February 8, 2024 • 45 mins
When Michelle Higgins graced our studio, she brought with her a all the fire! In this session of Life After Leaven, we're taken on a transformative journey that challenges our perceptions of sin, atonement, and their ties to the oppressive structures of patriarchy. Michelle's theological insights invite us to consider a new understanding of Jesus' sacrifice and its role in shattering binary perspectives that have long fostered racism and misogyny.
The wisdom of black women takes center stage as we recount stories from a gathering of social entrepreneurs that resonate with power and poignancy. We traverse the landscapes of identity, race, and spirituality, drawing strength from the resilience of the black church against patriarchal constraints. Our dialogue uncovers the profound impact of womanism in shaping these narratives, offering a space for healing and reconciliation amid the complexities of navigating whiteness and embracing non-binary identities.
As we wrap up, the conversation shifts to the historic black church's enduring legacy in shaping salvation and judgment narratives where the marginalized claim their voice. We celebrate the interplay of worship and justice, highlighting figures like Ella Baker who inspire us to keep rising. And in the quiet moments of exile, we share the hope for new networks of solidarity, finding joy in tradition while boldly naming the divine in all aspects of life. Michelle's reflections leave us with an invitation to recognize God's presence more deeply, transforming our personal deserts into places of profound encounter.
Life After Leaven is sponsored by Sub:Culture Incorporated, a 501c3 committed to eradicating cultural, social, spiritual, financial, and academic barriers for Black College Students. If you are interested in giving a tax deductible donation toward our work with black college students, you can do that here. Thank you for helping us ensure temporary roadblocks don't become permanent dead ends for students with marginalized identities. You can follow us on Instagram: @subc_incorporated, Facebook: facebook.com/subcultureinco, and Twitter: @subcultureinco1.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
All right, what's up everybody.
Welcome to this episode, thespecial episode of Life After
Eleven.
I'm back with the one and onlyMichelle Higgins, and in the
last episode Michelle was whenwe got into a little bit of
stuff about Necessary Atonementand Patriarchy and all that kind
of stuff, and so for the heroseries, I kind of went into it a
little bit how I met Michelle,why Michelle is in the hero
(00:24):
series for me, but I would lovefor you all to hear sis go off
theologically.
So that is why we are here.
That is what this episode isabout.
We are going to nerd out andobviously I'm just here to
listen.
So welcome back, friend.
I'm so glad to have you and I'mjust really curious.
I something you said last timeyou talked about.
(00:45):
You still believe in aNecessary Atonement, which was
so helpful.
A lot of the people wholistened to that episode noted
that that was really helpful forthem in terms of figuring out
where they stand, whetherthey're Christian or not, or how
do they take Jesus with them,what is the meaning of Jesus,
and so I think, because thatwent so well, I'd love to have
(01:05):
you talk a little bit more aboutthat and what you mean by the
cross dealing with Patriarchy.
I'm just here for it, sowelcome back.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Well, I'm so excited to share and, like I said, I do
really nerd out around thisstuff, but it's funny.
The way that I really got intostudying this was I did a sermon
series on Genesis and one ofthe things that my congregation
asked me to really dig into wasthis idea of original sin, this
(01:38):
tree in the middle of the garden, the tree of life and the tree
of the knowledge of good andevil.
And we really expressed ourperspective on the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil as atree that forces the binary upon
your vision.
The binary on everything Rightand wrong becomes black and
(02:03):
white, and to the point thatracism, patriarchy, misogyny,
they're really all about thebinary.
And when we sat back and webegan to do the hard work of
allowing the Holy Ghost to queertheology for us, not applying
the queer agenda, which I feelis holy, so human, not applying
(02:26):
the queer agenda to thescripture, I'm allowing the Holy
Ghost to show me the queernessthat appears in theology itself.
And this was our prayer and oursincere prayer from the start
of scripture in Genesis, wherewe see the tree as the origins
of the binary, and then to theend of scripture and Revelation,
(02:46):
where we view an agreement withthe theologian Brian K Blount,
who views the lamb slain as ahomeopathic cure.
You get the COVID shot.
It's a little bit of COVID inthere.
When I got the chickenpoxvaccine is a little bit
chickenpox in there.
And so the homeopathic cure forall violence, all ill, for
(03:08):
misogyny, for patriarchy, is inmany ways the respecting of an
amplifying of femininity andwomanhood, by not crucifying
those, but by moving all of themasculinity that has been so
toxic and has toxified us, fromAdam pointing at his wife all
(03:31):
the way through David pointingat a naked lady on a rooftop All
the way down.
I mean we could.
We could saddle back and go toAbraham and Sarah pointing at a
black Egyptian woman, judahpointing at Tamar it's a whole
bunch of people in Jesus's lineright that are just subsumed by
patriarchy and misogyny.
(03:52):
And how much more of a precioussacrifice is the Rahab's great,
great grand, ruth's great,great grand, tamar's great,
great, great, great grand,bathsheba's great, great, great,
great grandson, who climbs upon the cross to sacrifice
himself and says I could wipeall your simple selves out, but
(04:12):
I won't because I am yourvaccine.
It's Jesus's blood that goesinto the shot that inoculates us
, and that is why I feel thenecessity of atonement, because
human agendas cannot produceholiness, but God's holiness
(04:32):
makes our humanity whole.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
My goodness.
And so you're.
You're saying essentially thatHold on one second, oh God, I
hadn't even thought about beingopen to the cross, and that I
think that way that you justframe that makes me open to
(04:57):
going back and looking at thecross in a different way.
Right, I was okay with theontologically black and the
lynching tree and all of thatkind of stuff, but because of my
you know my rearing andevangelicalism, pino,
substitutionary atonement wasjust not it, because I would
have to embrace some sort of sinnature that I just don't feel
this just not rocking with me,because I think it it puts me in
(05:20):
a position to outsource myintuition, to outsource even my,
my agency in a lot of ways, andso to believe that I am deeply
flawed without my own choice andwithout my own ability to
rectify that, it can be takenadvantage of and was taken
advantage of.
And so I just haven't everheard anybody talk about what
(05:43):
Jesus does or the meaning of thecross from the lens of binaries
and patriarchy and misogyny.
Like that is where, where,where did that come from?
Like how you, you were justspending time in Genesis and it
kind of popped out at you likeyou just built this, how did?
Speaker 2 (06:04):
you.
I mean like good grief, youknow, and I haven't really been
able to find it because one it'sthe job of the preaching, like
studious pastor, to presume thatyou ain't the first person to
think of it, right?
So I'm looking forward and Iinvite our listeners, our, you
know, our siblings in the faithto really challenge me and hook
(06:25):
me up with.
Where I may have seen thisbefore, because that's the last
thing I want to presume, ispeople all over the place quote
me, but because I'm toxic toevangelicals.
I don't get that.
I don't get the side take thatpart yes, but I will say that
the more I thought about my own,you know what we, when I want
(06:45):
to heal from is this idea of sinnature.
But what?
What the movement has taught me, as I've become ingrained in
ministry and movement andmovement is ministry is that
accountability is healthy for us.
And while I would, you know, Iam deeply inspired by and was
you know, still recovering fromthe loss of our beloved Bishop
(07:08):
Carlton Pearson, his, hisjourney really has been
something that I've not evenstriven to emulate, it just kind
of happened.
I remember saving money to putmoney in his offering basket
when my mama and her friends andmy dad, we said drive from
Missouri to Oklahoma just tohear him preach one time in a
(07:30):
year.
Right, and his journey wasamazing to me and his being
found a heretic.
I followed that, siri, I mean, Ifollowed it, like you know.
Big, bigger than any othercelebrity news ever, was the
Bishop being cast out.
So when I began to discover thethings that only God can hold,
(07:53):
one of those things is theknowledge of the presumption
that we can name somethingcompletely good or name
something completely evil.
And is that not whatevangelicalism?
And we don't even have to go toevangelicalism.
Our own beloved Ken in themotherly, who would never call
themselves evangelical, havedecided that queer people are
(08:14):
punishable by death.
It's not evangelicals, let'snot harp on them, but I do
believe that people have decidedthat absolute something is in
the hands of man and God saidthere are absolutes, don't get
me wrong, but I own them.
And the knowledge of good andevil is for you to look at and
to respect.
(08:34):
That God knows how to eat fruit.
It's for you to to put in yourown gardening and contributions
into the soil of the tree of theknowledge of good and evil.
It's for you to sit under itsshade, but the fruit of that
tree is poisonous.
To who God made the sacredlimitation.
(08:55):
I possess the limitation and Ihave to call my limits sacred
after it's two main things.
Number one that suffering isnot the path to salvation.
That is not how we get there,because the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil wouldsay when you discover you need
salvation, automatically have tobe punished, because if you
need salvation, you must suckthe Lord's creation.
(09:19):
The tree of life tells me thatto need salvation means that I
need, I need a mediator betweenyou and I when I make you man,
so that when, when we anger eachother, my expectations of you
aren't lowered to the point ofnever trusting you again.
They may be, maybe I build aboundary so that we don't move
(09:41):
into a particular type ofrelationship ever again, but I
will never get to the pointwhere my disdain or
disappointment causes hatred,causes me to terrorize.
My judgment of how you livecaused me to think that I'm
better than you.
Those of fruits, that is, therotted fruit of the tree of the
(10:03):
knowledge of good and evil.
But the tree of life says thatI can believe and celebrate and
join hands with my Israelifriends as I demand, encourage
any, yes, even build boundarieswhen we disagree.
Concerning the genocide that'sgoing on in Palestine right now,
I can look in the faces ofevery white person who not just
(10:28):
history, but our very makeup,the homeo sapient in me who was,
like all y'all, neanderthals.
I don't have to get to a placewhere mockery or prejudice or
rudeness or even evil separatesme from that, our sense, the
sense of, at base, beingco-humans on this earth.
(10:51):
I can actually live in acompletely racist capitalist
society and fight while I stillhave a meal, a feast, in the
presence of my enemies.
This is because the binary hasbeen dismantled.
This is because I know from myown identity that complexity is
(11:14):
part of how God created us tocome even more beauty, even in
the midst of chaos.
So I do.
I encourage people, I encourageyou to take the beauty of how
God made you and apply that.
And this is gonna be.
You know, I graduated from aPresbyterian seminary.
They gonna rescind my own.
(11:35):
God made you to bring God'sstory into your context.
What happened?
Europeans forced their contextupon the context of the Lord's
commands to the children ofIsrael manifest destiny right.
Our brother mark talks aboutthis all the time.
(11:56):
It is our job to see God'sprinciples and God's love and
God's essence as how do we, inour identity as black women,
what did God give us that allowsus to interpret scripture for
our people, for our time.
I can't interpret scripture forour Lebanese Christian friends,
(12:17):
but I can join them ininterpreting scripture in my
context in a way that says wewill always reach out for love,
you, fight for you and alongsideyou.
I can't interpret there areanti-racist, recently awakened
white friends but I caninterpret, sure, as I am from my
congregation, where anti-racist, recently awakened white people
(12:37):
may come and sit up in my teamand it still has impact on their
life because they are willingto come and learn about things
that ain't about them, but thetruth within it might be for
them.
And so that's where I think.
When I began to really applythat and again it's really Dr
Willie Jennings and Dr BrianCape-Blaunt and a number of
(13:02):
eco-womenists that I began tostudy I began to realize that
our blackness and our femininityare gifts to us from God for
the sake of reading the word ina particular lens.
That is the lens via which andthen queer, black feminisms,
black, queer feminism.
That is the lens through whichI read the scripture, and it
(13:26):
doesn't matter whether I saythat it's the truth for me or
the truth period.
Those who don't like that lenswill damn us anyway.
So we may as well use that lensto protect all those who have
been called damned.
And that's where my reread ofGenesis came from Shh.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Oh my God, lord Jesus , hold on one second.
Shh, oh my God, mm, Mm, mm, mm.
It's just like my soul, like mysoul bears witness in there.
You know, what's so interestingis like you know, this whole
series is about the fact thatI'm turning 40 and I feel like
(14:08):
I'm in a transition, right Like.
I feel like I know who I am.
I'm in a transition and Ireally want to honor the voices
and the people who reallycrafted what matters to me at
this point in life.
You know, I feel like adifferent level of boldness and
confidence and not beingapologetic about certain things,
(14:29):
and so, while you're speaking,I'm feeling a sense of
validation, right Like, becauseI'm hearing you articulate
things that have been budding orlike that I've been perplexed
by or chewing on for a reallylong time, and so it makes me
feel like to have similarthoughts as people who I
(14:52):
consider heroes of mine feelsvery validating as I enter into
a whole new season of life.
I really feel like thistransition is about to be really
powerful for me, and one of thethings I wanted to bring up in
that was you mentioned thatthere is a way that we read the
text as queer femme or blackfemme, black womaness.
(15:16):
And it's interesting, this pastweek and I was in Asheville with
a couple of socialentrepreneurs and, man, it just
so happened there was so manyblack people in this room.
So this was something that youknow, you know the whole world,
so like there was a cohort forfuture leaders and all this
stuff right.
So you know how those thingstypically look, the demographics
(15:38):
.
So I walk in and there are atleast six other black people,
six other black people in theroom.
Woo, and I was like I was notready for this, I was not ready
for that whole week.
And so I'm at the table andthere's a woman who is out in
Seattle.
Two of them were fromIndianapolis and one is from
(16:01):
Boston area and they're alldoing really amazing things
related to their context.
But here we were sitting, ablack woman that's Gen Z, black
woman that's millennial, a blackwoman.
Two of them were Gen X and onewas a boomer and we had this
conversation about woman, whatit means to be a womanist, and I
(16:22):
was able oh my gosh, it was sobeautiful because one of the
things that came up was we weretalking through how do we
navigate whiteness and teachingand leading.
And so one of the women has acoffee shop in Seattle and had a
young person experience aracist comment from this old
white man I mean older than theboomer, like style generation
(16:43):
type white man and so he comesin every day.
He's autistic a little or he'son the spectrum, and so the lady
, the boomer, is like she justis holding space for this man.
He would come in every day andread a joke off of the newspaper
.
He ends up saying a joke thatsays something about a monkey,
and so the younger black baristahas a fit.
(17:06):
He can't come back.
We know all of the things and itwas such a beautiful
conversation to learn wisdom andto realize how weathered this
woman is in the way that shehandled it.
She first sat a little up, justcalled John, sat John down and
said that was problematic, likewhat happened?
(17:26):
He's contrite.
I'm so sorry, I didn't eventhink about the joke, but the
other girl wants to fire the man.
He can't come back, have aprotest Like you're racist,
you're not with the black people.
And in the midst of that,realizing that she said
something so powerful to me, shewas like I'm trying to teach
(17:46):
you what it means to be a blackwoman, and part of what it means
to be a black woman is we don'tthrow people away.
And the way she said that to me, the way she told this story,
is like black women don't throwpeople away, we don't throw
people away.
And I was like you know what?
Maybe God is a black woman.
(18:07):
You know like, just say it.
What happened to God then Seewhat happens to me.
And then I start thinking abouthow I start to share with them
my own experiences.
Being non-binary and alwaysfeeling like being a black woman
was so elusive to me.
It just felt like it'ssomething, a box I couldn't fit
into.
But then to realize, I know, Ibring my non-binary black woman
(18:31):
self to this table.
I can be a non-binary blackwomanist if I want to be.
And so then we had thisexchange where they're weeping
and, like you know, we justdidn't know, we just wanted to
be right with Jesus.
And there was thisintergenerational confession and
repentance and weeping abouthow black people have handled
queerness Michelle, it was likebeing caught up in some sort of
(18:55):
I mean the answer.
It just felt so, so holy to besitting at this table with these
black women, with all of theirpains and all of their stories.
I mean, it was just I wish youcould have been there.
And when I hear you talk, it'slike, man, this is the type of
stuff that I feel like providesme with hope and it makes me
(19:19):
feel that sense, not in theblack woman sense, where you're
Taking on too much of a burden,like you know.
Yeah, I'm not the bridge, butlike, but the sense in which you
bring, you bring the holy blackwomen, like.
There was something about beingthere and being like.
Black women are holy, like,like.
(19:42):
So it makes sense to me why,yeah, when I think about a cross
that deals with patriarchy andmisogyny, there's something very
, there's a south, a south tothat, yeah, I, because we see
that in our churches.
Can you talk about that like,yeah, the black church, you can
(20:02):
lean into that patriarchy,misogyny and like.
I think people like myselfwould love to hear you expound
on that a little bit more, aboutnavigating that.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Yeah, I think one of the most important potential
witnesses that are queer,beloved, offer the black church
and that women offer thehistoric black church is that if
you die to misogyny you, you'regonna rise again.
Yeah, jesus didn't die and staydead, that was the plan from
(20:34):
the beginning is eternal life.
He said eternal life a milliontimes before he allowed himself
to become all of the isms thatcrush us Might.
He was rejected and despised bymen.
Yet what woman at the well,every other Tuesday he was
abused and scorned look, womanwith the issue of blood.
(20:57):
Yeah, that's a Monday.
You know what I'm saying?
Everything that his Fourmothers, that some of his
especially dark skin forefathers, that his cousins, cousins,
cousins ten times removed,ishmael Certainly went through
Jesus with those things and eventook worship itself from both
(21:18):
the holy mountain and the holymountain that the Samaritan to
you this holy, and he put thecapacity to worship inside of us
.
And so I think that when wecome to what is worship and what
is community, then blacknessitself has to remind us that our
very history Places us in thehush harbor experience where we
(21:40):
sing songs in a strange land.
It places us in the balconyexperience where we can't sit in
the regular Sanctuary space.
We got to go worship in thebalcony and it places us in the
historical Protest andresistance experience where the
most historical black churcheswere founded either by people
(22:00):
who were coming out of oppressedspaces.
We could call Congo Square inNew Orleans One of the black
churches, and they didn't alllift up the name of Jesus and
some of them had candles and thesnakes and stuff you know.
And we could also go toPhiladelphia and DC in New York,
where the AME and Baptistchurches were budding, to
(22:23):
Mississippi, to Georgia, whereblack churches were born from
resistance, from protest, andthis is where baby girl at the
coffee shop is Introduced to.
Yesterday was Ella Baker'sbirthday, so I'm, I'm.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
I know that's okay.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
National holiday, you hear me.
Ella follow into those myholidays.
But Ella Baker said when she,when she saw young people sure
of Of the fight within them, shewould show them every mind that
that, that fight that they feltas individual Was a fight for
this broader freedom of thepeople.
(23:02):
And that's what baby girl thecoffee shop was feeling at
personal fight but that raisedthat anger.
The Lord even says apply it tothe power of the people.
Bishop Carlton Pearson saidthat you can't have planetary
peace until you have personalpeace.
And I find it very interestingthat one of the most beautiful
(23:23):
things about the black church,originally before capitalism,
grabbed us and and I would alsosay that masculinity informed us
that we could be equal withwhite men.
Yeah, it was about socialjustice more than it was about
personal piety.
And it's interesting to me thatthe the scriptures that offer
(23:45):
us social justice, racists andcapitalists want us to apply
those only to our personalrelationship with the Lord.
But then scriptures that ask usto walk rightly before God and
the scriptures that we wouldcall archaic, that speak to
Sodom and Gomorrah and how awoman should wear her hair, the
(24:06):
racist and the misogynist wantus to apply those socially.
There's a refusal and reversalof how we come after peace,
because for me, there's no peacewithout justice, and I grew up
in a Pentecostal space that sangsongs of Zion and said this is
how you keep your personal peace, so that you don't walk spaces
(24:28):
and explode a planet.
I'm the way to justice, mm-hmm.
The way that dr King and Ellaand Fandor, the way that they
showed people how to hold theirown, how to Keep singing Zion
songs.
For this sake of the power ofthe people, we want to have
peace between us and God.
That is a stark, a starkreversal from a lot of the
(24:50):
spaces, even the queer,embracing predominantly white
spaces, that will more quicklysay to you Well, let's apply
this scripture to your personand not say that the scripture
is meant for us to learn thepower of the people.
So there are sacred gyms yet inthe black church, and I do not
(25:12):
think that we will move ourspaces into that quote-unquote
Progressive new age by saying,well, the movement says so, or
the United Church of Christthinks this, or you know
Whatever.
Fun right person decided thatyou know, queerness is cute.
Before God, we have more ancient.
(25:33):
We have to offer proofs thatsay that God, in the same way as
God created us and called usexceedingly good.
We have to put down that pieceof fruit from the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil andReceive the homeopathic cure to
all of our judgment and fingerpointing, to all of our rock
(25:54):
throwing and, you know, tryingto stone homegirls in the street
.
What if we picked up the fruitof the tree of life and realized
but I'm not God, and I am soglad because when God said that
they loved the whole world, theymeant all of the people eat
that I refuse to love.
That's our message to the blackchurch to show up, to look
(26:17):
alive and to Give the complimentof all that they have given us
and then to say but stopthinking that you're perfect.
Hmm, we all need to eat fromthe tree of life.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
Oh, simple question what are we saved from what are
we saved?
Speaker 2 (26:40):
for I will always.
We have this idea that we needsalvation from our own fear of
ourselves, right we?
Bill Hook says we grow uplearning.
Don't you lie, don't tell lies.
And then the minute a youngchild points at someone and
(27:01):
mentions a blemish or says youknow how big or small this
freckle is, or their body is, wesay don't talk like that, what
are we supposed to do?
How?
This is so confusing, and thatkind of confusion follows us
into adulthood.
So we're taught to fear ourthoughts, and I believe that
(27:22):
real salvation helps us tocommunicate our thoughts so that
if our thoughts are a mess,somebody can know that and want
to teach us.
If our thoughts are a message,then they won't be trapped
inside of our fearful selves.
We have to believe that we needto be saved from judging one
(27:42):
another.
It's natural and I you know Ihate that it is, but it is part
of God's perfect and gloriousbeing that one of their traits
is judgment, and all of God'straits have been given to us.
My mom and I were talking aboutthis this morning.
The first person to ever be youknow, in the Bible written was
(28:05):
filled with the spirit of God,was the craftsman, the artist,
and you know so.
God is about creating.
But what is the first thing wedo with all art?
We critique it.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
Critique yep, this is a natural thing.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
We need to be freed from that idea that your
critique is so valid that it'sabsolute.
And because I believe in somany different, you know,
science tells me a thing or twoabout the actual creation story,
I get that.
But I do believe that the storyof the eating from the tree, of
the knowledge of good and evil,is based in something, and that
(28:44):
too requires salvation.
Had Adam and Eve just stuckwith the tree of life a bit
different, the salvation wouldhave come.
But it probably would have comefrom just feeling our need for
God to live with us, god with usin order for us to love each
other.
But salvation is a requirementnow because humans decided that
(29:09):
we know better than one another,because domination has taken
over our really our sense ofdominion.
Sharon Harper says this and Godtold us that dominion is our
inheritance.
And we changed some of thoseletters around to presume
domination was our inheritanceand we progressives have a long
(29:33):
way to go in learning thatforgiveness, although we can
call people out and say Iforgive you and you know I'm
silent but I wish you the best.
I'll be you judging them everychance you get.
You got all the time and youstill sitting at home, crying
under your Christmas tree,because the friends that you
lost when you came out you wishyou had or you wish they had,
(29:54):
looked at us.
We're looking at you andjealous of your new life.
God has to save us from fromwanting so badly to chase down
every snake that bit us and openour coats and flash ourselves.
The Lord has to hold theknowledge of good and evil so
that you don't think you do, andsalvation is required for that.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
It's so interesting because I've been thinking about
you just when you talked aboutGenesis three.
I've been thinking about thatfor a long time.
I just think it's a verybeautiful origin story.
I think so much is going onthere that explains so much
about the way we are.
(30:40):
I mean, it just is such a thereare so much happening in that
story that I hadn't been able tolet it go either.
And thinking about this ideawhen I think about Jesus as you
know, an Adam archetype andstuff, about the choice to
either be murdered or, like thechurch, to murder or be a martyr
.
Right, like these are thechoices that are constantly.
(31:02):
This is the way of Cain andable, like, will you be a martyr
for love or will you murder?
Like, these are the optionsthat we have.
And thinking about this treewas about will I take the
knowledge or will I learn and becurious?
Right, I'm just seeing thisimpulse and I haven't found that
entry road, but it's likemaking sense to me now these
(31:25):
binaries is patriarchy, thismisogyny.
I can see that now, like yousaid, you give the option,
because love is a choice, butyou have this option.
Will you?
Will you accept limitationwhere you embrace vulnerability,
the fact that there's possiblysomething out there that you
don't know, and will you trust.
(31:46):
Yeah, you know I'm thinkingthey does.
It all comes down to that choice.
Everything does everything.
How are you like?
Okay, so my, my prediction isthat there will be so many
exiles who go the way ofprogressivism and find
(32:08):
themselves missing meaningEventually.
What is, what is the back doorto Jesus for those people who
have already been in church?
Anything that you might saythat would be I don't even want
to say triggering, but you know,we already know that, we heard
that all the time.
What could be a back door,entry into Jesus for some of
(32:31):
those people?
Speaker 2 (32:34):
Well, I really believe in the work of some of
our friends just unbound infleshed cold.
Arthur Riley is doing someincredible things, and they are
all using the voices of peoplelike James Baldwin, who was a
youth pastor, who was like, washe not?
(32:54):
Yes, well, kind of you know,did Jesus love me?
And yet all his book titleswere just scripted up.
Come on, jimmy, tony Morrison,Maya Angelou, you know these
people that loved the Lord.
And so maybe we have somemissionaries in our professors
(33:20):
and that back door may very wellbe understanding that you may
have to build that boundary andyou know, you don't know when
you can step back inside of asanctuary.
What is it?
Community with the voices thatyou have found to become a salve
for your own journey insalvation.
(33:43):
And I do really, truly believein that personal, that personal
connection, that personalrelationship, and, before you
know it, you feel shielded andprotected, even in the midst of
a whole bunch of people sayingthings that might trigger you.
You can feel instance,grounding for yourself and know
(34:05):
that you don't feel bad if youjust came to hear the music, but
you can sit in the preaching,you don't feel bad at all.
Let them wonder you know whoyou are.
Let people wonder If God isreally the one that judges you.
Then we are no longer attachedto trying to please or perform
for others and I think that alot more, a lot more of our
(34:29):
people need to get into just oh,I miss this.
I'm going to go to this choirconcert.
Not feel bad, I can't listen tono sermon.
Oh, I know that, you know so.
And so we got people who listento our sermons and follow I'm
sure both of us just to get likea little preaching.
But I can't go sit in no church.
That is okay.
And I will say right now thatit is a dry season, that we are
(34:51):
in an exile period because manyof us have experienced the
exodus from foolishness.
But we're in exile right nowBecause that greater home, that
more broad community, has notnecessarily been established and
it was very hard to find thosein person, locally, where we are
(35:14):
.
So let's not make it, you know,let's not really try to skirt
over the fact that we are in adry season right now, that we
are, you know, maybe feelinglike I'm in the grave, you know,
resurrection day.
Name it, just name it and then,I think, we'll begin to discover
that communities can be built.
(35:35):
It may be a decade or so fromnow, but my prediction is,
knowing that I'm not the onlypastor and teacher who was
speaking in this way.
My prediction is there's anetwork coming, you know, to
them, exists, many of us havebeen blessed by it, and I think
that there is yet anothernetwork on the way, and we'll do
what we got to do.
(35:55):
But, now if the people isreally that's going to save the
day.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
And I think that you are perfectly, just, perfectly
poised to.
I'm just thinking about so, ohmy God, my brain is exploding
with everything you say.
So hold on, let me pick astring.
So someone said recently Ican't remember is some Buddhist
(36:22):
philosopher, but they said thenext Buddha is the sangha, it's
the community, there is no more,there will not be another
singular, it is the community.
Right, and thinking about yourwork in the movement, I mean
like power to the people, likethe work that you do, where
you're from and the track recordthat you have in that world and
(36:44):
community organizing.
And you've been to jail, likeyou know.
I mean like how many.
I'm just saying like who isteaching us about Jesus that's
actually been to jail out here.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
I mean you know I mean they may not all be on
podcasts, but they are there.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
That's what I'm saying, like I mean, you've,
you've, you've done the work, soI do see you poised as as a
leader for us, a person that canhelp us.
I've been talking to Lisa too,Lisa Sharon Harper, about this,
because the ways that you allare helping to remind us of the
(37:26):
beauty of our history in thistradition and what we still so
love about Jesus, in helping uskeep and make meaning about the
story of Jesus, from from birthto cross to resurrection and I
just so deeply, deeply, deeplyappreciate that, because it's
(37:51):
for me and I think for a lot ofother people like me, the idea
that we might have to walk awayfrom Jesus was devastating, and
I was so sick by whiteevangelicalism that I was
willing to walk away from Jesus.
I could not do it, and so tofind him behind every corner and
(38:15):
to have come into so manydifferent ways of making meaning
about his life and death andresurrection has been such
kindness.
I think it's divine kindness,and the fact that people like
you exist, I think, is akindness of God to the world,
and I'm just honored to know youand to be able to have
(38:37):
conversation with you.
Thank you, what's bringing you?
Speaker 2 (38:41):
joy.
Oh, my goodness, so much.
We finished our.
I don't know how many yearswe've been doing this Christmas
concert, but I love directinquires, I love singing, I love
just anything but the KirkFranklin Christmas album.
One day I told my choir what'sgoing to do the whole album.
Yes, oh my God, I didn't knowwhat you were practicing.
Speaker 1 (39:05):
I didn't know the part, oh gosh.
Speaker 2 (39:09):
Oh, that's bringing me so much joy, to be honest,
and it's just sort ofoverflowing because we had, you
know, the babies involved.
You know watching kids come andlearn things, and my
congregation is really committedto reading through the Bible
together this year and askingGod.
You know, how do we?
What do we do with thesepassages?
(39:29):
We're in a really, reallypowerful point in our
congregational history.
So it'll be my third or myfourth year at the church and
I'm, like whew, keep holding onbut pastoring people and being
(39:50):
and doing so in a space where,when the movement comes to town,
they know they got to stop overat Michelle's church and to see
the people that really I followtheir lead, and that's probably
been one of the most joyfulthings is knowing that I am
proud to hold responsibility, tobe at the forefront for the
(40:12):
person who gets hit first.
But in terms of ministry and interms of vision, I want to
follow them and that's been areal blessing is to be a pastor
who is very seriously heldaccountable and pastored
seriously pastored.
Speaker 1 (40:33):
So there's a lot of joy.
Oh, hey, I'm going to.
We got five minutes.
Is there any word that you haveas we thinking I'm thinking
about I'm holding right now?
We're in the season of Advent.
My partner and I justexperienced our first
miscarriage we have.
(40:56):
Thinking about a baby inBethlehem is hitting different
each year.
You have a word for us, youknow what is so?
Speaker 2 (41:07):
just the grace of God that you just said, that we
preached about hope and peaceand the first, you know, sunday
of Advent being about hope, andI preached about gender reveal
events and how.
How heartbreaking must it befor folks in situations like
yours, for people who are justfrustrated or weirded out by
(41:31):
gender reveals.
And I want us to think aboutand remember Annunciation rather
than gender reveal.
How do we hold on to God'smessage of Annunciation?
Because when God gaveAnnunciation to Mary through
Gabriel, that was not the firstAnnunciation that had ever been
done.
The first Annunciation came toEve through God, amidst the
(41:55):
blessing and the curse in thegarden.
Another Annunciation came toHagar, in the desert, in the
middle of her enslavement andhell on earth.
The Lord appeared to her andwhen God gave Hagar an
Annunciation, she named God, thefirst person to ever give a
(42:16):
name to God.
And so, in our times of, I needa word, I need a message, I need
, you know, I'm tired of all thegender reveals, I'm tired of
seeing the promises here andthere.
When the Lord shows up, namethem, and that's, that's my word
to you, that in the midst ofyou and your partner, knowing
(42:37):
that no soul can die.
That baby is in God's bosom.
God's going to show up in thisdesert and when they get there
you will name them.
You've got a name, because thisis what I believe we were made
to do as co-creators with ourCreator.
(42:58):
We were made to sit in joy andin sorrow and celebration and in
mourning, and to have God showup and to have God bring an
announcement to us of hope andultimately, justice is going to
come and bring our peace andjustice is going to show up and
(43:21):
be our peace and move us intojoy, right the third week of
Advent, and all of these thingswill be grounded in love the
fourth week.
And to us maybe not to everyonethat we love, but to us this
story is grounded in the showingup and the message of Christ,
and I really think that it isthe more that we poise ourselves
(43:44):
to admit what you just said Idon't want to give up Jesus the
more likely you will be tobecome less and less fragile,
not only to welcoming all whocall on any name of God, but you
will be open to everything thatGod wants to do in your life to
give you more of a story ofChrist.
(44:06):
We definitely, definitely havethe opportunity to name God here
.
So, everybody, let God show upin your desert and then give God
a name.
Speaker 1 (44:19):
Shae.
Thank you, sis, it's my honor.
Speaker 2 (44:28):
Thank you for listening To pick your money and
your heart is donate toSubquatcher Inc and clear the
path for black students today.
All right, what's up everybody.
Welcome to this episode, thespecial episode of Life After
Eleven.
I'm back with the one and onlyMichelle Higgins, and in the
last episode Michelle was whenwe got into a little bit of
stuff about Necessary Atonementand Patriarchy and all that kind
of stuff, and so for the heroseries, I kind of went into it a
little bit how I met Michelle,why Michelle is in the hero
(00:24):
series for me, but I would lovefor you all to hear sis go off
theologically.
So that is why we are here.
That is what this episode isabout.
We are going to nerd out andobviously I'm just here to
listen.
So welcome back, friend.
I'm so glad to have you and I'mjust really curious.
I something you said last timeyou talked about.
(00:45):
You still believe in aNecessary Atonement, which was
so helpful.
A lot of the people wholistened to that episode noted
that that was really helpful forthem in terms of figuring out
where they stand, whetherthey're Christian or not, or how
do they take Jesus with them,what is the meaning of Jesus,
and so I think, because thatwent so well, I'd love to have
(01:05):
you talk a little bit more aboutthat and what you mean by the
cross dealing with Patriarchy.
I'm just here for it, sowelcome back.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Well, I'm so excited to share and, like I said, I do
really nerd out around thisstuff, but it's funny.
The way that I really got intostudying this was I did a sermon
series on Genesis and one ofthe things that my congregation
asked me to really dig into wasthis idea of original sin, this
(01:38):
tree in the middle of the garden, the tree of life and the tree
of the knowledge of good andevil.
And we really expressed ourperspective on the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil as atree that forces the binary upon
your vision.
The binary on everything Rightand wrong becomes black and
(02:03):
white, and to the point thatracism, patriarchy, misogyny,
they're really all about thebinary.
And when we sat back and webegan to do the hard work of
allowing the Holy Ghost to queertheology for us, not applying
the queer agenda, which I feelis holy, so human, not applying
(02:26):
the queer agenda to thescripture, I'm allowing the Holy
Ghost to show me the queernessthat appears in theology itself.
And this was our prayer and oursincere prayer from the start
of scripture in Genesis, wherewe see the tree as the origins
of the binary, and then to theend of scripture and Revelation,
(02:46):
where we view an agreement withthe theologian Brian K Blount,
who views the lamb slain as ahomeopathic cure.
You get the COVID shot.
It's a little bit of COVID inthere.
When I got the chickenpoxvaccine is a little bit
chickenpox in there.
And so the homeopathic cure forall violence, all ill, for
(03:08):
misogyny, for patriarchy, is inmany ways the respecting of an
amplifying of femininity andwomanhood, by not crucifying
those, but by moving all of themasculinity that has been so
toxic and has toxified us, fromAdam pointing at his wife all
(03:31):
the way through David pointingat a naked lady on a rooftop All
the way down.
I mean we could.
We could saddle back and go toAbraham and Sarah pointing at a
black Egyptian woman, judahpointing at Tamar it's a whole
bunch of people in Jesus's lineright that are just subsumed by
patriarchy and misogyny.
(03:52):
And how much more of a precioussacrifice is the Rahab's great,
great grand, ruth's great,great grand, tamar's great,
great, great, great grand,bathsheba's great, great, great,
great grandson, who climbs upon the cross to sacrifice
himself and says I could wipeall your simple selves out, but
(04:12):
I won't because I am yourvaccine.
It's Jesus's blood that goesinto the shot that inoculates us
, and that is why I feel thenecessity of atonement, because
human agendas cannot produceholiness, but God's holiness
(04:32):
makes our humanity whole.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
My goodness.
And so you're.
You're saying essentially thatHold on one second, oh God, I
hadn't even thought about beingopen to the cross, and that I
think that way that you justframe that makes me open to
(04:57):
going back and looking at thecross in a different way.
Right, I was okay with theontologically black and the
lynching tree and all of thatkind of stuff, but because of my
you know my rearing andevangelicalism, pino,
substitutionary atonement wasjust not it, because I would
have to embrace some sort of sinnature that I just don't feel
this just not rocking with me,because I think it it puts me in
(05:20):
a position to outsource myintuition, to outsource even my,
my agency in a lot of ways, andso to believe that I am deeply
flawed without my own choice andwithout my own ability to
rectify that, it can be takenadvantage of and was taken
advantage of.
And so I just haven't everheard anybody talk about what
(05:43):
Jesus does or the meaning of thecross from the lens of binaries
and patriarchy and misogyny.
Like that is where, where,where did that come from?
Like how you, you were justspending time in Genesis and it
kind of popped out at you likeyou just built this, how did?
Speaker 2 (06:04):
you.
I mean like good grief, youknow, and I haven't really been
able to find it because one it'sthe job of the preaching, like
studious pastor, to presume thatyou ain't the first person to
think of it, right?
So I'm looking forward and Iinvite our listeners, our, you
know, our siblings in the faithto really challenge me and hook
(06:25):
me up with.
Where I may have seen thisbefore, because that's the last
thing I want to presume, ispeople all over the place quote
me, but because I'm toxic toevangelicals.
I don't get that.
I don't get the side take thatpart yes, but I will say that
the more I thought about my own,you know what we, when I want
(06:45):
to heal from is this idea of sinnature.
But what?
What the movement has taught me, as I've become ingrained in
ministry and movement andmovement is ministry is that
accountability is healthy for us.
And while I would, you know, Iam deeply inspired by and was
you know, still recovering fromthe loss of our beloved Bishop
(07:08):
Carlton Pearson, his, hisjourney really has been
something that I've not evenstriven to emulate, it just kind
of happened.
I remember saving money to putmoney in his offering basket
when my mama and her friends andmy dad, we said drive from
Missouri to Oklahoma just tohear him preach one time in a
(07:30):
year.
Right, and his journey wasamazing to me and his being
found a heretic.
I followed that, siri, I mean, Ifollowed it, like you know.
Big, bigger than any othercelebrity news ever, was the
Bishop being cast out.
So when I began to discover thethings that only God can hold,
(07:53):
one of those things is theknowledge of the presumption
that we can name somethingcompletely good or name
something completely evil.
And is that not whatevangelicalism?
And we don't even have to go toevangelicalism.
Our own beloved Ken in themotherly, who would never call
themselves evangelical, havedecided that queer people are
(08:14):
punishable by death.
It's not evangelicals, let'snot harp on them, but I do
believe that people have decidedthat absolute something is in
the hands of man and God saidthere are absolutes, don't get
me wrong, but I own them.
And the knowledge of good andevil is for you to look at and
to respect.
(08:34):
That God knows how to eat fruit.
It's for you to to put in yourown gardening and contributions
into the soil of the tree of theknowledge of good and evil.
It's for you to sit under itsshade, but the fruit of that
tree is poisonous.
To who God made the sacredlimitation.
(08:55):
I possess the limitation and Ihave to call my limits sacred
after it's two main things.
Number one that suffering isnot the path to salvation.
That is not how we get there,because the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil wouldsay when you discover you need
salvation, automatically have tobe punished, because if you
need salvation, you must suckthe Lord's creation.
(09:19):
The tree of life tells me thatto need salvation means that I
need, I need a mediator betweenyou and I when I make you man,
so that when, when we anger eachother, my expectations of you
aren't lowered to the point ofnever trusting you again.
They may be, maybe I build aboundary so that we don't move
(09:41):
into a particular type ofrelationship ever again, but I
will never get to the pointwhere my disdain or
disappointment causes hatred,causes me to terrorize.
My judgment of how you livecaused me to think that I'm
better than you.
Those of fruits, that is, therotted fruit of the tree of the
(10:03):
knowledge of good and evil.
But the tree of life says thatI can believe and celebrate and
join hands with my Israelifriends as I demand, encourage
any, yes, even build boundarieswhen we disagree.
Concerning the genocide that'sgoing on in Palestine right now,
I can look in the faces ofevery white person who not just
(10:28):
history, but our very makeup,the homeo sapient in me who was,
like all y'all, neanderthals.
I don't have to get to a placewhere mockery or prejudice or
rudeness or even evil separatesme from that, our sense, the
sense of, at base, beingco-humans on this earth.
(10:51):
I can actually live in acompletely racist capitalist
society and fight while I stillhave a meal, a feast, in the
presence of my enemies.
This is because the binary hasbeen dismantled.
This is because I know from myown identity that complexity is
(11:14):
part of how God created us tocome even more beauty, even in
the midst of chaos.
So I do.
I encourage people, I encourageyou to take the beauty of how
God made you and apply that.
And this is gonna be.
You know, I graduated from aPresbyterian seminary.
They gonna rescind my own.
(11:35):
God made you to bring God'sstory into your context.
What happened?
Europeans forced their contextupon the context of the Lord's
commands to the children ofIsrael manifest destiny right.
Our brother mark talks aboutthis all the time.
(11:56):
It is our job to see God'sprinciples and God's love and
God's essence as how do we, inour identity as black women,
what did God give us that allowsus to interpret scripture for
our people, for our time.
I can't interpret scripture forour Lebanese Christian friends,
(12:17):
but I can join them ininterpreting scripture in my
context in a way that says wewill always reach out for love,
you, fight for you and alongsideyou.
I can't interpret there areanti-racist, recently awakened
white friends but I caninterpret, sure, as I am from my
congregation, where anti-racist, recently awakened white people
(12:37):
may come and sit up in my teamand it still has impact on their
life because they are willingto come and learn about things
that ain't about them, but thetruth within it might be for
them.
And so that's where I think.
When I began to really applythat and again it's really Dr
Willie Jennings and Dr BrianCape-Blaunt and a number of
(13:02):
eco-womenists that I began tostudy I began to realize that
our blackness and our femininityare gifts to us from God for
the sake of reading the word ina particular lens.
That is the lens via which andthen queer, black feminisms,
black, queer feminism.
That is the lens through whichI read the scripture, and it
(13:26):
doesn't matter whether I saythat it's the truth for me or
the truth period.
Those who don't like that lenswill damn us anyway.
So we may as well use that lensto protect all those who have
been called damned.
And that's where my reread ofGenesis came from Shh.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Oh my God, lord Jesus , hold on one second.
Shh, oh my God, mm, Mm, mm, mm.
It's just like my soul, like mysoul bears witness in there.
You know, what's so interestingis like you know, this whole
series is about the fact thatI'm turning 40 and I feel like
(14:08):
I'm in a transition, right Like.
I feel like I know who I am.
I'm in a transition and Ireally want to honor the voices
and the people who reallycrafted what matters to me at
this point in life.
You know, I feel like adifferent level of boldness and
confidence and not beingapologetic about certain things,
(14:29):
and so, while you're speaking,I'm feeling a sense of
validation, right Like, becauseI'm hearing you articulate
things that have been budding orlike that I've been perplexed
by or chewing on for a reallylong time, and so it makes me
feel like to have similarthoughts as people who I
(14:52):
consider heroes of mine feelsvery validating as I enter into
a whole new season of life.
I really feel like thistransition is about to be really
powerful for me, and one of thethings I wanted to bring up in
that was you mentioned thatthere is a way that we read the
text as queer femme or blackfemme, black womaness.
(15:16):
And it's interesting, this pastweek and I was in Asheville with
a couple of socialentrepreneurs and, man, it just
so happened there was so manyblack people in this room.
So this was something that youknow, you know the whole world,
so like there was a cohort forfuture leaders and all this
stuff right.
So you know how those thingstypically look, the demographics
(15:38):
.
So I walk in and there are atleast six other black people,
six other black people in theroom.
Woo, and I was like I was notready for this, I was not ready
for that whole week.
And so I'm at the table andthere's a woman who is out in
Seattle.
Two of them were fromIndianapolis and one is from
(16:01):
Boston area and they're alldoing really amazing things
related to their context.
But here we were sitting, ablack woman that's Gen Z, black
woman that's millennial, a blackwoman.
Two of them were Gen X and onewas a boomer and we had this
conversation about woman, whatit means to be a womanist, and I
(16:22):
was able oh my gosh, it was sobeautiful because one of the
things that came up was we weretalking through how do we
navigate whiteness and teachingand leading.
And so one of the women has acoffee shop in Seattle and had a
young person experience aracist comment from this old
white man I mean older than theboomer, like style generation
(16:43):
type white man and so he comesin every day.
He's autistic a little or he'son the spectrum, and so the lady
, the boomer, is like she justis holding space for this man.
He would come in every day andread a joke off of the newspaper
.
He ends up saying a joke thatsays something about a monkey,
and so the younger black baristahas a fit.
(17:06):
He can't come back.
We know all of the things and itwas such a beautiful
conversation to learn wisdom andto realize how weathered this
woman is in the way that shehandled it.
She first sat a little up, justcalled John, sat John down and
said that was problematic, likewhat happened?
(17:26):
He's contrite.
I'm so sorry, I didn't eventhink about the joke, but the
other girl wants to fire the man.
He can't come back, have aprotest Like you're racist,
you're not with the black people.
And in the midst of that,realizing that she said
something so powerful to me, shewas like I'm trying to teach
(17:46):
you what it means to be a blackwoman, and part of what it means
to be a black woman is we don'tthrow people away.
And the way she said that to me, the way she told this story,
is like black women don't throwpeople away, we don't throw
people away.
And I was like you know what?
Maybe God is a black woman.
(18:07):
You know like, just say it.
What happened to God then Seewhat happens to me.
And then I start thinking abouthow I start to share with them
my own experiences.
Being non-binary and alwaysfeeling like being a black woman
was so elusive to me.
It just felt like it'ssomething, a box I couldn't fit
into.
But then to realize, I know, Ibring my non-binary black woman
(18:31):
self to this table.
I can be a non-binary blackwomanist if I want to be.
And so then we had thisexchange where they're weeping
and, like you know, we justdidn't know, we just wanted to
be right with Jesus.
And there was thisintergenerational confession and
repentance and weeping abouthow black people have handled
queerness Michelle, it was likebeing caught up in some sort of
(18:55):
I mean the answer.
It just felt so, so holy to besitting at this table with these
black women, with all of theirpains and all of their stories.
I mean, it was just I wish youcould have been there.
And when I hear you talk, it'slike, man, this is the type of
stuff that I feel like providesme with hope and it makes me
(19:19):
feel that sense, not in theblack woman sense, where you're
Taking on too much of a burden,like you know.
Yeah, I'm not the bridge, butlike, but the sense in which you
bring, you bring the holy blackwomen, like.
There was something about beingthere and being like.
Black women are holy, like,like.
(19:42):
So it makes sense to me why,yeah, when I think about a cross
that deals with patriarchy andmisogyny, there's something very
, there's a south, a south tothat, yeah, I, because we see
that in our churches.
Can you talk about that like,yeah, the black church, you can
(20:02):
lean into that patriarchy,misogyny and like.
I think people like myselfwould love to hear you expound
on that a little bit more, aboutnavigating that.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Yeah, I think one of the most important potential
witnesses that are queer,beloved, offer the black church
and that women offer thehistoric black church is that if
you die to misogyny you, you'regonna rise again.
Yeah, jesus didn't die and staydead, that was the plan from
(20:34):
the beginning is eternal life.
He said eternal life a milliontimes before he allowed himself
to become all of the isms thatcrush us Might.
He was rejected and despised bymen.
Yet what woman at the well,every other Tuesday he was
abused and scorned look, womanwith the issue of blood.
(20:57):
Yeah, that's a Monday.
You know what I'm saying?
Everything that his Fourmothers, that some of his
especially dark skin forefathers, that his cousins, cousins,
cousins ten times removed,ishmael Certainly went through
Jesus with those things and eventook worship itself from both
(21:18):
the holy mountain and the holymountain that the Samaritan to
you this holy, and he put thecapacity to worship inside of us
.
And so I think that when wecome to what is worship and what
is community, then blacknessitself has to remind us that our
very history Places us in thehush harbor experience where we
(21:40):
sing songs in a strange land.
It places us in the balconyexperience where we can't sit in
the regular Sanctuary space.
We got to go worship in thebalcony and it places us in the
historical Protest andresistance experience where the
most historical black churcheswere founded either by people
(22:00):
who were coming out of oppressedspaces.
We could call Congo Square inNew Orleans One of the black
churches, and they didn't alllift up the name of Jesus and
some of them had candles and thesnakes and stuff you know.
And we could also go toPhiladelphia and DC in New York,
where the AME and Baptistchurches were budding, to
(22:23):
Mississippi, to Georgia, whereblack churches were born from
resistance, from protest, andthis is where baby girl at the
coffee shop is Introduced to.
Yesterday was Ella Baker'sbirthday, so I'm, I'm.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
I know that's okay.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
National holiday, you hear me.
Ella follow into those myholidays.
But Ella Baker said when she,when she saw young people sure
of Of the fight within them, shewould show them every mind that
that, that fight that they feltas individual Was a fight for
this broader freedom of thepeople.
(23:02):
And that's what baby girl thecoffee shop was feeling at
personal fight but that raisedthat anger.
The Lord even says apply it tothe power of the people.
Bishop Carlton Pearson saidthat you can't have planetary
peace until you have personalpeace.
And I find it very interestingthat one of the most beautiful
(23:23):
things about the black church,originally before capitalism,
grabbed us and and I would alsosay that masculinity informed us
that we could be equal withwhite men.
Yeah, it was about socialjustice more than it was about
personal piety.
And it's interesting to me thatthe the scriptures that offer
(23:45):
us social justice, racists andcapitalists want us to apply
those only to our personalrelationship with the Lord.
But then scriptures that ask usto walk rightly before God and
the scriptures that we wouldcall archaic, that speak to
Sodom and Gomorrah and how awoman should wear her hair, the
(24:06):
racist and the misogynist wantus to apply those socially.
There's a refusal and reversalof how we come after peace,
because for me, there's no peacewithout justice, and I grew up
in a Pentecostal space that sangsongs of Zion and said this is
how you keep your personal peace, so that you don't walk spaces
(24:28):
and explode a planet.
I'm the way to justice, mm-hmm.
The way that dr King and Ellaand Fandor, the way that they
showed people how to hold theirown, how to Keep singing Zion
songs.
For this sake of the power ofthe people, we want to have
peace between us and God.
That is a stark, a starkreversal from a lot of the
(24:50):
spaces, even the queer,embracing predominantly white
spaces, that will more quicklysay to you Well, let's apply
this scripture to your personand not say that the scripture
is meant for us to learn thepower of the people.
So there are sacred gyms yet inthe black church, and I do not
(25:12):
think that we will move ourspaces into that quote-unquote
Progressive new age by saying,well, the movement says so, or
the United Church of Christthinks this, or you know
Whatever.
Fun right person decided thatyou know, queerness is cute.
Before God, we have more ancient.
(25:33):
We have to offer proofs thatsay that God, in the same way as
God created us and called usexceedingly good.
We have to put down that pieceof fruit from the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil andReceive the homeopathic cure to
all of our judgment and fingerpointing, to all of our rock
(25:54):
throwing and, you know, tryingto stone homegirls in the street
.
What if we picked up the fruitof the tree of life and realized
but I'm not God, and I am soglad because when God said that
they loved the whole world, theymeant all of the people eat
that I refuse to love.
That's our message to the blackchurch to show up, to look
(26:17):
alive and to Give the complimentof all that they have given us
and then to say but stopthinking that you're perfect.
Hmm, we all need to eat fromthe tree of life.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
Oh, simple question what are we saved from what are
we saved?
Speaker 2 (26:40):
for I will always.
We have this idea that we needsalvation from our own fear of
ourselves, right we?
Bill Hook says we grow uplearning.
Don't you lie, don't tell lies.
And then the minute a youngchild points at someone and
(27:01):
mentions a blemish or says youknow how big or small this
freckle is, or their body is, wesay don't talk like that, what
are we supposed to do?
How?
This is so confusing, and thatkind of confusion follows us
into adulthood.
So we're taught to fear ourthoughts, and I believe that
(27:22):
real salvation helps us tocommunicate our thoughts so that
if our thoughts are a mess,somebody can know that and want
to teach us.
If our thoughts are a message,then they won't be trapped
inside of our fearful selves.
We have to believe that we needto be saved from judging one
(27:42):
another.
It's natural and I you know Ihate that it is, but it is part
of God's perfect and gloriousbeing that one of their traits
is judgment, and all of God'straits have been given to us.
My mom and I were talking aboutthis this morning.
The first person to ever be youknow, in the Bible written was
(28:05):
filled with the spirit of God,was the craftsman, the artist,
and you know so.
God is about creating.
But what is the first thing wedo with all art?
We critique it.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
Critique yep, this is a natural thing.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
We need to be freed from that idea that your
critique is so valid that it'sabsolute.
And because I believe in somany different, you know,
science tells me a thing or twoabout the actual creation story,
I get that.
But I do believe that the storyof the eating from the tree, of
the knowledge of good and evil,is based in something, and that
(28:44):
too requires salvation.
Had Adam and Eve just stuckwith the tree of life a bit
different, the salvation wouldhave come.
But it probably would have comefrom just feeling our need for
God to live with us, god with usin order for us to love each
other.
But salvation is a requirementnow because humans decided that
(29:09):
we know better than one another,because domination has taken
over our really our sense ofdominion.
Sharon Harper says this and Godtold us that dominion is our
inheritance.
And we changed some of thoseletters around to presume
domination was our inheritanceand we progressives have a long
(29:33):
way to go in learning thatforgiveness, although we can
call people out and say Iforgive you and you know I'm
silent but I wish you the best.
I'll be you judging them everychance you get.
You got all the time and youstill sitting at home, crying
under your Christmas tree,because the friends that you
lost when you came out you wishyou had or you wish they had,
(29:54):
looked at us.
We're looking at you andjealous of your new life.
God has to save us from fromwanting so badly to chase down
every snake that bit us and openour coats and flash ourselves.
The Lord has to hold theknowledge of good and evil so
that you don't think you do, andsalvation is required for that.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
It's so interesting because I've been thinking about
you just when you talked aboutGenesis three.
I've been thinking about thatfor a long time.
I just think it's a verybeautiful origin story.
I think so much is going onthere that explains so much
about the way we are.
(30:40):
I mean, it just is such a thereare so much happening in that
story that I hadn't been able tolet it go either.
And thinking about this ideawhen I think about Jesus as you
know, an Adam archetype andstuff, about the choice to
either be murdered or, like thechurch, to murder or be a martyr
.
Right, like these are thechoices that are constantly.
(31:02):
This is the way of Cain andable, like, will you be a martyr
for love or will you murder?
Like, these are the optionsthat we have.
And thinking about this treewas about will I take the
knowledge or will I learn and becurious?
Right, I'm just seeing thisimpulse and I haven't found that
entry road, but it's likemaking sense to me now these
(31:25):
binaries is patriarchy, thismisogyny.
I can see that now, like yousaid, you give the option,
because love is a choice, butyou have this option.
Will you?
Will you accept limitationwhere you embrace vulnerability,
the fact that there's possiblysomething out there that you
don't know, and will you trust.
(31:46):
Yeah, you know I'm thinkingthey does.
It all comes down to that choice.
Everything does everything.
How are you like?
Okay, so my, my prediction isthat there will be so many
exiles who go the way ofprogressivism and find
(32:08):
themselves missing meaningEventually.
What is, what is the back doorto Jesus for those people who
have already been in church?
Anything that you might saythat would be I don't even want
to say triggering, but you know,we already know that, we heard
that all the time.
What could be a back door,entry into Jesus for some of
(32:31):
those people?
Speaker 2 (32:34):
Well, I really believe in the work of some of
our friends just unbound infleshed cold.
Arthur Riley is doing someincredible things, and they are
all using the voices of peoplelike James Baldwin, who was a
youth pastor, who was like, washe not?
(32:54):
Yes, well, kind of you know,did Jesus love me?
And yet all his book titleswere just scripted up.
Come on, jimmy, tony Morrison,Maya Angelou, you know these
people that loved the Lord.
And so maybe we have somemissionaries in our professors
(33:20):
and that back door may very wellbe understanding that you may
have to build that boundary andyou know, you don't know when
you can step back inside of asanctuary.
What is it?
Community with the voices thatyou have found to become a salve
for your own journey insalvation.
(33:43):
And I do really, truly believein that personal, that personal
connection, that personalrelationship, and, before you
know it, you feel shielded andprotected, even in the midst of
a whole bunch of people sayingthings that might trigger you.
You can feel instance,grounding for yourself and know
(34:05):
that you don't feel bad if youjust came to hear the music, but
you can sit in the preaching,you don't feel bad at all.
Let them wonder you know whoyou are.
Let people wonder If God isreally the one that judges you.
Then we are no longer attachedto trying to please or perform
for others and I think that alot more, a lot more of our
(34:29):
people need to get into just oh,I miss this.
I'm going to go to this choirconcert.
Not feel bad, I can't listen tono sermon.
Oh, I know that, you know so.
And so we got people who listento our sermons and follow I'm
sure both of us just to get likea little preaching.
But I can't go sit in no church.
That is okay.
And I will say right now thatit is a dry season, that we are
(34:51):
in an exile period because manyof us have experienced the
exodus from foolishness.
But we're in exile right nowBecause that greater home, that
more broad community, has notnecessarily been established and
it was very hard to find thosein person, locally, where we are
(35:14):
.
So let's not make it, you know,let's not really try to skirt
over the fact that we are in adry season right now, that we
are, you know, maybe feelinglike I'm in the grave, you know,
resurrection day.
Name it, just name it and then,I think, we'll begin to discover
that communities can be built.
(35:35):
It may be a decade or so fromnow, but my prediction is,
knowing that I'm not the onlypastor and teacher who was
speaking in this way.
My prediction is there's anetwork coming, you know, to
them, exists, many of us havebeen blessed by it, and I think
that there is yet anothernetwork on the way, and we'll do
what we got to do.
(35:55):
But, now if the people isreally that's going to save the
day.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
And I think that you are perfectly, just, perfectly
poised to.
I'm just thinking about so, ohmy God, my brain is exploding
with everything you say.
So hold on, let me pick astring.
So someone said recently Ican't remember is some Buddhist
(36:22):
philosopher, but they said thenext Buddha is the sangha, it's
the community, there is no more,there will not be another
singular, it is the community.
Right, and thinking about yourwork in the movement, I mean
like power to the people, likethe work that you do, where
you're from and the track recordthat you have in that world and
(36:44):
community organizing.
And you've been to jail, likeyou know.
I mean like how many.
I'm just saying like who isteaching us about Jesus that's
actually been to jail out here.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
I mean you know I mean they may not all be on
podcasts, but they are there.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
That's what I'm saying, like I mean, you've,
you've, you've done the work, soI do see you poised as as a
leader for us, a person that canhelp us.
I've been talking to Lisa too,Lisa Sharon Harper, about this,
because the ways that you allare helping to remind us of the
(37:26):
beauty of our history in thistradition and what we still so
love about Jesus, in helping uskeep and make meaning about the
story of Jesus, from from birthto cross to resurrection and I
just so deeply, deeply, deeplyappreciate that, because it's
(37:51):
for me and I think for a lot ofother people like me, the idea
that we might have to walk awayfrom Jesus was devastating, and
I was so sick by whiteevangelicalism that I was
willing to walk away from Jesus.
I could not do it, and so tofind him behind every corner and
(38:15):
to have come into so manydifferent ways of making meaning
about his life and death andresurrection has been such
kindness.
I think it's divine kindness,and the fact that people like
you exist, I think, is akindness of God to the world,
and I'm just honored to know youand to be able to have
(38:37):
conversation with you.
Thank you, what's bringing you?
Speaker 2 (38:41):
joy.
Oh, my goodness, so much.
We finished our.
I don't know how many yearswe've been doing this Christmas
concert, but I love directinquires, I love singing, I love
just anything but the KirkFranklin Christmas album.
One day I told my choir what'sgoing to do the whole album.
Yes, oh my God, I didn't knowwhat you were practicing.
Speaker 1 (39:05):
I didn't know the part, oh gosh.
Speaker 2 (39:09):
Oh, that's bringing me so much joy, to be honest,
and it's just sort ofoverflowing because we had, you
know, the babies involved.
You know watching kids come andlearn things, and my
congregation is really committedto reading through the Bible
together this year and askingGod.
You know, how do we?
What do we do with thesepassages?
(39:29):
We're in a really, reallypowerful point in our
congregational history.
So it'll be my third or myfourth year at the church and
I'm, like whew, keep holding onbut pastoring people and being
(39:50):
and doing so in a space where,when the movement comes to town,
they know they got to stop overat Michelle's church and to see
the people that really I followtheir lead, and that's probably
been one of the most joyfulthings is knowing that I am
proud to hold responsibility, tobe at the forefront for the
(40:12):
person who gets hit first.
But in terms of ministry and interms of vision, I want to
follow them and that's been areal blessing is to be a pastor
who is very seriously heldaccountable and pastored
seriously pastored.
Speaker 1 (40:33):
So there's a lot of joy.
Oh, hey, I'm going to.
We got five minutes.
Is there any word that you haveas we thinking I'm thinking
about I'm holding right now?
We're in the season of Advent.
My partner and I justexperienced our first
miscarriage we have.
(40:56):
Thinking about a baby inBethlehem is hitting different
each year.
You have a word for us, youknow what is so?
Speaker 2 (41:07):
just the grace of God that you just said, that we
preached about hope and peaceand the first, you know, sunday
of Advent being about hope, andI preached about gender reveal
events and how.
How heartbreaking must it befor folks in situations like
yours, for people who are justfrustrated or weirded out by
(41:31):
gender reveals.
And I want us to think aboutand remember Annunciation rather
than gender reveal.
How do we hold on to God'smessage of Annunciation?
Because when God gaveAnnunciation to Mary through
Gabriel, that was not the firstAnnunciation that had ever been
done.
The first Annunciation came toEve through God, amidst the
(41:55):
blessing and the curse in thegarden.
Another Annunciation came toHagar, in the desert, in the
middle of her enslavement andhell on earth.
The Lord appeared to her andwhen God gave Hagar an
Annunciation, she named God, thefirst person to ever give a
(42:16):
name to God.
And so, in our times of, I needa word, I need a message, I need
, you know, I'm tired of all thegender reveals, I'm tired of
seeing the promises here andthere.
When the Lord shows up, namethem, and that's, that's my word
to you, that in the midst ofyou and your partner, knowing
(42:37):
that no soul can die.
That baby is in God's bosom.
God's going to show up in thisdesert and when they get there
you will name them.
You've got a name, because thisis what I believe we were made
to do as co-creators with ourCreator.
(42:58):
We were made to sit in joy andin sorrow and celebration and in
mourning, and to have God showup and to have God bring an
announcement to us of hope andultimately, justice is going to
come and bring our peace andjustice is going to show up and
(43:21):
be our peace and move us intojoy, right the third week of
Advent, and all of these thingswill be grounded in love the
fourth week.
And to us maybe not to everyonethat we love, but to us this
story is grounded in the showingup and the message of Christ,
and I really think that it isthe more that we poise ourselves
(43:44):
to admit what you just said Idon't want to give up Jesus the
more likely you will be tobecome less and less fragile,
not only to welcoming all whocall on any name of God, but you
will be open to everything thatGod wants to do in your life to
give you more of a story ofChrist.
(44:06):
We definitely, definitely havethe opportunity to name God here
.
So, everybody, let God show upin your desert and then give God
a name.
Speaker 1 (44:19):
Shae.
Thank you, sis, it's my honor.
Speaker 2 (44:28):
Thank you for listening To pick your money and
your heart is donate toSubquatcher Inc and clear the
path for black students today.
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