by Dr. Lani Wilson

Good morning, prayer and fasting faithful. Be well. Be warm. Be alive and hopeful. Now is the time.

The word given for consideration is such. A peculiar word with no significance on its own, one would think, right? However, one of the uses of such is specificity; signaling focus on an attribute, idea, trait.

If God gives such attention to the appearance of wildflowers—most of which are never even seen—don’t you think he’ll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you? What I’m trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God’s giving. People who don’t know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don’t worry about missing out. You’ll find all your everyday human concerns will be met.
Mathew 6:30-33 (TMB)

And the word such can mean something that has already been mentioned or happened as in using it to point out an event that has occurred. For example, you could say that you had been in “just such a situation” in responding sympathetically to a friend’s predicament. It can also be something that is going to be mentioned. In other words, it sets the stage for the issue that you are about to mention; it’s a highlighter of something to come: “There is no such thing as a free lunch” (Apple Online Dictionary). Finally, it can be used to designate something of great quality or extreme: “This material is of such importance that it has a powerful bearing on the case” (Apple Online Dictionary).

In the abovementioned verse from Mathew, The Nazarene is assuring us that God will provide because if S/He gives such beauty to flowers growing wild in the field, won’t S/He as much if not more for His greater creation, us? In this Message translation, the admonition is for us to relax, to not be anxious, to pull back from the hurdy-gurdy push to acquire, to display, to accumulate. It seems ridiculous at first: We have to be concerned with getting, right? Education, living spaces, jobs, food, basic clothing, and shelter. Maybe it was because Jesus lived in a simpler time, in a simpler economy, a simpler existence, we think to ourselves. But did He?

Jesus lived in Antiquity or what we generally consider ancient times. As we know from reading history, the area in which He grew up was one of turmoil and transition. Geographically, the lands bordering the eastern Mediterranean shore linked two centers of power: North Africa (which included the Arabian Peninsula) and the encroaching dominance of the Roman Empire from the northwest (as far north as Scotland). Jesus was born and lived his short 33 years in an important, tempestuous, tumultuous, geographic, socio-political environment.

The sudden political transformation of Judaea in 63 BCE from nominal independence under the last of the Hasmonean priest-kings to the status of a Roman vassal province has left no sure indication in the archaeological record. It is rather in the gradual signs of ever-greater integration in the Roman world system during the reign of the client king, Herod the Great (37-4 BCE), that a decided change at last becomes visible in the material culture of the country. From the excavations of that king’s new port city of Caesarea and his opulent palace villas at Jericho, Masada and Herodion, and from the aristocratic residences excavated in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem, the extent of stylistic and technical borrowing from Roman culture, at least in the realm of architecture and decorative arts, becomes increasingly obvious.
James D. Anderson, Digital Archaeological Atlas of the Holy Land (DAAHL)

So although we see those times as far simpler, when appreciated from a political standpoint alone, they were far from simple. Nazareth is in the southern end of Galilee, a province known to contest Roman rule and spawn rebellious Jews. There were constant skirmishes against the Roman occupation as the Jews wish to return to their own theocratic governance. Jesus was born in a hotbed of political strife and oppression where many different religions and people from all around the Mediterranean. Greek, Roman, eastern Asian, and North African cultures all converged. Galileans were looked upon as crude, uneducated, and backward by Judean Jews, and thus, Jesus was considered contemptible. Yet, He was born in Judea (Bethlehem) and thus, by birth and upbringing (Nazareth) He was rooted in both classes, unbeknownst to the world. He was a child of crisis (Herod the Great was the first non-Davidic ruler of the Jews), a child of blood (the slaughter of all male babies under two years old by Herod), a child of poverty (the peasantry of Mary and Joseph), and a child of exile and illegality (His birth and the flight into Egypt to save Him from Herod).

The northern part of Palestine, also referred to as Galilee of the gentiles because of the Assyrian conquest (Is 9:1). The S border was the Valley of Jezreel, the E border was to Sea of Galilee, the N border was Lebanon, and the W border was the Plain of Acre. It is the highest region in the country, with the coolest temperature. It was well watered by the winter rains and had numerous and abundant springs. The area is divided into two parts by a deep valley, thus upper Galilee and lower Galilee. Upper Galilee rose to a height of more than 3000 feet above sea level. Galilee's lush territory and fertile soil for agriculture provide a basis for rich economy in this region. It also contained a major road which brought the peoples of the Mediterranean to the lands of the East.
www.bible-history.com

Although it is absolutely true that humankind did not have the technological excesses and ensuing complexity that it brings, life was by no means simple in Jesus’ times. The political machinations, turmoil, glaring poverty, economic oppression, and distress of fractured cultures were all roiling around in Palestine and especially in the wild province of Galilee. Jesus was born into a maelstrom. Sound familiar?

So here He comes, according to gospel accounts, telling us to relax; don’t worry about how you’re going to eat or live or what’s coming.

Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ 32 For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.
Mathew 6:31-32 (NRSV)

I can understand how people when first reading this can say to themselves, “Wait----was He nuts? We have to find a way to make money so that we can eat, have a roof over our heads, have power to run all our modern appliances, wear clothes, have transportation; and then there are all the intangibles like health insurance, gasoline, electricity, phones,” and on and on and on. It was meant to be a quaint, loving, caring, passive reassurance that the sweet-talking man-God Who lived 20 centuries ago left us so that we can be patient and wait for deliverance.

No such luck (if you believe in luck).

The Jesus that spoke these words was not talking about just laying about, waiting for some magical Pater-in-the-Sky to come down and drop manna about as He did 14 centuries before for the Hebrews who wandered in the desert. It was much more complicated than that. There was going to be internal, internecine, intra-familial confrontations, and interpersonal struggle about what God required.

“When people realize it is the living God you are presenting and not some idol that makes them feel good, they are going to turn on you, even people in your own family. There is a great irony here: proclaiming so much love, experiencing so much hate! But don’t quit. Don’t cave in. It is all well worth it in the end. It is not success you are after in such times but survival. Be survivors! Before you’ve run out of options, the Son of Man will have arrived.
Mathew 10:21-23 (TMB)

Brothers and sisters will betray one another and have each other put to death. Parents will betray their own children, and children will turn against their parents and have them killed. Everyone will hate you because of me. But if you remain faithful until the end, you will be saved. When people mistreat you in one town, hurry to another one. I promise you that before you have gone to all the towns of Israel, the Son of Man will come.
Ibid.

The Message translation puts a palatable spin on whatever was originally translated from the spoken Aramaic to Hebrew to Latin to Greek to modern languages. Nonetheless, the inference is very clear: There will be turmoil of such magnitude that it will split families apart, perhaps mortally. And all because this nomadic, Galilean Jewish prophet performed miracles, was a great teacher, had a lot of charisma, and was ostensibly telling Jews to be better Jews? When one thinks about it, the miracle is that He is even remembered and that in His short life of seeming inconsequence, He changed history. If He is not asking us to be quietly wait for God to deliver, what exactly is He saying in this passage? An infamous passage from Esther tells us something.

For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father's family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?"
Esther 4:14 (NIV)

Esther’s Uncle Mordecai speaks these words to her, a Jewish exile, the Queen of Persia, wife of King Ahasuerus (Xerxes) to tell her that she has been placed there for “such a time as this.” Listen to The Message translation:

When Hathach told Mordecai what Esther had said, Mordecai sent her this message: “Don’t think that just because you live in the king’s house you’re the one Jew who will get out of this alive. If you persist in staying silent at a time like this, help and deliverance will arrive for the Jews from someplace else; but you and your family will be wiped out. Who knows? Maybe you were made queen for just such a time as this.”
Ibid.

Terror is nothing new to African-Americans; it’s just been given new life and sanction. But this time, the terror is global because we live in a world that is uniquely connected. The great chess board of geo-political power has been upended and the pieces are all over the place. In light of the fact that we are merely 12+% of the entire American population, how is Mordecai’s admonition and challenge to Esther relevant to us? Simple. As always we have been put in this unique position as the conscience and bell weather of this nation’s very soul. The survival of America is dependent on the survival of African-Americans because we built this country and its culture and none of that has been reconciled. As African-Americans go, so go all of America’s “others.” All the marginalized persons in this country follow our footfalls, and that path is predicated on just how reliable we believe our God has been and is now. We have been made “for just such a time as this.” Whether we like it or not, as the divinely marked pilots of righteous struggle, we form the historical and faithful core for any march toward a just world. And God is the God of justice and love, here and forever. S/He has claimed us and we have claimed the promise; that promise not of serenity and peace, although those are byproducts, but of strength, resilience, and sometimes perilous victory over evil itself, regardless of where you believe it originates. We have been brought to the margins of our belief and that is exactly where The Christ lives. He was tossed at birth into a religious, cultural, social, and political tsunami and He died there. But out of His battered Body and surrendered Life, He gave us everything that matters: Courage to continue, strength to rise up, faith to dispel fear, and resurrected Love manifest. It is a done deal. We may not see the end but we know the story and most importantly, we know the Author.

LORD Jesus, from our fuzzy sway after a temporary knock down, You bring us back. Bewildered but not surprised, damaged but not damned, we have to keep looking to You and hanging on. We have nowhere else to go and nothing more to lose. “Goodness and mercy shall follow us all the days of our lives” because You cannot deny Yourself. And You promised. You promised that You would NEVER leave us or forsake us, and You haven’t. So gear us up, prepare the battlefield, bring Your thundering herds, and make Your miraculous moves because we know You will go before us. Whomever and forever, we have come to make You our Home.

O for a thousand tongues to sing
my great Redeemer's praise,
the glories of my God and King,
the triumphs of his grace!

My gracious Master and my God,
assist me to proclaim,
to spread thro' all the earth abroad
the honors of your name.

Jesus! the name that charms our fears,
that bids our sorrows cease,
'tis music in the sinner's ears,
'tis life and health and peace.

He breaks the power of cancelled sin,
he sets the prisoner free;
his blood can make the foulest clean;
his blood availed for me.

To God all glory, praise, and love
be now and ever given
by saints below and saints above,
the Church in earth and heaven.
Worship & Rejoice 2003, hymnary.org

My great Redeemer’s praise…my great Redeemer’s praise.

O for a thousand tongues to sing
My great Redeemer’s praise.

Amen.

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