"Tell it Like it Is"

what an honor it is to to be here and to have this opportunity to meet so many young people I met brother on Hill who's finishing up his PhD over here we need more Latino latina --cs brothers and sisters because like I was trying to say this morning from Frankie Beverly the book of Beverly in Galatians we are one and we all know that now if we know that before we certainly know it now but this morning and I want to thank God for this choir back here and and these musicians because after after I Amen give them look right F yo if y'all weren't here after I talked about we are one they hit that Frankie Beverly because he does the kind of church out late if God made the music is great regardless those the brothers say irregardless [Applause] that's built-in suspenders I'm gonna make sure that stays up irregardless if God made the music is great and if God didn't make it even if you saying gospel is gonna be wet just cuz you put Jesus name on it don't mean is good and don't mean you can say God bless your heart but not your voice so is but they hit that first book of Frankie and then you'll pass the start singing yeah let's see if we have a repeat of that later on but this morning I want to turn your attention to the book of Job 34th chapter 16th through 19th verses and as you sit in your seat and listen I want to read to you these words from the first English standard version then I will read from the message if you have understanding hear this listen to what I say shall one who hates justice govern will you condemn him who is righteous and mighty who says to a king worthless one and to Nobles wicked man who shows no partiality to princes nor regards the rich more than the poor for they are all the work of his hands and in the message the translation reads use your head this is all pretty obvious can someone who hates order keep order do you dare condemn the righteous mighty God doesn't God always tell it like it is exposing corrupt rulers as scoundrels and criminals does he play favorites with the rich and famous and slight the poor isn't he equally responsible to everybody so I just want to lift up this thing tell it like it is now one would think that it would be redundant to say that one is preaching the gospel and then simultaneously telling it like it is that would presuppose a great amount of courage on the part of the gospel teller and it would also presuppose the fact that one has a conception of what it is to tell it like it is presupposes that the it in question is transparent to those who listen to tell it like it is also presupposes that there is a contrast between what may be said and what the truth is that there is a gulf an abyss a chasm between things as they are and ought to be and to tell it like it is also presupposes access to some modicum of truth after all if you're telling it like it is you ain't tellin it like it ain't but that then presupposes that there are many who tell it like an eight who are afraid to say what is true who are incapable of telling the truth so in that simple sentence organized around nouns and verbs in that grievously brief grammar is contained a warehouse of insight in the implication that so many of us don't really hear the truth some of us hear what ain't true some of us a warned against the false now the false versus the truth is is an argument for both theology and philosophy now I know this is a lecture and this is an Wesley Holmes lecture series but we ain't got in no time to break down arguments about truth and falsity for a long time you had philosophers making the argument that you could have access to truth capital T and that that truth was never in doubt because it was objective that no condition could perhaps possibly erode the truth of what we were talking about but that was presupposing that we all had access equally to the mind of God capital-t truth suggested that all reasonable and rational human beings would genuflect before the altar of what is reasonable to acknowledge what is true but but Immanuel Kant said that but Descartes had a different kind of organization and understanding Descartes said well you know in a it ain't that you've got access to truth was the capital T that nobody can object to because it's objective that people are conditioned by their circumstances and situations so he came up with this frame coquito ergo sum I think therefore I am he began to doubt everything except the fact that he was doubting and if you couldn't doubt that you were doubting then you knew you existed and if you existed therefore you were thinking that was then clear to some then you have people like Vic and Stein come along and said well it's a lot more complicated than that and then Vic and Stein was joined in conversation with a guy named Heidegger all these big-time names of these German thinkers and these European idealists and and rationalist and materialists and they were all coming up with some ideas about what truth is and to the end of the day Vica science says wherever one cannot speak thereof one must be silent and that is based upon what you know that what you know is determined by what your situation and circumstance is and your situation and circumstance might condition what you know is truth so what you think is objective really ain't you think you would lightness sing subspace GE Turner Tatas big old Latin phrase that means from God's gaze but you ain't up there with God you down here with West Montgomery on the ground so you see from the worm's-eye point of view I'm not trying to impress you with sophistry a sophisticated philosophical analysis what I'm trying to say to you the notion of what's true has gone through a lot of changes over the centuries and at the end of the day I think the best philosophical argument is what's true is based upon what we have access to and what culture we grew up in and what we know to be true based upon our moral convictions knowledge and morality are not separated what you know depends upon what you think is good to know and what you think is good to know is based upon what you think is valuable in your community now the reason I began like this in an abstract philosophical way that will kill most sermons the reason I begin that way is because we are living in the midst of a vicious argument about truth that has to be dealt with you got people up here saying up is down and down is up left is right and right is left you got folk just making stuff up for their own purposes and I'm saying there's a rich philosophical tradition that argues either that truth is an objective condition that obtains and that only a certain set of rules allow access to it and then you got others as saying no truth is grounded in your own particular experience and the conversation you have as human beings and that determines what you know then you got this Fick news [Applause] it'd be different if he was arguing about a philosophical conundrum that Richard Rorty the philosopher talks about adjudicating competing claims it was true how do you adjudicate that is big-oh word it says decide between two different options about what they say is true Rorty says you can't appeal to something beyond human reason you got to appeal to reason itself and if you gonna make an argument about what's good you got to show it to us he's from Missouri show me a lot of people who think well no I got access to the truth I know a lot of religious people think they're - I know that I know that I know that I know that I know stop it you don't call this knowledge you got this epistemology that's the big word they use for it within philosophical arguments epistemic shifts that just means the way in which your knowledge is shifted from one side to the other I know that I know that I know that I know you don't for my ways are not your ways my thoughts are not your thoughts there's a gulf between who God is and who we think we are and what you think you know even when at the end of the day when you think you know as much as you can you all know that Howard Thurman put it this way the great philosophical mystic he said you can take your cup into the Atlantic Ocean you can fill your cup with the Atlantic Ocean it may be full of the Atlantic Ocean but it ain't out of the Atlantic Ocean [Applause] y'all know everything you all know all this true even jesus said I have sheep you know not of I'm feeding them a diet you ain't even got access to I got meat for them that ain't even for you so even God through Jesus says that there are certain kinds of access that are not granted to you you ain't get two all-access pass to the concert of knowledge and so and so what we are dealing with in the midst of our culture is an unsophisticated deeply ignorant examination of our own politics by a figure who is proud to be unmolested by enlightenment [Applause] don't want to engage in the ad hominem but dadgum don't ever speak against affirmative action ever again now firm to vaccinate what they say it is affirmative action MIT simply means this when in the competition over scarce resources given the appeal of two relatively equal candidates the nod is given to the historically underrepresented minority because the one who has been historically represented been over-represented and had all the goodies already give the drummer some what they mean by affirmative action is somebody who's dumb and illiterate and incapable incapable and incompetent who gets the hook-up specimen number one 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue [Applause] now forgive me if you voted for this man that's fine this is not partisan I got kritis criticisms of the other side as well but the reality is my brothers and sisters this is an ignoble expression of the most invidious ignorance that one might be able to conjure this is almost fiction this can't be real [Applause] this this globular intensity this mass of flesh wrapped around an empty cerebral cortex that is incapable of articulating fundamental rationality as the predicate for conversation and that's just the latest we can say joel tells us and the reason I began with philosophical arguments is because job is a book of philosophy job is trying to figure out the nature of reality and job is brave enough to say stuff that we really don't want to usually say as Christians the kind of questions we got to X God a lot of us don't want to ask God we've been taught that if you've got faith you can't ask no questions job wasn't down with that program and the people around Joel weren't with their program either you got to figure it out trying to try to discern the outlines and the anatomy of divine influence on life and how you gonna say God is good when evil prevails and how you gonna claim the all power of God when evil has a vote job is trying to wrestle with that gardener Taylor says that there's the brassy echo against the sky he says about Joel they have driven cold steel into his already bleeding flesh that as he sits there raising questions with God the knowledge that he would have this she is vulnerable to his own suffering and misery because job is trying to figure out what I said about God is true and if God that I say is true shows up on time to deliver me from my misery and in the midst of that there was an argument about what is true and what is good and what is viable and we are in the midst of that today why because we have somebody telling us stuff is fake that we know it's true and we got somebody saying stuff that's true that we know is false lying through they Tease lying when we know they lyin trying to make us believe that it ain't a lie as the great philosopher Bill Withers said you're pouring muddy water on me trying to convince me as rain he says I got to take a pound of lies just to get an ounce of truth from you and so in the midst of this culture where arguments of sophistication have gone on we have reduced our culture to something that is crass and barren and empty and to tell it like it is is difficult because what exists has been so distorted through the prism of a man who is incapable of telling the truth [Music] and the problem is for many of us we don't want to tell it like it is about him we don't want to say what's true we know part of this is racism we know it's white supremacy we know distortion is the nature of white supremacy we know that a lot of white brothers and sisters don't mean no harm but neither does a mosquito but it will give you malaria and you can die that your intent does not exhaust the consequence that that there's a lot of distortion going on in fact it ain't just this man now the history of the Republic is full of distortion if you look at the history of the development of democratic ideas in America it had to position and posit blackness as a subversive element that would destroy democracy it could not afford to acknowledge that black people were human because then it would have to justify why it was subordinate human beings to another human being so they're to turn us into animals to make it sure that they could go to God in a good conscience and keep us underfoot so from the very beginning there was fake news [Applause] the greatest fake news was a saint negroes one human to call us animals to say we were nasty and filed in nefarious and vicious and odious and malodorous and stunk and didn't like us but why you want to be what is so bad [Applause] for folk who hate us they often love us at the same time that push/pull can't stand you but can't stand without you hated us but you you built your civilization on our labor didn't like us thought we were stupid and yet you depended upon us to navigate your way through life said that you didn't like black intelligence and yet you depended on it you didn't like black bodies and yet you use them you didn't like black females and yet you were attracted and addicted to them you raped them without will a moral compunction said you didn't like black men but you found us irresistible you you say you don't like our culture but you rip everything off we do you try to sound like us look like us be like us think like us walk like us [Applause] mistake news it's Distortion from the very beginning to believe that blackness was that the undercutting factor of civilization no it was your attempt to bring God into the madness of your own sin you trying to act like God told you to go to Africa to get us God ain't told you that commerce told you that grito to that sin told you that desire told you that [Applause] and we all won't tell it like it is because we got the indict America itself you see the man you see now in no aberration here's an extension of the logic of distortion that's the same kind of logic of distortion you got in the Civil War and the people who defended they done lost the war but they won the battle of interpretation see they lost the war but they've been redefining this thing since then oh you got to give them credit these boys something else they lost the war but they keep redefining what its purpose was no it was not about the ownership of the other the slave like it was about states rights states rights to do what owned the slaves [Applause] then they fought a civil war that was quite uncivil and since their loss the South has been trying to win again by reinterpreting the battle and battles of the south through the prisms of white supremacy they trying to make you believe it was about a flag and history and heritage history and heritage of what hate you wanted to own somebody else so we were to believe that you were valiant and you were courageous in your defense of the Civil War because it had nothing to do with the ownership of black people but you lie that is fake news this country didn't want to exist without the free labor of black people it wanted to keep us underfoot even Abraham Lincoln said if I could have found another way to keep this nation together and keep Negroes in bondage out of done it but I don't care what your motive was he let us free I don't care what your desire was God had a bigger desire than you you might have been president but God was God and so your desire of emancipation could not override God's liberation [Applause] and so they got all these statues [Applause] I'm confused I thought y'all not were was against participation trophies that's what I heard I heard you belly aching how do you give kids who didn't win a trophy for participating you ain't won the war well you got a Robert Ely and all these generals up on a statue you lost [Applause] you ain't won the Super Bowl you ain't Tom Brady you donovan mcnabb in that sense they don't care no trophies to the runner-up that's what you told us now you trying to give a trophy to somebody who ain't even won and so you keep using distortion of telling it like you want to be telling it like you want to see it not like it is and doing my brothers and sisters is it's a frightful thing for many of us to tell it like it is because we got a risk our jobs we got a risk our position we got a risk our friendship some of us got a risk our marriage I don't care who you're married to don't make base it on no ladder don't be with nobody in lying about it be with somebody when you can tell the truth if you reach across the aisle of race that's beautiful but at the same time don't be lying about it if you got friends and and and they are white brothers and sisters that's a beautiful thing but it cannot be at the expense of telling the truth you can't go to school with white folk you can't worship with white folk while lying to them and the fundamental issue here is that white privilege has been a distorting impact on American society and one of the greatest white privileges there exists is to be ignorance of white privilege so many white folk don't want to hear it like it is they get up and leave I go to lecture and I'm nice I tell jokes I'm self-deprecating I know white music and white culture and white philosophy and I try to reach out and they still mad mad because to call whiteness to account is an offense to white privilege no privilege wants to be called out white privilege has to be called out the ability not to even recognize you got the privilege is the ultimate form of the privilege white people come up to me all the time you're you're richer than I am mic true your kids are better off how do I have white privilege let me tell you everybody white ain't got to have the privilege for white privilege to exist right Social Security works but you got to be eligible at a certain time it don't mean you don't benefit from Social Security to eat your time yet and everybody don't get treated equally within the context of that privilege that means that every white person will be rich it means that the possibility of being rich is enormous Lee enhanced by your white identity and let me tell you furthermore what white privilege is when you don't have to hook up for centuries it's hard for you to give it up to somebody else now all them here is when Negroes couldn't get into Harvard it was just white boys going to Harvard and Yale and Princeton you add it to yourself then you have to share it with women and people of color now you belly aching oh my god affirmative action what was going on when Bubba who was dumb as a plug nickel got in read the book by IRA Katznelson a sociologist at Columbia entitled when affirmative action was white white privilege has the luxury of being a historical and deep politicized you and even got to study how it came about how do you think the white middle class came about in America in the middle of the 20th century a returning soldiers from the war the GI Bill created the white middle class what did they get mostly white men a few brothers and sis but mostly white men what did they get a points on a test so you could get into school education then a leg up when it came to get a job and then thirdly when attained came time to procure your crib excuse me your housing [Applause] housing education and employment that's all affirmative action is y'all got to hook up run around here talking about audited by myself I'm a self-made man you ain't no self-made man the state helped you out economic security was granted as a result of executive orders that increased the possibility that you would thrive while at the same time women and people of color were blacked out white privilege not telling it like it is allows you to lie to yourself like you got up on your own you you born on third base and swear you hit a triple [Applause] and let me tell you another sign of white privilege that ain't got nothin to do with money you meet a police person and you live to tell about it that the likelihood that your back will be filled by seven to eight pieces of lead and then a Taser thrown down trying to prove you were trying to kill him that you can sass the police and still live I was out late one night about three o'clock in the morning I was doing ethnographic research at a local den of Bacchanalia [Music] listening to James Brown went to Ben's Chili Bowl famous eatery in DC and outside a young white kid clearly drunk was cussing the police out and I said to myself oh my god he's gonna get killed and then I said Negro wake up he's a white boy and do you know those police after he was cussing them out and swinging on them said son you're inebriated you need to go home and sleep it off that's all we want when you see Shaniqua and Rafiq and Jamal and you see us and you think we are out of order and you scared you got a badge and a gun but the sight of a Negro can make you scared and get out of your job [Applause] and so white privilege is so deep and the refusal to tell the truth is rewarded among white brothers and sisters and so they don't want to tell the truth about how they got what they got the pillage and plunder that allowed them to accumulate wealth the ownership of black people who could not be property owning property slavery in America that denied us access to goods like services and services like education and employment and then even now into the 20th century into the 1950s and 60s they still owned us through debt peonage in the south through sharecropping and still had us on the low owning us read but slavery by another name to understand how much this was alive and then the new form of slavery putting us into prisons back in the mid 80s to the late 80s there was what the social critic Mike Davis caused the political economy of crack it was about the production of a twenty five dollar Rock like form of crystalline cocaine that was produced primarily in Latino and African American neighborhoods in dens of iniquity called crack houses where it was produced bought packaged and sold on a market that was called black the scourge of crack cocaine led to a Democratic president doing three strikes and you're out with the support of many black people because crack cocaine was seen as so uniquely addictive that only the elimination of people from society through legal recourse was seen as capable of solving the problem of crime the notion of super predator was generated black and brown men seen extraordinarily lascivious along with their criminality and thus they had to be contained and controlled through executing their bodies and so they were criminalized and the swelling of the prison industrial complex under a Democratic president named Clinton until now we got it swelled to nearly two million people and half of those of people of color and now there's an opioid addiction they put us in jail they put us in prison they demonized us now the president stands up and says we have an opioid addiction we must not criminalize our fellow citizens we must medicalize them and hospitalized them you criminalize black and brown men and women and you medicalised and hospitalized largely young white brothers and sisters even though opioids affects all of us see the difference they don't want to hear the truth you put our kids in jail and threw away the key but when it comes to your kids you have mercy and love and truth and justice on their side you send them to the doctor you send them to rehab our kids are still in jail serving 25 to life over selling crack cocaine on the streets and I'm saying to you that when you tell the truth about this wife will get mad but being mad can't be the deterrent for you telling the truth that that was part of the problem with our beloved first black president they're gonna be mad if I tell the truth okay look at what happened when you didn't tell them the truth they elected a man who thinks you ain't legal maybe if my man had told more of the truth of course they would have got mad but they were mad just cause he had a tan suit on [Applause] remember day they mad because he was breathing while black [Applause] they challenged his intelligence the man ironically enough who challenged his intelligence was a man of manifest lack of cerebral acuity [Applause] it was not because he spoke about race he didn't and the more he didn't speak about race the more race got talked about without his input it ain't like if you don't talk about race racing gonna be discussed you just ain't got a voice oh but people talk about race they were to race conversation was going on with LeBron left Cleveland and went to Miami oh that's the race conversation burn his jersey hang him in effigy call him every kind of on the face of the earth then he came back and won a championship for him and now he's King Jesus as long as shucking a ball and helping you out you good but the moment you stand up for yourself the moment you are autonomous the moment you make a choice in your behalf you are the worst thing since sliced bread [Applause] [Music] and so our beloved president was scarred and black folk were complicit in the scared miss oh my god Mike what do you think he's gonna do of course if he speaks about race they'll be mad as poll numbers will go down okay second turn you might could have used that argument the first term at the second term it was on like Donkey Kong you ain't got no more races to run unless you just want people to like you and all of us have that we want people to like us but do you want to do the right thing or do you want to do the convenient thing and and and look he hooked a lot of people up he hooked the gay and lesbian transgender bisexual folk up in terms of gay marriage he hooked up the environmental people because they were mad at what he wasn't doing he seems to be everybody but Negroes and the reason Negroes didn't get hooked up Negroes didn't ask the Bible says you have not and if you ain't accent ain't no president gonna give it to you I don't care if he your brother if he's a black man if you don't demand it he ain't gonna feel necessary to give it to you so everybody else got in line and Negroes were just proud to have a Negro in the White House oh that wore off after the first month after that has got to be about business politics is about the distribution of critical resources at a time of crisis to necessary and vulnerable populations politics is the distribution of critical resources in a time of crisis to vulnerable populations it ain't about the symbolism of having a black man in office it's about what goods can trickle forth because you invested in him I loved Obama I voted for Obama I was a spokesperson for Obama I was a man who represented him as a surrogate but at the same time you got to tell it like it is and this man was scurred because of what white folk did but look what they did when you kept silent they put in a know-nothing ignorant devalued two-base man who those who hated you now wish you were there I know you miss him now I know you miss a man who can use complete sentences I know you miss a man who knows what a gerund is that a dangling participle is not a piece of lettuce I know you miss that high intelligence I know you missed that swag I know you missed that smile that high intelligence that deep reflection that profound thought and all we're saying is that we're not dogging the president we love him we're saying that regardless of what you do the white folk who love you go support you and the white folk who hate you will never be convinced my Bible tells me when you kick out a demon from the house if you don't put nothing in his place seven worse are gonna come in the door well they put Obama out but they got seven words up in the spots let me hurry on to my end of this lecture when you tell it like it is the Bible says that God will call out scoundrels in high places that God will hold those accountable who need to be held to account in that a man of disorder cannot be a man of order so you got to understand what God will do God will call to attention those of us who need to tell the truth and if you tell it like it is you will be held accountable for the words that you use when Judgment Day comes did you stand up against this bully who doesn't like Mexicans doesn't like Muslims doesn't like gays don't like Negroes don't like nobody but his own talking about a whole country like Haiti in Africa we know where the whole of is beneath your nose and above your chin we know where that stuff comes out but the god I worship holds us all accountable and that God says tell the truth in season or out of season when folk wanna hear you or when they don't want to hear you tell the truth regardless of what folks say white supremacy is not the truth white supremacy is a lie white supremacy will not hold up the only thing that will hold up is the Word of God and that word is rooted in truth and that truth is rooted in love and that love is rooted in justice that's why I love the Lord he heard my cry and pitied every moan long as I live and trouble rise how hasten to his throne my-my-my let's give God some praise for that word the truth hurts but the truth is set you free now as many folks are leaving and I want you all know that as before we leave we're gonna just open the doors of the church there's somebody here today that that God roll down your alley and there's somebody here right now who who needs a relationship with the Lord and and if you don't have a relation with Lord you're gonna believe anything so we invite you today if you want to experience the truth and experience and just be set free God wants to do something right now don't wait to the next one you may not make it to next week so if you need a relationship with or if you need a church home we invite you today because truly y'all we all wonder we gotta tell the troops or clap your hands as that sister brother comes down come on this is your day I know you came just a visitor here dr. Dyson but the Lord says some of you men have you all been scared and now it's time for you to speak on your job now I'm speaking your community and God wants to use you this day for this is that if the Lord has made and we're gonna rejoice and be glad that you started walking in truth so give God some praise as that sister brother comes down this hour [Applause] this is your day this is your day come on clap your hands as it come if you want to just rededicate your life to Christ you want to get restored back in the faith you you've kind of slipped away from from home but we want to invite you to come on back home so clap your hands and prayer warriors start praying because because the word went forth and God wants to do something in your life this day this is your day this is your day not now as we continue just to praise God for what give God some praise for that word from dr. Dyson tell it like it is so right now as we turn the corner God wants to do something great in your life and I want to just pray right now what we're gonna do we gonna hang out about 15 minutes and if you want to leave after the benediction you can so let us all stand to our feet let us stand to our feet we thank God for dr. Dyson he's been referencing this is a lecture series and Wesley Holmes lecture series and we're gonna kick off tomorrow night at 7 p.m. we don't have a powerful panelists discussion we're gonna be talking about the Confederacy in house and it's impacted how we build buildings and named streets and how it's still impacting people so come back tomorrow night at 7 p.m. and we're gonna continue this discussion we thank God one of our speaks we have is dr. Abraham something show some love dr. Abraham but dr. Abraham Smith good good sin him good seeing him and I tell you so good just seeing what God is doing and I'm it's once again show some love time I passed the America's pastors and Wesley homes we thank God for you thank God for you pastor so grab somebody's hand as we go to the Lord in prayer God we thank you but truly the song is playing we are one Lord are we gonna move forward we have to tell it like it is Lord you said you don't give us a spirit of fear but power love and a sound mind we bind up fear and Lord let us speak for those who have no voice let us speak hope to those who are in despair lord let us give speak of life to those who are experiencing death now God as we leave this place to never depart from your presence Lord go before us this day make every rough place moving every crooked place straight thank you God for giving us the power and the courage to tell it like it is and it's in Jesus name we pray and we say hallelujah praise God and amen have a great great week if you want

Channel: StLukeCommunityUMC

Views: 54,797

Keywords: michael dyson, michael bowie, st luke community, black church, black methodist, top black church in dallas, lecture, Job scripture

Id: 4kpteYeh-fE

Length: 46min 17sec (2777 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 01 2018