By Robert Dilday
In Baptist pulpits across the country last Sunday, pastors recast previously written sermons to grapple with the killing just days before of nine black members of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C., by a white gunman — an act of domestic terrorism apparently motivated by racial hatred that shocked the nation.
In some churches words were combined with images. At First Baptist Church in Greensboro, N.C., and Piney Grove Baptist Church in Mount Airy, N.C., pastors left the pulpit empty as they preached from the floor in front of it. At First Baptist Church in Austin, Texas, and Providence Baptist Church in Charlotte, N.C., the empty pulpits were draped in black.
“I preached from the floor and left the pulpit on the platform vacant,”said Mark Reece, pastor at Piney Grove. “I introduced the symbolism by saying, ‘The Apostle Paul challenges us to bear one another’s burdens as the family of God. Our brothers and sisters at Mother Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston have a vacant pulpit and have lost some of their dearest members. It could have easily been me and it could have easily been one of you. We share in their grief and stand in solidarity with them against the racism and violence that plague our world today.’”
Similar themes were sounded by most pastors last Sunday. Here are highlights from some of the sermons.
Darryl Aaron, pastor, First Baptist Church, Highland Avenue, Winston-Salem, N.C.
It is amazing that all of these years we have been telling this story as if Goliath should have won and David was an underdog. Throughout history we have been seeing life through the lens of Goliath as the one who should win. We have treated slavery as if it was supposed to win. We act as if Jim Crow was made to win. Some people have wondered why the Berlin Wall fell, why Hitler came to an end, and why empires fall. We should never wonder why good is able to defeat evil. God never intended evil to win. Slavery was against God’s purposes, Jim Crow did not get God’s approval, Hitler’s plan did not have God’s signature and white supremacy is not designed by God.
Goliath was too big, and slow and blurry-eyed to comprehend the skills of David. David saw Goliath for who he was. You and I need to see our giants for who they are. We need to stop believing giants are too big to fall. We need to stop believing that injustice is more powerful than justice. We need to stop believing that darkness can replace the light. We need to stop believing hate can outdo love. We need to stop trusting that the world’s kingdom has more to offer than God’s kingdom. No sword, spear, or gun can compete with God.
Brent Beasley, pastor, Broadway Baptist Church, Fort Worth, Texas
Michael Lindvall points out that Jesus never says there is nothing to be afraid of. That storm in the Sea of Galilee was fearsome, no doubt, just like the “wind and waves” that threaten us sometimes. What he says is, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” …
There’s nothing to be afraid of? We wouldn’t say that today to the people of Emanuel Church in Charleston who faced a deadly storm. We wouldn’t say that to the families and friends of the church’s pastor, Rev. Clementa Pinckney. We wouldn’t say there’s nothing to be afraid of to the family of Rev. Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, 45, a part-time pastor to the congregation. We wouldn’t say there’s nothing to be afraid of to the family and friends of Tywanza Sanders, 26; Ethel Lee Lance, 70; Susie Jackson, 87; Cynthia Hurd, 54; Myra Thompson, 59; Rev. Daniel L. Simmons Sr., 74, and Rev. DePayne Middleton Doctor, 59.
And we wouldn’t say that to the shooter, Dylan Roof, either. Stop and think for just a minute about the fear in his heart, the pain in his heart, and I don’t mean just right now but for years, for most of his life, maybe. Think about the terrible storm of pain and fear swirling around inside this person, this outcast and loner, who could grow enough hate and pain and fear inside to do something like this.
The reality is there are many, many fearsome things in this world. What the Gospel is trying to help us to understand is that even though these fearsome things are very real, they do not have the last word. They do not have ultimate power over us, because reigning over this world of fearsome things is a God who is mightier than all of them. The worst things are never the last things.
It’s not because there are no fearsome things on the sea of our days, not because there are no storms or fierce winds or waves, but because God is here. God is with us. Like the name of the church in Charleston, even in the most terrible of storms, Emmanuel, God is with us. Emmanuel is always, ultimately, more powerful than the storm.
Ben Boswell, pastor, Greenwood Forest Baptist Church, Cary, N.C.
Being a church of open hearts and open doors is not easy. It is risky and dangerous, and as we found out this week, sometimes, it is even deadly. Mother Emanuel Church opened up their doors and their hearts to a young stranger from out of town who showed up at their church on a Wednesday night during Bible study. At the time they didn’t know they were welcoming white supremacist Dylann Roof, and they stayed with him for almost an hour. They were so generous, hospitable, and loving to him that Dylann almost changed his mind. But the evil of racist hatred was too strong in his heart and it began pouring out as he took his gun and opened fire murdering nine people — six women and three men. …
I began to wonder if I could ever be as open and as welcoming as Rev. Pickney was — or for that matter, if I could ever encourage a church that I pastored to be open and welcoming again. Then I heard that they captured Dylann Roof and that the families of the Mother Emanuel martyrs who were murdered made a video telling Dylann Roof that even though they were grieving the loss of their loved ones who they would never get to talk to or hold on to ever again, that they forgive him and that they are now praying for his salvation. I was deeply moved by their words. What a witness! How could these Christians welcome a racist terrorist into their church only to have him murder their loved ones and then turn around two days later and forgive him? It’s almost unthinkable. …
That’s when I realized that Mother Emanuel was not only the church of the open door from Revelation — they are also the church of the open hearts that Paul was calling the Corinthians to be. And they didn’t become that way by chance. Their love, grace, and hospitality was forged in the fires of suffering and adversity that they faced and endured faithfully as a people from the very beginning of their days together as a congregation.
Dorisanne Cooper, pastor, Watts Street Baptist Church, Durham, N.C.
[The history of what Emanuel AME church has been through over the years since its founding] is not just their history, it’s part of our history. Part of the church’s history in America. A history that needs to be remembered. Because even while we rightly condemn with horror what it’s hard even to say — that someone would walk into such a place, into any place and put to death those worshipping there — we have also to admit that part of the horrible history that this man’s actions were a continuation of is our history, too. When we say we want to and do make strides in racial reconciliation as God’s vision for the world, we have a history we must also acknowledge that is founded in exclusion and hate. “Let all of us speak the truth to our neighbors,” says the writer of Ephesians, “for we are members of one another.”
In what ways are we as the church not letting the full truth of the gospel through? In bias we refuse to explore. In a history we refuse to name. The deepest truth of the faith we profess is this: That God of all the world breathes value into each of us and calls each of us beloved. Not those of us who have a particular hue of skin color, or a particular sexual orientation or a particular gender identity — all of us, even those who espouse hate. And it’s our job, our calling as a part of the beloved community of God to make sure that’s not a truth that only some know — that that’s not a truth that only some hear — that that’s not a truth that we’re ever done trying to live.
Wendell Griffen, pastor, New Millennium Church, Little Rock, Ark.
We live in a world of deadly forces. There are personal forces that carry dangerous weapons. There are forces of nature that pose dangers to us. We must not pretend that we live in some other kind of world. We do not live in a peaceful world. We do not live in a world where the weather is always fair and calm. We do not live in Paradise. We live in a world where threatening forces exist, operate and threaten our survival.
Whether the threats are called Goliath, Philistines, racist bigots, homophobic religious zealots, Hurricane Katrina, Tropical Storm Sandy, or by other names is not the issue. Every threat is a challenge to faith. Hatefulness is always a threat to our faith in the power of love. Violence is always a threat our faith in the power of peace. Fear-mongering is always a threat to our faith in the power of generosity. …
It is tempting to draw the wrong conclusion from the story of David and Goliath. Some people (including more than a few people who profess to be inspired by their faith in God) focus on how David used his slingshot and a well-placed aim to strike the Philistine champion in the head, a blow that disabled his opponent before David took the Philistine’s sword, killed him with it, and then beheaded him with it.
The point of the lesson is not that David was a better warrior. David is an example of faithfulness because he refused to be intimidated by the fearsome threat of the towering Philistine. David refused to believe that the taunts and threats uttered by a giant were more than the promises of our living God. David refused to believe that he needed to wear Saul’s armor and carry Saul’s sword in order to meet and overcome Goliath. David refused to abandon faith in God merely because he appeared to be in a contest with an out-sized, better armed and more vicious threatening force. …
Jesus didn’t try to destroy the wind and the waves. He did not say to the wind and waves, “Be gone!” He said, “Peace! Be still!” He rebuked and calmed them. Jesus did not respond to the violent storm by trying to match its fury with his own fury. He responded to the violent storm by faithfully declaring himself to be an agent of peace. In doing so, Jesus denied that the threatening storm was the only — or even the most powerful — force in that experience.
Elizabeth Mangham Lott, pastor, St. Charles Avenue Baptist Church, New Orleans
There is an unfinished story of race in our country. We deny this is so. We call ourselves post-racial. We claim tolerance is the same thing as friendship. We claim proximity is the same thing as mutuality. We say opportunity and equality are there for the taking if people will simply try harder and pull themselves out of poverty. We claim anyone who speaks of these things is taking a side politically as though loving neighbors as we love ourselves is. …
The way of Jesus is in the ease and goodness of moving through the world in love and beauty and sharing that abundance everywhere. And the way of Jesus is immediately facing the storms that will rage, the storms that will threaten to end us all, and responding not in fear and terror but with an abundant love that is powerful enough and bold enough to rewrite stories. This storm does not have the final word. God’s shalom does.
Why were the disciples still afraid? They were afraid of the storm, not realizing Christ was with them through the chaos. But their fear continued as Jesus’ power was unleashed in their midst. And I think we sense that power even if we cannot define it. We sense that power is near, and it scares us, too. We dare not wake the sleeping Christ because we know deep within us that whatever is unleashed cannot be bottled and contained and put back in its place.
Friends, if we want to write a brave new ending, if we want to calm the storms that are raging around us, there is a bold power in the presence of Christ waiting right here in our midst. The way of Jesus is not easy and lovely. The way of Jesus is not simple and pleasant. The way of Jesus is both beauty and risk. The way of Jesus is both peace-naming and truthtelling. The way of Jesus is lived out in the still moments of our days and in the horror of the sea that would love to pull us under. It is both. The way of Jesus is lived out in all these things.
What way will we choose? Will we choose the way of self-preservation and denial? Or will we choose the difficult way of God’s love?
George Mason, pastor, Wilshire Baptist Church, Dallas
Stephen is standing before the council of religious leaders in Jerusalem. He’s been brought up on charges — some true and some trumped up. But as he stands there, all agree that he has the face of an angel. … But how did it all come to this — Stephen getting stoned to death in the end? How do you stone an angel?
I’ve been thinking about that this week as I heard about the hospitality of those Christians at the Mother Emanuel Church. They were doing exactly what we would want. They were praying and studying the Bible. When Dylann Roof walked into their meeting, they welcomed him, because that’s what churches do. He sat there in Bible study for an hour listening to these good people talk about the Lord Jesus and how to follow him as disciples. They may not have been angels or had the same glow about them that Stephen did, but close enough that Dylann Roof felt their kindness and goodness and said he almost was deterred from his mission.
And yet he wasn’t. And neither were those religious leaders who stoned Stephen. Why were they not deterred? How do you kill an angel?
If there is a way to name the underlying evil here it may be that ideology trumps theology. … An ideology is a system of ideas that allows you to organize and make sense of the world in a certain way. But it’s always rigid because it starts with ideas and then fits people into them. Theology, on the other hand, is supple because it starts with God being in relationship with people. Ideas come after the fact of the relationship, not before.
Ideologies are like suckers that grow on plants. They don’t belong to the plant; they are weeds that mask themselves as the plant. But over time they can so take over a plant that the plant itself is good for nothing. …
But look at Stephen’s death and notice how he handled this murderous injustice. He didn’t whine about how Christians were now being persecuted for their faith. He didn’t look around at his enemies and call down God’s judgment on them. He looked up to heaven and saw Jesus sitting there at the right hand of God. He alone would judge. And then when Stephen died, he echoed Jesus’ words from the cross: first, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit; and then the kicker — Lord, do not hold this sin against them. …
We have seen that this week. Some of the grieving family members of those who died at the end of Dylann Roof’s gun of racial hatred spoke in court at Roof’s hearing. “I will never be able to hold her again, but I forgive you,” a daughter of Ethel Lance said. “And have mercy on your soul. You hurt me. You hurt a lot of people but God forgives you, and I forgive you.”
Amazing. This is what happens when Jesus gets into you so deep that you must act out of love. Perfect love casts out fear, the Bible says. But the converse is that practiced hate casts out love. We need to decide which will win — love or hate?
Roger Paynter, interim pastor, Providence Baptist Church, Charlotte, N.C.
Every now and then, something happens to cause us to step back a few paces and examine the quality and content of our construction: a significant birthday passes and we wonder how to process this; a dream refuses to die, pestering us late into the night until we launch out into a whole new direction; or a gunman enters a church, sits through a Bible study and takes the lives of nine brothers and sisters in Christ just because their skin is another color, just because they are black, just because they are not white.
Something happens and while we usually avoid examining ourselves the way we avoid snakes, we suddenly are forced to deal with the foundations of our living, forced to deal with violence and justice and injustice and an overt racism that defined much of what it meant to grow up in the South and that we thought had been put away, even if we deep down knew it had not. We now are forced to realize that it has returned with a ferocity made even more deadly by the proliferation of guns everywhere. When we worked our way through this so long ago, did we build a foundation for our life that can stand up to this new wave of violence? Can we stand with our brothers and sisters in a way, whether in action or thought or words we use or conversations we have, that reflects this Jesus we claim and want to follow?
We measure ourselves during such times and one question that inevitably emerges out of our self-examination is this one: “Am I doing what I know I should be doing with my life? Am I willing to actually be the person I claim to be?”
Kyle Reese, pastor, Hendricks Avenue Baptist Church, Jacksonville, Fla.
I didn’t know when I started working on this sermon that a gunman would go into the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston and take the lives of nine people. … What interests me about this story [of Saul persecuting the church] is the fact that the Lord asks, “Why are you persecuting me?” One can envision Saul’s response: “I’m not persecuting you, Lord, I’m persecuting people.” It seems the Lord identifies completely with the persecuted and injured so that an act of violence against one is as if it is to the Lord.
Before we point the finger at a violent act toward others, we must ask ourselves about the violence we do to those with whom the Lord identifies. What violent language have we used tarnishing another who is made in the image of God? What social media diatribe have we re-tweeted speaking ill of another? Before we judge the violent actions of another, we must examine our own actions and hearts.
I am aware of the “macro-level” issues regarding violence and race relations. I understand there are systemic issues to the challenges we face. But, I am interested in the “micro-level” today. Saul was struck blind with an encounter with the Lord. The scales did not fall from his eyes until he found himself in relationship and community. What can we do on a micro-level to change things? …
What I do know is this: if not a church like ours, then who? If not an open-minded, diverse and grace-filled people such as yourselves, who?
Alan Rudnick, pastor, First Baptist Church, Ballston Spa, N.Y.
Can you even imagine the strength, faith, hope, and maturity in Jesus Christ it would take to forgive, within hours mind you, the person who killed your family and friends? How is someone able to do this? What gives someone the power and ability to forgive such a person?
I’ll tell you why: The Emanuel African Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C., the people in that church, love Jesus Christ and not only believe in his teaching, but they do it. In our Scripture this morning, Jesus talks about his departure from earth. What does the savior of the world say to his followers? Jesus said: “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. Anyone who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.”
The bottom line is, if you love Jesus, obey his teaching, then the God our Father will love you and make a home with you. He will dwell within you. It is the Father who even in times of tragedy and fear, watching over us. …
If you want to know what you ought to do in this world, life, or church, you must change in the way you love one another. This is what Jesus was getting at when he said in John 14: “Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.”
You see, many people in this world have a one sided view of love. It is something we feel, long for when we watch a romantic movie, or read in a book. Love is not just a feeling. Love is an action. Something we do. When those victims of the shooting in Charleston, S.C., when they forgave that man for killing their family and friends, they loved a murderer. They loved Jesus so much that they kept the commandment to love one another even to a murderer.
Alan Sherouse, pastor, First Baptist Church, Greensboro, N.C.
That’s the murderer’s middle name, you know. Storm.
We’re fixated on him. It’s a particular sociological phenomenon, in the wake of such tragedy: the desire to know the perpetrator. The name begins to circulate, then the face, then the story, the facts, the speculation about motive. It becomes an obsession of the news cycle: security photos, then mugshots, then profile photos from whatever lunatic website to which he’s posted. Within a day, his name and image are known to us and we can’t look away.
Because if I can focus on him, I can make this about a single racist rather than a system — a specific incident rather than a history. If I can learn his story, I can distance myself from his motives and name them insanity. If I can just get some quick details, I can assure myself of how different from him I am. If I can just see his face, you see, then I don’t have to look at my own.
But if I do that, I will have only noticed the surface, and forgotten how much is underground, flowing in and out without us knowing, seeping into our water supply where we consume it, so often while escaping our notice.
This is what the theorist Eduardo Bonilla-Silva means when he talks about “racism without racists.” That is, the problem in our society is not racists. We have fewer overt racists than we did in years gone by. We have fewer people wearing hoods, and fewer people attacking churches. But even if you were to take all of those overtly racist lunatics that seem so different than us, and remove them completely — placing them on an island somewhere where they can all shave their heads and do whatever else it is that racists do — the systems they built would still be here. And without checking it, interrogating it, noticing it, considering it and deconstructing it, the system will continue to function just as it was constructed to in places like our schools, our prisons, our economy. That’s why you can lock up a perpetrator, view his mugshot behind bars, but the conditions that shape him still exist.
And if we only focus on the storm, we will never notice the water. Jesus is calling us into the water today, “Come let us cross to the other side,” he says once again. It’s what he’s always doing, crossing from one side to another, traveling the great distances, spanning the gulf, and calling us to do the same.
Bill Shiell, pastor, First Baptist Church, Tallahassee, Fla.
Like disciples descending from the Mount of Transfiguration, we descend quickly from the heights of Vacation Bible School, climbing Mount Everest [our VBS theme], to the valley of the reality of racism, murder and violence. The father of a demon-possessed boy shows us what to do. He takes his son to Jesus and prays, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief.” When other people like the religious leaders and disciples constantly argue, the father prays. We will take to talk radio, news and Facebook to argue about the reaction to Charleston, but this father shows us how to have courageous faith. We come to Jesus asking him to cast out the demons of racism, hatred, murder and violence from our society. We pray because Jesus tells his disciples, “This kind can only come out by prayer.”
We don’t know if prayer will stop white men from walking into churches and shooting innocent people, or if everyone will reconcile across racial boundaries, or if South Carolina will take the Confederate flag off its state capitol grounds flagpole. We do know that without the prayer of surrender, “Lord, I believe, help my unbelief,” nothing is possible. With the prayer of surrender, anything is possible with God.
Lord I believe,
Help my unbelief.
When a man walks into a church in Charleston killing nine of its members,
Lord I believe,
Help my unbelief.
When we long for the day when there will be no more sorrow, violence or pain, and God will wipe every tear from their eyes,
Lord I believe,
Help my unbelief.
When this church commits to be a place where in Christ, there is “neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, but we are all one in Christ,”
Lord I believe,
Help my unbelief.
Mike Smith, pastor, Central Baptist Church Fountain City, Knoxville, Tenn.
How do we explain such a thing [as the Charleston killings]? Racism, hatred, fear and a host of other features clearly are in play. Most of us, I hope, cannot fathom the kind of hatred and fear and delusion driving such an action. I think, though, that names played a role.
The young man who committed the murders had named his victims in various ways. To him they were not persons. Instead he labeled them as “Blacks,” which to his mind meant sub-human. He named them “Enemy,” by which he meant those who to his way of thinking threatened his world. He labeled them “Problem,” meaning something to be eliminated. And so, he entered a church on a Wednesday night and shot to death nine persons he did not think of as fellow humans.
Names matter. They shape us. They define how we see ourselves and how we see others. The names we accept and the names we give shape us — in time — into saints or sinners, into persons who embody the love of God or into persons who embody pettiness, delusion, and hatred. What are the names you use for other humans? Take care! The next time you find yourself labeling another person on the basis of race, sex, relationships, nationality, politics or family of origin, take a deep breath and back off. You don’t want to go where such names may take you!
Names matter. Never settle for naming anyone else something less than “Beloved Child of God.”