THE SERMON OF REV WRIGHT
"We've bombed Hiroshima, we've bombed Nagasaki, we've nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon and we never batted an eye. . . . We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant. Because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back into our own front yards. America's chickens are coming home to roost."
"Every public service of worship I have heard about so far in the wake of the American tragedy has had, in its prayers and in its preachments, sympathy and compassion for those who were killed and for their families. And God's guidance upon the selected presidents and our war machine as they do what they do and what they got to do.
"Paybacks. There's a move in Psalm 137 from thoughts of paying tithes to thoughts of paying back. A move if you will from worship to war. A move in other words from the worship of the God of creation to war against those whom God created. And I want you to notice very carefully the next move. One of the reasons this psalm is rarely read in its entirety because it is a move that spotlights the insanity of the cycle of violence and the cycle of hatred.
"Look at the verse, Verse 9: 'Happy shall they be who take your little ones and dash them against the rocks.' The people of faith, by the rivers of Babylon, how should we sing the Lord's song if I forget thee? The people of faith have moved from the hatred of armed enemies, these soldiers who captured the King, those soldiers who slaughtered his sons and put his eyes out, the soldiers who sacked the city, burned their towns, burned the temple, burned their towers. They moved from the hatred of armed enemies to the hatred of unarmed innocents. The babies. The babies. Blessed are they who dash your babies' brains against a rock. And that, my beloved, is a dangerous place to be.
"Yet that is where the people of faith are in 551 B.C. and that is where far too many people of faith are in 2001 A.D. We have moved from the hatred of armed enemies to the hatred of unarmed innocents. We want revenge. We want paybacks and we don't care who gets hurt in the process.
"Now, I asked the Lord, what should our response be in light of such an unthinkable act? But before I share with you what the Lord showed me, I want to give you one of my little faith footnotes. Visitors, I often give faith footnotes so that our members don't lose sight of the big picture. Let me give you a little faith footnote. Turn to your neighbor and say 'faith footnotes.'
"I heard Ambassador [Edward] Peck on an interview yesterday, did anybody else see him or hear him? He was on Fox News. This is a white man, and he was upsetting the Fox News commentators to no end. Did you see him, John? A white man. He pointed out, an ambassador, that what Malcolm X said when he got silenced by Elijah Muhammad was in fact true, that America's chickens are coming home to roost.
"We took this country by terror away from the Sioux, the Apache, the Iroquois, the Comanche, the Arapaho, the Navajo. Terrorism. We took Africans from their country to build our way of ease and kept them enslaved and living in fear. Terrorism. We bombed Grenada and killed innocent civilians, babies, non-military personnel; we bombed the black civilian community of Panama, with stealth bombers, and killed unarmed teenagers and toddlers, pregnant mothers and hard-working fathers. We've bombed [Moammar] Gadhafi's home and killed his child.
"Blessed are they who bash your children's heads against the rocks. We bombed Iraq; we killed unarmed civilians trying to make a living. We bombed a plant in Sudan to pay back an attack on our embassy. Killed hundreds of hard-working people, mothers and fathers who left home to go that day, not knowing that they would never get back home.
"We've bombed Hiroshima, we've bombed Nagasaki, we've nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon and we never batted an eye. Kids playing in the playground, mothers picking up children after school, civilians not soldiers, people just trying to make it day by day.
"We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant. Because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back into our own front yards.
"America's chickens are coming home to roost. Violence begets violence. Hatred begets hatred and terrorism begets terrorism. A white ambassador said that, y'all, not a black militant. Not a reverend who preaches about racism. An ambassador whose eyes are wide open and who's trying to get us to wake up and move away from this dangerous precipice upon which we are now poised. The ambassador said the people that we have wounded don't have the military capability we have but they do have individuals who are willing to die, to take thousands with them, and we need to come to grips with that. Let me stop my faith footnote right there. And ask you to think about this for the next few weeks if God grants us that. Turn back to your neighbor and say: 'Footnote is over.'
"Come on back to my question to the Lord. What should our response be right now in light of such an unthinkable act? . . . This is a time of self-examination. The Lord said to me: 'How is our relationship doing, Jeremiah? How often do you talk to me personally? How often do you let me talk to you privately? How much time do you spend trying to get right with me? Or do you spend all your time trying to get other folk right?' This is a time for me to examine my own relationship with God. Is it real or is it fake? Is it forever or is it for show? Is it something you do for the sake of the public or is it something you do for the sake of eternity? This is a time to examine my own relationship and a time for you to examine your own relationship with God. Self-examination."
JULY 2003
Sound bite: "The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing 'God Bless America'? No, no, no, not 'God Bless America,' 'God Damn America.' "
Excerpt: "Prior to Abraham Lincoln, the government in this country said it was legal to hold Africans in slavery in perpetuity. Perpetuity is one of them University of Chicago words that means forever. From now on.
"When Lincoln got into office the government changed. Prior to the passing of the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution, the government defined Africans as slaves, as property. Property. People with no rights to be respected by any whites anywhere. The Supreme Court of the government, same court, granddaddy court of the one that stole the 2000 election. The Supreme Court said in its Dred Scott decision, in the 1850s, no African anywhere in this country has any rights that any white person has to respect at any place any time.
"That was the government's official position backed up by the Supreme Court—that's the judiciary, backed up by the executive branch, [and] that's the president, backed up by the legislative branch and enforced by the military of the government. But I stopped by to tell you tonight that governments change.
"Prior to Harry Truman's government, the military in this country was segregated. But governments change. Prior to the civil rights and equal accommodations laws of the government in this country there was backed segregation by the country, legal discrimination by the government, prohibiting blacks from voting by the government. You had to eat in separate places by the government. You had to sit in different places from white folk 'cause the government says so. And, you had to be buried in a separate cemetery. It was apartheid American-style from the cradle to the grave all because the government backed it up. But guess what! Governments change.
"Under Bill Clinton, we got a messed up welfare-to-work bill. But under Clinton, blacks had an intelligent friend in the Oval Office. Ooh, but governments change. The election was stolen. We went from an intelligent friend to a dumb Dixiecrat, a rich Republican who has never held a job in his life, is against affirmative action, against education—I guess he is, ha!—against health care, against benefits for his own military, and gives tax breaks to the wealthiest contributors to his campaign. Governments change—sometimes for the good and sometimes for the bad.
"But I'm fixing to help you again. Turn back and say: 'He's fixing to help us again.' When governments change, write this down: Malachi 3:6, Malachi 3:6: 'Thus said the Lord,' repeat it after me, 'For I am the Lord, and I change not.' That's the King James Version. The New Revised says: 'For I the Lord do not change.' In other words, where governments change, God does not change. God is the same yesterday, today, and forevermore. That's what his name 'I am' means. You know, he does not change. There is no shadow of turning in God. One songwriter puts it this way: 'As thou has been, thou forever will be. Thou changest not. Thy compassions, they fail not. Great is thy faithfulness Lord unto me.' God does not change.
"God was against slavery on yesterday and God who does not change is still against slavery today. God was a God of love yesterday, and God who does not change is still a God of love today. God was a God of justice on yesterday, and God who does not change is still a God of justice today. Turn to your neighbor and say: 'God does not change.'
"Where governments lie, God does not lie. Where governments change, God does not change. And I'm through now. But let me leave you with one more thing.
"Governments fail. The government in this text, comprised of Caesar . . . [and] Pontius Pilate, the Roman government failed. The British government used to rule from East to West. The British government had a Union Jack. She colonized Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria, Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad and Hong Kong. Her navies ruled the Seven Seas all the way down to the tip of Argentina in the Falklands. But the British government failed. The Russian government failed. The Japanese government failed. The German government failed.
"And the United States of America government, when it came to treating her citizens of Indian descent fairly, she failed. She put them on the reservations. When it came to treating her citizens of Japanese descent fairly, she failed. She put them in internment prison camps. When it came to treating the citizens of African descent fairly, America failed. She put them in chains. The government put them on slave quarters, put them on auction blocks, put them in cotton fields, put them in inferior schools, put them in substandard housing, put them in scientific experiments, put them in the lowest paying jobs, put them outside the equal protection of the law, kept them out of the racist bastions of higher education and locked them into positions of hopelessness and helplessness. The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing 'God Bless America'?
"No, no, no, not 'God Bless America,' 'God Damn America.' That's in the Bible, for killing innocent people. God damn America for treating its citizens as less than human, God damn America as long as she tries to act like she is God and she is supreme. The United States government has failed the vast majority of her citizens of African descent."
JAN. 13, 2008
Sound bite: "Hillary is married to Bill, and Bill has been good to us. No he ain't. Bill did us just like he did Monica Lewinski. He was riding dirty."
Excerpt: "Some of us, his own disciples, could not see how the Lord could use a Rosa Parks, a Martin Luther King to bring an end to the sick and silly system of segregation. White Christian preachers, the Lord's disciples, told Martin Luther King he was moving too fast. 'Slow down. Give it some time' God shows us the answer but we let our 'buts' get in the way.
"There is a man here who can take this country in a new direction. 'But he's a black man.' There is a man here who is empowered by hope to usher in an era of change in a country that is in desperate need of a change. 'But he ain't black enough.' There is a man here who can get Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists and persons of no faith to sit down at the table of brotherhood and sisterhood and talk about our common humanity and our common future. 'But I ain't gonna vote for him 'cause I don't want to waste my vote.'
" 'But Hillary is married to Bill, and Bill has been good to us.' No he ain't. Bill did us just like he did Monica Lewinsky. He was riding dirty. But he fixed it so that some of y'all are now riding pretty. Money talks and BS walks. BS, that's bogus stuff. Walk all over this country; walk all over the Internet—bogus stuff. Walk all over your self-confidence.
" 'I would work for Barack, but he doesn't have the experience that Hillary has.' 'But he's an unknown in terms of foreign policy.' 'But his health-care plan ain't as good as Edwards' plan.' 'But the church he has belonged to for 20 years causes some white people and some Uncle Toms some problems.' God shows us the answer and we let our 'buts' get in the way. Put it another way, God shows us the answer and, like Andrew, we show God our 'buts.'
" 'But this ain't gonna work.' 'But we never did it that way before.' 'But this can never happen.' 'But Pastor Wright don't do it like that, Pastor Moss.' God shows us the answer and we let our 'buts' get in the way. God shows us the answer and we show God our 'buts' as we head for the exit. God shows us the answer and like Andrew we tell God what he shows us ain't gonna work."
WHAT WE HAVE DONE FOR OURSELVES ALONE DIES WITH US;WHAT WE HAVE DONE FOR OTHERS AND THE WORLD IS AND REMAINS IMMORTAL
