The Prophetic Tradition

I was never one who had a lot of beef with Jeremiah Wright. In fact, when I first heard his comments, I was glad that someone had the chutzpah to speak such poignant words to the rest of us. I look at the Old Testament prophets, John the Baptist, and Jesus, and am grateful for those who refuse to let us sit comfortably in our self-satisfying, conscience-appeasing illusions. I remember driving through a city and listening with amusement to a Christian talk show as the white hosts, who apparently had very little understanding of the life and plight of minorities in this country, evoked the name of Christ in condemning Obama for being associated with Pastor Wright. Though these thoughts are a little after the fact, I believe they remain pertinent, as the Church will forever need voices who are bold enough to challenge the powers and principalities, both inside and outside the Body. In the end, I'm sad that Obama had to leave his church because of politics. He made a dignified effort to try and remain true. Unfortunately, it will continue to be used against him. But I'm glad to know that his pastor wasn't afraid of pushing for change or speaking the truth, and that for so many years, Obama listened to him preach.

(Found on Rich Wu's Blog, for full version, see here.)

"It may surprise many in white America, for whom Martin Luther King, Jr. is the only black preacher of whom they have ever heard, to learn that there are a lot of Jeremiah Wrights out there who week after week give expression to that classic definition of prophetic preaching that is to “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.” What would one expect of a black preacher whose Christian name is Jeremiah?

While I could not possibly agree with everything that Jeremiah Wright says, I do know that when a preacher, especially a black urban preacher, fails to speak truth to power and refuses to speak of what is wrong in the ardent hope of making it right, that preacher is, in Milton’s words, a “blind mouth,” and a repudiation of God’s solemn call to him. Preachers, despite much evidence to the contrary, are not called to celebrate the status quo, even an American status quo, and when they do their job properly they call us all to a higher standard. Preachers are not perfect, nor are they the only people allowed to be credible critics of our time and place, but they are among the very few whose vocation it is to make us aspire to something other than the status quo. For too long we have made God an ally in the American way; the highest standards of preaching in America require that we should seek to be God’s ally, helping God and one another to create a world in which we seek to live as God would have us live. To criticize America is not a sin, but it is a sin to mistake America for God, and it is both sin and dereliction of duty to fail to note the difference."

Speaking about the the dangers of how our worship lies to God, Mark Labberton, a pastor in Berkeley and another modern day prophet, writes in his book, "The Dangerous Act of Worship":

"In another lie about God, we make the Lord of heaven and earth our tribal deity when we try to make him serve nationalistic ends. Whether we think of Constantine or the British Empire or American Manifest Destiny or more recent instances, religiously instigated nationalism diminishes God and subverts his mission. This is never how the Lord presents himself, but it is a frequent lie we tell others by our actions. We perpetuate this lie by making God out to be our nation's God, the One who has a preference toward us-- deservedly, some say! God can be represented as the servant of our wishes, a vending-machine-type fulfiller of the desires of our hearts (Psalm 37:4), which are sometimes little more than Christmas lists."

Preach!!