“Straight from the Heart” of Rev. Carey A Grady

Published on 4:02 pm by willie.pritchett

Alexander Murray Palmer Haley was born in Ithaca, New York and the oldest child of Simon Alexander and Bertha Palmer Alexander.  Alex Haley as he is known to us first heard the stories of his ancestors from his grandparents and parents.  Those stories were so impressionable to him they became his life’s passion and evolved in to the Pulitzer Prize Novel, Roots.  It’s so unique to know that stories have the ability to spark the human imagination.  By right we all have novels, screen plays, and movies in us.  My childhood for me produced tons of eventful stories that would intrigue the world.  Most of us have family members that can tell the best stories at family reunions.  Even Jesus used parables, stories to teach spiritual principles that transformed lives.

I remember when I first watched Roots.  My mother and father made sure we watched the epic together as a family.  There were certain scenes that evoked so much emotion in my mother.  I vividly remember the tears rolling down her cheeks.  I also recall my father squirming in his seat and my two older siblings ready to fight the revolution.  I didn’t fully understand everything I was watching, but I knew what I was experiencing was important.  It had to be, because dad mentioned Roots in his sermon for at least 3 weeks.  Alex Haley’s Roots showcased the power of the written and printed word and the power of visual media in telling the world our struggle as people in our long sojourn in the America’s.

As we continue to celebrate African-American History month, let’s remember the stories of our faith. Let’s remember to read the book of all books and the story of all stories, The Bible, to help us run the race of faith.  I’m personally a lover of the Old Testament.  The history and culture of the Old Testament, is similar to the African culture that emanates in the blood that runs through our veins.  The Hebrew Culture which is African (we’ll discuss in future Wednesday’s Word) is rooted in the Oral Tradition.  That has to be the case, if Moses was the author of the Pentateuch.  If Moses was the author of the Pentateuch, he wrote Genesis several years after the events of Genesis occurred.  That means his predecessors and ancestors handed down these stories to him orally before he put them to paper (tablet, stone, etc.)

I believe the Pentateuch is the blueprint of the Liberation of oppressed and marginalized people all over the world.  The Pentateuch consists of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy and can be a moral or spiritual map for our lives.  Genesis deals with Creation and can be divided into Part 1 and Part II.  Part I deals specifically with the Creation, Fall, Flood and the Tower of Babel.  Part II relates to the Patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph.  Exodus is centered on the escape of God’s people from Egypt under the leadership of Moses and the beginning of the Covenant at Mt. Sinai.  In Exodus, God gives the people rules and regulations (Ten Commandments) to live by and God in some ways creates a theocracy.  Also, in Exodus, the Feast of the Passover is instituted and celebrated.  Leviticus, or “book of Levites,” is focused on the holiness of the community of Israel.  Holiness we know means to be set apart by God for a special purpose.  Holiness can be expressed through worship and lived through people by the love of God that manifests itself in human and interpersonal interaction.   Numbers is a book of census data very similar to the US census that comes out every ten years.  Numbers includes the Hebrews wilderness journey from Kadesh Barnea to the Promised Land and stories about spies entering Canaan, the forty years of wandering and the miracles of Moses.  Deuteronomy, the last book of the Pentateuch is Moses’ farewell speech before the Tribes enter the Promised Land.

The Pentateuch is so rich because it chronicles the spiritual lives of an oppressed people, who often get caught or stuck trying to make sense of their dilemma.  Their only flaw is they turn there back on God.  Black people and other oppressed and marginalized people across the globe are often caught in this same predicament.

The reason many Civil Rights leaders used the Moses or Exodus narratives to inspire us as a people during the Civil rights Movement, was because of the plethora of parallels between the Children of Israel and the struggle for black equality in America.  You can actually go to the Exodus story and replace the children of Israel or Hebrews with any marginalized group (black, Latinos, Aborigines etc) and see that oppression and liberation historically are similar.  I believe this because of the response of the oppressed was to turn, depend, trust and hope in God.

Our struggle is a beautiful one and deserves to be celebrated not only in February but every day of our lives.  Our people have persevered because we have taken the lemons of life and turned them into sweet lemonade.  We have survived the Trans-Atlantic and East African Slave Trades.  We’ve survived slavery and Jim Crow.  We are presently surviving racial profiling, environmental racism, and institutional and systemic racism.  We have prospered because God has been at the center of our struggle.  I’m reminded of the words of Paul, in Philippians 3:13 “I do not count myself to have apprehended: but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” Let’s press on and move on up a little higher. I encourage us to not take a literal interpretation of Paul’s text.  Like the children of Israel, let’s have our own Passover and celebrate what God has done in our lives and never forget our struggles and victories.  At the same time, let those pains and abuses push us even closer into the presence of God.