Mission Impossible, Rev. Dr. Eboni Marshall-Turman

0:58 in God's temple. I don't know about you, church, but I'm glad to be in the service one more time. As I told the congregation last night after birthing my twin girls four months ago, I'm convinced that he didn't have to let me live. He didn't have to let me live, but I'm glad to be in the service one more time. I give honor to God because God is the head of my life. God is the first and the last, the beginning and the end. The Greek New Testament tells us that God is the Alpha Chi Omega. God is the author and the finisher of my faith. To God be the glory, great things God has done. to the angel of this house, the Reverend Dr. Howard John Wesley.

1:55 I am so blessed and humbled by the invitation to be present with you on this Sunday morning to worship God with this marvelous congregation, this spirit-filled congregation, to worship with you in spirit and in truth. I give honor to the reverend clergy who are present today. They are such a beautiful contingent of ministers serving at the pleasure of your pastor. To Reverend Dr. Judy Fentress Williams, who has just been so extraordinarily kind. Her spirit is so genuine and peaceful. I'm grateful for you and for the ministry you provide to this church, to all of the ministers. Minister Barbara for her kindness, for Reverend Mark, who was my student, y'all. at Duke Divinity School. I'm always glad to see my students.

2:49 It is such a pleasure to serve the church through the Theological Academy and have the opportunity to go out and see my students after seasons of discernment and seasons of faith formation, doing the work of God in the church and the world. And what a marvelous job he is doing too. My dear brother, Minister McDavid, Elijah, who is a brother because he is an alum of my seminary, the Union Theological Seminary in the city of New York. So there is a connection there to all of you for your service and for your sacrifice. May God continue to bless and keep you. To the officers of this house, the deacons and deaconesses and trustees, I will continue to remember you in my prayer to this singing aggregation. my lord my lord nearly had me laid out i wouldn't i'm not able to preach after hearing that singing we don't even need a sermon but i'm going to try my best to uh all of the members of this old ship of zion you know not i'm i'm a minister out of the abyssinian baptist church where i was licensed and ordained and certainly still continue to hold my membership there even as I now serve at Yale Divinity School. But there's not too many churches that can beat us in age. We are an old church. But this church, I believe, 1803 versus Abyssinians, 1808, this is indeed an old ship of Zion. And to all of the members here, And to all of the friends of the body of Christ, I greet you this morning as I would any other in the name of the creator, the Christ, and the Holy Ghost.

4:44 Good morning. Our scripture is taken from the New Testament. It is taken from the gospel according to Mark. If it is your custom, please stand for the reading and hearing of the word. Mark, the sixth chapter. beginning at verse 34. There are four gospels, three synoptic, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, but Mark is the oldest of them all. Mark, the sixth chapter beginning at verse 34. I'll be reading this morning from the new revised standard version of the text. It reads on this wise. As Jesus went ashore, he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd.

5:41 And Jesus began to teach them many things. When it grew late, his disciples came to him and said, this is a deserted place and the hour is now very late. Send them away so that they may go into the surrounding country and villages and buy something for themselves to eat. But Jesus answered them, you give them something to eat. And they said to him, are we to go and buy 200 denarii worth of bread and give it to them to eat? And Jesus said to them, how many loaves have you? Go and see. And when they had found out, they said, five, five loaves and two fish. Then Jesus ordered them to get all the people to sit down in groups on the green grass.

6:41 So they sat down in groups of hundreds and fifties. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, Jesus looked up to heaven and blessed and broke the loaves and gave them to his disciples to set before the people. And he divided the two fish among them all. And all ate. And all were filled. And they took up twelve baskets full of broken pieces and of the fish. And those who had eaten the loaves numbered five thousand. The word of the Lord is blessed. Please be seated.

7:27 Shall we pray? Monday, we held it together. Wednesday we had stormy weather.

7:47 Friday we prayed it all better. And Sunday, Lord Sunday, we heard the good news. Hide now your servant, O God, behind the cross, that in this preaching moment the people of God might not see her, but they might see Jesus and decide to follow him. This is your servant's prayer in Jesus' name and the people of God said, amen. I'd like to speak with you very briefly this morning on the subject. Mission impossible.

8:37 Mission impossible. Well, what is the mission? As attested to in the 28th chapter of the gospel according to Matthew, beginning at the 19th verse, Jesus said to that which would become the early church, Go ye therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. and in light of this assignment that Jesus himself has set before the church and the harsh realities of our time, it might appear at first glance that the mission for which we, the church, has been commissioned is impossible.

9:43 We must but turn on the news, CNN or NBC, MSNBC, ABC or Fox. In fact, some of us don't even have to turn on the TV. We can just walk outside to see what kind of night it really is for black people in America and for poor people beyond racial distinctions. even though black people are disproportionately poor, not only in our own neighborhoods, in our state, in our nation, but black people are the most economically and socially disenfranchised people in the world. Many of us can but walk outside our front doors to see what time of night it really is for those of us whose skins have been kissed by the sun. Do you know, sisters and brothers, that one-third of American children live in poverty?

10:47 Do you know that although African Americans constitute roughly 13% of the U.S. population, 40% of the children who live in poverty are black? We sing, bread of heaven, bread of heaven. Feed us till we want no more. But we are surrounded by hungry children who do not have enough food to eat in a nation that produces enough food for every person to have three square meals per day and two snacks. Our children are threatened by educational apartheid in the year of our Lord 2020 that we mistakenly thought Brown v. Board of Education had disrupted in 1954. But white flight and the privatization of the American Industrial Education Project, much like the privatization of the prison industrial complex, has left poor children who, as established, are disproportionately black and brown children in separate and unequal educational facilities that are administratively overtaxed, sorely understaffed and underfunded so that our teachers are restricted in their capacity to teach reading, writing, and arithmetic on par with their peer institutions and children, our children, are restricted in their capacity to study, to show themselves approved. And we must not forget, sisters and brothers, that the cradle-to-prison pipeline targets these very underperforming elementary schools and school districts in its future projection of how many beds and how many jail cells will be needed in the days ahead. And although statistics prove, without a shadow of a doubt, that black people do not commit the most crimes, that black people do not sell the most drugs,

12:59 that black people do not traffic the most guns, that black people are not the most violent of offenders. We are the disproportionately incarcerated. That means there's more of us in jail than anybody else. And have you read your constitution lately? For slavery is abolished except as punishment for a crime. The elders used to say, before I be a slave, I be buried in my grave. But the fact of the matter is that there are more black people dying a social death in jail today than were enslaved in the 1860s. And as current events have revealed, before they can even get us to the precinct, Freddie Gray, before we know what we're being charged with, Laquan McDonald, before they read us our rights, old Justice Taney ruled against due process in the 1890s, 1857 rather, when he said to one Dred Scott that a black man has no rights, that a white man is bound to respect. I'm telling you that before they read us our rights, we can be shot down like dogs in the street. Mike Brown said, hands up, don't shoot. We can be asphyxiated in our own neighborhoods in front of the corner store.

14:32 I can't breathe. We can be shot down in our grandmother's backyard with a cell phone in our hand. Can you hear me now? We can be strung up with a garbage bag. I am Sandra Bland and the world But we'll be told that we killed ourselves. Langston Hughes once penned, America never was America to me, nor freedom in this homeland of the free. But you've got this disrespectful, anti-black, racist, sexist, narcissistic, homophobic, greedy, self-centered, braggadocious, flat-out evil, 45th resident of the White House trying to make America great again.

15:30 Oh, you can say what you want to say. But old Billie Holiday said it best, black bodies swinging in the southern and northern breeze a strange fruit she said hanging from the poplar tree and when you compound the realities of our time when you add it all up when you put it all together that our children maybe not your children Alfred Street but our children are hungry when they go to unequal school that have been targeted by the evil machinations of a prison industrial complex that based on statistics has already incarcerated many of their loved ones, Joomba, Jojo, and Big Sean, while living in community where black lives don't matter.

16:32 such that walking home from the store with Skittles and an Arizona iced tea might cost you your life, such that water in Flint and Newark and Washington can be used as a weapon of mass destruction, such that going to church to Bible study on a Wednesday night could cost you your life. From four little girls in a Birmingham church to Charleston's Emmanuel 9 to Pittsburgh's Tree of Life. Amidst these social reality, this kind of social crucifixion, I must, Jesus, bear the cross alone and all the world go free. amidst this kind of social crucifixion, the mission, church, for which we have already been commissioned.

17:32 Jesus said, Go ye therefore, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost. The mission for which we have been commissioned might seem impossible. Mission. impossible and it is precisely amidst the seemingly impossible that we find Jesus and his disciples in our text today you know it's about 830 but we started at 730 and the only thing I do these days at 730 or 830 in the morning is feed my babies. So y'all gonna have to bear with me as the Lord gets me together. But this is where we find ourselves in the text. In verse 35, we find disciples telling Jesus, This is, Jesus, a deserted place.

18:45 It's impossible. It'll never happen. It'll never come to pass. Can you imagine telling God? that something is impossible? The disciples, that's me and that's you, they were standing there telling Jesus this is a deserted place. In some translations it says this is a desolate place, but whether it is translated as deserted or desolate, It all points to the same reality. Jesus and the disciples find themselves amidst the seemingly impossible, amidst a crowd of people facing tragic and traumatic circumstances. In fact, biblical scholars, they suggest that the mention of baskets in verse 42 reveals the impoverished condition of the gathered community.

19:49 They were the poor. They were the disenfranchised. They were the socially marginalized who had to carry baskets with them on their way. I'm from up north. My roots run deep in the state of New York. I was born in the 1980s. I'm a child of the hip hop generation. They call us millennials. But this story This story reminds me of the stories my grandma Shirley and my grandpa Pete would tell me about traveling in the Jim Crow South. Some of y'all remember when black people would not be served at a rest stop. When black people could not stay at just any hotel. Before you went on your way, you had to wrap your fried chicken and your white bread in a wax paper.

20:50 And pack it up in a brown paper bag. Don't act all Sididi Alfred Street. Some of y'all are still packing your fried chicken and your white bread and your canned soda. Oh, and it's all right with me because it's sundown in America. Oh, and that treasonous rebel flag is flying high with MAGA emblazoned on it all over this land. And as long as you drive while black, as long as you walk while black, as long as you play while black, the truth is, as my mother told me, you can't stop anywhere. Pack your own basket. The baskets of the ancient world reveal the impoverished social condition of this community. Jesus and the disciples find themselves in a deserted place, a desolate place, a depressed neighborhood, a disconsolate community.

21:54 And although none of us were there, we weren't in Ferguson. We weren't maybe in Baltimore. We weren't in Staten Highland. We weren't in Cleveland. We weren't in Durham. We weren't in Charlotte. Maybe, as we like to say, we have food on our table and we have clothes on our back and we woke up with a reasonable portion of health and strength. Maybe we weren't in that desolate place. Oh, but most of us know what it feels like to be down. to feel alone and deserted to be grieved in your spirit to feel like you're traveling the road all alone you remember when mama died when daddy got sick and although you heard somewhere that absence from the body is presence with the Lord.

22:59 Although you heard somewhere that when the earthly house of this tabernacle be dissolved, there's a building, a house not made with hands eternal in the heavens. Though somebody told you that there's no more crying there and there's no more dying there, that the leaves on the trees are good for the healing of the nations. You can't help but to feel depressed and bereaved. You are in a deserted place. The disciples said this is a deserted place. And you know what it feels like. Because you remember some of you are down to your last dime right now. You robbed Peter to pay Paul for the last time. Somebody here does not know where the rent is coming from next month. Somebody doesn't know where the tuition is coming from next month. Somebody doesn't know where their next meal is coming from today.

24:05 But you heard somewhere that God is the provider. They call his name Jehovah Jireh. And you heard somewhere that although he may not come when you want him, he's always right on time. But today, you find yourself in a desolate place. Maybe you've got problems on the job. You've heard it said, work while it is day. For the night soon cometh when no man can work. You've heard it said, show yourself approved. a workman rightly dividing the word of truth, but your boss and your co-workers get on your last nerve. They slam out their minds and it seems your job seems to be destroying you. You are in a desolate place or maybe your heart is broken. Family problem. Children won't get right.

25:10 Your husband, your wife won't do right. You've got a pain in your side. Paul said, a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan to buffet me. And though you sing Sunday after Sunday, take your burden to the Lord and leave it there. Time and again, you find yourself in a deserted place. The disciples said, Jesus, this is a deserted place. The mission is impossible. Oh, but Jesus.

25:48 Oh, but Jesus. The song says there is a name. I love to hear. I love to sing its word. It sounds like music in my ear. The sweetest name on earth. The text tells us that when Jesus saw the great crowd in an impossible situation, he had compassion on them. He did not ask them what church they belonged to. He did not ask who their pastor was. He did not ask if they had been born again. He did not require them to say the sinner's prayer. He did not exhort them to lift up holy hands. He did not instruct them to come to the front of the church and confess their sin. No, all the Bible says is that he had compassion on them.

26:47 I remember in the old church when the deacons would come down to the front of the altar and they would tell us about Jesus' compassion. They'd say, what a friend we have in Jesus. All our sins and griefs to bear. Jesus had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd. In other words, no one cared about the condition they were in. But Jesus knew. Jesus knew as did Nat Turner. Jesus knew as did David Walker. Jesus knew as did Benjamin Elijah Mays. Jesus knew as did Mary McLeod Bethune.

27:44 As did El-Haj Malik and Betty Shabazz. As did Martin King and Ella Baker. Jesus knew that you cannot be about the business of saving souls if you know not the significance of saving bodies. No, I don't want to pray with you if you suppress my vote. Voting for those who justify the slaughter of innocents. You can't say so. See, if you don't know anything about saving bodies, I don't want to sing with you. If you align yourself with those who justify black disenfranchisement, no, I don't want to worship with you. If you don't have anything, or rather you want to talk all day about the old church, but don't have anything to say about the new Jim Crow.

28:45 Why? Because the womanist wisdom of my foremothers tells me that everybody praying about heaven, everybody singing about heaven, everybody talking about heaven ain't going there. When Jesus found himself in a desolate place, he did not ignore it. He did not turn a blind eye. He had compassion on them.

29:16 But the disciple... were confused, hell-bent on making the church great again. No women. No queers. Don't be too dark. No drums is too loud. No young people. No new ministries. Preach the old way. Sing the old way. Teach the old way. Serve communion the old way. Our disciples hell-bent on making the church great again instead of being transformed into the new thing that God is calling us to, the disciples. The disciples spent all their time, all their waking hours with Jesus, the disciples, who when Jesus would ask, who do you say that I am, would confess without hesitation, thou art the Christ, the son of the living God, the ones who knew what to say and when to say it they didn't guide me oh thou great Jehovah now pilgrim in this barren land they knew what to do and when to do it the ushers may come the choir will sing and we will give the disciples were confused when they saw the tragic condition of the crowd what the black philosopher and revolutionary friends for known I might call the wretched of the earth the disciples told Jesus send them away. There's nothing we can do for them. They need too much and we don't have enough to give.

31:19 They're too dirty. The mission, Jesus, is impossible. They're too bored. The mission, Jesus, is impossible. They're too common. The mission, Jesus, is impossible. Their music is too loud. The mission, Jesus, is impossible. Their language is too profane. The mission is impossible. Their pants sag too low. The mission is impossible. Her skirt is too short. The mission is impossible. This is a deserted place, Jesus. Send them away. The disciples, the disciples, the disciples can be devilishly mean. to the ones who need us the most. Don't get mad for me telling it like it is. Jesus already knows how mean we can be.

32:14 Jesus said, I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat. Jesus said, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink. Jesus said I was sick and I was in prison and you did not visit me. We can be devilishly mean. But this means spiritedness. It's not innate to our human personality. It's not natural for us. It is born from a culture of deprivation that is being consumed by what we don't have instead of focused on what we do have. And when we are focused on what we don't have, we lose sight. We lose sight of the fact that our mission is not dependent on what we don't have. Our mission is not dependent on our deficiencies, on our deficits, on our shortages, on our insufficiencies.

33:24 But our mission as the church, as the people of God, is dependent first on the power of a God who can take nothing and make something. We serve a God, in case anybody has forgotten, that was born in the poverty of a barn. We serve a God who died as a slave on a cross. But I've been told that on the third day, he rose from the dead.