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Afrocentric Sermons: The Beauty of Blackness in the Bible
"Afrocentricity seeks to rescue African history and heritage from its exile within our culture and encourage within African Americans the God-given self-esteem and dignity that have been eroded over the years. What better forum is there than the pulpit to proclaim hope through a clear message of freedom and worth? "--from the Forword by Cain Hope Felder.
113 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 1993
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July 4, 2024
starsAN EXCELLENT SERIES OF “TEACHING” SERMONS ON BLACK PEOPLE IN THE BIBLE
Kenneth L. Waters, Sr. is pastor of the Vermont Square United Methodist church in Los Angeles; he has also written I Saw the Lord: A Pilgrimage Through Isaiah 6.
He wrote in the Introduction to this 1993 book, “A book of Christian sermons dedicated to celebrating the history and heritage of Africans born in the Americas had never before been published. While this accounts for the uniqueness of this collection, the reasons for publishing it are more crucial. There has been great injury done to African American people and more trauma continues to be visited upon us. Nowadays, however, the injury is not such much outward and physical as inward and psychological… or, should we say, spiritual? The point is that great damage has been done to the corporate pride, sense of self-worth, self-esteem, and self-respect of African American people.” (Pg. 1)
He continues, “As a pastor … I have sought ways to heal the spirit of my people so that they can rise up and be the people of God. The challenge has always been to overthrow the effects of years of social programming and to liberate people from the worship of ‘whiteness’ and the derogation of ‘African-ness’… I eventually found a resource of great promise and effectiveness in the movement called Afrocentricity… My challenge as a Christian preacher has been to introduce this wide breadth of scholarship and information to the people in the pew and to do so in a way that is palatable and profitable for them. The sermon series, of course, is a uniquely suitable way of conveying the insights of Afrocentric scholarship in relatively short increments of time over the course of several weeks… These particular sermons … embrace all the Afrocentric themes that I have ever tried to address… [I] provide notations and a bibliography so that anyone wishing to explore the more technical foundations of these messages will have readily identifiable places to begin.” (Pg. 2-4)
He explains, “these sermons are controversial… The most egregiously hypocritical charge of all would be that there sermons are … an example of ‘reverse racism’… Another charge might be that these sermons are anti-white… But it would be wrong to characterize these sermons as ‘anti-white-people.’ They are pro-black and … anti-racist, but not anti-white people. I, in fact, know white people who are partners with black people and others in the fight for racial and social justice… These messages are certainly not against them, nor are they against any well-meaning white person who seeks ways to exterminate the social and psychological disease of racism.” (Pg. 5)
He notes, “The Old Testament Scriptures refer to the black African ancestry of the original inhabitants of the Judean wilderness by saying ‘the former inhabitants there belonged to Ham’ (I Chron 4:40, RSV). Interestingly, by the time of David the king (1000-962 BCE) there was still a people of black African ancestry called the Jebusites (Gen 10:16) inhabiting the area that became Jerusalem (1 Chron 11:4-9).” (Pg. 13)
He clarifies, “when I speak of ancient people and persons as ‘black’ I am not making a statement about how they thought of themselves nor about how their contemporaries thought of them, but rather how they would have been DESCRIBED by ancient eyewitnesses, and identified, in some cases, in terms of ancestry. I am also indicating how they would be identified by us today despite their self-understanding. Thus I feel that by using the term ‘black’ simply as a descriptive term, with no reference to ancient self-understanding, I am avoiding retrojection of present-day understandings onto an ancient mind-set.” (Pg. 13-14)
He states, “when I speak of being made in the image of God I am speaking of being made in God’s spiritual image, not God’s physical image… I cannot help but be impressed by our Scripture text from the book of Ezekiel [1:26-28]. In this text, Ezekiel… has a vision of God …Ezekiel says that he saw God sitting upon a throne in the form of a human being. He then goes on to say that God’s upper body was like bronze encased in fire. In other words, Ezekiel the prophet is declaring that he saw God in the form of a man with bronze-colored skin. In the book of the prophet Daniel (7:9)… the prophet again describes God in the form of a human being seated on a throne. God’s clothes were as white as snow. There is no reference to God’s skin color, but the prophet says that the hair on God’s hear was like pure wool… Now, some will say that the prophet is here referring only to the color of the Lord’s hair, but many of us have come to realize that when the prophet says that the Lord’s hair is like lamb’s wool, he is speaking not only of the color of the Lord’s hair but also its texture… in the book of Revelation (1:12-16)… we have the apostle John’s vision of the glorified Lord (and as far as we are concerned, Ezekiel, Daniel, and John were seeing the same divine person)… the Lord’s white hair is said to be as wool and his feet like burnished bronze refined in a fire… we get a unified picture of God in the form of a human being with bronze skin and short curly hair. In other words, the appearance of God to the prophets and the apostle is like that of an African black man.” (Pg. 19-20)
He asserts, “We have become too assimilated. We have become too white in our thinking and our behavior… The image of God in us has been corrupted, and we need to restore it. This is why we should strive to recover our African heritage. This is why we should strive to uncover our history as an African people. Our lives depend on it. The image of God within depends upon it.” (Pg. 24)
He explains, “when I really want to demonstrate the importance and significance of black people in history, I focus on the one person who was the most important and most significant person who has ever lived, and that is Jesus of Nazareth. Now, some people think that when I say that Jesus of Nazareth was a black man that I am trying to stir up controversy or start something. No, I am not trying to stir up controversy or start anything, but I am trying to put an end to something. I am trying to … undo the great damage that has been done to the hearts, minds, and souls of black people who have been taught all of our lives that everything good and everything right is white and everything not so good and … right is black.” (Pg. 33)
He continues, “When I see Jesus… I also see a dark-skinned Palestinian Jew of African descent. I see a black man. Yes, when I see Jesus, I see proof positive that to be black is still to be exceedingly good… ‘Well, Pastor… how do you know that Jesus was a black man?’ You know, it is interesting that nobody ever asks, ‘How do you know that Jesus was a white man?’… But this is all right; we can still prove that Jesus was black.” [Pg. 34] [He again quotes Ezekiel, Daniel, and Revelation.] “Second, we know that Jesus was black because he had black people in his family tree… Jesus was descended from a woman named Tamar, a woman named Rahab, and a woman named Bathsheba… Tamar and Rahab were Canaanites, and Bathsheba was a Hittite… the Hittites were the descendants of Ham, and Ham was the father of all black African nations including the Egyptians and the Ethiopians… As a descendant of black people through his forefather David and his mother, Mary, Jesus was also black. He was a Jew of black African descent.” (Pg. 35)
He argues, “Paul the apostle, one of the greatest heroes of the Christian faith, was a black man… in Acts 21:37-39 … Paul was arrested not just for being the suspected cause of the commotion in Jerusalem but also because he was mistaken for an Egyptian who had earlier led a revolt against the Roman government… the ancient Egyptians like the ancient Ethiopians were not a white European or white Asian people… but they were a North African black people who looked just like you and me… How could Paul the apostle be mistaken for a black African-Egyptian unless Paul himself looked like a black African-Egyptian?... another black man of African descent could have very easily been mistaken for an Egyptian… it could only have happened if Paul the apostle was also a man with black African features.” (Pg. 42-45)
He notes, “We do not know much about Simon of Cyrene, but he is identified [Mk 15:21]… as the father of Alexander and RUFUS… The presence of Rufus and his mother in the Roman Christian church is highly significant for us who are African American, for their presence is more evidence of the prominence and influence of African black people in the early Christian church.” (Pg. 49)
He continues, “we know about other early Christian black people… The first was Simeon Niger, whose last name actually means ‘the black man’; the second was Lucius of Cyrene, the same black African country that the father of Rufus was from… in Acts 8 we read about the apostle Philip’s encounter with a high-ranking official from the black African country of Ethiopia… He was an Ethiopian black man, and he took his newfound faith back home with him… All I am trying to say is that we were there! From the very beginnings of Christian faith we were there!” (Pg. 50-51)
He comments on Song of Solomon 1:5: “we will deal briefly with a number of questions. One of these will be, Why have we translated our Scripture text with the words ‘I am black AND beautiful’ rather than ‘I am black BUT beautiful’?... our focus today in upon [Solomon’s] bride, who describes herself as black and beautiful… Not only does she say that she is black, but she goes on to tell us just how black she it. She is as black as the tents of Kadar … [where] people were in the habit of making their tents out of goat hair… [that was] extremely black. Therefore, the bride of Solomon is saying to us that she is not merely suntanned, but black, deep black… From a biblical perspective, no matter what shade of black you are, you are beautiful.” (Pg. 56-57)
He also says, “she describes her lover, Solomon, as ‘ruddy’ in color [5:10]. Incidentally, in 1 Sam 16:12 and 17:42, David… is also described as ‘ruddy’ in color… the word, which is ‘edom’ in Hebrew… [means] ‘reddish-brown.’” (Pg. 57)
Of the Queen of Sheba, he observes, “we also know her name … from other historical sources… Her name is Makeda. She was an Ethiopian woman who became queen of the country of Sheba around the year 960 BCE. … What many of us do not realize it that [in Lk 11:31] Jesus is also speaking of … the same woman who said, ‘I am black and beautiful’… I looked at nine translations of the biblical text. Six of them said essentially, ‘I am black BUT beautiful,’ and three of them said essentially, ‘I am black AND beautiful.’ … I am convinced that these three translations are the correct ones… A black woman in the ancient or biblical world was therefore more likely to say, ‘I am black AND beautiful’ than ‘I am black BUT beautiful.’” (Pg. 58-60)
He states, “Eve, the mother of all humanity, was a black woman. Hagar, the Egyptian handmaiden of Sarah and the mother of the Ishmaelites (the Arabs) was a black woman. Sarah, the wife of Abraham and the mother of the Israelites, was a black woman. Miriam, the sister of Moses and Aaron, was a black woman. Zipporah, the wife of Moses, was a black woman. Deborah, the judge of Israel, was a black woman. Tamar, the daughter-in-law of Judah, was a black woman. Rahab, the Canaanite, who helped the Hebrew spies in Jericho, was a black woman. Bathsheba, who became the wife of David the king, was a black woman. The Candace, queen of Ethiopia in the book of Acts (8:27), was a black woman. Mary of Nazareth, the mother of Jesus, was a black woman.” (Pg. 61-62)
In the final sermon, he observes, “Ebed-melech himself was a black man… the Bible refers to him as ‘The Ethiopian’ or ‘The Cushite’… The name ‘Cushite’ is synonymous with the word ‘Ethiopian,’ and one thing that even the most racist scholars have not been able to do is hide the fact that the ancient and biblical Ethiopians, like contemporary Ethiopians, were North African black people. And so the story of Ebed-Melech the Ethiopian is indisputably the story of a black man.” (Pg. 98-99)
This book is particularly effective in its mode and clarity of presentation; it will be “must reading” for anyone interested in Black/African/People of Color in the Bible.
Kenneth L. Waters, Sr. is pastor of the Vermont Square United Methodist church in Los Angeles; he has also written I Saw the Lord: A Pilgrimage Through Isaiah 6.
He wrote in the Introduction to this 1993 book, “A book of Christian sermons dedicated to celebrating the history and heritage of Africans born in the Americas had never before been published. While this accounts for the uniqueness of this collection, the reasons for publishing it are more crucial. There has been great injury done to African American people and more trauma continues to be visited upon us. Nowadays, however, the injury is not such much outward and physical as inward and psychological… or, should we say, spiritual? The point is that great damage has been done to the corporate pride, sense of self-worth, self-esteem, and self-respect of African American people.” (Pg. 1)
He continues, “As a pastor … I have sought ways to heal the spirit of my people so that they can rise up and be the people of God. The challenge has always been to overthrow the effects of years of social programming and to liberate people from the worship of ‘whiteness’ and the derogation of ‘African-ness’… I eventually found a resource of great promise and effectiveness in the movement called Afrocentricity… My challenge as a Christian preacher has been to introduce this wide breadth of scholarship and information to the people in the pew and to do so in a way that is palatable and profitable for them. The sermon series, of course, is a uniquely suitable way of conveying the insights of Afrocentric scholarship in relatively short increments of time over the course of several weeks… These particular sermons … embrace all the Afrocentric themes that I have ever tried to address… [I] provide notations and a bibliography so that anyone wishing to explore the more technical foundations of these messages will have readily identifiable places to begin.” (Pg. 2-4)
He explains, “these sermons are controversial… The most egregiously hypocritical charge of all would be that there sermons are … an example of ‘reverse racism’… Another charge might be that these sermons are anti-white… But it would be wrong to characterize these sermons as ‘anti-white-people.’ They are pro-black and … anti-racist, but not anti-white people. I, in fact, know white people who are partners with black people and others in the fight for racial and social justice… These messages are certainly not against them, nor are they against any well-meaning white person who seeks ways to exterminate the social and psychological disease of racism.” (Pg. 5)
He notes, “The Old Testament Scriptures refer to the black African ancestry of the original inhabitants of the Judean wilderness by saying ‘the former inhabitants there belonged to Ham’ (I Chron 4:40, RSV). Interestingly, by the time of David the king (1000-962 BCE) there was still a people of black African ancestry called the Jebusites (Gen 10:16) inhabiting the area that became Jerusalem (1 Chron 11:4-9).” (Pg. 13)
He clarifies, “when I speak of ancient people and persons as ‘black’ I am not making a statement about how they thought of themselves nor about how their contemporaries thought of them, but rather how they would have been DESCRIBED by ancient eyewitnesses, and identified, in some cases, in terms of ancestry. I am also indicating how they would be identified by us today despite their self-understanding. Thus I feel that by using the term ‘black’ simply as a descriptive term, with no reference to ancient self-understanding, I am avoiding retrojection of present-day understandings onto an ancient mind-set.” (Pg. 13-14)
He states, “when I speak of being made in the image of God I am speaking of being made in God’s spiritual image, not God’s physical image… I cannot help but be impressed by our Scripture text from the book of Ezekiel [1:26-28]. In this text, Ezekiel… has a vision of God …Ezekiel says that he saw God sitting upon a throne in the form of a human being. He then goes on to say that God’s upper body was like bronze encased in fire. In other words, Ezekiel the prophet is declaring that he saw God in the form of a man with bronze-colored skin. In the book of the prophet Daniel (7:9)… the prophet again describes God in the form of a human being seated on a throne. God’s clothes were as white as snow. There is no reference to God’s skin color, but the prophet says that the hair on God’s hear was like pure wool… Now, some will say that the prophet is here referring only to the color of the Lord’s hair, but many of us have come to realize that when the prophet says that the Lord’s hair is like lamb’s wool, he is speaking not only of the color of the Lord’s hair but also its texture… in the book of Revelation (1:12-16)… we have the apostle John’s vision of the glorified Lord (and as far as we are concerned, Ezekiel, Daniel, and John were seeing the same divine person)… the Lord’s white hair is said to be as wool and his feet like burnished bronze refined in a fire… we get a unified picture of God in the form of a human being with bronze skin and short curly hair. In other words, the appearance of God to the prophets and the apostle is like that of an African black man.” (Pg. 19-20)
He asserts, “We have become too assimilated. We have become too white in our thinking and our behavior… The image of God in us has been corrupted, and we need to restore it. This is why we should strive to recover our African heritage. This is why we should strive to uncover our history as an African people. Our lives depend on it. The image of God within depends upon it.” (Pg. 24)
He explains, “when I really want to demonstrate the importance and significance of black people in history, I focus on the one person who was the most important and most significant person who has ever lived, and that is Jesus of Nazareth. Now, some people think that when I say that Jesus of Nazareth was a black man that I am trying to stir up controversy or start something. No, I am not trying to stir up controversy or start anything, but I am trying to put an end to something. I am trying to … undo the great damage that has been done to the hearts, minds, and souls of black people who have been taught all of our lives that everything good and everything right is white and everything not so good and … right is black.” (Pg. 33)
He continues, “When I see Jesus… I also see a dark-skinned Palestinian Jew of African descent. I see a black man. Yes, when I see Jesus, I see proof positive that to be black is still to be exceedingly good… ‘Well, Pastor… how do you know that Jesus was a black man?’ You know, it is interesting that nobody ever asks, ‘How do you know that Jesus was a white man?’… But this is all right; we can still prove that Jesus was black.” [Pg. 34] [He again quotes Ezekiel, Daniel, and Revelation.] “Second, we know that Jesus was black because he had black people in his family tree… Jesus was descended from a woman named Tamar, a woman named Rahab, and a woman named Bathsheba… Tamar and Rahab were Canaanites, and Bathsheba was a Hittite… the Hittites were the descendants of Ham, and Ham was the father of all black African nations including the Egyptians and the Ethiopians… As a descendant of black people through his forefather David and his mother, Mary, Jesus was also black. He was a Jew of black African descent.” (Pg. 35)
He argues, “Paul the apostle, one of the greatest heroes of the Christian faith, was a black man… in Acts 21:37-39 … Paul was arrested not just for being the suspected cause of the commotion in Jerusalem but also because he was mistaken for an Egyptian who had earlier led a revolt against the Roman government… the ancient Egyptians like the ancient Ethiopians were not a white European or white Asian people… but they were a North African black people who looked just like you and me… How could Paul the apostle be mistaken for a black African-Egyptian unless Paul himself looked like a black African-Egyptian?... another black man of African descent could have very easily been mistaken for an Egyptian… it could only have happened if Paul the apostle was also a man with black African features.” (Pg. 42-45)
He notes, “We do not know much about Simon of Cyrene, but he is identified [Mk 15:21]… as the father of Alexander and RUFUS… The presence of Rufus and his mother in the Roman Christian church is highly significant for us who are African American, for their presence is more evidence of the prominence and influence of African black people in the early Christian church.” (Pg. 49)
He continues, “we know about other early Christian black people… The first was Simeon Niger, whose last name actually means ‘the black man’; the second was Lucius of Cyrene, the same black African country that the father of Rufus was from… in Acts 8 we read about the apostle Philip’s encounter with a high-ranking official from the black African country of Ethiopia… He was an Ethiopian black man, and he took his newfound faith back home with him… All I am trying to say is that we were there! From the very beginnings of Christian faith we were there!” (Pg. 50-51)
He comments on Song of Solomon 1:5: “we will deal briefly with a number of questions. One of these will be, Why have we translated our Scripture text with the words ‘I am black AND beautiful’ rather than ‘I am black BUT beautiful’?... our focus today in upon [Solomon’s] bride, who describes herself as black and beautiful… Not only does she say that she is black, but she goes on to tell us just how black she it. She is as black as the tents of Kadar … [where] people were in the habit of making their tents out of goat hair… [that was] extremely black. Therefore, the bride of Solomon is saying to us that she is not merely suntanned, but black, deep black… From a biblical perspective, no matter what shade of black you are, you are beautiful.” (Pg. 56-57)
He also says, “she describes her lover, Solomon, as ‘ruddy’ in color [5:10]. Incidentally, in 1 Sam 16:12 and 17:42, David… is also described as ‘ruddy’ in color… the word, which is ‘edom’ in Hebrew… [means] ‘reddish-brown.’” (Pg. 57)
Of the Queen of Sheba, he observes, “we also know her name … from other historical sources… Her name is Makeda. She was an Ethiopian woman who became queen of the country of Sheba around the year 960 BCE. … What many of us do not realize it that [in Lk 11:31] Jesus is also speaking of … the same woman who said, ‘I am black and beautiful’… I looked at nine translations of the biblical text. Six of them said essentially, ‘I am black BUT beautiful,’ and three of them said essentially, ‘I am black AND beautiful.’ … I am convinced that these three translations are the correct ones… A black woman in the ancient or biblical world was therefore more likely to say, ‘I am black AND beautiful’ than ‘I am black BUT beautiful.’” (Pg. 58-60)
He states, “Eve, the mother of all humanity, was a black woman. Hagar, the Egyptian handmaiden of Sarah and the mother of the Ishmaelites (the Arabs) was a black woman. Sarah, the wife of Abraham and the mother of the Israelites, was a black woman. Miriam, the sister of Moses and Aaron, was a black woman. Zipporah, the wife of Moses, was a black woman. Deborah, the judge of Israel, was a black woman. Tamar, the daughter-in-law of Judah, was a black woman. Rahab, the Canaanite, who helped the Hebrew spies in Jericho, was a black woman. Bathsheba, who became the wife of David the king, was a black woman. The Candace, queen of Ethiopia in the book of Acts (8:27), was a black woman. Mary of Nazareth, the mother of Jesus, was a black woman.” (Pg. 61-62)
In the final sermon, he observes, “Ebed-melech himself was a black man… the Bible refers to him as ‘The Ethiopian’ or ‘The Cushite’… The name ‘Cushite’ is synonymous with the word ‘Ethiopian,’ and one thing that even the most racist scholars have not been able to do is hide the fact that the ancient and biblical Ethiopians, like contemporary Ethiopians, were North African black people. And so the story of Ebed-Melech the Ethiopian is indisputably the story of a black man.” (Pg. 98-99)
This book is particularly effective in its mode and clarity of presentation; it will be “must reading” for anyone interested in Black/African/People of Color in the Bible.
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