The historical Jesus would be unwelcomed in a Christian society that is at home with white supremacy. In their general religious devotion, white-supremacist Christians are participants in Jesus’ crucifixion because, in truth, their Christianity was not about Christ; white racists wedded Jesus to white supremacy, shaping Christian discipleship to govern a racial hierarchy.8
While Bonhoeffer’s experience was in the 1930s, we find ourselves in a similar position today with White supremacy rearing its ugly head and the Church largely remaining silent. Bonhoeffer’s learnings are relevant today and we must look to those who have left templates for us as we preach a word that upsets a Christianity that looks little like the Black Jesus Bonhoeffer found in Harlem who animated Black churches to be the Church, the body of Christ, in a world where suffering seemed to have the upper hand.
Preaching the gospel steeped in a Black Jesus of Nazareth takes courage and there are examples to guide us. Preaching requires vulnerability—especially prophetic preaching: preaching that troubles the waters of a country, a world that seems determined to live in the sin of racism. Brené Brown defines vulnerability as risk + uncertainty + emotional exposure.9 Jesus risked it all to confront the unjust powers of his day. If the body of Christ is to be his representative on earth, the Church must risk it all for the gospel, a gospel that challenges this country’s original sin and the role the Church played in it. The preacher must be willing to risk upsetting the congregation, at the least, to move it from its place of comfort to a place where eliminating racism becomes its call. There will be uncertainty because it is unknown how the people will initially react and later act as a result of the sermon. Finally, the preacher must risk something of themselves to let the congregation know what is in and on their heart. The Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray said there is a certain fear when a minister attempts to preach the Word of God. That fear results from the realization that we are so small and God is so great and, regardless of the level of education, the number of years preaching, or the hours of sermon preparation, our preaching will always fall short because human beings fall short and God’s judgment always looms near.10 There is no perfect sermon.
The Rev. Florence Spearing Randolph put it all on the line and opened herself to being vulnerable when she mounted the pulpit on Sunday, February 14, 1941, at Wallace Chapel AME Zion Church in Summit, New Jersey. She was about to trouble the waters with a sermon that was so controversial for its time that it was reported in both the White and Black press. A female African American, she preached a sermon titled, “If I Were White.” In a sermon that would be relevant today, but was written for her particular time, Rev. Randolph lifted a mirror to the hypocrisy of America and White people in the treatment of African Americans. She preached of the need for racial justice and economic parity that could have provided the foundation for Martin Luther King Jr.’s challenge against America’s three evils—racism, capitalism, and militarism—and the need for White people to take responsibility for the mess they created.
She preached during a time of war. World War II was raging, which added additional vulnerability to her words as they could be seen as challenging, not only Christianity, but also this country’s patriotism. She took a proverbial knee in the pulpit, much like Colin Kaepernick’s protest against the singing of the national anthem. I can imagine this Daughter of Thunder skillfully opening a wound in the psyche of White Americans by declaring that if Whites “believed in Democracy as taught by Jesus [and] loved [their] country and believed . . . [the United States], because of her high type of civilization, her superior resources, her wealth and culture,” then that country should be a bastion of peace and make sure all her people are cared for because “charity begins at home.”11
From her pulpit in this supposed White church, she declared that White America needed to pull the “beam out of thine own eye” (Matt. 7:5, KJV) before finding fault with other nations. A precursor to Bryan Stevenson’s call for being proximate, she called for Black and White ministers to exchange pulpits. She urged the various organizations in White churches to study Black history and realize that Black Americans had demonstrated their loyalty by dying for this country from 1776 on. But then she hit the jugular vein and said, “If I were white and believed in God, in His Son Jesus Christ and the Holy Bible,” as if being White precluded believing in all three or even one, that she would challenge all who took the pulpit to speak against all that degrades God’s people: racism, prejudice, hatred, oppression, and injustice. She put the responsibility for racism squarely where it belonged, telling the White race that it should show its superiority by taking responsibility for ending racial prejudice. She used scripture to make her point: if one says they love God but not a sibling in Christ, that person was a liar (1 John 4:20). She mounted her challenge to Whites to end discrimination against Blacks in housing, education, entertainment venues, and health care. She recognized and indicted systemic racism. She confronted Whites who were ignorant of Black history and called for them to put books on Black history in the libraries and to see that Black history was taught in schools. Then, with just a hint of the task that is before her, she admitted that she did not know how successful she would be if she were White, but that her conscience would be clear. She ended with a dream in which she, as a White person, was trying to avoid a Black person who was gaining on her. Finally, the Black person stood side by side with her and her wrath was kindled. The Black person was equal to her, but then she turned to act on her wrath and was “struck dumb with fear, for lo, the Black man was not there, but Christ stood in his place. And Oh! the pain, the pain, the pain, that looked from that dear face.”12 Would Whites act differently if Jesus were physically Black?
Randolph’s sermon was daring for the time and daring for a woman because women still had a difficult time finding acceptance from men both inside and outside the Church that they had a call from God to preach. Randolph was fortunate because the African Methodist Episcopal Zion (AMEZ) Church began ordaining women in 1894. A lot was at stake for her, as a woman and as an African American to preach as she did. Race prejudice and violence were an ever-present threat. Jim Crow, segregation, and the lynchings of Blacks who did not “know their place” were never far from the minds of African Americans. It was not outside the realm of possibility that she could have been lynched. She knew she was vulnerable; she took the risk anyway.
A great preacher brings a word to the congregation and brings the self to the sermon. They bring scripture to life and offer a glimpse into who they are, what they believe, what they stand for, and how they have evolved. The Rev. Dr. Anna Pauline (Pauli) Murray was one such preacher. She was ordained as an Episcopal priest in 1977 at the age of sixty-seven. In 1974, she served as the crucifer at the irregular ordination of the Philadelphia Eleven, the first women irregularly ordained in the Episcopal Church. It was a time of change and challenge in the Episcopal Church. Women had challenged the belief that God did not call women to preach and serve at the Table in the Church. Murray was the first African American female ordained as priest in the Episcopal Church. She was used to bending the rules and norms that attempted to define the place of women and African Americans in society and the Church. Pauli Murray came to the priesthood after an illustrious career as an attorney, civil rights activist, and educator. She could have easily ignored God’s call on her life, but she did not.
In five sermons preached between 1974 and 1979—“The Dilemma of the Minority Christian” (1974), “The Holy Spirit” (1977), “The Gift of the Holy Spirit (1977), “Can These Bones Live Again?” (1978), and “Salvation and Liberation” (1979)—we see an evolution of her thinking as a theologian