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I had every intention preaching to you this morning. I had planned a nice sermon. I had set out my points. But late last night I got a facebook message from someone okay who identify themselves.

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You wouldn't believe this as the very author of this Gospel Brother luke himself. Facebook messaged me last night and he I made a request to me that instead of me preaching to you on today that I read

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a letter that he had sent to me through email , I begged and I pleaded with brother luke that I wanted to preach my own sermon. But luke insisted that I read this letter. And when I

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opened the letter, I realized that the letter was not to me or to you. But it was a letter to Black Lives Matter. And I was so fascinated by the fact that Brother luke even knew

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about Black Lives Matter, that I had to read you the letter on today. Okay. The letter begins as such. Yeah, dearly beloved, I'm writing you this letter because I've heard you are experiencing

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some difficulties in your social movement for liberation. It may be the case that you do not know me or have never even heard of me. And so you may rightly wonder what I may have to offer

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. I'm also aware that your movement was birthed by the conscious, careful and collective action of motivated black women. And that you may look at me with even more suspicion given the fact that I am a

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man, a man, no doubt who has contributed to the very patriarchal social system. That's your movement . Black Lives Matter is now challenging. And yet I still believe that this old and yes, now

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idle physician may have something to say to the movement . In point of fact, I was part of my own movement, the jesus movement, as some have called it, the movement which began in the

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first century, the roman province of judea during and ended up in the city of Jerusalem. As the name indicates, the movement was led by Jesus. Jesus did all kinds of things for people. He

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gave sight to the blind, cured lepers, minister to a woman who had a blood condition and even healed the servant of a roman centurion. And even before all that began, jesus started off the party

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, right, that is with some fine wine and win some personality at a wedding in Qena. But it seemed like the more good jesus did, the more he was in trouble with local authorities. These

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local authorities were called the Pharisees. And you see , the Pharisees had a particular goal in mind. This goal was to purify the people of Israel such that they became a reflection of that very priestly class

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. One commentator notes that to this end, the Pharisees acted like something of the religious police. That is the enforced sabbath, dietary laws, fasting, tithing, purity washings. Okay, you might imagine

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that Jesus didn't take too well to this. In fact, he condemns the Pharisees for all sorts of things, for hypocrisy, for pretentiousness, for lack of compassion and empathy for the poor, for greed

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, and for a self justifying spirit that lacks humility before God. In turn, the Pharisees criticised Jesus for not washing his hands before dinner for eating with sinners, and even tried to entrap him by getting

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him to perform a miracle on the sabbath, a designated day of rest in the jewish culture. And now finally, in the 22nd chapter of my Gospel account, just after the text that you have heard

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Jesus and his disciples are arrested as a result of my experiences. Perhaps we can find some common ground in spite of our differences For you to now here in the 21st century have also birth your own movement

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. While our movement was led by Jesus, yours is led by three queer African American women like Jesus , you are for the people. And just as Jesus concentrated his energies on a particular oppressed group,

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namely first century jews you to focus your energies around those who are oppressed, 21st Century African Americans. Your mission is to work for the validity of all black life and to rebuild the Black Liberation movement.

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You don't have any particular beef with anyone. You just hope that people see that black lives Matter. And so you say, Black lives Matter as an ideological and political intervention in a world where black lives

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are systematically and intentionally targeted for demise. In other words, Black lives Matter isn't about hating others, but loving yourselves. When you say Black lives Matter , you're not trying to hate on someone. You're

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trying to affirm black folks, contributions to this society , our humanity, our resilience in the face of deadly oppression and like jesus, you do all kinds of things for the people. You have days of

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action, you have teachings, you just play empathy to all kinds of folks who have been left out of society, the disabled, those marginalized due to gender or sexuality. You emphasize diversity and restorative justice

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. You value black families and black villages and God forbid, but I believe it is the case. You've even had to call out a few churches along the way. I want to apologize for that by

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the way, like jesus, you are attempting to heal the sick, have the lame walk and give sight to the blind. And as a matter of fact, it sounds like all you're missing is a

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good party, with some fine wine and Winston personality . There are several authorities who are attempting to discredit your reputation. On the one side is Blue Lives Matter, a company of state police officers and supporters

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who have identified us societies, dangerous, unruly and disrespectful element, In their view, you are disturbance of the peace and from another side, the very civil rights establishment that fought for you 50 years ago

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. now finds in you more of a problem than a friend or a solution. Indeed, the tension between your movement and this establishment is so great that one columnist, by the name of David love describes

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your relation between Black Lives Matters and the black civil rights establishment. As a rift, a rift between Love says respectability politics and the new protest movement. Love explains that establishment figures such as Jesse, Jackson

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and Al Sharpton seemed to have little interest or curiosity regarding the voices of the current movement. Voices such as a deer, a Madison or Tana. Easy coats. Love goes on to suggest that this is

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largely due to the fact that the establishment adheres to respectability, politics, or the notion that liberation can be achieved for and by people who are respectable enough to deserve it. What this amounts to is that

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, as you are hosting teachings and attempting to clothe the naked love notes that young black men and women are being dismissed by their elders, such as Bill Cosby and the old civil rights group. They are

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often lectured to and told to pull up their pants rather than provided with any guidance or assistance. And just as was the case with jesus, the criticisms are all you have to deal with No, no

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, for although we remain for the time being separated by a great chasm of time, we still occupy the same social space. And so now it is you who prays just as Jesus prayed in the text

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, but this time not on the mount of Olives , but at the retreat at Twin Lakes in Sanford florida where young Trayvon martin was shot down for being armed with skittles and tea. You pray not on

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the Mount of Olives, but on the hot streets of Ferguson Missouri over the body of Mike Brown, which was struck down and left to bake in the hot sun for hours, the same body that was

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prevented by gunpoint from being recovered and removed by his parents. You pray not on the Mount of Olives , but you pray over the disappeared body of Sandra Bland who was murdered for failure to signal a lane

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change. And now, like jesus and his disciples in the text before you, you yourselves stand in danger of being arrested if not literally. Then by the social situation itself, you are handcuffed by the

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evil of racism. You are thrown against the hard walls of discrimination, You are locked out of society and into invisibility and all this, even though the history of the nation itself has been defined in large

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part by its robbery and theft of your wit, wisdom and will I want to, first of all commend you for your status as a social problem and transgressor, surely it isn't the case that you have

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given these names to yourselves. They have been imposed on you from those who either do not understand or remain indifferent to the black plight as well as to the ways in which the black plight is linked to

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the plight of american democracy itself. Perhaps martin Luther King Jr was the one to best express this link in a speech called a testament of hope, where he says that the black plight forces America to face

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all of its interrelated flaws, racism, poverty, materialism, militarism. King goes on to say that the black light reveals a systemic rather than superficial flaw and suggests that a radical reconstruction of society itself is

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the real issue to be faced. America has not yet changed because so many think it need not change . King goes on, but he concludes this is the illusion of the damned black lives matter. Most

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would choose to ignore this ill, but you have chosen not only to acknowledge it, but to be proactive in your attempts for remedy because of this, you are called a transgressor of the law. I

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know that you are in good company For in Luke 22. Jesus indicates that he also intentionally sought to be a transgressor of the law. As a matter of fact, Jesus, uh the one who had

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taught love and who had shared his food and who had healed in this moment, Jesus tells the disciples to buy swords Now Jesus didn't use his sword, but placed himself in a close association with it.

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What a dangerous and transgressive move for the prince of peace. As a matter of fact, Jesus was transgressive to the end. Scholar Mark Lewis, Taylor tells us that Jesus died not only a rebel,

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but excuse me, Jesus died not only a rebel in an imperial and politicized context, but Jesus also died a blasphemer in the eyes of the religious establishment . Like jesus, you are not afraid to be

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transgressive transgression for its own sake runs contrary to many of your goals. But you understand that transgression is a targeted transgression and that your transgression, your civil disobedience is meant to expose the evils of us society

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rather than have them proliferate and to move the nation towards healing. Do you know what? You are ? Black lives matter? You are what sister Alice walker calls woman ish? That's right. Yes,

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you are. You may as well go ahead and claim the title. You are bold. You are outrageous. You are audacious. You are courageous. You want to know more than you already know and

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you want to know what you know more deeply. You want to know this, even though other folks think it's not good for you to know it and when you know it, you know it for yourself

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and for others. You understand that even as people tell you, that all your problems require are better individual choices that your moral agency as a black woman is already framed, circumscribed and limited by the powers

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that be, and you have no qualms about embracing values from your own culture. You are woman ish black lives matter. I not only want to commend you, I also want to pray for you just

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as jesus prayed for the disciples on the mount, I pray that you do not fall into temptation. You must understand that because you occupy a particular social position, Namely a transgressive one that your experiences may

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incline you or attempt you towards certain unwise, wrong or toxic behaviors, but I have prayed for you that God would deliver you from them. For example , I understand that because of your social position,

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you are more likely to experience arbitrary abuse and violence and want to respond in that way. Perhaps no one can get the story better of arbitrary abuse and violence than Ta nehisi Coates, who tells the story

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in his text between the world and me of a young man by the name of Prince jones. Prince jones was a young black man. Prince jones was a happy person. His mother dr jones would recount

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that as a boy. Prince jones once dressed himself in a suit and tie, Got down on one knee and sang three times. A lady to me . He'd gone to private schools his entire life,

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but he was able to make friends wherever he went . He was very smart in high school, he was admitted to magnet schools for math and science coats himself had met Prince jones during his college days at

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Howard University in Washington, D. C. And by then Prince was a young man of promise. A young man of Black promise. Perhaps the promise of a politician or a businessman or a prominent cultural

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leader. But such promise was not to be realized . Early one morning at five a.m. Dr, jones received a call from a detective explaining that our son had been shot. She immediately drove to the hospital

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. But by the time she arrived, Prince jones younger sister, Prince Jones, younger sister on board , they discovered that Prince jones had died. As with many cases like these, there were very few

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details to the case. What we do know is that Prince jones have been shot by an officer from a county called Prince George's County. Yeah, Prince Jones was not shot by this officer in Prince George's

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County or not even in Washington D. C. Near Prince George's county. But somewhere coach tells us in northern Virginia, Prince had been driving to see his fiancee. He was killed yards from her home

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. The only witness to the killing was Prince jones . Excuse me, the only witness to the killing of Prince jones was the killer himself. The officer , for his part claimed that the Prince had tried

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to run him over with his jeep and Coach says I knew the prosecutors would believe him if we're not careful. Stories like Prince jones is the stories of arbitrary violence and cold state. Power can lead us

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down the road of temptation that is, we might be led to do something wrong or unwise. One of the major temptations in times like these is the temptation to violence. We might be tempted toward violence

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, just as one of the disciples was in the gospel account, he, like so many before and after him, believed that violence was the only appropriate response to oppression and perhaps thinking along with philosopher Frantz

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Fanon, some may see violence as a cleansing force , a force which frees the oppressed from an inferiority complex and from despair and in action. You may believe that violence makes you fearless and gives you self

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respect. I want to say to you that violence is both immoral and impractical. It is a moral first because in the words of martin Luther King Jr deepens the brutality of the perpetrator of the violence.

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The one who injures another also injures themselves spiritually, the one who resorts to violence disrupts the harmony in their own soul. And so I uttered to you the very same words uttered not only by King,

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but also by Booker T Washington. Let no person pull you so low as to make you hate them , as a young people might say. Today don't be a hater. You see violence also intensifies evil

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in the world. Violence may seek to eliminate evil , but it cannot eradicate violence. I want to urge you to not be tempted towards violence and also not to be tempted towards other things like bitterness,

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apathy and fatalism. Why? Because I am persuaded at this moment That there are two battles being waged . two battles being waged in the body, politic of U. S. Citizenship and two battles being

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waged in the private hearts and minds of each and every individual two battles side by side, Whether one is white, black, brown, red or yellow . You see on the one hand there is the

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battle between black bodies mm And those that would oppress them. This is the battle we know all too well. It is the battle that has raged since even the dawn of the american democracy. The battle

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that has spilled forth once again in the civil war , the battle that gave rise to segregation and jim and jane Crow South And for the last 50 years , the battle that has spawned state policies from mass

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incarceration, ineffective welfare policies for black families. This is the battle between black peoples and those as coats might say those who believe themselves to be white. This is the battle of the bodies. But alongside

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this battle there rages another battle. one far more difficult to recognize And whose shape and scale one must strain to assess. It is the battle of the heart. The battle which persists in each and every

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one of us today. It is the battle for Love. We might depict the battle as a battle between love and another element. Power indifference. Hey , malice. But the battle is always between love

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and another element. The battle is always with and for Love. You see, Love is the key because with love one is not left simply with transgression and temptation. Oh, but with love comes also

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the power of transformation. Love not just any kind of love, but I got They love love. The kind of love that endows one with worth rather than stripped them of dignity. Love the kind that

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transcends the legal piety that asserts that God only loves the righteous and the kind of love that proclaims that God loves everybody love. I don't think y'all hear me this morning, The kind of love that leads

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to cooperation rather than competition. Love the kind of love that seeks the welfare of the other rather than just the welfare of my own solitary self. Why love? Because I am compelled by the vision and

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the goal of beloved community that dream set forth Some 50 years ago by the same reverend doctor Martin Luther King Jr This is what I encourage you to strive for. This is what I encourage you to protest

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for. This is what I am praying for. That. The agape love that we experience on small levels would rise to titanic proportions, that it would well up in the hearts of each and everybody beloved

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community, the kind of community where young Trayvon martin's are free to be young boys and able to walk to the corner store without the fear of death. The kind of community where black women and men and

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women and men of all colors are able to drive from Villa Park Illinois to prairie view texas without fear of death, the kind of community that breaks down barriers and plants, gardens of peace and hope,

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the kind of community that can set aside their differences together around a common table. A community that rebukes greed and fear and embraces love and justice for all . You see Black lives Matter. I know that

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you are going through, I know that you started a liberation movement and that the powers that be are seeking to stop you. I know that you have found yourselves in the margins of society and that you

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are constantly fighting temptations of all kinds and that for all of your hard work and discipline, you have only the jail cell to look forward to as your reward. But I'm here to tell you Black lives

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Matter. To keep on keeping on why? Because black lives matter why? Because all lives matter. Black lives matter. America will change. America will change because it must change because the people are desiring

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. A change, America will change because in the words of William Cullen Bryant truth crushed to the earth shall rise again. America must change because not to change is to deny the image of God in each

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and every body, so like jesus. I pray for you. I pray that you would not fear transgression, that you would resist temptation and that you would love your way into transformation. May God add

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a blessing to the ears of the word a man