The Sermons of the Black Church - God Will Fix it Up

As we noted in the previous post, God Will Hook You Up is one of the messages that one will find in various configurations in the Black church. Another message in the Black church is God will Fix it Up.

Here we see that God has control of events and will not only hook us up, but God will fix things up. The systemic structural problems that place many people on a road of underdevelopment will be fixed by God. Racism will be overthrown by a sovereign God. God will crush wicked structures that keep people down. Sexism will not be allowed to totally overthrow the desired good of God for our sisters. God will not allow the poor's lack of resources to kill their hopes and dreams. All of this is implicit in this message.

When will this happen?

As we think about this message, we sometimes ask ourselves, when will this happen? The great call of the Black church that says that God is a God of liberation comes face to face with the question, how can we know that God is a liberator, when we look and see the wicked overrunning the righteous? Looking at both the treatment of African Americans and comparing it to the rhetoric of the Black church and Black Liberation Theology caused William R. Jones to ask Is God a White Racist? But one can look in the Bible itself for those who would question this idea. Habakkuk asks of God in Habakkuk 1:13:

"Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity: wherefore lookest thou upon them that deal treacherously, and holdest thy tongue when the wicked devoureth the man that is more righteous than he?

In addition, the preacher H. Beecher Hicks in his book Preaching Through a Storm quotes the famous text "weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning," and asks, "How Long the Night?"

A Hope that Looks Further

As we look at this very important message that tells us that God will hook things up, we must recognize that many of us may not see that hoped for reconciliation. Some of us may not see the hope fulfilled. Many of us may have to be content with only seeing it "a far off." Just like our fathers and mothers who lived through the dark days of slavery, many of our youth today live in the depths of a modern bondage that has been created by systems that oppress.

But the message that the Black church preaches delves deeper into our situations. It does not ignore them, but it reminds us to look for that which our eyes cannot see. It teaches us to look at those little things that we see today where God is beginning to set things right. And finally, this faith must look towards the reality that if I don't see the ultimate truth this side of the Jordan, this is not all there is.

I Won't Give Up Heaven

I say along with Jeremiah Wright in the sermon "What's in This for Me?" from the book What Makes You So Strong, "(D)on't try to make me do away with heaven."(57) "If I drop heaven, I'm going to have to break some dates, because I've got a grandmama there and a grandfather there, and I promised them I would meet them in heaven."(58) When we preach God will fix it up, we are of necessity including that final equalizer that happens when God eradicates sin from the universe. So I preach this message with my brothers and sisters, and I hope you preach it to. Because in a little while, the trump of God will sound and the dead in Christ shall rise first, and then our parents who longed and fought for freedom will finally experience it.