Sermon by Pastor J. Lee Hill, the week following the George Zimmerman Verdict
Scripture Text: Genesis 4:8-16
I was formally introduced to Bernice Reagon just a few weeks ago while attending denominational meetings. I went to this concert, not fully knowing what to expect, but ready to expect something. Bernice Reagon, a member of People’s Congregational Church, in Washington DC talked about her journey to appreciation for United Church of Christ. She told this short story about having been without a home, and she prayed to the Lord—“Lord, I need to find a good Baptist church where I can live out my faith.” And the Lord spoke to her and said, “Go around the corner….” And she said, “…but Lord, ain’t nothing round the corner but People’s….” And the Lord spoke to her and said, “Go around the corner.” She was very familiar with People’s Congregational Church—a historic African-American church—for she had sung there many times; songs of freedom, songs of liberation, songs of struggle, songs of hope. [Play Ella’s Song]
Ella Baker, a freedom fighter, was the inspiration behind Reagon’s words. In an interview with Bill Moyers a few years ago Reagon spoke the challenging words of power sung in her song: “Until the killing of a black mother’s sons, becomes as important to the rest of the country as the killing of a white mothers’ son….[W]e who believe in freedom cannot rest…”
This morning I want to draw our attention to the Hebrew Bible, the book of Genesis, for an exploration of the narrative of Cain and Abel. It is the first murder that the world that has ever experienced a world in which God was please to create…
James Weldon Johnson writes of the making man in that beautifully famous collection of poetry, GOD’s TROMBONE
“…God thought and thought
Till he thought: I’ll make me a man!
Up from the bed of the river;
God scooped the clay;
And by the bank of the river;
He kneeled him down;
And there the great God Almighty
Who lit the sun and fixed it in the sky,
Who flung the sun and fixed it in the sky
Who flung the stars to the most far corner of the night,
Who rounded the earth in the middle of his hand;
This Great God
Like a mammy bending over her baby,
Kneeled down in the dust
Toiling over a lump of clay
Till He shaped it in His own image;
Then into it He blew the breath of life,
And man became of living soul.”
A living soul—with the ability to know right from wrong.
A living soul—with the ability to reason, think and discern.
A living soul—with the capacity to both bring forth life, and snuff life out.
This was the ability and the capacity that surrounded Cain’s life.
This morning I draw our attention to a text that is bitterly bristled with problems; theological and social quagmires that make us ask:
Why was Abel’s offering preferred over Cain’s?
How did God make known the preference?
What is the meaning of the counsel God gave to Cain?
What exactly did Cain and Abel say to one another?
What is the mark given to Cain?
What is the real reason behind the story?
The unjust murder of Trayvon Martin remains keenly upon our hearts and minds this morning. And yet we arrive at this place in the 21st century with the same kinds of theological and social questions that the biblical text leaves with us.
Knowing that we need to address the issue of gun violence in our community.
Knowing that we need to address the issues of education in our community.
Knowing that we need to ensure the safe maturation of boys young men.
Knowing that we need to address the pain of collective loss.
Knowing that we need to direct our hurt in ways that uplift.
Knowing that we need to direct our pain in ways that unite.
Knowing that we need to seek justice and righteousness;
Unending oceans and overflowing rivers of justice and righteousness…
Why do we need this? We need this because every year, 4.5 million firearms, including about 2 million guns are sold— the average gun owner had nearly seven guns in 2004, up from four guns 10 years earlier. It is reported that more than 30 people are victims of gun violence each day. A third of them are under 20; half are between 18 and 35. And gun violence is the leading cause of death of African-Americans aged 18-35. Did you know that seventy-four people were shot, and a dozen killed in gun violence in Chicago during the July 4 weekend? Two of them were young boys, ages 5 and 7. Julianne Malveaux further remarked in her article entitled “Looking Beyond George Zimmerman,” that innocent “Georgie” isn’t the only one slaughtering young Black men. Far too many of our young brothers are slaughtering each other. These two facts both need to be address in our community, one does not negate the existence of the ofther.
In the biblical text before us this morning we see sibling rivalry at its very worst—resulting in death, the blood of the victim crying out to God from the ground, and a mark of grace being given to the perpetrator of the murderous violence. And yet similar to the case we witnessed on trial in Sanford when the sin of racial profiling overtook Zimmerman’s life, Cain is given the opportunity not to allow the temptation of sin to overpower his life. And it is interesting when we explore the syntax of the Hebrew Bible for we find the phrase “crouching at the door” surrounding the word sin. Sin is always “crouching at the door” of our hearts, at the door of our lives, eager and ready to consume every part our rational thinking. Somehow between being knit together in his mother’s womb and experiencing frustration with God’s decision to find more pleasure in his brother’s gift, Cain’s mindset dramatically shifts from righteousness to sin— never again to experience the joy of brothers dwelling together in unity. Sin no longer crouches at the door of his life, but takes up full residence.
Cain murders Abel.
And we do not have any narrative of what happened in those minutes between Cain and Abel. We do not know what words were exchanged. Perhaps it was 4 minutes where Abel, the victim of the violence, refused “to seize the opportunity” to get away from his would-be perpetrator
We simply do not know what transpired in those moments. But what we do know is that the spilled blood of the victim, and I believe the spilled blood of all needless and unnecessary violence, cries out to God and are heard by God!
You see I’m a country boy. I grew up in a small, black Baptist church in central Virginia, less than half a mile “up from” the Appomattox River, where John Rolfe and Pocahontas met and married. And it was in First Baptist Bermuda Hundred where I learned to cry out a little song to Jesus. You may have heard it before:
…have a little talk with Jesus,
tell him all about your trouble,
he will hear your faintest cry,
and answer by and by…..
And so what my “down-home” theology taught me then, and makes me realize and believe now, is that my God hears the cries, even the faintest cries, of the oppressed and the marginalized in the world! God is always chiefly concerned with the victims of oppression and injustice. Make no mistake about it: THERE HAS BEEN A MURDER and CAIN’S BLOOD CRIES OUT FROM THE GROUND!
Today a young boy’s blood cries out from the ground…
Trayvon’s blood cries out from the ground!
Calling for justice;
Demanding the right for little black children to walk in peace;
Demanding the right for our children to live abundant lives;
Demanding the right to live lives without fear, violence and hatred;
Calling out the broken and fracture black community to wholeness;
Daring us to either make significant change OR
Decidedly wind the clock back to 1963!
There has been a MURDER. And the cries from the ground for justice have been raised.
But what about that mark? What about the mark that Cain receives from God?
The seemingly incongruity of the biblical text is that even the perpetrators of violence, of brutal life-destroying violence—mean, wrong-decision making, life-taking Cain–is granted a mark of mercy by God. In response to Cain’s questioning of God: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” God is so Divine that God is able to embrace the murderer and even say to the victim of violence, ‘I, God of all Creation, will be the keeper of Abel.’
And I’ve got to be honest: it makes me confused theologically to think that Cain lives and seemingly thrives; it makes me angry because it doesn’t feel right; it makes me furious because it does not feel fair; it makes me question God who declares himself just and righteous. It’s hard to wrap my mind around why Cain, after murdering his only brother, can be given a mark which grants him mercy. A mark that gives him grace but not absolute protection.
And today Zimmerman bears a similar mark; A mark that a racially monolithic jury of women handed to their “peer.”
And like the biblical text of Cain’s murder of Abel it makes me confused theologically; it makes me angry because it doesn’t feel right; and it makes me question God’s hand of justice in this country.
In a New York Times article earlier this week Charles Blow told us that it is not so much the MARK that Zimmerman receives, but it is that we have wrongly placed our hopes in a system that was not designed to work for people of color. He writes, “In a way the not-guilty verdict in the trial of George Zimmerman…was more powerful than a guilty verdict….[i]t was the perfect wrenching coda to a story that illustrates just how utterly and completely our system of justice failed Trayvon Martin and his family. [A system that] began to fail Martin long before that night.”
My Sisters and Brothers, we cannot afford to loose one more person of our community to violence, especially gun violence!
In this very city where we represent less than 7% of the population,
we cannot afford to live our lives divided and broken.
We need a new MINDSET….
We need to be unified in our voice.
We need to be unified in our mission.
We need to be unified in our effort.
Jesus taught us that a house divided against itself cannot stand.
And so I call upon our community leaders who are our moral leaders, particularly organizations like the NAACP, who have for generations lead us in the fight for justice and equality, to do more than elect 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th Vice-Presidents to occupy leadership positions on a roster—but to do the hard work of pulling this community together with purpose and power! I challenge the moral leaders of our community to motivate our youth to abandon their digital screens tweeting and facebooking for justice, to move our seniors from the greens of the golf course and the glittering of the slot machines–TO SAVE OUR COMMUNITY!!
I call upon houses of worship, clergy and religious leaders, to stop selling chicken dinners, fashioning curt and catchy worship themes and to freely open their doors to the community; to fashion a place where divine and sacred wisdom can be shared; to fashion a place where we gather not only to sing, pray, preach, fast and believe—but to work to achieve the important work of demanding justice in the face of injustice–we need TO SAVE OUR COMMUNITY!
And finally I call upon parents and grandparents to open their eyes; to parent, and in way too many cases today to grandparent, your children and grandchildren. There is no reason this morning that this church shouldn’t be filled with your children and grandchildren wearing hoodies—learning to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with God (Micah 6:8)! From the youngest to the oldest we need to save every member of our community for our community.
For years it seems to the world that we entered into some kind of post-racial society—whatever that means. For years its seemed to world like we had moved beyond race, because we put the first black family in the White House; because we elected the first black man to be the General Minister/President of this denomination, the United Church of Christ; and right here in San Diego we elected our first black assemblyperson, Dr. Shirley Weber. But then we have moments like these, moments like the gutting of the Voting Rights Act, moments when we are reminded…
“We who believe in freedom cannot rest…
MURDER, MARKS and MINDSET.
Amen.
