, the march in Selma, the march in Birmingham, Memphis, gain attention. But it was the ability to translate that into numbers in the polls.
It was said that Jesus did not get into trouble so much about His faith in God, but He got into trouble about His concern for mankind.
- Had Jesus not witnessed to tax collectors and disturbed them!
- Had Jesus not welcomed a Samaritan woman and started a unity movement.
- Had Jesus not disturbed the consciousness of the powers that be, they would have left Him alone.
- Had Jesus just left the Temple and the powers that be like they were, He would not perhaps been crucified by them.
But Jesus challenged those who said that they wanted to be in the light. He challenged them to let it shine.
You are the light of the world!
A. Light banishes the darkness!
B. Light brings about warmth!
C. Light brightens a path!
This could be the church’s finest hour; not only do we get to preach about the Christ who came to save our souls, we get a chance to practice what love looks like, what community looks like when it unites, what collective voices can do to the powers that be.
Since we say we have been redeemed, we need to say so. And what we have to say, needs to be said, not just on Sunday, but in every sector of the community. We need not be just reactors, but we have to be proactive.
II. The Church must be the Salt of the Earth
- Jesus says, “and if we lose our saltiness, we are good for nothing, but to be trodden under the foot of men.”
When salt of that day lost its purpose, it was used to fill the holes on the roadways. It’s what they do here in Michigan; they patch the holes on the roads.
The salt that lost its power was no longer useful!
A. One of the virtues of salt was that it influenced the flavor of what it came in contact with.
- That is one of the missions of the church, it should have some influence of that which it comes in contact with.
B. The church has the potential of lending flavor to the community, the flavor of unity, not disunity; the flavor of change, not compromise; the flavor of cooperation, not separation.
C. Another virtue of salt was that it preserved. It kept things from spoiling, from decaying.
