Whose Report Will You Believe? | Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II

it's good to be here at Emmanuel thank you so much thank you so much thank you so much for allowing me to be here and thank God for the privilege of being in this place I want us to give a great thank you to our senior rabbi as well he's such a tremendous man amen and on this diamond anniversary 75 years I am just onboard and privileged but I heard that I can come here because way way back yonder as my grandmama would say the Lord said my house shall be a house of prayer for all people and I'm so glad that that is what's on the welcome mat and on the doorpost so gracious and eternal God we thank you for allowing us to come in your house welcomed by you amen Shalom I've been rabbi thinking about this question and it is simply whose report will we believe when we are faced with the four fold attack on the heart and soul of the democracy and in some ways the world of systemic racism systemic poverty ecological devastation the war economy and militarism when I think about how dr. King said three evils poverty racism and militarism but today we have to align up five interlocking in justices and evil systemic racism systemic poverty ecological devastation the war economy militarism and the false and distorted narrative of so-called religious nationalism now the preacher in me would like to hope that in the face of these five interlocking and justices America might fall out on her knees and cry out to God for help but the truth is much of the religion the portrayal of religion in our public life has contributed to the moral crisis we now find ourselves in which is why we had to add to these of these maladies these in justices that threatened the heart of this democracy this religious nationalism or as one of my professors the late see Eric Lincoln called Americana tea earlier this year or last year when I saw a picture of preachers some from here in Texas laying hands on the current president in the Oval Office I was so troubled that I wrote an open letter to my fellow clergy and it read in part like this while we may differ on both biblical interpretations we do share a common effort to understand God's Word and discern God's will I've noted at times you're doubtless and see of public statements that such a gospel Proclamation is needed in America and then I've listened as the President signed his executive order on religious freedom praising the prophetic legacy of dr. Martin Luther King jr. and then doing everything diametrically opposed to that legacy I watched as you applauded applauded echoing his sentiment in public statements and letters of support and celebrating an administration that is willing to listen to your counsel this was my letter to them and like many Americans I saw that photo that included several of you praying for the president in the Oval Office asking God to give him guidance now the truth is I continued this nation needs our prayers and no doubt the President does too but the Scriptures caution us about laying hands on no man suddenly less we become party to his sins and the reality is we cannot simply pray PRA why over people while they are praying PRA why I ng on the poor and the vulnerable among us the teachings of the prophets and of Jesus and the Bible are clear about the nation is judged by how it cares for the poor the sick the least of these two children and we are called to share this message we cannot simply as persons of faith serve as chaplains to Imperial power if we pray for a person engaging in injustice we must offer prayers that lead to conviction not prayers that further embolden them in their wrongdoing and since faith comes by hearing we must speak and act prophetically and truthfully tell them how their use of political power to inflict public plain is sin I had to felt led to write that letter and not long ago speaking to a seminary I shared with them rabbi it is past time in America for our theological schools and our religious departments to teach what Kevin Cruz the Princeton history professor has documented and that is how so-called white evangelicalism or which is a form of religious nationalism and a former public religiosity that wraps itself in the flag while doing the bidding of big business was a and is a purchased product Kevin Cruz denotes that the US Chamber of Commerce and Sun oil and other corporations beginning in the 1930s hated the New Deal hated Social Security hated minimum wages hate it called for health care they called it socialism and but many of those companies many of those companies could not in fact turn public opinion because the public was against them so much because of the way they had ruined the society in the great recession so they did a poll and they polled to find out who still had the moral standing that the public would listen to and they found out it was the pulpits of America but the pulpits most of them were preaching the social gospel at that time many of them were and so a guy named James v feel out of Los Angeles who was a pastor went to the Chamber of Commerce and Sun Oil and said if you should pay me if you fund me fund my organization's spiritual mobilization and I'll go out and buy pulpits and I'll recruit them and I'll teach them how to preach a deboned deboned form of the Bible a twisted form of Calvinism that says essentially if you're good you go to heaven if you're bad you go to hell if you're a good America and you prosper if you're bad American you're poor thereby suggesting that any attempt to help people that does not make them live a certain way is a fundamental violation against God and he within 10 years had something like 19 thousand pulpits I have a little issue of my left eye could you put that sign now thank you so much now there is a text in the Hebrew Scriptures we use it a lot during this time in Christendom in Hebrews I mean excuse me not in Isaiah Isaiah 53 and the question is raised about will you believe our report I want to suggest tonight that there's some reports we can't believe we can't believe the report of religious nationalism the says basically if you're against gay people if you against women's rights to choose if you're against if you're for prayer in the schools if you're for tax cuts and if you're for rich read rigid and rugged individualism and if you're for guns and if you're for states rights and if you wrap all of that in the flag you are pleasing God can't believe that report and we can't believe the report of religious white supremacy and I say that because white supremacy is a form of religion because to think that someone is better than someone else because you call it your skin means you are trying to supplant yourself in the place of God and white supremacy comes out of a theory that was developed to justify to justify injustice to justify genesee and slavery the truth is the crazes didn't come after the plan for genocide and slavery genesis of the plan the desire to engage in genocide and slavery came first and then came the ignorance the systems what white supremacy is based on bad biology and that is that folk are biologically different that the dark of the skin colors are small of the brain white supremacy is based on a sick sociology that this black woman and this white woman can't sit beside each other like that's just not gonna work it's based on evil economics and that is that the end justifies the means however you can make the money make the money baby that's all that matters and then white supremists the religiosity of white supremacy is based on a heretical ontology and that is that God designed it to be like this we also can't believe the report of eschatological indifference and escapism and that is that if we just wait a while eventually we're gonna be taken out of here and everything gonna be all right and there's pie and sky and milk and honey in heaven may very well be but somebody needs some bread and milk now here that's us truth of the matter is believing the wrong report can't save us we learn that just Dave before yesterday I wrote an article that came out in the Washington Post yesterday and let me give you a little bit of what it said it says we cannot wait for the Justice Department to catch this president in a legal misstep though that may well happen at some point our present crisis is much bigger than Trump and his mendacity it goes to the very heart of who we are as a nation and history teaches us from the abolition movement to the women's suffrage movement to the labor movement to the civil rights movement reports never saved us never didn't say Jews from the Holocaust didn't say black folk from slavery only deeply committed moral fusion movements that resisted the lies of oppression have ever helped us move towards being a more perfect nation and what we mean now most is not another report but an enlightened public committed to building out a moral movement as amos 5 says god needs a remnant determined to see justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream that builds the infrastructure of democracy in our communities we must claim the moral center and resolve to work together beyond the puny language of left versus right we must claim and build a prophetic imagination in order to have prophetic implementation and too often faith in the public square is not representative of the deep moral calling of Scripture like what Ezekiel said when Ezekiel I love the way the prophets talk they just told it like it was or he is as they said to Ezekiel 22 said listen when he saw leaders hurt in the poor and hurting the sick and hurting the immigrants and hurting the children ezekiel didn't mince and he knew cuz God when God sent him God said look I'm sending you to a people that are stiff-necked and hard they probably won't listen to you but at least they will know there have been a prophet among them that's Ezekiel 1 and Ezekiel 22 he says your leaders your political leaders are like wolves who tear apart their victims they destroy people's lives for money but there's something worse your prophets cover up for them by announcing false visions and making lion predictions to alter we don't hear that in public square 2 also we don't hear like Isaiah when Isaiah 10 says woe unto those who legislate evil I thought one or two Jews might say amen to that tonight I'm since I'm in your book you know woe unto those and now for the prophets were hard on Israel because they wanted always how to live out it we have to be tough on this glacier woe unto those who legislate evil and robbed the poor of their rights and make women and children their prey or Jeremiah 22 Jeremiah Jeremiah does not say send a tweet Jeremiah doesn't say send a report Jeremiah 22 tears crying as he did said these are God's orders go to the royal palace go down there and deliver my message and tell the King of Judah you who sit on the throne a day that tell all telling him all these governors and officials and all the people that work there this is God's message if you want to be the nation I'm looking for attend to matters of justice set things right between the people rescue victims from their explorers don't take advantage of the homeless treat the immigrant right and the orphan right and the widow's right and stop murdering people with your policies and it didn't stop with the Old Testament that brown-skinned Palestinian Jew gotta die follow Joshua in Hebrew Jesus in the Greek am i right about his first sermon not his first sermon he said the Spirit of the Lord is upon me he picked up Isaiah 60:1 his spirit of Lord is upon me preach good news to the poor the patacas those who've been made poor because of economic exploitation and rules he God has sent me to announce pardon to the prisoners recovery of sight to the blind to set it Berta Berta Berta percent free the burden and the bear the battered and to declare the acceptable year of the Lord and this is God's year to act that whenever people are being hurt and poor and hurt by the sickness and made prisoners for no reason and burdened and better and made to feel like they don't belong this is the time to act and it's not just Jewish or Christian assalamualaikum in the quran the quran 971 the believers both men and women are in charge of and responsible for one another they all enjoin the doing of what is right and they all forbid the doing of what is wrong we must reclaim this religious moral vision and not like it's new it has always been around even in this country at our deepest and darkest time there's always been a prophetic vision somewhere that has helped us before like like the prophetic vision of Frederick Douglass when Frederick Douglass says listen I recognize the widest possible difference between the so called Christianity of this land and the Christianity of Christ and to be the friend of one is the necessity to be the enemy of the other he said I love the pure peaceable and impartial Christianity of Christ are therefore hate the corrupt slaveholding women with in cradle plundering partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land that's a moral vision that's what kept Frederick Douglass fighting against slavery or like dr. king when dr. King said any religion that does not address the things that damn hit man's souls is a good-for-nothing in the worthless religion or like Dorothy day who said how can we ever give up thinking and longing for love talking of it preparing ourselves of it reading of it studying about it it is really a great faith in love that never dies or that giant rabbi Hirsch or one month before the march on Washington you don't talk about this rabbi hasha a Jewish rabbi said to a Catholic president told him mr. president we as a nation forfeit the right to even worship God as a nation until we do right by the Negro and we do right by the cause of justice [Applause] anything less than this kind of moral religious imagination and articulation that has its roots in all of our major phase witnesses in any attempt that's less than what I just mentioned is it is a heretical attempt to hijack faith and use it in the service of domination and oppression and it is an abdication of the basic responsibility of faith and that is not to be the chaplain of the nation but to be the critic of the nation now one week after one week of trumps ruled by executive order you remember our mass protests erupted over the weekend as citizens determined you remember when that happened to resist a Muslim ban and folk of all different faiths stood in solidarity with hundreds of detained visa holders and in the midst of that crisis several elect officials joined the protest and and some politicians promised legislation to overturn that order I came to a forum something like this in the midst of that and said all that's great but we also have to have a moral strategy not just to for to deal with the resistance not just a one individual but to deal to resist and not just to resist but to go on the offensive against this immoral frame of public policy violence that we have seen in America today and it is not new as a preacher I went there that particular place and call for a moral vision and and I and I want to share with you what I said rabbi the end that still pertains I believe to now that number one if we're going to believe the right report not the report of religious nationalism but if we're going to believe the report of our deepest moral and religious values we as people of faith have to get our language right if faith doesn't teach you anything else it teaches your new language and and the truth of the matter in our putting the public square we have inherited a language that's too puny for the crisis we face you know we as people of faith when we come in the public square we're supposed to add something to it not just follow us already there and when we speak about moral values none of our sacred books none of them no Testament New Testament Quran none of our sacred books talk about left versus right not one of them somehow somewhere we have learned to think of ourselves if we are we are part of the left if you love and care about people and want I'm on the left now the truth is the left and right language comes from the French Revolution we not in France in the 17th century it described a political reality that actually existed those on the Left didn't want the monarchy doors on the right did but the language left versus right and liberal versus conservative is too puny and it sure is not language of faith and it's too puny to challenge extremism because it gives equal moral standing to things that are not equal in fact why would you spend a whole lot of time calling yourself saying that somebody else is on the right and then try to convince people they're wrong we need deeper moral language deeper metaphors deeper deeper language to name this crisis in other words I'm part Pentecostal we got to learn to speak in tongues if we're going to challenge the extremism and the lives this is no time for polite conversations about alternative facts we need moral clarity you see all of our faiths teach some basic truths one thing all of our faiths teach we all are made in the image of God that's a question we ought to ask about public father how does this policy or these policies reflect the love for somebody made in the image of God all of our faiths let us know God is especially concerned about the poor the broken to hurt in the immigrant and the least of these those two things are given third that the earth is not ours but the laws and that Dominion in the earth cannot mean domination and destruction because when God made everything let me see how rusted my Hebrew is he did something like told me out he said it was very good and so anything that is hurts the creation that breaks the creation and it's not very good is sin and the antithesis of what God intended now not only that in our Constitution our cost is nowhere in the Constitution it says certain people on the left the first of all the cost to thoughts about we to people and then it says in order to establish a more perfect union that is a that's repentance that's a confession that our union is not perfect that it's always a work in progress and then the first thing it calls us to is is is to ensure domestic tranquility not domestic division then the second thing is to establish justice third is to provide for the common defense and the fourth our Constitution lays out a word we have basically thrown away welfare promote the general welfare we've allowed people to take constitutional language away from us which helps to create what we're crisis were in now because the language is designed for tribalism our deepest faith religious and immoral sinner requires that there's some things we can't be silent on because as dr. King said silence is betrayal when 23 states in this country have passed racist voter suppression law and I want to ask you from now on not to call it voter suppression call it racist voter suppression because that's what it is don't don't don't play with it and the reason the reason why is because you know I heard help me rabbi that the word for voice and vote in Hebrew Scriptures is the same word right but I also know that when you suppress a vote that's just not a political failure that is a theological sin why because we only give the right to vote to people we don't give the right to vote to Peres Keys puppies and pets only two people so in it so if you suppress my vote you are literally suggesting I'm not a people now I said that countrified there's no intention you saying I'm not a people I'm not a person right which means being you have elevated yourself to some form of God status which is a form of idolatry so to suppress the vote is sinful it's idolatrous and it's a and it's a hurting of humanity and we need that kind of language back in the public square 26 states 23 have past races voter suppression law we don't know exactly what Russia did but we know what voter suppression has done voter suppression and racist gerrymandering is what has locked up and stolen high elections in this country and our faith and religious values require that we can't be silent on these issues because silent is betrayal we've seen a 60% increase in people living in poverty over 250 years 50 years ago 51 years ago was the Poor People's Campaign 50 years later because the Poor People's Campaign was the shortest I mean the war on poverty was the shortest war we ever fought we left the battlefield when it was working and so 50 years later we had a 60% increase in the number of people living in poverty because we cut and undermined the programs that were working extremists extremists began to cry more about tax cuts which became a cold word for stopping black brown and other folks from getting free stuff and causing many poor whites in the south to believe that they're bad like their struggles was because of what was happening to black and brown people when in fact the very programs that ended up getting cut hurt poor white folks the most we look at right now there are 140 million poor and low wealth people in this country 140 million not 37 million not 40 70 140 million 39 million of my children 21 million elder 65 million of men 74 million of women 26 million of black 66 million are white even though the 26 million black people represents 60 percent of all black people and the 66 million white people represents 35% of all white people so in percentage-wise it's more black but in raw numbers it's more white and that's often a story that's not told that the majority of the poor people in this country are white women and children and working and our deepest moral and religious values require that we speak on this the because silence would be betrayal an article came out just yesterday that said if the minimum wage increases had kept up with corporate increases corporate increases for corporations leaders the minimum wage would be thirty three dollars an hour our moral Center and deep religious values require that we speak on this there are six to two million people in this country today working for less than $15 an hour while we have 400 families that make an average of 97 thousand dollars an hour and we lock people up who want 15 in a union and then when it comes to the South the real emergency is not on the border is inside the border and the real emergency is down here in the South where extremists and a greedy oligarch continues to play poor white folk and poor black folk and poor brown people against one another when the reality is [Applause] the reality is in the 13 former Confederate states from Texas to Maryland there are 52 million poor and low-income people 24 million of them are white 28 million are people of color there are 13 million poor uninsured people in the former Confederate States and yet we have more politicians from these states that block health care and block living wages one-third of the total number of the poor people in America come from thirteen states thirteen states one third of the total poor white people in this country come from thirteen states 47% of all Texans are poor and low-income 12 million people four million children nine million people of color 3.7 million white in this state there are four while we are discussing ending a partial health care 4.2 million our onion the most in the country and legislators and senators from this state who when they when they got elected by voters in Texas automatically got free health care pay for about you covering pre-existing now want to vote and try to undermine the people having what they have that's a form of moral sickness when you get something only because the people elected you and then you don't want the people that elected you to have the same thing that you have because you're more committed to the corporation than you are to the people hmm and our deepest moral values demand that we speak on this there are there are right now thousands upon thousands upon thousands upon thousands 2.5 to 3.5 million people sleeping in shelters or encampments in America 7.4 million are on the brink of homelessness despite all of the homes empty shelters that we have in this country we are the richest nation in the world out of the 25 richest we're the only one of the 25 riches that doesn't offer some form of free health care for everybody the Affordable Care Act that's being discussed right now 30 even with that 31 million people are uninsured 13 million white 4 million black if the prophets and Jesus did anything to heal people I mean if they did anything they went around healing people and for free and yet in the so-called Bible Belt that's why we you and I cannot stay locked up in our sanctuaries and mosque and temples anymore we must go into the public square and declare our moral Center and deepest religious values and the war economy and militarism 53 cents of every dollar goes toward the military and only 15 cents on anti-poverty programs in public education dr. King said any nation that continues to put more money in its military than the uplift of his people is spiraling toward death death and most of the wars now over the last 50 years have had little to do with protecting Americans it's the profit motive people are making a killing from killing an army private and combat earns less than 30 thousand dollars in 2016 the average CEO earns nineteen point two million six hundred and forty times the amount of an army private the money is made in the contracts and the majority to people today that are dying in our military are dying from suicide suicide and the deepest moral values of our faith demand that we call this out like Ezekiel your politicians are like wolves and then when we see how militarism is being brought into our cities and we see how the perpetual war economy is linked to the criminalization of the poor as a book called God I think his name of it is lockdown then in that book the interviewer asked somebody in one state in New York I believe it was said why do you all put more money in prisons than you do in education and the guy said that's simple says we can't live like we want to live if some people around us so we have to have ghettos but the ghettos fill up and we have to have a way to relieve them relieve them and so hence more money in prisons than in education when in fact a dollar in education would save you a whole lot of the dollars in prison what causes what kind of moral maladies causes people to vote against a new Green Deal the just that's a resolution not even up not enough money no money no money just said we gonna work on fixing this atmosphere this earth and land cause we don't have anymore we haven't found any way else to stay and it's evident all the time Houston knows it kind of luck that we got a problem Houston there's a problem and we know that nine million premature deaths happen worldwide in 2015 three times more than died from AIDS Tuberculosis malaria and 15 times more from all the wars and other forms of violence people dying for what's happening in the ecological crisis what kind of moral now that is wrong with you when you don't even want to work to save the earth your grandchildren will have to live in when you did in our deepest moral or religious values say to us we can't be silent because silence is betray you know we talk about Flint but you know there are four million families today in America that wake up every day and they can buy unleaded gas and came by unleaded [Music] nearly 1.7 million people have a lack of access to compete plumbing facilities in America of the 20 counties with the highest percentage of households lacking access to complete plumbing all will rule 13 had a majority native or asked Alaskan native population and yet we continue to build and build and build pipelines for for oil and gas despite the fact that between 1998 and 2017 there have been five thousand seven hundred and twelve significant oil and gas leaks and ruptures of the pipelines and we don't even need two pipelines we don't we aren't even using the capacity that we have we cannot be silent so the first thing we have to do is we got to change our language this left versus right it's not gonna get it with somebody people of faith with a unified chorus speaking from our deepest religious and moral values must begin to say it's not about right versus left is about right versus wrong it's just wrong and immoral to take health care from millions of America it's just wrong and immoral to ignore the poor and blame the poor for their economic challenges it's just wrong and immoral to snap children and mamas from apart from one another a land of immigrants that hates immigrants is just wrong to hate Muslims and be anti submitted toward Jewish people it's just wrong to suppress the right to vote in a democracy it's not about left versus right it's about right versus wrong [Applause] but then secondly we have to be clear about how we got here one of the things that all of our faiths teach us is holy remembrance understanding over Endora Deuteronomy I believe there was an instruction by Moses every so many years get everybody together especially to children am i right sit them down and teach them so that they will not become a people who know not from whence they have come and then in in the Christian scriptures this do in remembrance remembrances is is sacred and we have to be clear about how we got here we can't see a way forward unless we understand how we got here and and and what I mean by that is the current moment that we're in I'm gonna say something and they all might want to run the out but hold on stop blaming it on Trump I know I know everyone gonna get a lot applause today because Trump is not smart enough to create the myths we got in [Applause] and you make a big mistake if you think just getting rid of one person he's gonna solve the mist at America is in [Applause] Princeton historian Nell Irvin painter said this the pattern we are witnessing now is called call-and-response she said what we are seeing now is the iconography of a tragic traditionally American call-and-response the call a challenge to the status quo the response outbreaks of meanness vile that embrace ret rhetorical weapons taking up physical weapons at times in history all design to go backwards it is as American as apple pie it did not start with trunk trunk had an audience already prepared this audience began being prepared right in the middle of the 1960s when folks from all over the south so I'm right from here in Texas saw the nation changing and transforming they saw black and white and brown and yellow getting together they saw Jewish and Muslim and Christian and Catholic coming together they saw things changing they saw a moral fusion coalition change in the country and they decided we can't we can't have this cause if black and white folk and brown folk get together in the south and work together we'll never get elected to nothing anymore C will never get elected to anything so we have to figure out how to split them that's what Lee Atwater said Lee Atwater who worked for George Bush another he said we we had to learn how to be George Wallace without sounding like him and we had to learn how to create weird issues and we had to talk in code we couldn't say the n-word anymore we could but we could say tight entitlement reform and tax cuts and states rights and anti-gay and all of those became ways of splitting people so you have to understand that the Southern Strategy was designed to last 50 years and it came to fruition when it elected Richard Nixon in 68 and yeah it was the fiftieth year and it was designed to last 50 years at a minimum hmm so the current president is not the first candidate to play on our worst fears it's a history in this country it's a history in this country Kevin Phillips called it he told Richard Nixon he said look if we can figure out who hates who or who we can make hate who we can control the south and if we can control the south we can control the nation if you can control 13 states and then we can control them you got a pit black and white and brown flow against each other but if you can control them and then put a little religiosity on it too you can control them then you control 270 electoral votes you don't need 100 for another 37 state you control 33 percent of the United States Congress you on 31 percent you control 26 members of the United States Senate you only need 25 or another 37 states which then means if and if you got the electoral college in place you can actually lose the popular vote but when if you control the South that has the smallest population which thereby undermines one-person one-vote but you cannot do it if people are together you cannot do it if people are following the deepest moral values of religious of our faith that cares for the least of these and the lonely and the broken you can't do it you've got to undermine all of that and so that's what happened so we can't keep saying things like you know we've never seen this before what we never had a raises in the White House before what about Woodrow Wilson for instance 19 for 14 15 16 and so many others the question is when have we had a president in the White House that wasn't influenced about racism including Obama because Obama even had to do something that didn't make any sense you remember when he questioned his friend being arrested at Harvard and he's the president of the country and he had to sit down and have a beer with a beat cop and all you got to do is imagine Obama thinking about telling one of the lies that Trump has told I didn't say tell them to lie thinking about it and imagine what the outrage would be now it did but but it's not just what happened to white Southern Strategy in the 19th century black and white people came together right after slavery especially poor whites and poor black poor whites found out they had been fleeced by the leaders of the Confederacy this the leaders of the Confederacy made rules that if you had so much land your son didn't have to go to war so it was the poor white Southerners that fought the civil war and afterwards many of them found figured it out so they began to hook up with black people and by 1868 1869 1870 almost every southern legislature was controlled by a black right more fusion coalition and that fused those fusion coalition's row equal protection into the Constitution's took slavery out of the Constitution guaranteed public education but by 1872 there was a fear and there was a what Neal painter called a response a backlash the Klan was formed primarily to go after whites and Jews who work with black people not first to go out the black people it was it was designed to split the coalition dr. King talks about it in his 1965 sermon at the end of the Selma to Montgomery my that speech sometime he talks about this he says every town in the south poor whites and poor blacks have had the possibility of building the Beloved Community the bird he calls it the Bourbon class or the error of the southern aristocracy souls the seeds of division in order to stop them from having the kind of political power that can change the country and change the world we need to know how we got here and that what we are seeing there our history shapes our present that's why we cannot say this is nervous we've never seen anything like this before Donald Trump he's the problem he know we've have seen this before we just haven't seen it 24/7 on CNN and MSNBC in fact but we have seen it before and because we've seen it before we also know what beats it there every time we come together rooted in our deepest constitutional moral bears and our religious value and be a movement we've been able to stop the exportation when we come together and find out that if you're black or if you're white and you're brown and you can't pay your light beer we are black in the dark [Applause] if you're poor and your child cries your childhood cry black they don't cry white they don't cry brown they cry under and when we've been able to deal honestly with racism and classism and come together not around those things but through them and with them we've been able to stand against the forces of extremism and help this nation become a little bit more of a permanent that's why I'm here tonight really recruiting because I didn't just come as I close to speak I came to ask you to join the Poor People's Campaign a national call for moral revival as we're trying to build a national revive and a moral fusion coalition I ask you you saw on the film and I'm asking you to join forty-one other state coordinating committees now thousands of people who have already said we're in not just to save a party but to work on the soul and the heart of this nation and if we do it right some of our adversaries will become our friends because they'll see the ugliness of their ways I'm not trying to save him if we got a push Democrats to do what they need to do we got to push them the Republicans to stop doing what they are doing we need a moral movement deeply rooted in our deepest moral there's that remnant that Amos talked about we need a political Pentecost where they all got on one Accord and a mighty rushing wind came and blew on them it had been that had been the Feast of Tabernacles yeah we need to come in together because that's the third thing one of my favorite passages subscriptions in the Old Testament where it says the stone that the builders rejected has now become the chief Cornerstone and this is the Lord's doing because it gives me hope when you are in a political season and you have political actors that are rejecting everybody and hurting everybody they don't realize that when they're doing that they're actually building up the resistance and building up the offensive because the stone that the builders reject becomes the chief Cornerstone in building a new way and that's the Lord's doing when the Lord brings the rejected together in other words God can use the rejected to produce revival that's all I came to say that's the third thing yeah we need a new language we need a new language we need to know how we got here understand his but we also need a hope a hope and a joy that's not dependent on what we see going on right now in South Africa when it got bad and apartheid the South Africans came up with a phrase that said only a dying horse a dying mule kicks the hardest don't you know if folks had to go all the way to Russia had to lie in return they could get had to put pornographic forms and sums of money a black dark money in order just to squeak out an election and not even win the popular vote that their that they had to do all that to beat those of us that want this nation to go forward we must be mighty powerful and the question is do we know we're bound the question is do we understand really who we are that folk don't cheat you if they can beat you in a straight fight though don't you know that that stop being so where it right now it's time to stop crying and understand who we are for a million more people voted for difference than what we have in the White House right now 100 million people didn't vote that's that's a harvest feel that we can work home all of the states in the south that I mentioned the same states that passed voter suppression are also the poorest states in the states without health care and the states that attacked immigrants in the states that attacked women and the states that that undermine of the the programs for the working people if all those folk get together the rejected can become the chief Cornerstone and and I'm so glad about that that's my hope right now in the midst of this that the rejected are being forced to come together and I want to close here by saying I know that in this room there's some folk who've known what rejection is am i right my Jewish brothers and sisters you've known what rejection is there's some people in this room that have been rejected because of your religion reject it because of your sexuality rejected because of who you are reject it because of how you were born rejected because somebody needed somebody to hate in order to feel good about themselves reject it there are people in here who've known rejection rejection because of your income rejection because of your religion rejection because of your race rejection because of your lack of faith rejection because somebody decided in their own ideology that they had a right of false mandate to demean your humanity and my humanity that's been given to us only by God but I want you to know tonight that the stones that the builders rejected are never cornerstones are building a new America I want you to know tonight that when the rejected get together we can redeem America from hate and discrimination yes Isaiah as will you believe my report but that question was also asked in numbers when when Joshua and Caleb will you believe our report because there were ten that said we are grasshoppers but Joshua and Caleb said do you know the God we serve weed we are not grasshoppers we are God's children and I want you to know that right now of a changing demographics in America the changing demographics in the south stop believing them when they say the south are a red states they're not red states they're divided states and if they reject it come together we can turn these states around hands that once picked cotton can now join the hands of Latinos and the hands are progressive whites and and can join faith hands and labor hands and Asian hands and native hands and poor hands and gay hands and straight hands and trans hands and Christian hands and Jewish hands Muslim hands a Hindu hands and Buddhist together well yes when the rejected get together we are the cornerstone of a new possibility when the rejected get together we can revive the promise of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness and equal protection under the law when the rejected get together we can declare this land is your land this land is my land when we get together we can make sure that hope and not hate has the last word from the Statehouse to the White House when we get together we can ensure that all God's children are respected and treated with dignity and love when we get together we can redeem the heart and soul of America when the rejected get together we can declare and make it real that this nation will live out his promise of one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice together for all when we get together what a day what a day what a day what a day the Lord will have me one a day of justice and love it will be if I was home in my little Congregational Church I tell you turn to your neighbor tell your neighbor neighbor it's time to get together turn your other neighbors and neighbor grab my hand it's movement time is working time is saving America time is getting together time is marching time is voting time this speaking truth time it's time to get together when we all get together wanna do one again what again yeah okay [Applause] hey everyone if you can do one thing tonight before you leave get out your cell phone and I'm gonna give you a text to get information and join the Poor People's Campaign a national call for moral revile if you're not already connected here in Texas pull out your cell phone and text the word moral mor al because this is a moral movement y'all - 909 75 9 0 9 75 the word moral - nine zero nine seven five okay friends would you take your seats for a moment please we got about do you have two more minutes for us maybe three how about tonight [Applause] how you feeling who's feeling better now that when they came in all right so uh Reverend barber has graciously given us a few more minutes for some Q&A so we can have a chance to continue this dialogue as I said when we started this is going to be the beginning and not the end so I want to invite Reverend barber to reflect on a couple of thoughts the first question that I want to invite all of us to think about and to ask him to respond to in the beginning talked a little bit about moral crisis and crisis of faith that all of us see around us one ask him and you to think about what are the places where you find strength and comfort and encouragement what are the sources of strength and hope what are the things when you wake up in the morning give you the strength and the energy to face the day revenue I'll talk a little bit about where do you find strength comfort and encouragement there is a scripture interestingly enough in the New Testament book of Hebrews and it talks about how when we're running a race there's a great cloud of witnesses like they were in the Colosseum's and the those cloud of witnesses are cheering us on and in Hebrews 11 it goes down the hallmark of faith and and it lays out all of the great leaders of the Old Testament from Samson on forward and it's honest about them honest about their strengths and their failures but it also talks about how they walked by faith one of my greatest sources of inspiration every morning is remembering the ancestors and remembering how much they did with so little remembering what they went through and and not just remembering them in some kind of um false membranes remembrance but remembering them honest I had to come to terms some years ago with having been put on my back for 12 years from a rare disease and people saying to me that because I have a limb I couldn't preach couldn't pastor as might as well just go ahead and get him a nursing home and be done with it a 30 years old you know and this came from some people who claim to be people of faith that's why you can't believe it report becomes then I went and read the Bible and I read how many of the people who are the heroes and the heroines of the Bible had struggles Moses is stuttering Elijah's sometimes depression Jeremiah's tears and crying and almost bipolarism that time Jesus was a man acquainted with sorrow wasn't beautiful didn't look like anything Paul's thorn in the flesh Peter step Peters you know potential to cut you you know and then I started looking down Harriet Tubman's epilepsy dr. Kings breathing disorder that he received from being stared by a black woman that he had before he ever didn't March on Washington you know and on and so forth and so on and and I started saying wait a minute strength ought to come from how and the it is possible for the divine to use us in spite oh and then to put us in a community where what we don't have other people have it and so that really it's not about living life to prove how tough you can be it's about hooking up and living in community so Moses I don't need you to speak I'll make you like a God before Pharaoh I'll let your brother speak well well who you think made the dumb Moses who you think made the by I made you I know what you can do and what you can't do that's why I'm calling yeah but also what gives me inspiration is is again looking back and and I and at movements in the past that the night with the 2016 elections was over mm mm yes 17 whatever was 2016 elections were over I went straight in my room and got the sermon that Frederick Douglas preached in 1857 right after the Dred Scott decision I said I want to see what Frederick said and in that sermon he was honest about how bad it was he knew that what had happened was actually brought into being by a Supreme Court justice who got forced onto the court that should have never been on the court and Frederick Douglass says as monstrous as this decision is I still have a certain cheer now he described it in great angles in great pain but then he said but I have and he said because I know history that every attempt to ally the abolition movement has always served only to intensify and embolden it so I encourage those of us in this moment I mean I say this with the greatest respect what we face now stuff but it ain't worse than slavery of it's not worse than the Holocaust is not worse than Jim Crow so some of us have got to stop mourning and get up and go to work that's what inspires me every every man I was especially moved by what you said about the commitment for us to form a more perfect union as evidence that the spirit of repentance is in deep in the DNA of our nation for the Jews in this room it's very clear from our spiritual culture our spiritual context that repentance is not just feeling bad repentance isn't just feeling sorry and apologizing repentance requires true contrition making amends and restitution what does repentance look like in America 2019 well right now there's a sense of arrogance that is scary and let me have one whose tissues and that is one of the dangers when we talk about American exceptionalism as though America doesn't have to repent or that when America repents like safer slavery it can just say oops we sorry and that's it and one of my professors dr. Franklin who wrote John Hope Franklin said if that's all you have to do for 250 years of slavery another 100 years of Jim Crow anybody would take that deal and one of the things I love about Jewish community y'all don't play that no sir repentance has to mean something more than being sorry and even for Christians is supposed to mean something the works of repentance the scripture talks about you know when Jesus one time met a guy who said he was sorry for stealing from folk Jesus said I'll tell you what you do go find everybody stole from and pay him back double triple and then salvation will have come so one of the things that's why we can't lie about our past and keep saying if we could just go back to where things were better well they're things there's something that are better but the better has always existed alongside the bad right and there's not a place behind us if there's anything we need to look back to look at what we didn't fix that allowed this to happen again at this magnitude right and so we need about serious repent I'm afraid for this knee I was the thing that scared me the most for instance in the 2016 election was not that Donald Trump said I and I alone can fix it it was that people heard that and it didn't move bother and that other folk became enabling enablers of that I and I alone can fixed it the only place you hear stuff like that in the scriptures is Nebuchadnezzar right let's also talk like that in Scripture right and it's dangerous right and and I think that in this season headed to a Passover headed toward the midst of Lent headed toward the Holy Week and for Christians and then Ramadan our faiths have something to teach about repentance I wish right I'm announcing here maybe we can pull up I wish we could get 2000 clergy folk in full regalia to go maybe the early part of this summer to DC and just go in the streets and kneel and lay down and force them to have to arrest all of us praying and an don't depend on on our bodies we would have repentant of denying people healthcare repent of you know and call it and sin call it what it is you know because without repentance really it's all it's a level of arrogance to approach God without repentance you know you know in fact we sing that song god Bless America the people forget that line that says and and men dying every flaw says and mend thine every flaw right so I I'm worried about it we're gonna have to return to it there's too much arrogance in our politics even critical to being critical of the nation has to be done with a certain humility right you unless you want to become what you hate right that's why I love I believe got to be a dissenter but just as dr. King talked about justice alone is too hard love alone is too weak they all have to be together because because you don't want to become what you hate and one of the reasons I often got criticized when I come to speak like this and I got stood up one night here in Baba all you did was talk about the problems where the ashes where to answer first of all we have an agenda and the Poor People's Campaign we have a budget all that's coming out and I said well sir let me ask you a question did I say anything you didn't know he said yeah I said he said yes I said that's why I stayed on the problem because until people are clear about the problem there will be no repentance like for instance in this room how many of you knew that there are 40 million more poor white people than there are black 40 million more poor white most folk do not think like that see this a few the hand they think that is actually more poor black people than there are poor YV right well you got for me okay what I'm saying I'm saying so so one of the reasons because and until there is that kind of penetrating truth that forces folk to say we must engage our moral imagination to come about it is there not there's a sense in which there has to be a certain despair you know Jeremiah God told Jeremiah look the nation's gonna miss go bring the wailing women the crying women don't not not only do I don't need Miriam right now to plays that tambourine I need some women y'all didn't know I knew the book I need I need the crying wailing women did they cry they cry they cry to cry didn't in the New Testament pulling from Jeremiah it is said when Hara is killing it it says it says that I hear the sound of Rachel crying and I love what it says who refuses to be comforted see there's a sense in which we cannot have a movement and actions where we hear about how bad it is and then run right through you have a commercial break and run to the next thing you know everywhere I go I'm trying with others to drive home these fad until people literally have a conscience again ever have a sense of urgency right and then if we get that out of repentance can come the moral the deeper imagination and the answers and whatnot but if you try to run but if we don't know how bad it is you know then we're not gonna have an urgency to fight for it to be better and it is bad now I don't want anybody to think when I say it ain't as bad as slavery that it ain't bad it's bad and in some ways is ugly because you would think we would have learned by now I mean people can talk all day long and I'm not telling you who to vote for I'm just talking about what I'm talking about but people can talk all day long about you know mr. Trump his eye he he's he crazy well okay I'll leave that up to the psychologist to figure out people's mental state what I do know is he led with racism he led with ugliness he led with lies he didn't win the popular vote but 62 million folks saw him lead with that and still said you know I think this dude will be all right that's bad to call ourselves an enlightened society right and and and there's a there's a there's a um but there is one more text of my good Jewish brothers and sisters because I still believe in the Almighty God who orchestrates who that Oh for say who rules and super rules and I remember when he brought them out of Egypt he didn't take them too easy way huh you know see and I'm and I'm not suggesting that Obama was coming out of Egypt because I'm not talking out of human being but I'm talking about for a nation that was built on slavery to eventually come to elect a black man with a mama from Kansas and the daddy from Kenya was a pretty big step but could it be that that pointed to us the possibility but God somewhere in the mystery couldn't let us go too easy way and so that America right now has got to really make a choice a serious choice about who she cuz I don't really think that where we're at right now is whether or not the Democratic Party can be or the public and party can be where we are right now with all the systemic racism systemic poverty to ecological devastation the war economy the religious nationalism the hatred the question is can America be can we actually be what we promised this is so much bigger than just a battle of a Polish which is why even those of us were trying to do right might need some time to do like Isaiah and repent for those that ain't got sense enough to do it I have I have given this speech sometimes some parts up and been driven to tears and I've got left the podium and couldn't stop weeping and remember and I much I mean others are taking can't sleep at night because I remember what Isaiah said in the year King Uzziah died when he was I whose I had become so arrogant that he even thought he could control the house of God and he died outside the gate am I in the book rabbi and he said in the year King Uzziah died I saw the Lord cuz they had all this hope and promise for whose life he said I saw the Lord and then the Bible goes on to say to Jeremiah Isaiah said that he he said I am a man of unclean lips and I live in the midst of a people with unclean so maybe maybe we need to repent tonight for those that ain't got sense enough Jeremiah said oh that my head was a fountain of waters that I might cry on behalf of the nation your rabbi myself another we get no pleasure out of criticizing this nation it's hurtful to see that arrogance that we're seeing and some time on both sides of the aisle you know on both sides ain't no one place maybe exacerbated in one place like the arrogance of thinking when somebody says Democrats it all we got to do is reach the white working-class do you know how Paragon that sounds how bad that sound you gonna run a whole campaign are you gonna worry about it the white working-class and then you wonder why people not vote I mean that in itself so maybe in the midst of that's why I love the way you opened did you hear how the rabbi he said we must operate between Micah and Isaiah and Micah drives us to this humility do justice love mercy but do it humbly before God almost on your knees right in a sense of repentance that I'm a part of the injustice of all all of us have had some part in it there none of us are clean fully but then on the other hand be like Isaiah and let raise your voice like a trumpet so I'm praying that in this movement called the Poor People's Movement that we can cry and shout at the same time we can repent and raise our voices at the same time I actually and hear me I'm more for Trump because you know I'm a Christian I'm mourn for him I don't hate him I pity him when a person can get up in the morning as president of a country with all of that power and all you can think of to do is be mean and hurt people and take folks health care knowing they're gonna die and lie about it I'm mourning their mornings I mourn him I feel sorry for him and and the reason I feel sorry for him and this gonna sound strange because I get to the place where the psalmist got in on the solves on 139 when when the psalmist said Lord I want you to - the babies my enemies he babe his head against a rock and then it was almost as though something called the psalmist and said wait a minute laure because whatever one human does is possible for another one to do y'all better hit me tonight but for the grace of God you can become your enemy I'm speaking now I'm talking prophetically now you can you can become your enemy anything you see another human being do that potential is in you but for the grace of God and that's why the psalmist step back I mean the psalmist was real arrogant kill him Lord kill him kill him and there's a wait a minute Lord you know my down sitting you know my up horizon if I take the wings of the morning and fly to the uttermost parts to see you right there if I go to make my bed in Sheol you're right there so lord I need you to do something search me Lord search me don't ever dislike somebody so much that you don't realize some of what you see them doing lies in you too but for the grace of God and that's why every morning we repent and do what the old Saints in my church used to say say Lord I need you to help me help me on my way help me every day Lord I need you to help me you [Applause]

Channel: Repairers of the Breach

Views: 76,948

Rating: 4.7939696 out of 5

Keywords: 3-29-19

Id: 8YGsXmOCnOc

Length: 86min 42sec (5202 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 30 2019