South Carolina. The entire nation and world were stunned when family members repeatedly stressed forgiveness of the perpetrator. Their sentiments were summed up by Wanda Simmons, granddaughter of victim the Rev. Daniel Simmons:
Although my grandfather and the other victims died at the hands of hate, this is proof, everyone’s plea for your soul, is proof that they lived in love and their legacies will live in love. So hate won’t win. And I just want to thank the court for making sure that hate doesn’t win.1
As Black Christians, they also understood the importance of inverting the great protest motto to say, “NO PEACE! NO JUSTICE!”
Perhaps this Christmas we should recapture the important message of Langston Hughes’s play Black Nativity and remember that God made an ethnic specific statement, sending Jesus, a Jew, in a particular social location. It was God’s way of saying “Jewish Lives Matter.” From that specious reality came the universal witness that all lives matter. So, too, we must seek in our own realities “A Black Nativity.” As critic Peter Simek wrote, “Langston Hughes’ Black Nativity takes the biblical Christmas story and filters the scripture though the cultures of Diasporas Africa. . . . He picked up an ancient Christian tradition of adaptation and appropriation, removing the Germanic tree or the Italian crèche and replacing it with an African drum and a Harlem voice.”2
We will see many crèche scenes this year, signs of God’s peace in a violent and desperate world. Can we see our particular Blackness in the scene, our particular source of peace in the struggle? Can we filter the sacred story through our own culture, our own experience, our own social location—give it the sounds of ancestral rhythms, a community’s voice of protest, and a Soul’s Theology of peace?
I began this message by sharing the photographic discovery of my angry self in a “Black Lives Matter” march for justice and peace. But later in the article I saw another sobering image of myself in a softer scene. I am still walking the protest march but now with some children who had gathered around “the priest in a dress.” As we made eye contact, smiled, and chanted slogans, I noticed in them something I had not when I was walking with other ministers and adult activists. It was a peaceful determination, a sense of empowerment from being in the midst, a kindred community. So many had not known how diverse and united our local community could be. It was, in a sense, a Black Nativity. They were surrounded by mothers and fathers, pastoral shepherds, political wise men and women, and prophetic activists. Like the Christ Child, our Black, vulnerable children were courageously radiating among us—peace in the chaos—and an affirming hope in the struggle. I remember knowing in those moments that God was present. Incarnate.
This year let us share with one another the Nativity gift of peace, even as the struggle for justice continues. And let us remember the promise of our Prince of Peace: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid” (John 14:27).
Merry Christmas.
1. Elahe Izadi, “The Powerful Words of Forgiveness Delivered to Dylann Roof by Victims’ Relatives,” The Washington Post, June 19, 2015, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2015/06/19/hate-wont-win-the-powerful-words-delivered-to-dylann-roof-by-victims-relatives/.
2. Peter Simek, “Does the New Black Nativity Retain the Heart of Langston Hughes’ Classic Story?” dmagazine, November 27, 2013, https://www.dmagazine.com/arts-entertainment/2013/11/does-the-new-black-nativity-retain-the-heart-of-langston-hughes-classic-story/.
LUKE 8:26–39; JOHN 13:35
In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus encounters a man possessed by demons called Legion. A military legion is six thousand men. We can assume that he was possessed by not just one, but many demons. His demons caused him to be violent and self-destructive. He was so strong that he overpowered everyone and even broke his chains. He was an outcast living outside of the community where the dead were buried. To the people of the community, it was as if he was dead. He was no longer a part of the community. Who are the demon possessed in our community? Who are the outcasts, those we treat as if they were dead?
To answer these questions, I reflected on my recent trip to the historic civil rights sites in Birmingham, Montgomery, and Selma, Alabama. Reliving that journey through pictures, historical accounts, and the stories of those who actually experienced Bloody Sunday on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church, the attacks of the dogs, the tear gas and the beatings, I am reminded that we live in a country full of demons. These demons have names, not just an all-inclusive name like Legion. But individual names like hatred and self-hatred, injustice, cruelty, intolerance, arrogance, greed, selfishness, addiction, mental illness, and I’m sure you can name more.
But the man doesn’t come to Jesus looking to be healed as others have done. He comes confronting Jesus asking, “What business do you have messing with me? You’re Jesus, Son of the High God, but don’t give me a hard time!” (Luke 8:26–29, MSG). The demons are behind this outburst because when Jesus saw the man, Jesus commanded the demons to come out of him. Who are the demons who confront Jesus today basically saying leave us alone? Which demons is Jesus messing with, giving a hard time today? Who is Jesus disturbing?
Our country and the world are like the demon-possessed man. We are naked before each other: seen for our hypocrisy. We claim to be a Christian nation yet our actions say, “Jesus we know who you are but leave us alone and stop giving us a hard time.” We are disturbed by what we know is right, but do what we want any way. We live in graveyards that are filled with the victims of our past and present demonic behavior. People kidnapped from their homelands and sold into slavery. African families torn apart because they were seen as property, not humans, or Native American families separated because they were considered savages and their children needed to be civilized—made White. Systems and institutions were built upon the premise that white is superior and everything else is inferior. We are still tearing apart families of those who fear for their lives in their own country and have bought into the contradiction of this country as a place of safety and freedom for all. We foment violence around the world because of religious differences, ethnic differences, cultural differences. We are self-destructive, destroying our planet for profit. We are demon possessed.
Jesus doesn’t send the demons back where they came from, the abyss, but gives them permission to enter the herd of pigs. The pigs are driven crazy by the demons and end up drowning. This so frightens those who saw all of this taking place that they run into the town to tell everyone what happened. When the people return, they find the man seated at Jesus’s feet, fully clothed and in his right mind. Yet, what was the people’s initial response? Fear. They were afraid. They were so afraid that they asked Jesus to leave their home. Why were the people afraid? Who is fearful of Jesus’s actions today?
Like the demon-possessed man, we are bound with chains of division and chaos crafted out of hatred for the other, greed for profit over people’s welfare, selfishness over the common good, and arrogance in the belief that our way is
