Psalm 8
Genesis 1:26-31
Saint Matthew 28:16-20
At the time a song about racial prejudice was rarely heard in a musical.
The composer and the lyricist “were counseled repeatedly in tryouts to remove the song, which was considered by many to be too controversial, too preachy, or simply inappropriate in a musical. They resisted the pressure, James Michener (author of the book on which the play was based) later recalled: "The authors replied stubbornly that this number represented why they had wanted to do this play, and that even if it meant the failure of the production, it was going to stay in."1
The song is sung by the Lieutenant Cable right after he has broken up with his Polynesian girlfriend in the presence Nellie Forbush who has also ended her relationship with the French plantation owner who is the father of two biracial children.
Nellie tries to explain to her former love that she doesn’t know why she is breaking up with him saying: “This is emotional. It’s something that is born in me.”
Turning to Cabel, De Becque asks, “Why do you have this feeling, you and she? I do not believe it is born in you. I do not believe it.”2
To which Cabel responds in song:
You've got to be taught To hate And fear
You've got to be taught
From year To year
It’s got to Be drummed in your dear little ear
You've got to Be carefully Taught
You've got to be taught
Before it's too late
Before you are six
Or seven Or eight
To hate all the people
Your relatives hate
You've got to Be carefully taught
You've got to be carefully taught.
One can help but be saddened at how those lyrics written almost sixty years ago still apply. Hate and fear are two words that almost permeate our society. It seems that fear of each other has left us hating each other.
It is so far from the model God gave us in the Genesis story that it is heartbreaking.
We are a long way from that moment when “God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.”3 And God blessed them and told them, “Multiply and fill the earth and subdue it; you are masters of the fish and birds and all the animals.”4
One paraphrase of scripture translates this charge for the human to “Take charge! Be responsible ... for every living thing that moves on the face of Earth.”5
See the correlation there?
Taking charge doesn’t mean to dominate. Taking charge doesn’t mean to think of the world as a battle space and the other as someone who must be controlled, put down. Taking charge means to be responsible for every living thing that moves.”
Scripture is clear.
God made a very good world, but the human beings made it {and are making it!} go wrong. As a result, all relations were {and are} affected: between God and humanity, between humanity and the creation, and between humans themselves. {With} original goodness corrupted, the human beings had fallen into murder and misuse of power.6
Whenever power is being unjustly used only to benefit the powerful it is nothing less than sin.
Psalm 8 which I chose to begin our day together outdoors in the sunshine speaks of the same kind of authority God has given us as God crowns us with glory and honor. Glory and honor! How much glory and honor have we shown?
“Humans do not have dominion on their own merit but because of God’s overarching authority. Humans have a derived authority”7 that comes from God.
That derived authority stretches from the beleaguered parent at the kitchen table trying to make their kids do their homework to the occupant of the highest office in the land. No one dare ever forget that whatever authority they have is not theirs but comes to them as a gift from God.
God’s gifts are not to be mocked.
A protestor who lobs a brick or a bottle or an incendiary device in the general direction of a law enforcement officer is mocking their God-given right to peaceably assemble.
A law enforcement officer who leans on the neck of a man until he is dead is abusing his authority.
Police special units who push a 75-year-old man to the concrete and knock them cold are abusing their authority.
The “fearless leader” who has protestors gassed and pummeled so that he can have a photo-op in front of a church he does not ever attend is not only abusing his authority but making a mockery of God and those of us for whom the faith is very important.
Holding up a bible in front of a church no more makes you a Christian than holding up a repair manual in front of an auto shop makes you a mechanic!
“You’ve got to be taught to hate and fear. You’ve got to have it drummed in your dear little ear. You’ve got to be carefully taught.” This is so far from the image of God in which we were created and the principles by which God wants us to live.
Even so, and some days this is the most amazing thing in the world to me, God is continually loving, and caring for, and trying to redeem the world.
God has built into creation and has gifted to the world: harmony in family life, harmony in public life between citizens and their leaders, harmony between political parties, harmony between workers and owners, harmony among people and cultures.8
All people, whatever their race or gender or class are created in God’s image, which means that each person is to be respected and valued and honored.9
That is tough stuff. It’s hard to overcome hate and fear.
But we know that what is taught can be untaught.
That unteaching can begin with the realization that even though humans may think they govern the world they’d better know that God governs them. God is the one we will all be answerable to on how we have used the authority we have been given.
We have to do better. No excuses! No out of context “he’s a racist” posts. None of this “but he hit me first” stuff. The future of the Republic is at stake.
We’ve got 110,000 dead from a virus with a number that only promises to grow.
We’ve got people at each other’s throats, literally and figuratively, and it has to stop. And the only way I can see it stopping is with you and with me.
This has to be the end of the hate and fear that is drummed in our dear little ear. But you can just remove hate and fear and hope for the best. That will only leave a vacuum. It must be replaced with love and respect!
Let me close by telling you a true story of Virginia Ali who, in August of 1958 opened Ben’s Chilli Bowl in Washington, D.C.
Ten years later, after the Nation’s Capital was ripped by the unrest following Dr. King’s assassination, the Chilli Bowl was the only place that was allowed to stay open past curfew. It ““became a safe and neutral space for people to meet when things were really hot elsewhere in the city.” And not just for the protesters. “For whomever!” Ali exclaimed. “City officials, police officers, anybody that wanted to come in.”
Ali has lived through it all. Riots. The ups and downs of the neighborhood.
We definitely should not destroy our communities and our neighborhoods. For me, that’s just not the way to go.”But don’t mistake her anger with these “agitators” for complacency with the status quo. “We’ve fought for the same basic human rights that we’re fighting for again, 52 years later.” She sighed. “That’s ridiculous, isn’t it?”“I think you have to take the high road,” she said. “It’s unfortunate that we’ve had to go at this over and over and over again. That’s very unfortunate. But I think now we have more people supporting this cause not only in Washington, but all over this country and all over the world. We have people standing in support of what we’ve had to deal with. And I think this is going to make a difference.”
Ali believes . . . that the nation will come together to address systemic injustices. “I think it’s got to happen,” she said. “And I’m so optimistic because we definitely need positive change and I want to see it before I leave this world.”
I want to see that and I bet you do too. And the day will come when not hate and fear but love, mercy and justice is drummed (Yes! Drummed!) into every dear little ear until God can once again look down upon our world and see us be responsible toward and respectful of each other.
Maybe one day God can once again look down upon the world and see us seeing each other as children of God worthy of respect.
Maybe if God can see that God will again be able to look at creation and pronounce it good.
May this be so not just in our lifetimes. May this be so soon.
____________
1. Andrea Most, “‘You've Got to Be Carefully Taught’: The Politics of Race in Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific,” October 1, 2000, https://muse.jhu.edu/article/34765.
2. Richard Rodgers composer and Oscar Hammerstein lyricist. “South Pacific.” (New York: Williamson Music Publishers, 1949), p. 76 -77.
3. Genesis 1:27. (NKJV) [NKJV=The New Kings James Version]
4. Genesis 1:28. (TLB) [TLB=The Living Bible (Carol Stream, Illinois: Tyndall House Publishers, 1971)]
5. Genesis 1:28-29 (MESSAGE) [MESSAGE=The Message]
6. Lynn Japinga, “Genesis 1:1-2:4a,” in Connections: A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Worship, vol. 2 (Louisville, KY: Westminister|John Knox Press, 2020), pp. 3-5.
7. Joel Marcus Lemon, “Psalm 8. Connecting the Psalm with Scripture and Worship.,” in Connections: A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Worship, vol. 2 (Louisville, KY: Westminister|John Knox Press, 20208), pp. 8-9.
8. Andrew Foster Connors, “Genesis 1:1-2:4a,” in Connections: A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Worship, vol. 2 (Louisville, ky: Westminister|John Knox Press, 2020), pp. 5-7.
9. Japinga. Loc.cit.
10. Declan Garvey, “Ben's Chili Bowl Founder on Civil Unrest-In 1968 and Today,” The Dispatch. June 4, 2020, https://thedispatch.com/p/bens-chili-bowl-founder-on-civil.
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