[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 15 (Wednesday, February 25, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1025-S1026]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         ADDITIONAL STATEMENTS

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                  TRIBUTE TO REVEREND MICHAEL BLEDSOE

 Mr. CLELAND. Mr. President, I recently had the privilege of 
attending worship services at the Riverside Baptist Church here in 
Washington, D.C. I was inspired by the warmth and spirit of the 
congregation, but I was especially touched by the message of inter-
racial understanding in the sermon by Riverside's minister, the 
Reverend Michael Bledsoe.
  Reverend Bledsoe's message was particularly compelling in light of 
the fact that Riverside Church is a church where they ``practice what 
they preach''--a church in which all groups of people and races are 
represented and welcomed with open arms.
  As was stated in Reverend Bledsoe's sermon, Black History Month is a 
celebration of all of this nation's African American men and women and 
their contributions and accomplishments that have informed us, educated 
us, inspired us, challenged us and have made us all proud. This sermon 
reminded me of these men and women who have had such a profound impact 
on American culture.
  I commend this sermon to the attention of the U.S. Senate and ask 
that it be printed in the Record.
  The sermon follows:

     Sermon by Michael Bledsoe, Pastor, Riverside Baptist Church, 
                            Washington, D.C.

       Several years ago there was a slogan being thrown around 
     and worn on tee-shirts. It was a somewhat popular slogan. I 
     recall seeing it in huge letters on a tee-shirt and being 
     offended. Why was I offended? Because I knew the statement to 
     be inaccurate. The slogan boldly proclaimed: It's a Black 
     Thing, You Wouldn't Understand.
       Now some might quickly conclude that I was offended as a 
     white person. But I can tell you honestly, this is not why I 
     was offended by that statement. On the contrary, I was 
     offended by its inaccuracy. If it were true, then how could I 
     account for how the truth of Martin Luther King had 
     transformed me? how could I account for the fact that our 
     nation has only produced two great theological movements, one 
     the Social Gospel and the other the Black Church? How could I 
     account for the power of the poetic words of Langston Hughes 
     upon my soul? How account for African-American music like the 
     spirituals, the blues and jazz which leave me at times 
     trembling? How account for the veracity of James Cone's 
     ``Black Theology'' which angrily and righteously exclaimed, 
     ``[Black Theology] refuses to embrace any concept of God 
     which makes black suffering the will of God?'' How account 
     for the truth of Albert Murray's assertion in the late 1960's 
     that ``It is the non-conforming Negro who now acts like the 
     true descendent of the Founding Fathers--who cries, `Give me 
     liberty or give me death,' and who regards taxation without 
     representation as tyranny.'' How account for my sense of awe 
     and reverence when entering the sacred halls of Howard 
     University School of Divinity and feeling like I'm in the 
     right place, surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses? How 
     account for being able to look into the eyes of my church 
     members who are African-American and sharing joy and sadness, 
     laughter and tears?
       The truth of African-American experience is a universal 
     truth. That is, its truth is not confined to a neighborhood, 
     but it penetrates the entire world. And I have not only 
     embraced that truth, but have been embraced by it, for Truth 
     makes no distinctions as regards our race, our gender our 
     circumstances of birth, but if it is truth, it has everything 
     to do with us. Its speech is a primary speech, a speech which 
     speaks at the most basic levels of our humanity and is 
     understood by all who possess the heart of human longing: the 
     heart which yearns to be understood, loved and received as 
     worthy.
       I can tell you very clearly what contribution Black 
     Theology--African-American experience--has made in my life. 
     There is no blur as regards this; it is absolutely clear what 
     I have gained from having encountered the truth contained in 
     the religion, theology and arts of African-Americans. And it 
     is this: I have met Jesus. Now mind you, I was raised in the 
     church and I give thanks to God for having parents who taught 
     me to love God and to follow Jesus. But here's the point, 
     friends . . . no one church, no one group of people can fully 
     comprehend Jesus. Jesus is far greater than our limited and 
     finite abilities to understand him. We need our own knowledge 
     and experience complimented by that of others. So when I went 
     to college in 1972 and began to encounter the thought and 
     life of Martin Luther King; when I began to have the gaps in 
     history filled in and was introduced to the rest of the 
     story, then I had a revolution in my spirit. For I was 
     introduced to Jesus Christ the Suffering Servant. I was 
     introduced to the God of liberation who hears the cry of 
     the oppressed and who stands with the marginalized. That 
     is, Black theology offered me a more comprehensive 
     understanding of the Jesus I love and serve. Hence, the 
     slogan ``It's a Black Thing, You Wouldn't Understand,'' 
     should be changed in my opinion to, ``It's a Black Thing, 
     Expand Your Understanding.'' For in my experience, that is 
     in fact what happened. Black theology led me to the cross 
     and tomb of our Lord in a way I'd never experienced and in 
     the words of the spiritual it caused me to tremble.
       I want to speak further now about the primary speech with 
     which African-American experience has spoken. James Melvin 
     Washington refers to this ``primary speech'' in his wonderful 
     collection of prayers entitled, ``Conversations With God: Two 
     Centuries of Prayers by African Americans.'' Washington says 
     that prayer is primary speech. It is

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     first, or basic speech. But there is also a sense of primary 
     speech being God's speech. What is it that God speaks first? 
     What is God's basic speech?
       Since prayer involves our response, I want to deal with 
     that last. Let's think a moment about God's speech. What is 
     it that God speaks first? The Black Church has been adamant 
     about that question, at least since the eruption of the Civil 
     Rights Movement, if not from the days of slavery. That speech 
     is rooted in the human quest for freedom. The essential text 
     for comprehending that truth is found in Exodus where God 
     calls Moses and tells him to go to Pharaoh and say, ``Let my 
     people go!'' When we consider this text, we immediately 
     discover that this God hears and speaks.
       God hears! Despite all your swirling circumstances; despite 
     the doubts which dim the sun; the scriptures are clear: God 
     does hear. And God is concerned when people are oppressed. 
     This is what he says to Moses, ``I have seen the affliction 
     of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry 
     because of their taskmasters; I know their sufferings, and I 
     have come to deliver them.''
       What is it that God speaks first; what is God's primary 
     speech? Within Exodus, God speaks first about human 
     liberation and hope. And this is one of the contributions 
     Black Theology has made in my life: God is not just concerned 
     for me as an individual, though that is true enough. But God 
     is concerned with how I treat my neighbor. And I cannot 
     pretend to love God on Sunday and oppress someone on Monday. 
     God's primary speech is about freedom and responsibility. The 
     freedom to be and the responsibility to allow others the same 
     freedom.
       Revealed in this passage is a God who is just and who 
     listens when we cry. But not only that. Revealed as well is a 
     God who sends prophets to look into the face of a tyrant and 
     demand liberation for their people.
       As I began to get in touch with the history of slavery in 
     this country and the history of its racism whipped onto the 
     back of this nation, leaving its scarring wounds for 
     generations and generations; as I began to hear and listen to 
     friends tell me what it is like to be, in the words of W. E. 
     B. Du Bois, ``a seventh son born with a veil;'' as I stand in 
     the chapel at the Howard University School of Divinity, as I 
     did last week, and worship with the students there, many of 
     whom have become my students and friends, and I watch them 
     worship with fervency and with pride and dedication receive 
     the Tradition from their ancestors and thus secure it for 
     another generation and the future; as I did those things, I 
     began to touch another mystery, a theological one. And it is 
     this: how is it that those who have suffered continue to 
     believe in God? This is a mystery of faith shared with the 
     Jewish people. How is it that a people who have been bloodied 
     and run barefoot and naked into rivers to find freedom, 
     how is it that they believe in God, while the educated and 
     the affluent have determined that such belief is 
     untenable? I'll tell you why I think this people have kept 
     kindled the fire of faith and trust in God: it is because 
     of that primary speech called prayer.
       The Exodus passage reveals a hearing, speaking God who 
     speaks in the syllables of freedom and liberation. But you'll 
     notice once again from that passage that God said, ``I have 
     heard their cry.'' Those Hebrew slaves were praying. That 
     primal speech was being uttered amongst the mud and straw as 
     they made bricks for Pharaoh. They cried from the hut of 
     being to God and believed that this world could not have come 
     into being without such a God and nor could their liberation 
     occur except he send a liberator. The African-American 
     experience knows this God; knows this contest of slavery. 
     Daniel Coker in his ``Prayers from a Pilgrim's Journal'', 
     wrote in 1820. ``When will Jehovah hear our cries? When will 
     the sun of freedom rise? When will for us a Moses stand, And 
     bring us out from Pharaoh's hand?
       Perhaps then the question is not how an African-American 
     could still believe in God. The question is, given the utter 
     depravity of slavery and the history of racism, upon whom 
     else would he depend for his liberation and freedom? No one 
     but God.
       James Washington has stated his own struggle with this 
     question of how to love and trust God who has the power to 
     free but his people are still enslaved. And he admits that he 
     has doubted. Well, who wouldn't? But he also says he 
     inherited the burden of believing in God. He told the story 
     of how as a young child, in the early morning hours, he was 
     awake looking out his bedroom window in East Tennessee. He 
     lay there counting stars when he heard a voice. He strained 
     to hear. It was his mother's voice. ``She was,'' he wrote, 
     ``speaking in a piteous hush. I yearn to recapture her exact 
     words. I cannot. I do know that the drama of the moment 
     demanded that I should stop counting stars. I could not 
     resist the temptation to eavesdrop on a most unusual 
     conversation. Mama said a few words about her burdens, 
     anxieties, children. Then an awesome silence would punctuate 
     her lamentation to ...God? Who was her conversation partner? 
     Daddy was working on the night shift. `Please, Jesus!' she 
     cried. I felt she was hurt, maybe even dying. I ran to be 
     with her. I rubbed her back while she sobbed.
       ``In many ways,'' Washington writes, ``I have been in 
     spiritual solidarity with my mother since that moment. She 
     taught me to pray. Her silence and her action taught me that 
     I must pray.''
       I know. I know in a cynical age; in an age when entire sets 
     of encyclopedias thirty and forty in number can be put on one 
     CD; I know that in an age where we can launch people into 
     space and gaze into the deep, black sea of space; I know that 
     in an age which is utterly materialistic and can conceive of 
     nothing so majestic as a spirit; that in such an age, prayer 
     seems idle and worthless. But we better remember that few 
     great things have been done without it and those events which 
     matter most were most certainly the result of prayer. Think 
     of Gandhi in India. That myriad number of persons who marched 
     and whose names we will never see printed on a page or 
     dramatized in film who prayed in churches and sang their way 
     to freedom in the Civil Rights Movement. Think of those 
     Christians in Eastern Europe who were scheduled by Marx and 
     the children of Marx for destruction but who lived to see the 
     Iron Curtain collapse. Think of those brave souls in South 
     Africa who prayed and didn't give up and have seen apartheid 
     ended and Mandela made the father of a nation. Think of 
     Sojourner Truth who said, ``Let others say what they will of 
     the efficacy of Prayer, I believe in it, and I shall pray. 
     Thank God! Yes, I shall always pray.''
       Today we begin our remembrance of those who preceded us in 
     faith; those whose feet passed over the stony road, who felt 
     the bitter chast'ning rod, those who somehow tread a path 
     through the blood of the slaughtered--we remember them and we 
     lift our voices in thanksgiving for their lives. We pray 
     sorrowfully for those millions lost to the savage ways of 
     this brutal world. Nameless in death, we commend them 
     nonetheless to God who knows them by name. Today we remember 
     and we celebrate their victory, for beloved, the God to whom 
     they prayed for deliverance does deliver and we will march on 
     until victory is won and we will remain true to God and our 
     native land. We shall not be moved from the glorious vision 
     of a table set in the presence of our enemies where all God's 
     children can sit down together and eat at the table of 
     brother and sister hood. Too many have paid the ultimate 
     price; we have come too far to abandon that vision now.
       Here within the primal speech of God addressing us as his 
     own; here in the primal speech of prayer and devotion, may we 
     offer ourselves to God and to each other. Amen.

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