The ultimate power of prophetic ministry is that the words spoken by the prophets do not never disappear. Their words have so much truth that they cannot be erased or forgotten. People may choose to ignore them for any number of reasons, but the words they speak stick regardless of the social times in which we find ourselves.
The late Dr. Walter Brueggemann, in his book The Prophetic Imagination, wrote, “It is the aim of every totalitarian effort to stop the language of newness, and we are now learning that where such language stops, we find our humanness diminished.”
He wrote those words in 1978, but they struck me as something to think about as we work to identify the ingredients in the kettle of theological soup that is challenging us now. We are seeing in real time what it looks like as the people in power work to “stop the language of newness” that has been evolving over the past 50 years due to landmark legislation, but the seeds of which were planted hundreds of years ago as the country decided to build a government on a cracked foundation.
The founders were not interested in “language of newness.” Yes, they wrote magnificent documents, filled with words that stirred the souls of those who heard them. But behind those words were mindsets that wanted people to understand they had a “place” in society, and that the “liberty and freedom” that was written about did not and would never apply to them.
As enslaved Africans heard those words, their souls jumped. Though they were treated abysmally, not allowed to grieve the loss of their homes and their families, their spirits, fed by the language of newness that they heard, propelled them forward. For them, the language of newness did not stop, and therefore, their humanness was never diminished.
But it is a fact that what we are seeing now is at least partially happening because there was too much newness, too much power and release from traditional beliefs and practices that allowed wealthy white men a measure of comfort that they never intended others to share. Their wealth was created by those whom they oppressed, and they needed for that to remain intact.
The spirits of people, however, yearn to be free. People yearn to be able to use their intellect and their creativity, and thus will not “stay put” because they cannot. Totalitarian efforts always cause chaos, but they can never, and have never, killed the human need to be free, fed during periodic spurts of time where they hear and ingest the language of newness.
We sit now in a maelstrom of anger and insecurity that has haunted the wealthy and powerful for years. The language of newness that has kept the oppressed on a battlefield has offended them. The oppressed have not cowered as they have been encouraged or forced to do. They (we) have been knocked down but have forever gotten back up. The language of newness that we have heard from those who speak to us on God’s behalf is a spiritual nutrient that has attached itself to our very beings and cannot, once ingested, be taken away.
The people in power do not understand this phenomenon. They are creating a new “language of newness,” but because their language seeks to diminish, and not increase the dignity, worth, and appreciation for all humanity, it will fail. People will be free, regardless of the pushback they receive and endure. Their language of newness comes from them and depends on their survival to endure, while the language of newness that Brueggemann speaks of is fed to us by the very breath of God.
The challenge before us is not to give too much credence to what the oppressors are saying, though being fully aware of what they are saying. Knowing what they are saying will direct our prayers, and calm our spirits – and make us available to the presence of our God, the God about whom we learned in Sunday School and from our parents, the God who told us to love our neighbors, the God who has walked and talked with us “through many dangers, toils and snares.”
The oppressors of today claim that God is behind and in support of what they are doing. They want us to absorb that language. What they might call the language of newness, we must recognize as a language of deception. We need to understand what they are saying and why, but we cannot align with them. We know that all people matter. Black and brown people, women, immigrants, the elderly, the poor, children, the differently abled, non-cis gender persons – all matter. God loves all of us. That is the language of newness we have been receiving for the last 50 years (and before that). We have to remember that though oppressors have tried to keep us enslaved to an ideology created by hatred and bigotry, we have learned, through the years, to reject their efforts. Their language of newness is not ours.
May we ask God for the strength to continue to reject their language of the newness they want, and to instead lean on the power we receive from the momentum of memory that reminds us that God has our backs and has always had our backs. We will get through this, relying on the language of newness that will come from this experience that will remind us that, at the end of the day, it is God who is in control, and not a group of people who have made God their tool to justify their behavior.
God will be with us “at break of day.” That is a truth we cannot forget, especially now.
Amen and amen.
Candid Observations 