Younger Saints’ Video Message on Hope and Disappointment, click here.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
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CENTERING
A welcome based on Zion United Church of Christ’s Statement of Welcome
God, you welcome us.
If we are Asian, Hispanic, Black, or White;
If we are male, female, or transgender;
If we are 3 days old, 33 years old, or 103 years old;
If we’ve never stepped foot in a church, a synagogue, a temple, a cathedral, or a mosque;
If we are single, married, widowed, divorced, separated, or partnered;
If we are straight, gay, lesbian, bisexual, or yet unsure of our sexuality;
If we are a Republican, Democrat, Independent, Socialist, Libertarian, affiliated with another political party or no party at all;
If we are pro-life, or pro-choice;
If we have or have had, addictions, phobias, or a criminal record;
If we own our home, rent, live with our parents, or are homeless;
If we have typical or atypical skills or are just beginning to sense our God-given gifts and talents;
However the rest of the world describes us, and however we describe ourselves, you welcome us.
With this extravagant welcome you invite us into beloved community with each other.
We come to worship you, God and add our colors to the palate of your piece de resistance – the Church, the Body of Christ, the Beloved Community. Amen!
SCRIPTURE Matthew 9:35-10:23
(Whitney’s notes: these people are so different from each other! Our welcome could have been written about them. Scripture continues….)
SERMON: Sheep, Wolves, Doves, and Snakes
“What’s the difference if it was one round or 11 rounds or 111 rounds?” Officer Stephen Rankin wrote to his local paper. “When I was in Iraq, that would have been a good shoot. In fact, nobody would have really given it a second thought.” Rankin was talking about the black child he murdered. He had suspected the boy of shoplifting from Wal-mart. It was the second time Rankin had murdered someone in the line of duty. And the second time he had filled a minority with exactly 11 shots – taking their lives.
In the USA, police kill 3 people daily.
I say people. Not criminals. Criminal is someone convicted of a crime by a judge. Police officers are not judges. But often are made into judges, juries, and executioners in one.
Consider the case of Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old African-American emergency medical technician. EMTs are the people working ambulances. She was fatally shot by Louisville Metro Police Department officers this year. Three LMPD officers executed a no-knock search warrant at her apartment. In the middle of the night, they used a battering ram on her front door without announcing themselves. Her boyfriend thought they were being robbed – and shot – hitting an officer in the leg. The officers responded by firing over 20 rounds and killing Breonna. The officers were searching for two people who were already in police custody and suspected of selling controlled substances from a drug house more than 10 miles away. One of the people in custody had had a prior relationship with Breonna. The search warrant included Breonna’s residence because it was suspected of receiving drugs in the case and because a car registered to her had been seen parked on several occasions in front of her ex’s house.
No drugs were found in the apartment.
What would you have done if strangers bust down your door in the middle of the night?
Because of these three, because of the estimated 492 people killed by police and the 3 more killed today…
Because our police are not protectors for many people… that is why where are called to defund, disband, or demilitarize our American policing system.
“When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” Jesus spoke of his own crowds. But our own crowds are the same. People are protesting because they are harassed and helpless. Will we have compassion?
Most of us are awakening to the reality that police are very beneficial to our white selves, and very harmful to our non-white brothers and sisters. The police force we have today evolved from several different posses meant to enforce white power over minorities. At various times, this was against Irish immigrants, First Peoples tribes, and runaway slaves.
When slavery was outlawed, police turned to enforcing Jim Crow laws to continue to harry blacks. Not because police are evil – oh no. But because we – white people made laws targeting blacks. We made the system. One planter in Alabama is on record from this time saying, “We have the power to pass stringent police laws to govern the Negroes — this is a blessing — for they must be controlled in some way or white people cannot live among them.”
So we did. And we sicced cops on the former slaves. Now cops helped lynching crews to kill blacks suspected of crime, beat and released dogs on protesters of the laws, and turned blind eyes to bombings — even those killing young children in church. (See the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing.) Jim Crow is officially banned, but continues in hundreds of small micro and macro aggressions daily through voter suppression, targeted no-tolerance policing, and mandatory sentencing. Just look at Georgia’s voting this week!
“Not all cops,” you say. Not all cops are racists and killers and violent. Well, first, refer back to my sermon 2 weeks ago about racism. Racism is systemic. We ALL are racists because our systems are racists. The issue isn’t a few bad cops or a few good cops. The issue is the system we have built up that encourages bias. We have to change our systems to let people be their better selves and live more justly.
So Jesus said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. … As you go, proclaim the good news, ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’
There’s a lot of work to do. And we’re going to need God’s help. But the new system, the new kin-dom, has come near.
So yes. Not all cops. But all USA police systems. Because we have made the laws the police enforce. We have seen this reign. Now, it is time to go and proclaim it and do the miracles Jesus has given us to work.
For decades we have tried to adjust the policing system. There was a push to “get tough on crime” and under President Clinton, we added 150,000 police. It was a major campaign push of Clinton. However, simply adding more police doesn’t mean safer societies. More police is correlated with more crime, actually, as bored officers begin to arrest people over minor offenses. As bored officers begin to stop and frisk anyone they so choose – which disproportionally are blacks, homeless, and poor. As bored officers pull over anyone with a tail light busted… which again, are more blacks, homeless, and poor. Community respect and welcome was already low in among these groups because of how police got their start and because police were enforcing rules specifically meant to target minorities. Respect and welcome eroded more in the 1990s as police were given more and more liberty to have “zero tolerance” of anything… even a broken window or a curse word.
After 9-11… things didn’t improve. I remember the first time I saw my local police owning a military humvee. With pride, the Delaware County PD showed it off at the county fair. Soon they had military helmets, military guns and vests and ammo. Soon my local PD was now a standing army.
And army training has come to replace police training. It seemed like a good idea: President Obama set up veterans-to-police networks. Now 20% of cops are veterans. Compare this to only 7% of the population are veterans. There is not a clear transition from military to police, although that is advocated. In one career, a person is trained to kill and to see all people are “hostiles.” In the other, a person is supposed to see all people as “innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.” Civilians. PTSD, trained responses, and soul injuries take a long time to heal. I know it is very hard to move from war to peace. My grandfather struggled his whole life with war memories.
Police who haven’t left the war for peace are now “at war” in the USA. This means they have to be “at war” with someone… and that someone is civilians.
War, warrior, fear, and us versus them talk peppers current police training and culture.
Here in Ohio, Dave Grossman argues cops are at war. (Conditioned Response: 2017. Field of Vision.) He teaches cops “killology” here in the state and around the nation. In 2017, he taught our Ohio police…. “Once you’ve made the decision to take a human life, you’re a transformed creature. You’re a predator. What does a predator do? They kill. Only a killer can hunt a killer. Are you emotionally, spiritually, psychologically prepared to snuff out a human life in defense of innocent lives? If you can’t make that decision, you need to find another job.”
The issue with this language is that predators seek prey. Who is the prey? Grossman suggests it is killers among the innocent sheep, as he calls them. But this means a cop is to look at ALL people as potential prey. Potentially someone to kill. And that they are to begin to have a “conditioned response” to kill.
We have a “war on terror” and a “war on drugs” and political armies and veterans who have seen war teaching those who have not seen war, and using “killology” as our manuals… and then handing police departments war machines. Is it any wonder cops are killing civilians?
Grossman says police are to be sheepdogs hunting wolves through terrified sheep. But… Jesus didn’t send us out to the sheep as sheepdogs. Not as killers seeking killers. But to “proclaim the good news, ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons” with peace, and going as sheep to sheep in the midst of wolves. Sheep who are “wise as serpents and innocent as doves.” This means… being a presence of goodness and restraint when the world tends to want to answer violence with more violence.
The police instructor Grossman said in one seminar, “We fight violence… What do we fight it with? Superior violence. Righteous violence.”
The reverse kind of training comes from Officer Joe Smarro. Smarro is a cop in San Antonio and a central character in the new HBO documentary ‘Ernie and Joe: Crisis Cops.’ Smarro shared that much police training today evokes fear and anger in recruits, including videos of cops being beaten and killed. He said, “I graduated the police academy more afraid than I was after military boot camp,” He works to provide mental health resources to officers and wants to change the system. Not killers seeking killers… but healers seeking the harmed.
That is why there are calls to defund, disband, or demilitarize our police. Each means a little different. Each means that the attempts to fight crime with more police, to change things with votes, to change things in all the manner we have tried over the last hundred years isn’t working. Or is making things worse.
Defund is exactly what it means. Much as we defunded education or health care. It means reducing how much money is available for police departments. This is an effort to reduce how many officers there are, to reduce the number of non-violent crimes being escalated and ran through police stations, and to make police be responsible for only potentially violent encounters. That money removed then could be invested into social workers, homeless shelters, and food banks. Things that help reduce crime. A cop ought not be responsible for handling our homeless, and yet they are called to do so. A cop ought not be responsible for handling fender benders, and wellness checks, and petty non-violent theft. And yet they are asked to do all these, too. The number of jobs a cop is asked to do would require 100s of hours of specialized training. Or… we could better distribute the work load. More laborers for the harvest.
Disband is exactly what is means. Remove all police and start over again. With a new model. Newly rehire. This means a brand new culture. “Not all cops” are quick to violence, but the cop culture definitely is. Do you remember when Live PD filmed the Franklin County Sheriff’s Department? The cops, knowing they were on TV, led to a huge spike in dangerous chases that made great TV and killed at least 5 civilians in 2 months in chases. The culture we expect of cops is one of escalation. And in that internal culture, as even Columbus City Police admitted, there is retaliation against fellows who don’t fit the mold. You stick together. I know this personally from having plenty of cops in my family. I have heard to not be the one who stands out or sticks their neck out for a victim because you’re the victim next. Disbanding would mean ending a toxic culture and beginning anew. A new reign.
What would replace police departments? Well, there’s lots of ideas. Camden New Jersey already went the disband route years and years ago. They set out new priorities, new ways of being police, and new objectives and training. And then they hired people for these roles. Their newly established police department emphasized descalation, makes deadly force THE very last option, and insist their police are in the community as allies working with the people instead of a hammer waiting to drop. So much so, that any new hire goes door to door introducing themselves in their patrol area and asking what the community needs improved.
The last call for action is to demilitarize our police. Removing the war language, providing ptsd and transition training for veterans and regular force workers, and removing military gear from officers. When our cops dress and are armed for war, our streets begin to look like warzones. Its a bit like if all you have is a hammer…. everything looks like a nail. Going out as innocent and peaceful as doves, and as clever and insightful as snakes.
Clever like snakes. Looking for the unused, third ways. Seeking new solutions.
Innocent like doves. Upholding our faiths and morals. Doing justice, mercy, and walking humbly with God. And being sheep. Identifying with the very crowds we’re sent out to bring hope and healing too. Standing there alongside the suffering and witnessing to the evil in the world. Bringing in the light of hope. Being Christ in the world.
Matthew is writing in Jesus’ voice, but the echo is for the early church who felt all this happen. And it is for the church in every era when our own families and friends turn and bite us like wolves; and when our own authorities hunt us like prey. We’re commissioned to give their peace to every home. And to leave if that peace if that peace is denied. We are to not set up strawmen to have arguments against. This polarizes people.
And this approach will cause own family to turn against us, maybe hate us. This is not because our families and friends are evil. Remember? Racism is a system. If we turn against the system, it makes people around us very uncomfortable. It challenges people.
But Jesus does not tell us to return evil for evil. Blessed are the peacemakers.
Jesus does not tell us to persecute to the full extend of the law. Blessed are the merciful.
Jesus does not tell us to parade on the carnage of the sheep scattered and puff ourselves up with boastful pride. Blessed are the meek.
The poor, those denied justice, those who see wrongness, those mourning — God stands with these leasts.
Theologically, Jesus tells us to identify with the least. To stand with the least. We are to see Jesus in the least.
So Jesus is a black man. A trans woman. Jesus was murdered while jogging. While shopping. While sleeping. Jesus was tortured to death. And today? Jesus will die three times over at the hands of police.
This is why people are still protesting. Still demanding more than empty promises to do better. This is why the entire system is shifting — from removing symbols of white supremacy and black slavery such as Confederate statues and flags — to examining what role we want police to play in our cities.
Yes. The ground is shifting. Earthquakes are scary. But racism is a systemic thing. A cultural thing. Not something you can root out one bad apple by one bad apple. It takes all of us shifting our viewpoints and moving.
It takes us remembering we might be sent out to minister, and protect, and heal… but we’re to identify with the sheep. We are the sheep. We are our brothers and sisters who suffer from police, rather than benefit. And we are to stand with them until that day whatever law enforcement we have is truly just and focused on restitution – restoring someone –and wholeness instead of crime and punishment. Amen.
SOURCES
Books: The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness By Michelle Alexander
Sheep, wolves, and sheepdogs
“On Combat,” by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, U.S. Army (Ret.) <https://www.policeone.com/police-products/training-products/articles/book-excerpt-on-sheep-wolves-and-sheepdogs-UmiU5ujhwNg3douX/>
Videos: Police: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wf4cea5oObY&feature=youtu.be>
News articles
– The Nation: The Only Solution Is to Defund the Police by Alex S. Vitale <https://www.thenation.com/article/activism/defund-police-protest/?fbclid=IwAR18Sh-EOhMBbhunmQphMsfAyIEnLBNvr9K3vCgkWAu3cdgQiop5cPFBRCs>
– Mother Jones. “Are You Prepared to Kill Somebody?” A Day With One of America’s Most Popular Police Trainers by Bryan Schatz < https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/02/dave-grossman-training-police-militarization/>
– CNBC Police Violence in the USA in 4 Charts <https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/01/george-floyd-death-police-violence-in-the-us-in-4-charts.html>
– Business Insider “One of America’s Most Popular Police Trainers is Teaching Officers How To Kill” by Kelly McLaughlin< https://www.insider.com/bulletproof-dave-grossman-police-trainer-teaching-officers-how-to-kill-2020-6>
– The New Republic: “The Police’s Sheepdog Problem” by Jasper Craven <https://newrepublic.com/article/158136/military-veterans-police-sheepdog-problem>
– <https://newrepublic.com/article/157994/militarization-american-hometown>
– CNN: https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/09/us/disband-police-camden-new-jersey-trnd/index.html
– The Beacon Journal by Theodore Decker <https://www.beaconjournal.com/news/20190228/theodore-decker-franklin-county-sheriff-must-rethink-pursuit-policy >
Infographic: Goodvibes for Endtimes <https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EZrZZksVAAUAwtd?format=jpg&name=large>
Pastor Whitney Bruno Sermons 