Almost exactly a century ago, American listened to a debate between two great thinkers, two men who had unquestionable credentials, first-rate minds, and powerful pens.
Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois. In September 1895, in a speech in Atlanta, Booker Taliaferro Washington advocated training in practical skills for young people of African descent. His speech and his ideas resounded throughout the country. At his Tuskegee Institute, Washington started courses in farming, bricklaying, mattress making, and wagon building. He insisted that his people stay out of politics and not agitate for rights. His slogan was, "Cast down your bucket where you are,“ which meant that everyone should look at the resources they already had available, and learn to use these things. If you will farm, if you will labor, if you will work hard, you will "earn" – that’s his word, not mine – you will earn your rights and privileges.
Over against Washington was his younger contemporary, the proud, intellectual, aloof William Edward Burghardt Du Bois. In this very year, 1895, as Booker T. Washington was delivering his Atlanta speech, W. E. B. Du Bois was receiving his doctorate from Harvard University. Du Bois challenged Washington’s acceptance of racial separation and demanded equal rights. More than that, he attacked Washington for minimizing the value of higher education. Du Bois instead spoke of training the talented tenth. The leaders, the exceptional people, the gifted and talented, these are the ones who should be counted on to lift and lead others. You cannot, he said, expect everybody to get ahead. Train the talented tenth, so that, as he put it, again, his words, not mine, "The best can lead the worst." Develop the talented tenth.
Now, happily, I do not have to argue this case out this morning. But, in another way, I found the talented tenth in the Biblical story that Deacon Holt selected for this year’s observance of Black History Month at our church. We’ve heard the story of Jacob and his ladder read to us. (’II take you back to that story in a minute, but just focus with me on its last line, where Jacob says to God, "Of all that you give me I will surely give one tenth to you." One tenth. Is this the talented tenth?
I
First, let’s think about how we got to our present state of circumstances in America. Racial relationships in this nation, never really good, are today again deteriorating and declining. Students resegregate school cafeterias. Skinheads paint graffiti and form armed resistance clubs. The language of militancy counters the language of racial epithets. We’re in trouble again. How did this happen? Who is to blame?
Jacob knew what it was to be in trouble. He was born in trouble, as a child he stayed in trouble, and when he left home, he was still in trouble.
Some of that trouble was of Jacob’s own making. He had stolen his brother’s birthright, deceiving their father. He had planned, with no regard for honesty, to put one over on the old man. Some of his trouble was home made.
But much of it was not. Many of Jacob’s problems came from what others did. Rebekah, his mother, conspired with him; the classic indulgent mama led her son to believe that if he wanted something, he should have it. Rebekah is in part to blame for Jacob’s foolishness.
And Isaac too. Victim though he was, Jacob’s father was to blame. Isaac tried to manage Jacob, tried to set down the rules of his life too rigidly. Isaac tried to tell his son whom to marry and where to go to find a wife. When you meddle too much in the private life of a young person, you are asking for rebellion. Isaac shares the blame for Jacob’s misbehavior.
And then there was Esau. There was a lot of hate in brother Esau. Undefined, indiscriminate hate. Unfocused anger. A sour personality. That too affected Jacob. Lots of Jacob’s problems can be laid to the feet of others around him.
And so when Jacob stopped that night, running from home, and running from himself; when Jacob stopped that night, he was the product of both a messed up family and of his own folly. When Jacob found himself out there in that wilderness, wondering where his next meal was coming from and how he was going to survive the night, he got there partly by his own messy mistakes and partly by the plots and the maneuvers of others who wished him harm.
I suspect that’s usually the way it is. If any of us is in trouble, if any of us is living a mixed up, messed up life, well, some of that is our own craziness. And much of that was brought to us by others who wished us harm. Both are at fault.
And so today I don’t want to get into those old arguments about why we are where we are. I don’t want to spend my breath either accusing young people for being off the wall or accusing the old generation of being rigid and insensitive. I particularly do not want to waste precious time guessing about how anybody got in trouble, and whether they did it to themselves or whether racism and discrimination did it to them. Both are true. Both are at fault.
Today, like Jacob taking a rest on that hard, hard rock, we know it’s stony, the road we’ve trod; we have felt, it’s bitter, the chastening rod. We got here. That’s what matters. We got here. Blaming somebody else and then sitting down to do nothing, that won’t help. How we got here is secondary. The question· is, where do we go from here?
II
As Jacob slept that night, he dreamed of a ladder, a ladder stretching from earth to heaven, and on that ladder the messengers of God, climbing up, climbing down. Up and down, all night long, God’s angels at work. And in his dream, Jacob heard the voice of the Lord, "I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring ... and all the families of earth will be blessed in you and in your offspring. Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until 1 have done what 1 promised you."
What a dream Jacob had! What does it mean? Jacob began to see that however difficult his journey, however painful his path, God had been in it. In the midst of his pain, God mysteriously had been there. In the throes of his agonies, though he had not seen God, God had been with Him. God had been with his ancestors, with Abraham and with Isaac. And God would be with him, Jacob, in the same way.
More than that, God was promising something. God was promising not only to stay with Jacob, but also to make of him a blessing for all the nations of the earth. Despite his mistakes, despite his trials, God was going to use him to be a blessing not only to his own kinsmen, but to all the families of earth. And that’s a remarkable thing.
I don’t suppose the men and women of the middle passage, crammed into leaky, rat-infested boats, to be transported from West Africa, felt that God was with them, or that they would be anybody’s blessing. I wouldn’t have thought that countless tenant farmers, domestics, day laborers, or just plain poor people found it easy to believe in a loving God. And as for blessing anybody else, well, they were just struggling to keep themselves going.
And yet they had a dream, some of them. They had a dream that someday, they and others like them would be able to go to school and train their minds. They had a dream that one day, their children would live in freedom and dignity. Like Jacob dreaming beside the river, seeing that ladder, with God’s angels climbing up and down, somebody believed, somebody heard a promise. Somebody dreamed of the day when everyone, black and white, Protestant and Catholic, Jew and Gentile, rich and poor, everyone could aspire to greatness and could bless the others. Like Jacob, some of them dreamed a dream and heard God’s promise in it.
And, most of all, they dreamed that not only would they themselves benefit, but that they would bless others as well. That’s one of the things Black History Month is surely all about: it’s not only African-American folks celebrating their achievements, but it’s blessing the rest of us with those accomplishments. It’s no longer, to use the imagery of Jacob’s ladder, no longer just black folks climbing the ladder to get up and white folks coming down the ladder to help; no longer just black folks climbing up the ladder to get out of misery and white folks coming down the from their so-called “superior" position. No more of that! But the dream is each family on earth, standing tall and free, giving to the others the riches of their inheritance.
I remember years ago seeing a video done by the Baptist Home Mission Board. This video was an attempt to show what Southern Baptists were doing for others. It showed pictures of community centers, Vacation Bible Schools, food distribution, all the works of charity you might imagine. But do you know that in that video every missionary, every person giving something, every individual blessing somebody else, was white? And, conversely, if you saw a picture of a black person, first of all, it was usually a child. Nothing wrong with being a child, but the film just didn’t show any pictures of black persons with personal power or attainment. And then every black person, child or adult, was exhibited receiving something. Getting something. Shown in their neediness!
The message was and is all wrong. That’s not what the dream is all about. Our dream is one in which every nation, every people, every family, blesses the others. A dream in which each culture learns from the other, no one is threatened, no one is either up or down, no one has to lord it over somebody else. A dream in which God has been present, God is the witness, God makes it possible.
"All the families of earth shall be blessed in you and in your offspring ... I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you"
III
But, you know, eventually you have to wake from a dream and do something. Eventually the dream is over and the daylight does dawn, and it’s time to go to work. Eventually, the cold practicalities have to be faced. What do you do after you have acknowledged that you have been in trouble but that there remains a dream that from you all the families of earth will be blessed? How do we make that dream happen?
Jacob woke up and began to face the day and its tasks. "Jacob woke from his sleep and said, ’Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it!’ And he was afraid and said, ’How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.’ So Jacob rose early in the morning, and he took the stone that he had put under his head and set it up for a pillar ... and Jacob made a vow, saying, "if God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and clothing to wear ... then the Lord shall be my God, and this stone, which I have set up for a pillar, shall be God’s house; and of all that you give me I will surely give one tenth to you.’"
You see, when you get a wake up call, you have to do something positive. You have to build and you have to give back something.
When you get a wake up call, when you see and hear the needs of today, it isn’t good enough to be glad you are past it. You have to build and to give.
I think there are some wakeup calls we’d better be hearing and acting on.
When children can’t read and can’t do math, not because they are not bright, but because school is stressed and home is chaos, that’s a wakeup call. You and I do well to sing the songs of the ancestors. But we would do better to get involved with our after-school enrichment program or a tutorial program and give of ourselves to our children. Build and give.
When young men populate our prison cells in huge numbers and senior adults are afraid to walk the streets, there is a wakeup call in that. You and I do well to rehearse the history of our families and to look at photographs of days gone by. But we would do better to become mentors for at-risk young people or foster parents for some child. Build and give.
When a whole generation has slouched in front of the TV set and absorbed hour upon hour of violence and disrespect, we’d better hear a wakeup call in that. You and I do well to struggle with what kind of music we are going to sing in our worship. But we would do better to expose our children to art and music and drama and everything that cultivates the human spirit. Build and give.
When young people at earlier and earlier ages are assuming the role of parent and are working at dead-end jobs just to eke out an existence, I think we had better hear a wakeup call there too. You and I do well to say kind things about our youth and to send them on ski trips and enjoy them when they do a youth Sunday service. But we would do better to build up that scholarship fund so that we could send them on their way equipped to meet the challenges of higher education.
And when the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth ... when the church gets lazy and ho-hum about evangelism, and doesn’t work to involve new people and new groups, it needs to hear a wakeup call.
You and I do well to affirm our confidence that black and white can live together, worship together, and work together for the Kingdom. It’s good to find joy in an interracial fellowship. But we would do better to reach our and share the good news with white families as well as with black, with Asian and Hispanic families, with all persons. It’s a little hypocritical to say that we are a multicultural church if we do nothing to reach anyone who isn’t like most of us are.
Wake up, church! You and I do well to look back and sing, “When my soul looks back, I wonder how I got over.” We do well to examine the past and praise God for it. But we would do so much better, infinitely so much better, if in this place we are determined to build and give, to build a people who will be a blessing to all.
Wake up, church! You are the talented tenth. Some of you are well educated, and have much knowledge to give. Others don’t have the degrees, but you have living knowledge, you have wisdom, and you can give that. Some have dollars to give, some have skills, some have a passionate heart, some have willing hands. Build. Build and give. Build like Jacob. Build stone on stone, life upon life, so that here, in this community, in this land, shall be God’s house. I will set up this pillar, said Jacob, that this may be the house of God … and I will surely give you a tenth of all that I have received.
Wake up, church, build and give. And in another generation those whom you have served, whether they be the talented tenth or the knowing nine-tenths, will rise up and point our way and shout, “Surely the Lord was in this place, and I did not know it. This is the house of God, the gate of heaven.”
