WE MADE US A MICAH
So, the name of the
shooter was Micah.
Micah was one of the
Hebrew Testament prophets who warned against the greed and avarice of the
leaders of the day, and who defended the poor and disenfranchised against the
rich and powerful. The book of Micah both laments and prophesies coming doom,
as well as predicts an era of peace under the leadership of a monarch in the
Davidic line… (which Christians later understood to be Jesus Christ.)
Now, I haven’t heard
anyone else make this connection, so I’m sure I’m going out on a theological
limb here.
Let’s get one thing
straight. I do not believe in a God who would engineer the killing of police
officers by the hand of someone with a conveniently Biblical name to make a
point. God, for me, is just not that detail-oriented.
However, I’m a Jungian,
and I think the synchronicity here, and very possibly the sheer coincidence, is
fascinating. And maybe I’m just being an English major/theologian who can’t
resist a great extended metaphor.
But, unlike some of my
colleagues, who wish they did not have to preach this Sunday, I would love to
be with the people of God. Because anti-racism has been my calling since I
entered ministry more than twenty years ago, this time in particular has become
a time of passionate involvement for me, informed not only by my faith, but by
all of my humanity: parent, child, woman, friend, student, writer, wanderer,
and preacher.
Micah starts out with a
rebuke to those who worship “false gods.” If I were preaching about that today,
I’d have a lot to say, but let me start with Chapter 2:
Woe
to those who plan iniquity
to
those who plot evil on their beds
At
morning’s light they carry it out because it is in their power to do it.
…They
defraud a man of his home, a fellowman of his inheritance.
Therefore,
the Lord says, I am planning disaster against this people
from
which you cannot save yourselves.
There is more… lots more.
Grab a Bible, and read Micah. It’s short. But essentially (leaving aside the
ranting and railing against ‘pagans’) the prophets were full of these
exhortations. Micah, in just a few pages, moves rapidly though the threats,
channeling God, to the promise (almost identical to that made in Isaiah:
Come.
Let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob.
He
will teach us his ways so that we may walk in his paths…
(People
of many nations) will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into
pruning hooks.
Nor
will they train for war anymore.
It is quite clear to me
that Micah, the prophet, spoke wisdom that applies today. When leaders neglect
the poor, the disenfranchised, those who have no voice, no agency, and do so for decades, for centuries, then what we
are seeing now is what is wrought.
What surprises me is why this
is news.
Why are we shocked?
These extrajudicial
killings have gone on and will go on until policing is radically reformed. For
me, policing should be abolished, along with prisons, but I realize that is a
radical position that will cloud this argument. Having militarized, uniformed,
guards patrolling our city streets, stopping and accosting citizens for what
has been shown, again and again, to be without cause, and then refusing to use
tactics to de-escalate, unless the
citizens are white, can no longer be tolerated. African Americans have
tolerated and bent to it for decades because they had no choice if they wanted to live. So, white people who chant “All Lives Matter”
and “Blue Lives Matter” and refuse to listen to the cries of injustice no matter who issues them…you expect
people of color to what? Be quiet and go back into submissiveness?
That won’t happen. And
there is one reason it will not happen.
God is on the side of the
oppressed. Christ is on the side of the oppressed.
James Cone, eminent
Liberation theologian, writes: “The gospel is found wherever poor people
struggle for justice, fighting for their right to life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness.” (The Cross and the
Lynching Tree)
“The Gospel of Liberation
is bad news to all oppressors because they have defined their ‘freedom’ in
terms of slavery of others.”
And more than that. Christ is Black. The cross is Blackness.
Micah is advocating for people of Color.
James Cone: “The coming
of Christ means a denial of what we thought we were. It means destroying the
white devil in us. Reconciliation to God means that white people are prepared
to deny themselves (whiteness)Take up the cross(blackness) and follow Christ
(the Black ghetto.)
I daresay any number of
white churches, most if not all, will honor those police officers who died last
week. That’s understandable. My question: have they raised up the Black Lives
and black bodies in the same way? The sad and ironic thing about the killings
wrought by this present day Micah and his prophecy is that of all police departments,
Dallas was one that was trying to “reform.” The officers had decided not to wear riot gear, which would have
protected them. That’s tragic. Each one killed was not responsible for his
death.
But the system is corrupt. Almost everyone
understands, but will not acknowledge, the code of secrecy and silence kept by
officers. It’s the circling of wagons and the denial and defensiveness against
any suggestion of wrong doing that underlies the rage that simply boiled over
in someone like Micah. Their tragic and lamentable deaths were wrought by more
than that one person.
In Chapter One, besides ‘pagans,’
Micah goes on about ‘prostitutes.’ It’s synchronous again, because I’d not read
that when I dreamed last night about police officers. I was in a tower and trying to get out. I kept trying to go up or down
winding stairs and saw others going into a room, which I gradually became aware
was a place that cops went to meet prostitutes who were kept there. I tried to
break through a secret “door” in the wall, but each break uncovered more stone
walls. I went into the lobby but saw many cops lounging around, all in street
clothes. Of course, since I am Jungian, I have to understand this dream as
one that is more about myself than about the
police. I have to ask where I am
policing myself, why am I trapped in this tower, what is being prostituted and
why? Details to follow. But today I can’t help touching upon the surface, more
literal meaning, not that I think cops are holding prostitutes in towers, (although
I was told the frequenting of them and silencing around it is routine and well known
in Atlantic City) but that I see actual police as somehow selling out or
keeping me from being free. Is there
something about this race/police issue that I can’t break through to? That I am
trapped/imprisoned about? It was clear to me that I would not be kept
amongst the prostitutes. I was too old. And yet… I couldn’t escape. There was
no way out.
And, this: Micah was
trained by our military. We made him
a sniper. We, who have allowed, since 9/11, endless wars and militarization,
and horrible (I have experienced this first hand with Veterans in my
congregations) after care and mental illness care for Vets, and with the
militarization of police departments in turn, a Micah to even be out there. No
place to turn with his rage. No real help
for his deep, deep distress. He, too, is a victim. And killed, by a
militarized, robotic, bomb. I will not name him a monster.
As James Cone said, The truth about injustice always sounds
outrageous.
I’ll let his words be the
benediction:
In
the private chambers of the soul, the guilty party is identified, and the accusing
finger there is not legend, but consequence, not fantasy, but the truth. People
pay for what they do, and still more, for what they have allowed themselves to
become. And they pay for it simply: by the lives they lead.
What life will you lead?
In the final analysis, you may have more freedom than you imagine.
Amen.
