Shepherds: Week 4, Fannie Lou Hamer

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0:00 We are thinking about these heroes of the faith. The idea of going there for a couple of weeks settled on me as we were moving out of the season where we were looking at God as a shepherd. If you remember kind of the the context that we're in right now on Sundays as we gathered together we're we're still the church would normally be in the season of Pentecost it runs all the way through the summer and into the fall and that pentecost season is kicked off

0:33 with God releasing onto people indiscriminately remember this was like the great releasing of God's spirit again on humanity and it was had been prophesied by the prophets that there's coming a day where this spirit of God will will run out of wherever it's been stored and held up since the Garden of Eden it'll run out and it'll pour out on people indiscriminately young and old men and women all people will receive the spirit of God and that Pentecost that happens right and God dispatches the spirit he can of course

1:07 dispatch the spirit because the work of Christ has been completed the death and resurrection means that we have we have a new creation in us capable of carrying the spirit of God individually and together and that the people of God on earth would need that spirit in order to be the church we define the church as the people called out of the world to live under the reign of God in a world that doesn't recognize the authority of God and if people were going to persevere

1:39 as the church people living under the reign of God in a world that doesn't recognize his authority they would need the spirit and in addition we found that he set up separate like little shepherds people who modeled Paul says follow me as I follow Christ little shepherds who modeled what they saw in God and so we looked a little bit at shepherds in the storage scripture as God is the shepherd and then I was thinking about what does it look like for us examples of what it looks like to be the church because the realization that fell on the

2:10 after I was encouraged by the reality that God could be my shepherd in the time of such confusion and uncertain futures that God could be my shepherd the next thing I felt like I needed were examples that of people being the church in a world that needs it we define the church with these core values of justice of love of rest of work people embodying these virtues or values so world that is

2:47 sometimes opposing to them and last week to we told the story of Elijah Mr. Prophet who got tired doing the work of God and was in in livened by a connection to God and then God sent him back out to work again and last week we talked about one example of the faith that's been an example for me Oscar Romero who said he was converted by the poor and moved moved towards the poor

3:18 instead that people of God cannot be blind or indifferent about the suffering of the poor but should move towards it and serve it and did that at great cost himself and out of that came this notion this is where we start for this morning that you have the capacity to be the church doesn't sound like a novel idea but I will I want to encourage you that that may raise your expectation about your capacity you have the capacity to be the

3:55 church the capacity to stand for justice to move with love right to respond with mercy you have the capacity to be the church and the world needs you to be the church I want to tell two stories a little bit kind of in parallel that they go together this morning one is about this woman born in 1917 the United States died just before she turned 60 and another and she was the child of

4:32 sharecroppers in the south and then the other is this great grandchild of a king of Israel at the time of their exile and I feel like there's a word that comes from God that speaks through to both of them first the woman born in 1917 or her name is Fannie Lou Hamer I'm curious as anybody who in the room has heard of Fannie Lou Hamer I heard that name before cool we got a little more than Oscar

5:03 Romero that's good. Fannie Lou Hamer is the worth looking up her story I am I've known peripherally about her story for a long time civil rights movement something that captured my imagination in college I love to try and think about how faith was connected to movements of people and Fannie Lou Hamer comes up if you do any kind of study of the civil rights movement Fannie Lou Hamer comes up but when you were looking up later today as you sitting now looking for something intelligent to read during the rain read about Fannie Lou Hamer she's

5:34 born in 1917 she was the youngest of 20 kids you heard that right 20 kids same parents 20 kids failing anger youngest 20 kids her parents were share croppers you remember the fair cropping situation where it's like okay you could be free but we we indenture you if you don't leave you you can come and and work on the cotton farm and we'll pay you but you'll have to you'll have to be

6:06 indebted to us to get started to get all the right equipment and get this set up and so chair cropping was this really insidious system where basically they kept his children of slaves in slaves in economic slavery on farms and her parents were share croppers they picked cotton in the south she was born 1917 youngest of 20 to tell stories about her parents her mother especially defending her the kids standing up where she was able to the landowners who would

6:38 try and come and brutalize them in their home she also tells stories of her mom teaching her songs Fannie Lou Hamer would become to be known as the great like gospel him knowledge is at movements right singing songs to inspire people she learned them from her mom when she was 12 she was bright but by the time she finished 12 she had the quits tool in order to help pick cotton they kept trying to get ahead she got really good at picking cotton she was famous for being good at picking cotton she got married took up as a sharecropper

7:10 herself and then at a rally in Mississippi at a rally in Mississippi she heard about the movement to try and get black votes to the polls to be able to vote and this started her on a path she raised her hand and said she would get on a bus to group of people and go vote now Fannie Lou Hamer was in a big thing on her cotton farm she was one of the few sharecroppers who was able to read and so she had been given a place of

7:41 prominence on the farm because she could read and that was important so she kept track and records of things for people on the farm and so when she then went to vote they had a literacy test at that time at the polls which was nefarious not honest and she failed the the literacy test at the polls and came back on a bus and famous story all of the people that left from her town to go vote came on this bus and they got pulled over and arrested because on the official

8:11 record it said their bus was too yellow and then they got arrested and held because their bus was too yellow they wanted to tell his black folks to stay on the farm and don't try and come to the ballot what's interesting over and over about Fannie Lou Hamer is she is she's brutalized she has a force hysterectomy without her consent I mean just like her life is brutal but what Fannie Lou Hamer is known for is not the brutality of her life but her constant encouraging people

8:45 with texts from scripture and her singing you see her sitting in the back when Dr. Martin Luther King is giving his I have a dream speech on the day S.L. and tell him about your dream and tell him about your dreams she would think the president at the time is known for saying would someone shut that woman up because all of her singing and rabble rousing built crowds to such fervor that the that the media couldn't ignore her her voice would carry in the news she would be found on the news over and over again he tried to compromise

9:18 with her president sent people to compromise with her she wouldn't take the compromise he stood for the rights she organized with two other people the Mississippi Freedom Summer I don't know if you heard about it but the student nonviolent coordinate mating committee big threat of their lives since students into Mississippi to register black people to vote and Fannie Lou Hamer youngest of 20 chaircropper brutalized and beaten gospel he has since organized the Mississippi Freedom Summer with two other people ran for office and couldn't

9:53 finally when she kept hitting up walls in the political parties she said fine we'll do it ourselves and she became she created this system it's called the pig bank where sharecroppers in Mississippi were able to communally own property and begin to build well through animal husbandry it's like a really innovative idea for the early 60s and with the legacies of several beatings and poor health she died before she was 60 you can still find recordings of her

10:24 songs Fannie Lou Hamer stood for faith and all the songs when you come back that she has one where they're arrested there's record of her singing him about Paul and Silas when they're in jail about the future that is laid out for them in the midst of suffering and hoping for the take my hand to Jesus the beautiful storms to encourage people in the midst of hardship to persevere through difficult times when I think about do we have the capacity to be the church

10:57 stories like say any humor you know hope where is the evidence of that in our story in this little phrase maybe you've heard it it's kind of buried in one of the minor prophets if you can find your way to Zachariah if you have a paper scriptures it's Zachariah's hard to find this little one you can just type it in the ECH Zachariah you got a paper copy it's towards the back of the Old Testament

11:29 so might be easier to go to Matthew and then just go to the left a little bit Zachariah is one of the last prophets in the Old Testament just before Malachami you get to Zachariah and I'm looking at Zachariah chapter four there's a famous verse there that where we'll start and build the context around it I don't know what drove I don't know exactly what the conversations with God look like

11:59 between Fannie Lou Hamer and God in those moments where she was brutalized arrested improperly beaten dismissed I don't know what those conversations look like but I imagine part of the message is what is similar to what we find here in Zachariah Zachariah chapter four over six here it is God speaks to the prophets that member prophets this is before Pentecost so

12:35 God was completely separated from his people experientially and and like bodily you couldn't enter into the presence of God right now we we have this indwelling of the spirit and as we gather as these people as spirit is in our midst before Pentecost it's not like that there's like a severe separation and the the presence of God is right there in the temple and you can interact with it but you can't engage in it and so God would not be completely separated from his people nor would he be silent so the spirit would come upon specific people

13:07 for specific jobs at specific times and Zachary it was one of those specific people often we call them prophets in the Old Testament the spirit of God comes on Zachariah for a specific purpose and says I need my leader to know this one thing and it'd be better if you wrote it down in order that it could be preserved and so God comes on Zachariah and says tells the rubabel this one thing right Zachariah chapter four verse six then he said to me this is the word from the Lord to the rubabel not by might or by power but by my spirit says the Lord of hosts

13:45 who are you oh great mountain before is the rubabel you shall become a plane and shall bring forth the top stone and shouts of grace grace to it some context the rubabel was a great grant or not the great sister grandson of de Joya King who is the last king of Judah before they were carried off into Babylon and they were carried off into Babylon taken by King Nebuchadnezzar

14:16 repopulated their Babylon tried to make them Babylonians what's interesting is that the Judah the tribal Judah and half of Benjamin are the ones who are taken off into exile in Babylon and something happens then you know the Babylonians are conquered by Persia and King Cyrus decides to let people go the rubabel has gained some favor and he's the grandson of the former king so he's the one who gets to go gets to go back but when they're coming back from Babylon

14:46 this is 60 years or so after they've been exiled and when they're coming back from from Babylon is the first time when they're called Jews because it's the remnants of Judas the short for Judas something happens when they're in Babylon where they develop a tradition in order to remain distinctive from the Babylonians much of what would evolve into the Pharisees in first century Israel began to be developed in Babylonian exile the laws

15:19 stack onto the laws in order to make them distinct and different the rubabel gets selected by King Cyrus to go back and repopulate Israel and rebuild the temple he gets sent with a little bit of money but he's so excited you can imagine he's the grandchild of the king and he's sent by by the king of Persia the great empire of the world to go back and rebuild Israel and he's bringing a group of people it's interesting and a story for another

15:52 time that not all the Israelites left some of them stayed in Babylon and it's a really interesting thing to try and figure out why they would do that but a group of them come right and famously when they get to Jerusalem they weep because it is so paltry compared to their imagination it's so much less than what they hoped it would be and it's so decimated through the belt get back and he looks at the task in front of him

16:22 and then he finds that the remnants remember when Babylon conquered Israel they took only the best of the best and they left the whole group of people there so when they get back they find that the the Judaism that's developed in Babylon has not developed in Israel and the syncretism the the worship of many gods and the cultural malaise has only grown in Jerusalem so that they these people that have stayed these 60 years are different than these ones that come back and

16:53 they don't particularly like each other and they certainly don't trust each other so that this group writes back to the king in Persian says don't let him rebuild the temple he's never going to bow to you ever again zirubabel very quickly is in a situation where he cannot find a political answer he needs more money than he thought he had and he's at war with the people around him and he cannot find a solution he does not know what will happen and at that point when he's given up

17:25 god speaks to Zachariah and says hey tell zirubabel not by might nor by power but by my spirit says the Lord what is that mountain zirubabel it'll be knocked over and become a plane i can imagine so many instances when you read through

17:56 thing of the hammer story it's like how does she continue to sing when life must have been so hard where does she find the strength to hope and continue to try and build and rally movements imagine over the last six months if not over the whole arc of our lives

18:29 we have had similar moments i don't know where you go when times are hard but i would say if you haven't had moments where you don't know where the path in front of you the mission the dream the vision the work the problem is not so big when if you

19:01 haven't had moments where the problem is so big you don't know how it's going to get done you're not thinking big enough for yourself yet if you haven't had visions so big that you're not sure how it will get get accomplished you haven't had a big enough vision yet if you haven't faced a problem where you're not sure how it will be resolved you haven't had your eyes open to your own brokenness enough let alone the brokenness in the world if you haven't come up on a challenge that looks like a mountain that cannot be moved you're not paying attention it is a challenge to be the church to live

19:36 under the reign of god in a world that doesn't recognize his authority and if we're going to do it faithfully he will come up and go up on mountains that we're not sure how they would be moved and the answer is not to walk away and defeat but to hear the words of zachariah the songs of fanny lu namer and remember that not by might nor by power but by my spirits as the lord and we go forward in situations that should not make sense and do not make sense over and over the scriptures have these little nuggets to remind you that the

20:08 wisdom of god is saluseness to the world it's a piece of god transcends the understanding of the world that the joy of the lord is your strength in the hardship that suffering produces character character hope and hope in the lord does not disappoint right now the world needs you to be people with faith who look honestly at hard problems and are not intimidated to stop but with the great spirit of god

20:40 press in to the problem move towards the suffering with hands of mercy move towards the problems with words and actions of justice move towards the distant franchise with love move build families that foster generosity now more than ever we need to be the church and if we look at heroes like cuz arabale and fanny lu namer we are

21:11 remembered that the answer on how we'll be the church is not in our own strength or wisdom it is in the spirit of god one of my favorite moments in the whole story of scripture is the garden of gethsemane i love that evening before his life is taken from him

21:42 when jesus is honest with god the father and his best friends are oblivious to the weight that he carries because he carries it for them and he sweats drops of blood and says could we do this a different way and i wonder what kind of fortitude is gifted to him in that moment

22:15 that way says hey could we do this a different way and the answer is silent how he gets up and walks to his death anyway some kind of fortitude gifted to him by the spirit allows him to move forward as though everything in the world says it's foolishness why would you walk to your death because it's not by might it's not by strength of arms nor by power it's not by wielding political authority it's by the spirit of god that things get done and so he walks

22:46 through past power right he ignores the invitation of pilots who work together he ignores the invitation of the Pharisees to find a more expedient route to get done and he goes with the spirit of god and the same can be true for you you don't need might or power you have the spirit of god you have the capability to be the church in the world today in the orlando in your families i hope that you are encouraged this morning to ask honestly

23:18 what does it look like for you to be the church in your friendship circles in your neighborhood in your work in your families how do you take up the call to be the church what is the mission that god has put in front of you today this week this season how do you live into it not by your might or power but by the spirit of god

23:50 let me pray hey Lord thank you that you make your spirit available to us teach us how to avail ourselves of that gift and be your church today in a world that needs it thank you for the testimony the fame of the hammer and the luva and our christ in gesson the name give us a measure of the fortitude that

24:22 you gave them in order that like them we could be the church today this week this season this year for ourselves and for our city in jesus name we pray