A CUSSING KING

Warning.  This post contains a fully spelled out curse word, but it’s not me cussing. 

Inspired by former NFL quarterback Colin Kapernick, several NFL players elected to protest police brutality and systemic racism by kneeling during the national anthem.  President Donald J. Trump said:

In fairness to the president, this is not the first time a national leader went all potty-mouth in public.

Read 1 Samuel chapter 20.

Saul, the first king of Israel, had been chosen by God (1 Samuel 9:15-17), anointed by the prophet-priest Samuel (1 Samuel 10:1), and publicly selected in a national election in which the outcome was predetermined (1 Samuel 10:20-22).

In the first year of his administration, the new king solidified a fiercely loyal and enthusiastic base. 

So all the people shouted and said, “Long live the king!” (1 Samuel 10:24)

He inspired an opposition movement that questioned his qualifications for the office. 

But some rebels said, “How can this man save us?” So they despised him, and brought him no presents. But he held his peace. (1 Samuel 10:27)

And his supporters took violent action against their leader’s critics, which Saul actually, definitively condemned.

Then the people said to Samuel, “Who is he who said, ‘Shall Saul reign over us?’ Bring the men, that we may put them to death.”

But Saul said, “Not a man shall be put to death this day, for today the Lord has accomplished salvation in Israel” (1 Samuel 11: 12,13).

They had high hopes for King Saul until he started saying stupid stuff and issuing cool-sounding orders that made no sense.  Like, in 1 Samuel 14, when Saul cancelled all meals for the army and threatened to execute anyone who  ate or even drank water.  And this was while the army was in the middle of major combat (1 Samuel 24).  The king appointed David to his staff, but then he got mad because David was doing his job right, so he turned on David and tried to destroy him (1 Samuel 18; 19).

Around this time Saul contracted potty mouth.  Suspecting that his son and 2^nd in command, Jonathan, was not sufficiently enthusiastic about having his best friend and colleague David murdered, 1 Samuel 20:3-33, explains: Then Saul’s anger was aroused against Jonathan, and he said to him, “You son of a perverse, rebellious woman! Do I not know that you have chosen the son of Jesse to your own shame and to the shame of your mother’s nakedness?

“You son of a perverse, rebellious woman!” Translation, You, son of a b****!

The “shame of your mother’s nakedness” is either a reference to Jonathan’s birth, or a callback to the euphemism “uncover the nakedness of”  in Leviticus 18.  It's a euphemism for "have sex with."  The former interpretation means Saul said Jonathan had been a disappointment since the day he was born.  

The second interpretation, which I think is correct, means Saul said: “Jonathan, you son of a b****! I knew you’d chose that mother-f****  David over me!”

Now, where was I going with this?

Oh, yeah.    Three points: 

1) There’s going to be a lot more yelling, and cursing, and twitter-spear throwing before this term is over.

After all that cussing, Saul continued to be  king.

People asked David to remove Saul from office, but nope.    

Look, this day your eyes have seen that the LORD delivered you today into my hand in the cave, and someone urged me to kill you. But my eye spared you, and I said, ‘I will not stretch out my hand against my lord, for he is the LORD’s anointed’ (1 Samuel 24:10).

The cussin’ king had a long, full term as leader of the nation. For 4 decades, he decided military action, tax policy, immigration law.  During that time the political climate was characterized by infighting, betrayal, military resources wasted on strategically pointless personal vendettas and a steep degree of moral and psychological decline so bad that Samuel literally came back as a ghost to tell Saul that he was an idiot (1 Samuel 28:13-19).

But he was in office for a long, long, long time.   

2)  A verbally filthy leader indicates a spiritually unprotected nation. 

Unrestrained speech shows that the spirit of the leader is  unrepentant and un-redeemeed. Oh, the king/ president can go up to the temple and make the sacrifices/ take the communion and say all the right churchy words, but if he can't control his mouth,the Bible says that his faith is powerless at best, and insincere at worst. 

Read 1 Samuel 15. 

Saul’s unraveled, public profanity came after God had withdrawn His favor on the anointed, elected leader. 

Samuel said to Saul, “I will not return with you, for you have rejected the word of the Lord, and the Lord has rejected you from being king over Israel” (1 Samuel 15:26).

3)  A nation following a leader who is leading outside of God’s favor, is a nation on the verge of getting its butt kicked by somebody and/ or something.

The next major military action led by Saul ended in humiliating defeat for his nation and a series of murder suicides that decimated the royal family (1 Samuel  31:1-13).

When a proclaimed Christian acts without restraint, it means that God had stopped restraining him/her.  If God has withdrawn His restraint, then God has also withdrawn His FAVOR (Acts 7:42-43; Romans 1:24-25). 

A nation outside of God's favor that thinks it's still God's chosen people, a spiritually unprotected people whose think they're still the America that God shed his grace on ----- that's a nation about to have a very unpleasant surprise. 

---Anderson T. Graves II   is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church in Fairfield, Alabama;  executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO);  and director of rural leadership development for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).

Subscribe to my personal blog  www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com .

Email atgravestwo2@aol.com

Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves

Follow me on twitter @AndersonTGraves 

Click here to support this ministry with a donation.  Or go to andersontgraves.blogspot.com and click on the DONATE button on the right-hand sidebar.

Support by check or money order may be mailed to 

Miles Chapel CME Church

P O Box 132

Fairfield, Al 35064

MAKING FOOLS OF WISE MEN

Herod, the Roman-appointed king of the Jews, had an international reputation for murdering most of his own biological family because he thought that maybe one of them might also want to be king one day.

Why then did the Wise Men trust Herod with their information about He who has been born King of the Jews (Matthew 2:2)?

Not because they were naive.

The Wise Men weren’t just astronomers or Eastern priests. They had the financial and political resources to spend 2 years looking for a single, unnamed child and then to cross the frontiers between empires on their personal quest to test the validity of their star hypothesis. They didn't just have the extremely valuable gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, they also had the money and letters of royal favor necessary for a caravan of guards, servants, supplies, and the requisite gifts/bribes for a 2 years of 1st century travel from and back to their far eastern home.

The Wise Men/ Magi were rich, smart, well-connected, and politically sophisticated guys. They knew the politics of the world, including the Roman empire.

Why did they believe Herod would join them in paying state homage to a competing heir to his throne ?

And he sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and search carefully for the young Child, and when you have found Him, bring back word to me, that I may come and worship Him also. (Matthew 2:8)

You see, Herod was one of those people who was obviously terrible on paper, but really nice in person. When the Wise Men arrived looking for the new King, they asked around in the city not in the palace. Herod had to invite them to the palace (Matthew 2:7). From a distance, the Wise Men knew to keep their distance from Herod. But up close, the man was charismatic and charming. Then Herod, when he had secretly called the wise men, determined from them what time the star appeared. (Matthew 2:7)

Herod gave the Wise Men a private audience. He wined them and dined them and showed them the magnificence of his palace. Herod told them of all the new building he’d built in Jerusalem, all the development and jobs he’d created. Herod listened attentively to them go off on tangents about their work, affirmed how important they were, and asked them to join him in his plan to MAKE JUDEA GREAT AGAIN.

The Wise Men knew they shouldn’t trust him, but once you’d shared wine and steak in his tower, he didn’t seem like such a bad guy. As far as the Magi knew, “Hey, Herod was the one who figured out that the new king was in Bethlehem.” (Matthew 2:3,4,8)

The Magi got Trumped.

They were good guys. They were smart guys. They truly sought and sincerely worshiped Jesus. They just got Trumped. It can happen to the wisest men and women. But here’s the thing. Herod did point them in the right direction. For all the wrong, most evil reason, yes. But God makes all things work together for good for people who are wise enough to love the Lord and follow God's calling. (Romans 8:28)

Enroute to Bethlehem, the star reappeared and led the Wise Men straight to Jesus. 
You gotta see where people are going, not just who started them in that direction. We need to hear what people are trying to do beyond their political affiliation. We meet people who've been on their path long before the last campaign season began.

Scripture defines wisdom. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

If they and you are wise in the Biblical sense, then you and they will find common ground and hear common direction. With a little distance from Herod, the Wise Men were able to hear the same warning that Joseph heard.

Then, being divinely warned in a dream that they [the Wise Men] should not return to Herod, they departed for their own country another way. Now when they had departed, behold, an angel

of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying, “Arise, take the young Child and His mother, flee to Egypt, and stay there until I bring you word; for Herod will seek the young Child to destroy Him.” (Matthew 2:12,13)

No matter how wise we are in the things of the world, we can be trumped, we can be fooled by a particularly charming and charismatic leader. We don’t know we’ve been fooled until we get to a place where we can hear clearly from God.  But once we hear, then we have to move, and the next move is usually in a very different direction.
Here we all are this Christmas with different bumper stickers on our cars.   However we got to this place, may we all be wise enough to hear which way to go from here.

Merry Christmas.

---Anderson T. Graves II   is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church in Fairfield, Alabama;  executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO);  and director of rural leadership development for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).

Subscribe to my personal blog  www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com .

Email atgravestwo2@aol.com

Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves

Follow me on twitter @AndersonTGraves 

You can help support this ministry with a donation to Miles Chapel CME Church.

You can help support Rev. Graves’ work by visiting his personal blog and clicking the DONATE button on the right-hand sidebar.

Support by check or money order may be mailed to 

Miles Chapel CME Church

P O Box 132

Fairfield, Al 35064

TRUMP WON AND I AIN'T EVEN SURPRISED. LET ME TELL YOU WHY.

Then the manna ceased on the day after they had eaten the produce of the land; and the children of Israel no longer had manna, but they ate the food of the land of Canaan that year. (Joshua 5:12)

At 4 A.M., Wednesday, November 9, 2016, I woke up, checked the internet feeds

I’d diligently ignored since I voted on Tuesday, and learned that Donald Trump had been elected president.

I was not surprised.

Oh, I wasn’t happy.  But, I was not surprised.

You see, President Trump is what happens when the people don’t adjust after the manna ceases.

Let me explain.

Through Moses, God freed the children of Israel from bondage in Egypt, and set them on an Exodus from Goshen to the Promised Land of Canaan.  A recently emancipated people who had not controlled their own political destiny for 400+ years (Exodus 12:40,41) began the journey from the state of slavery in Goshen to the state of freedom and political sovereignty in Canaan.  It was a slower process than expected. 

Along the way the people complained of hunger (Exodus 16).  It was a valid complaint. 

They’d left Egypt in haste, without time to pack enough supplies for their march through the wilderness (Exodus 12:11, 31-33), and they couldn’t secure supplies from the surrounding kingdoms so God gave them a support system, a new means of meeting their basic daily needs as they moved from slave to sovereignty.

 

In Exodus 16, God  gave them MANNA.

And the children of Israel ate manna forty years, until they came to an inhabited land; they ate manna until they came to the border of the land of Canaan. (Exodus 16:35)

But that wasn’t all.

And I have led you forty years in the wilderness. Your clothes have not worn out on you, and your sandals have not worn out on your feet. (Deuteronomy 29:5)

For more than 4 decades, Israel benefited from a Divinely ordained system that protected them from hunger, preserved their clothing and equipment, and protected them from the hostile peoples who surrounded them on every side.  

Life in the wilderness was still hard, but under the manna-system the people grew strong.  When Moses died and Joshua assumed command, most of the children of Israel didn’t know anything except the manna-based support system.

(Yes, I’m explaining why Trump’s election wasn’t a surprise.)

When Joshua succeeded Moses as leader, manna was all the living Israelites had ever known.  In 2008, most Americans had lived all or most of their lives after the Civil Rights Movement.  Most of us have only always known the social safety net of welfare, unemployment insurance, federally funded community programs, and civil rights protections for minorities, women, and immigrants.  That package of policies and protections is the manna that has been there every morning to protect and preserve us in the transition from slavery/segregation to sovereignty/ self-determination.

But then something happened. 

Then the manna ceased.

40 years after God proclaimed the Israelite sojourn in the wilderness, a new leader walked them into the sacred space for which they and their ancestor had dreamed.  Joshua marched his people into the Promised Land, and as soon as they just got their first taste of the Promise, God took away their manna.  The system which had protected and preserved them just dissolved. 

The support system was gone, and that wasn't even the worst part.

Remember, in Joshua 5, the Israelites were in the Promised Land, but they didn’t control the land.  They didn’t possess property.  All of the cities, the financial power, the military might, and the cultural controls in Canaan belonged to pagans.  They wouldn’t receive their promised inheritance in the Promised Land the way they’d received manna.  It wouldn't just happen because it was supposed to.  In the post-manna system God’s people had to work and fight. 

The Hittites, Hivites, Amorites, Amalekites, and WHatever-ITES didn’t give up their superior strategic positions because the children of a bunch of landless ex-slaves claimed it in the name of their God.  Every foot of land, every stage of taking possession was won through sweat, blood, and effort. Good took that sweat, blood, and effort and miraculously multiplied its effectiveness; but possessing the Promised Land wasn’t walk outside and collect your manna check easy.  They had to fight for it and they had to fight without the manna-based support system.

Wait.  Wait.  Now, follow me on this.

In the book of Joshua, the manna didn’t cease when Israel fought their first battle in Canaan.  The manna didn’t cease when they faced their first great enemy.  The manna ceased when they enjoyed the fruit of the Promise. 

The manna didn’t cease when Donald Trump was elected in 2016.  Nope.  The manna had been gone long before that.

The manna ceased back in November of 2008.  As soon as you got a taste.  As soon as you felt like you’d arrived.  After 40 years of wandering in the wilderness after Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King died (1968), America elected an

African-American president and promptly began dismantling the programs and protections we’d all always known. 

The  last  glass ceiling (Black glass) shattered in 2008, and since then we’ve been standing in the civil rights Promised Land. 

In 2012, God called me to take leave from my work as a public school administrator and do community ministry and research.  The research revealed that we who celebrated in 2008 had made a critical Promised Land error.  We had continued to live like we had manna.  We were collectively waiting for the heavenly bread of economic prosperity and civil justice to just appear one morning. 

It never did.

We forgot that people were already in the Promised when we pulled up.  We forgot that those people were not going to surrender their positions of superiority without a fight. 

We failed to appreciate the seriousness of the majority’s battle cry to repel our grasp for power, to take their country back, and to  make the Promised Land great again.

And that is why I’m not surprised that Donald Trump will be president of the United States.

He is the inevitable result of underestimating the backlash from daring to stand in space which for 400+ years was occupied, fortified, and personalized to fit and protect particular peoples.

The manna ceased.  The paradigm shifted.  But, we didn’t step up our game to

match.  And that’s why the heathen builder of temples to sin and excess beat our brakes off in a national political battle.

Solution

Yeah, that just happened. Now what?  I propose the following 3 actions:

1.  Remember.

God told Joshua, “ Only be strong and very courageous, that you may observe to do according to all the law which Moses My servant commanded you; do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may prosper wherever you go.

This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate

in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.” (Joshua 1:-8)

Remember again the sacred text that empowered and informed the ancestors who came out of slavery and segregation.  The enemy has fought a clever misinformation campaign to make us think of the Bible as the means of oppression and forget that Bible is actually the playbook for liberation.

2.  Repent

In Joshua chapter 24, the children of Israel repeatedly declared their allegiance to God.  Joshua repeatedly questioned their sincerity.  When  they swore that their faith and covenant was sure, Joshua said “O.K.,” and then he said: “ “Now therefore,” he said, “put away the foreign gods which are among you, and incline your heart to the Lord God of Israel” (Joshua 24:23).

At the very moment the people were shouting about loving God and trusting Him alone they had idols hidden among them. Their leader acknowledged their promises but simultaneously called their attention to their sins.  

We have to be honest with ourselves and our circles of influence.  Honest about how wrong we are, honest about how far we’ve drifted from God’s Word, and honest about all the little idols we worship when we finish shouting on Sunday morning.

3.  Revive

In Joshua chapter 7, the Israelites harbored unrepented sin, and so the pagan nation of Ai beat their brakes of in battle.  But they dealt with it and in chapter 8, Israel beat the brakes off Ai and had a comprehensive Bible study.

And afterward he read all the words of the law, the blessings and the cursings, according to all that is written in the Book of the Law. ³⁵ There was not a word of all that Moses had commanded which Joshua did not read before all the assembly of Israel, with the women, the little ones, and the strangers who were living among them (Joshua 8:34-355).

4. Rise to the challenges.

Learn to fight according to God’s Word.  Then fight harder.  Learn to organize in alignment with the full witness of Scripture.  Then organize even more effectively.  Learn to start and operate a business in obedience to the Bible and then start a new business or run the office you have better than ever.  The battle doesn’t change, but you and I should. 

Trump won. 

Yes.  You have to acknowledge it.

Say it with me.

“Trump”

 “ Won”

Now, let the redeemed of the Lord say, “So.”

You know why.  You know what you need to do.

Stop acting so surprised.

---Anderson T. Graves II   is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church in Fairfield, Alabama;  executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO);  and director of rural leadership development for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).

Subscribe to my personal blog  www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com .

Email atgravestwo2@aol.com

Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves

Follow me on twitter @AndersonTGraves  #Awordtothewise 

You can help support this ministry with a donation to Miles Chapel CME Church.

You can help support Rev. Graves’ work by visiting his personal blog and clicking the DONATE button on the right-hand sidebar.

Support by check or money order may be mailed to 

Miles Chapel CME Church

P O Box 132

Fairfield, Al 35064

  

THE FACE OF TRUTH? or THE FACE OF EVIL?

A  new HuffPost/YouGov poll, asked Democrats and Republicans about their opinions on a range of political proposals (universal healthcare, the Iran nuclear deal, affirmative action, etc.).  Half of the time the researchers said that the proposals came from Democrats (President Obama, Hillary Clinton, and/or John Kerry).  The other half they said the same ideas came from Republican Donald Trump.  The poll found that people’s positions on important political issues were more influenced by whom they thought the idea came from than by what the idea actually was.    (Read more here on the Huffington Post website.)

One of the poll items asked people if they supported or wanted to repeal the 1975 Public Affairs Act.  Republicans were more likely to support the 1975 Public Affairs Act when they were told that President Obama wanted to repeal it.  Democrats were more like to support keeping the 1975 Public Affairs Act when they were told Republicans wanted to repeal it.

P.S.  There is no 1975 Public Affairs Act.

In other words, for Democrats and for Republicans, for liberals and for conservatives, the party mattered more than the truth.

In John 3: 20, Jesus said “everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light.”  In verse 21, Jesus said, “he who does the truth comes to the light.”

Truth comes to light.  Evil doesn’t come to the light.

Jesus said that the opposite of truth is evil.

Political parties are not inherently evil.  But, absolute loyalty to a political party, or to any human institution, does and always has led to all kinds of EVIL.  Most Nazis during WWII never saw a concentration camp, but they supported their party.   Most White Southerners ,ca. 1781 – 1955, never murdered a Black person, but they revered the Klan and supported segregation.  Most of the ugliest episodes in human history have been carried out by people who personally knew little to nothing about the people they raped, murdered, and displaced.  They didn’t know the truth.  They only knew what their party told them.

Kill the Savages.

Hang the Niggers.

Death to America.

F*** the Police.

When historians arrive in the aftermath of party instituted atrocities, they pick through the rubble, and ask, “How could people have done such terrible things?”

Because the people didn’t know the truth.  And without truth, all you have is evil.

More and more, each of receives news tailored to our socio-political digital profile.  More and more, we see, hear, and read only what our party says.  We are increasingly isolated from the truth.  We are progressively conditioned for evil.

My side’s position isn’t true because it came from my side.  Your side’s either.  You and I have to put in the extra work to read the other side’s opinion, to dig into the mechanisms behind the study, to go 3 and 4, and 5 and 6 sources back to figure out how two equally qualified experts can reach such different conclusions. We have to discipline ourselves to stop immediately believing the expert who’s on “our side.”

We must pursue the truth, or we’ll end up serving truth’s opposite.  According to Jesus, the opposite of truth is evil.

Jesus said “ And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”

They answered Him, “We are Abraham’s descendants, and have never been in bondage to anyone. How can You say, ‘You will be made free’?”

Jesus answered them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin.

(John 8: 32-34)

So you can either be a slave to your party’s sins (John 8: 34), or you can know the truth and counter the impetus to evil.

Only THE truth can make Americans free.

---Anderson T. Graves II   is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church in Fairfield, Alabama;  executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO);  and director of rural leadership development for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).

Subscribe to my personal blog  www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com .

Email atgravestwo2@aol.com

Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves

Follow me on twitter @AndersonTGraves 

#Awordtothewise

You can help support this ministry with a donation to Miles Chapel CME Church.

You can help support Rev. Graves’ work by visiting his personal blog and clicking the DONATE button on the right-hand sidebar.

Support by check or money order may be mailed to 

Miles Chapel CME Church

P O Box 132

Fairfield, Al 35064