African Apostle Paul (courtesy World Encyclopedia)
By Rev. John Jackson
I remember many years ago hearing Bishop Frank Madison Reid preach a sermon titled “The Best, The Brightest and The Burdened.” I’ve never forgotten the power of that sermon dealing with this text of Daniel chapter one. I want to borrow that title and some of the perspectives of that sermon for this installment.
There is an insidious and insightful word that comes from this text of Daniel chapter one. It is insidious because it shows the lengths that tyrants and megalomaniacs will go to profit off of people.
It is insightful because it reminds all of us that the “wickedness we see in high political office,” right now to quote that African Apostle Paul is not new and we have seen it before. The writer of Daniel tells us that Jerusalem was destroyed by the Babylonians under the rule of King Nebuchadnezzar. The writer then informs us that the King ordered that some of the Hebrew boys be ripped from their homeland and dragged to the foreign land of Babylon to be forced to work for their oppressors. The Hebrew boys, first of all, had already possessed high intellectual, emotional, and psychological intelligence. It says in verse four that “they should be versed in every branch of wisdom, endowed with knowledge and insight and competent…”
Beloved slaves were not taken from Africa and brought to America. Doctors, lawyers, architects, engineers, psychologists, philosophers, therapists, businesspeople, astronomers, astrologers, agriculturalists, artists, musicians, medicine workers, warriors, strategists, and theologians were stolen from their homelands and brought to America. They were the best and brightest, and they were to be burdened in a foreign land.
Those boys, the writer of Hebrews tells us, were to be “trained in the literature, language and educated in the Babylonian school system for 3 years.” They had to take accelerated courses in the Babylonian arts, trades and sciences and be ready to serve immediately after the three years. When Black people in this nation are hired as pilots, engineers, doctors, attorneys, nurses, journalists, and all other disciplines, they have to work three times as hard as any ordinary white person just to get half as much. Therefore, when a Black person is in the pilot’s seat of an airplane, it is a safe bet they are more competent than the average white pilot because they had to work three times harder to get there. DEI really means “Definitely Earned It” for Black people, or it means “Dynamic, Educated and Inspiring,” or it can mean “Divinely Equipped and Imaginative.” The real point is, however, don’t let your oppressors teach your children. Create your own educational system that will instruct your children about who they are, where they came from and what they have already accomplished as a people before the interruption by their oppressors. We created schools that started in churches all over this nation as master teachers guided children to become giants. What we have done, we can do again.
The reason the Babylonians wanted the boys to be educated in their language and literature is they wanted them to forget who they were and to assimilate without rights into the Babylonian culture. That is why their names were changed from Daniel, whose Hebrew name meant “God is my Judge,” to Belteshazzar, which means in Babylonian, “Bel protects his life.” Hananiah’s name in Hebrew means “Yahweh has been gracious,” but his name was changed to Shadrach, which means “command of the moon god” in Babylonian. Mishael’s name in Hebrew means “Who is what God is?” His name was changed to Meshach, which means “Who is aku?” and Azariah’s name means in Hebrew, “Yahweh has helped,” but his name was changed to Abednego, which meant “slave of the god Nebo.” They wanted to force them to forget where they came from and forget the God who had sustained their people long before the interruption of the Babylonians.
Finally, after their three years of being educated by their oppressors, they were to be assigned their jobs working for the oppressor in his palace. They were to make the empire of Babylon better, but they would not have status in that empire. They were the Best, the Brightest who were to be the Burdened in a foreign land. They were among foreign and wicked people and charged to make that empire better without being respected and without dignity.
When African people were brought here from their various and diverse tribes and communities, they were brought here as the Best, the Brightest and to be the Burdened by white anti-Black hate to plant fields for a people who did not know how to grow crops, to build structures for a people who were too lazy to build their own and to do it all without having the dignity to be seen as humans and respected as a people. Beloved, we have seen this before, both in our sacred texts and in the lives of our ancestors. But that is not the final word in this text. Daniel and his allies refused to be acculturated and assimilated into the Babylonian culture and their first act of resistance was to refuse to eat the king’s food and second to trust God to sustain them. The other acts of resistance were to hold onto their culture and ancestry and to worship their God in the same spirit they always had, and to reject bowing before the oppressor’s god of money as in gold statue.
There is an insidious and insightful word here in the sacred book of Daniel that has relevance for us whose skin has been kissed by nature’s sun. It is also a relevant word for all poor people who are being bamboozled by the false construct of race. Wealthy controllers of the means of production have never had anyone’s interest in mind except their own lust for money and positions of power.
Be guided by the insights of the sacred texts and stay woke. Uhuru Sassa!
Rev. Dr. John E. Jackson, Sr. is the Senior Pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ-Gary, 1276 W. 20th Ave. in Gary. “We are not just another church but we are a culturally conscious, Christ-centered church, committed to the community; we are unashamedly Black and unapologetically Christian.” Contact the church by email at [email protected] or by phone at 219-944-0500.
