I’m feeling the pressure. It seems almost impossible to preach this week without talking about the shooting of Michael Brown and the protests occurring in Ferguson, Missouri. In addition, my wife is from St. Louis, so the town and street names are all familiar to her, and the horrible sadness of it all cuts close to the bone. Most of all, I believe my African-American brothers and sisters in Christ would count it another white failure of conscience and nerve to say nothing at such a time. Several on-line voices in our denomination are calling for Christians to speak out together against racial hatred and accompanying violence.
My honest response, however, is that I have no new wisdom to add to the many words being spoken and shouted around Brown’s death. I am acutely aware that I could easily be discounted as a member of the white majority that does not “get” the African-American experience of systematic discrimination, profiling and injustice. I fear saying anything just because I know I do not fully apprehend that pain and its affect on a person.
So the best I can do right now is to quote a few verses from this week’s text, Proverbs 18, and let any application to the situation in Missouri appear as much as possible on its own.
To begin with, in regard to all the many different people who are talking about Michael Brown, the Ferguson police, and racial violence, let me offer verse 2, “A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing personal opinion.”
A general theme of human use of words pervades Proverbs 18, and the first half of the fourth verse, using a different metaphor from those expressing the same thought in James chapter 3, cautions us about the power of what we say, “The words of the mouth are deep waters.” The second part of the verse offers the more hopeful, “the fountain of wisdom is a gushing stream.”
Not much comment is needed on verse 5, “It is not right to be partial to the guilty, or to subvert the innocent in judgment,” which is followed by three more verses about the bad use of words by fools, telling us they cause strife, bring us to ruin, and yet have a subtly sweet and dangerous attraction for us.
After typical Proverbs warnings against pride and vanity in verses 11 and 12, we read, “If one gives answer before hearing, it is folly and shame.” This verse I’d truly pray to take to heart in regard to events in Ferguson. I know I don’t understand, and the only way I possibly can gain understanding is to do my best to listen well. One suggestion I heard offered to white observers is to read and listen to African-American voices regarding it all. I need to do some more of that. And it might do well to hear verse 17 in the process, “The one who first states a case seems right, until the other comes and cross-examines.”
Regarding the impasse of constant street conflict in Ferguson, verse 19 is discouraging, “An ally offended is stronger than a city; such quarreling is like the bars of a castle.” May God help us when our quarrels lock us up in opposing, impregnable castles of our own opinions.
Verse 21 repeats the theme of the power of speech, both for good and ill, “Death and life are in the power of the the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit.” In other words, those who live by the sword of their mouths, will experience its power, will swallow that sword, “eat their words,” be they good or bad, life or death. We do well to consider what we say before it’s said.
Thank God for the encouragement found in the familiar last verse, 24, maybe best in the NIV, “A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.” Christians will hear a reference to the friendship of our Lord in those words, and we might pray their truth both for ourselves and for all the oppressed of the world, whether African-Americans in the heart of America or Christian and Yazidi Iraqis fleeing terrorists. May we and they all find that Friend who sticks closer than a brother coming alongside to speak His gracious words of help and comfort.