Author: lakewooducc

Date:  Feb. 17, 2019
Scripture Lesson: Jeremiah 17:5-10
Pastor: Rev. Kim P. Wells

While we know Ray Charles as a famous successful entertainer, musician, and celebrity, he had a very rough start in life.  Ray Charles Robinson was born Sept. 23, 1930. Yes, it was the Depression. He was born in Albany, Georgia but raised in Greenville, FL, the son of a sharecropping family.  He later changed his name, dropping the Robinson, to avoid confusion with the boxer, Sugar Ray Robinson. Charles’ mother was virtually penniless, young, uneducated, and sickly.  They were abandoned by the father. When Ray was 5 and his brother was about three, he watched his brother drown in a laundry tub full of water. Weeks later, his eyes started to ooze.  His mother sought medical treatment only to find out that her only remaining child was going blind and there was nothing that could be done about it. Ray was blind within two years.

Ray’s mother took matters in hand and made sure that Ray knew how to do things; how to get around, how to take care of himself, in spite of his visual impairment.  She taught him resilience, self sufficiency, independence, and pride. When people questioned her approach, she told them that he was blind but he was not stupid.

Once Ray was totally blind, he was sent to a school for the blind in St. Augustine.  While he was there, his beloved mother died. He couldn’t imagine how he would go on without her.  But with community support, he came out of his depression and began to live again.

Ray Charles began his musical career playing on what was known as the chittlin’ circuit – playing at dances and clubs all across the south for black audiences.  This is what brought him to the Manhattan Casino here in St. Petersburg. Touring in the south in the days of Jim Crow came with its share of challenges. This is how Charles tells it:  “We could be driving for hours and never find a gas station which would let us use the bathroom. If we stopped by the side of the road, we stood a chance of getting busted, so we’d open both doors of the car and piss between them.  We could be hungry as bears and go half a day before we’d find a joint that would serve us. The race thing hit us where it hurt – in the stomach and in the balls.” [Brother Ray: Ray Charles’ Own Story, Ray Charles and David Ritz, 1978, 2004,  p. 164]

It’s easy to see that Charles had a very hard time starting out.  Throughout his life and his career, Charles faced the multiplicity of problems that go with being black in America.  He had first hand experience with the institutions and attitudes that keep people down. He saw America at its worst.  And this is what he had to say: “Being blind was easy compared to being black in America. . . ‘The greatest handicap I’ve had – and still have – is my color.’”   [Ray Charles:  Man and Music, Michael Lydon, 1998, p. 288]

Charles left the school for the blind to pursue a career as a musician.  On the road. Playing with different bands then forming his own band. And it went on from there.  Charles’ interest in music began when he was a tot. He heard the piano at the Red Wing Cafe in Greenville, and he wanted to play.  Instead of shooing him away, the owner, Mr. Wiley Pitman, taught him how to play. Charles tells us:

“I was born with music inside me. . . music was one of my parts.  Like my ribs, my liver, my kidneys, my heart. Like my blood. It was a force already within me when I arrived on the scene.  It was a necessity for me – like food or water. And from the moment I learned that there were piano keys to be mashed, I started mashing ‘em, trying to make sounds out of feelings.”  [Brother Ray, p. 8]  Charles continued playing, also mastering alto saxophone, clarinet, trumpet, and organ.  

Charles loved music; all kinds.  He was trained in classical music.  He went on to play country, jazz, blues, soul, rock, rhythm and blues, gospel, all of it, and all of it mixed together.  His career branched out beyond recording and concerts to TV appearances, movies, commercials – including Coke and Pepsi. Things may go better with Coca Cola but Pepsi is the right one baby, uh-huh.  Charles recorded a song that was exclusively released in Japan. He was a very hard-working and dedicated musician and savvy at the business side of music.

Charles also had a family – wife and kids.  He was actually married twice. He had 12 children with 10 different women, that he knew of.  He liked gambling. He was a drug addict; a heroin junkie for 16 years. He decided to give up heroin and went in to treatment to avoid going to jail.  But he only gave up heroin, not drinking or weed. He played chess. He started a foundation to assist people with hearing impairment because he felt that loss of hearing was much more debilitating than loss of sight.  This man led a hard driving life in the fast lane and he died of acute liver disease at the age of 73. [Wikipedia]

At one point, as he began to be successful, he reflected, “My life was what it was.  Whatever it become, I made it so. Now I had a wife. I had a child. I was the leader of a little band.  I was a blues singer, a rhythm-and-blues singer. . . a recording artist of modest stature. I was also a man who still loved women and who enjoyed getting high.”  [Brother Ray, p. 161]  That didn’t change.  

Ray Charles was a many sided man.  Not easily pinned down – musically or otherwise.  In terms of religion, he liked going to church and all of the music and dancing though he did not share all of the beliefs.  He once visited a Jewish service. It was much calmer and quieter. He said that he really liked that, too. [Brother Ray, 323]  When it came to civil rights, he still was willing to play in segregated settings. But he supported the approach of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. though he did not feel he was up to personally making the commitment to non-violence.  [Brother Ray, 271-276]  Charles played for 3 presidents – Nixon, Clinton, and Bush.  He sang “America the Beautiful” at the Republican National Convention in 1984.  

About his politics, he says, “My politics are a little strange.  I’ve never figured out whether I’m a liberal or a conservative. I think I’m both.  I have trouble understanding the simple shit. Why we give billions of foreign aid and then can’t make sure that everyone in trouble has a decent lawyer.  Why we subsidize the tobacco companies and then can’t make sure that everyone who’s sick has a decent doctor.” [Brother Ray, p. 286]

In Ray Charles we see the many contradictions and complexities that come from the human heart.  He was fully alive and fully aware of the differing feelings and experiences of his humanity. He saw no need to integrate everything into a neat, tidy, seamless whole.  He took the mix as it was. And was honest about it. He sang love songs full of heartfelt devotion like “I Can’t Stop Lovin’ You” and with just as much passion, he sang songs about cheating, and lying, and leaving.  He was the victim of the most devastating social ill of the modern world, racism, and then sang “America the Beautiful” about the country that had abused and betrayed him and his people for centuries.

Maybe this is why Charles was so beloved and honored: He was authentic.  He was real. He showed us the breadth of human experience which we evidently needed to see, and, surprisingly, we appreciated him for it.  Charles was the recipient of: 17 Grammy Awards, the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, the President’s Merit Award, Kennedy Center honors, the Playboy award, the National Medal of the Arts, and the Polar Music Award from Sweden.  He is #10 on the Rolling Stone list of “The Greatest Artists of All Time” and #2 on their list of “The 100 Greatest Singers of All Time.” And in 2013, 9 years after his death of liver disease in 2004, he appeared on a US postage stamp.

In a tribute to Charles, President Obama had this to say:  “No matter the feeling—whether it was love, longing or loss—Ray Charles had the rare ability to collapse our weightiest emotions into a single note. And from the tiny clubs in which he started out to the arenas that he eventually filled, Ray was an electrifying performer. He couldn’t see us, but we couldn’t take our eyes off of him.”  [http://raycharles.com/legacy/2000s/]

All of these honors were bestowed on a man who shamelessly expressed the many vagaries of the human spirit in his music and in his life.  And we need that. And here we see an echo of the verses that we listened to from the prophet Jeremiah. Jeremiah is addressing his people in a time of geopolitical upheaval.  One empire is in decline. Another is rising. Alliances are in flux. There is conflict. Vast reforms are short-lived. We know about these kinds of conditions. The Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, the center of cultic life for the Hebrew people, is destroyed.  The people are driven into exile. Everything is topsy turvy. In a time of communal, social, national, religious, and personal upheaval and disruption what does the prophet tell the people? Don’t put your ultimate trust in humans. Don’t trust physical strength and human might.  And there is that precious line: “The heart is devious above all else; it is perverse – who can understand it?” Don’t trust in human power and strength or you’ll end up dead, dried up, and withered away like a plant in the desert.

So what is left?  Trust in God. In the ways of God.  In the goodness and love of God. That is the way to full, flourishing life.  Follow the wisdom teachings of justice and right relationship. Put devotion to the well-being of the community over personal gain.  Trust in the validity of the power of Love.

In the context of the prophet Jeremiah, the concept of God was a something above and beyond humanity, yet also within humanity.  So the prophet is telling us to have faith in the noblest impulses that serve the common good. Rise above and beyond petty interests and selfishness.  Approach life from a universal perspective with respect and reverence. See beyond individualism and tribalism. Know that there is a power at work, among, within, and beyond that is seeking the highest good.  Submit to that and live as Jeremiah says it, “like a tree planted beside the water, sending out its roots by the stream. It shall not fear when heat comes, and its leaves shall stay green; in the year of drought it is not anxious, and it does not cease to bear fruit.” [17:8]  Jeremiah’s message – put your trust it the source of that life and love. But don’t put your ultimate trust in the human heart. It is subject to contradictions and betrayal as well as nobility but you can never be sure. With God, with Divine Love, with the Source, you can be sure.  

Early in his career, Ray Charles sang, “Take these chains from my heart and set me free.” Years later in a song he tells us:

None of us are free
None of us are free, one of us are chained
None of us are free
It’s a simple truth we all need, just to hear and to see

None of us are free, one of us is chained
None of us are free, now I swear your salvation isn’t too hard too find
None of us can find it on our own
We’ve got to join together in spirit, heart and mind
So that every soul who’s suffering will know they’re not alone

None of us are free
None of us are free, one of us are chained

If you just look around you
You’re gonna see what I say
‘Cause the world is getting smaller each passing day

The prophet Jeremiah and the prophets after him including Jesus remind us that we will find our freedom and our highest good not in the ways of the devious human heart, but in the heart of Divine Love, God, above, beyond, and within us.  Amen.

Much of the material in this sermon about Ray Charles comes from the two books cited:

Brother Ray:  Ray Charles’ Own Story by Ray Charles and David Ritz

Ray Charles:  Man and Music by Michael Lydon

A reasonable effort has been made to appropriately cite materials referenced in this sermon. For additional information, please contact Lakewood United Church of Christ.

Date:  February 3, 2019
Scripture Lesson: Jeremiah 1:4-10 and Luke 4:14-30
Pastor: Rev. Kim P. Wells

When Jesus visits his hometown synagogue and reads the assigned scripture for the day, the people are pleased and complimentary.  The scripture speaks of economic justice. radical redistribution of property and wealth. These people are largely poor and struggling.  The Romans are bleeding them dry with taxes to support big building projects that honor the Empire. So, radical economic liberation and inspiration are safe territory.  The people like hearing what their Bible has to say about that because it is to their advantage.

But Jesus does not stop there.  After reading that scripture, he goes on to reference several other Bible stories.  He is not making up something new. He is simply referencing two stories that the people know well.  The stories involve two top tier prophets. And both stories tell of the goodness and blessing of God being extended intentionally beyond the bounds of the Hebrew community to outsiders, others, foreigners, strangers.  It’s then that the hometown synagogue crowd gets riled up. Maybe living under occupation, economically strapped by the Romans, all they had left to hang on to was their favored nation status with God. They were trash to the Romans, but at least to their God they were still the chosen people, set apart for special blessing.  Maybe they were desperately clinging to that little shred of perceived privilege. We know what that is like. We see it in our context today. And when Jesus challenges that, with words from their own scripture, which could not be discounted, that was just too much.

The congregation attempts to stone Jesus and drive him off the edge of a cliff.  Yes, think lynching.

Many people see the way of Jesus as a path to being a decent person.  To being nice. I read a sermon online about Christianity and the way of Jesus being summed up by the phrase, Just Be Nice.  There is a Just Be Nice campaign. You can get t-shirts and bumper stickers and coffee mugs embellished with the phrase Just Be Nice.  

I have no problem with the concept of being nice.  Especially when you get cut off in traffic. Or someone is trying to break into your house.  But we’re told that some slave owners were nice to their slaves, but they were still slaves. In the lesson we heard today from Luke, Jesus is not only citing radical economic upheaval, he is calling for the dismantling of privilege, special status, and exceptionalism.  Jesus is drawing upon scripture to remind us that God is the God of everyone. No exceptions. And Jesus is intentionally hitting a raw nerve because that is what faith should do – meet us where we are, and confront what is blocking us from the full, true, goodness and power of Divine Love.  It wasn’t enough for Jesus to decry the Romans and the occupation. To be true to his faith, he had to offer an image of the highest good for the Romans as well as for the Jews. Even the Romans were not beyond the scope of God’s blessing.

That is what got him into trouble.  That is what got people going. That is why the people want to kill Jesus.  Right then and there – no court, no trial, no jury of his peers, no due process.  

Jesus is living out of, bringing forth, embodying, envisioning the realm of God, the commonwealth of Divine Love, Eden, the way of God on Earth as it is in heaven, in the fullest designs of God’s imagination.  It’s a huge paradigm shift. An alternative reality. It is a restructuring of society, economics, religion, power, and relationships. In the text from Jeremiah, we heard about destroying, overthrowing, plucking up, and then replanting, sowing, and building.  Jesus is talking about just such a major overhaul. And he is messing with what people are holding on to, clinging to, desperate to protect – privilege.

This past Friday and Saturday I attended the annual gathering of the Florida Interfaith Climate Actions Network sponsored by the Florida Council of Churches.  The topic was “Climate Impact and Environmental Inequity: Toward Justice for All.” During the course of the program, we heard from 6 people in Florida who are working on specific environmental problems that are directly affecting low income communities.  People are dying because of these environmentally polluted sites. Babies, children, young adults, mothers, fathers, elders. Are. Dying. Because of pollution right here in Florida. The community leaders that we heard from have done extensive research about the situations they are dealing with.  They have mobilized the communities involved. They have met with officials. They have written letters. They have gone to zoning meetings and council meetings and hearings. They have circulated petitions. They have enlisted attorneys. They are asking for the laws of the land to be implemented. That’s all.  And they are getting nowhere. Public officials ignore them. Deny them. Put them off. And the corporate interests involved continue to pursue their projects with no checks and balances.

And here is something you need to know about these 6 brave tireless social justice advocates who are devoting every fiber of their beings to their communities.  They are black. African American. And that is at the root of why these detrimental conditions exist in their communities and why they are not heard and their grievances are not resolved.  The presenting symptom is an environmental issue but the cause is racism. And what is the cause of racism? It is a mash-up of privilege, politics, exceptionalism, and economics.

One of the first things we did at the beginning of the training was to write down what we had to offer – to the group, to the event, to the efforts at hand.  Other than a willingness to listen and learn, I didn’t really feel I had anything in particular to contribute. At the end of the gathering, I spoke with one of the advocates.  And I told her, that sick as it is, the only thing I feel I have to offer, is my whiteness. She said, “Thank you so much. That is exactly what we need!” And she engulfed me in a warm embrace.   

Friends, dear ones, that is horrifying.  It’s sickening. And just being nice is not going to create a new reality that is anti-racist; that is completely and fully free of every kind of oppression, where life can flourish, full and sweet for ALL.   

We need a total makeover, a complete overhaul.  The plucking up and overthrowing that God lays on Jeremiah.  And we have our ancient documents to lead and guide us. Our Constitution declares that we are to have a government of the people, by the people, for the people, and that all men are created equal, which should include women, too, and that everyone in this country is entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  We are not even talking about something new. We are talking about something yet to be realized. Still undone. Still waiting to be brought to life.

Friends, Jesus is about much more than Just Be Nice.  You don’t need the church to be nice. You can be nice and not embezzle money at work, not have an affair, and donate some money to a charity, without the inspiration of the church.  We don’t need the church or Jesus for that. If that is all that the church is about, then it doesn’t really matter if it fades away. People will manage to be nice without the church.  

But the scriptures today remind us that Jesus is about so much more than Just Be Nice.  Jesus wasn’t just nice to people – saying please and thank you and holding the door. Jesus was about healing and wholeness and honesty and reconciliation.  And sometimes that is not nice. Sometimes people try to drive you over a cliff to get rid of you. Jesus was about confronting whatever structures, attitudes, and behaviors we cling to that prevent us from knowing and experiencing the full joyous awesome realm of God right here and right now.  Jesus is not about just a new political party, or a new presidential administration, or a new government, and the good that can bring. Jesus is talking about full and complete transformation of our world – as individuals and as social groups. Jesus is about taking everything down to its essence and creating a new reality that naturally incorporates dignity for each and every person.  A reality that is based on the inalienable sacredness of Earth and all life. Jesus is talking about sustainable community that serves all and in which no one is taken advantage of. Jesus is not talking about tweaking things, he is talking about a fundamental, radical shift in which the beauty of the reality we but dare to dream unfolds in our midst. It is glorious. It is universal. And it takes a community working together and supporting each other.   The church. But Just Be Nice is not enough. Amen.

A reasonable effort has been made to appropriately cite materials referenced in this sermon. For additional information, please contact Lakewood United Church of Christ.