Religious leaders are called to be God's people and as such must not stand in guilty silence when they see an "execution" of any kind about to happen, and they should make a difference by being courageous, standing up and saying something.
"Too many of us wait for and need our ministry to be confirmed by whose guest list we are on," said Bishop Simeon Hall, pastor emeritus at New Covenant Baptist Church, at a pastors' lunch at his alma mater American
Baptist Seminary in Nashville, Tennessee. "You and I are called to be God's people, and we must not stand in guilty silence because of fear, favor or prejudice. The courage to stand is a call to make a qualitative difference. The courage to stand is to stand up and say my calling supersedes what you might offer me."
Using Matthew 14: 6-12 as his reference and the story of Herod at his birthday banquet and the guests who looked the other way even as John the Baptist was beheaded. The execution of John the Baptist he told them is not a popular narrative. He said that preachers tend to avoid it because the details are gory, sordid and unpleasant. He reminded them that in the story some of the worst details of cruel self-indulgences and perverse human spirits are revealed.
"Most times when you hear this story it is skirted over hurriedly with no concerned attempt to make its details the subject of sustained meditation and reflection. This text exposes certain realities and raises an issue with which we might not be at all comfortable. Usually upon reading the story we are confronted with the main characters only such as Herod, Herodias and Herodias' daughter, and we quickly push harsh judgment upon them.
"Indeed, Herod Antipas was guilty of double incest and double adultery. He married his niece, his brother's wife while his brother was still alive and he drove his wife from him by this union. Sometimes it is right to break a promise when the promise involves in its fulfillment the commission of a crime. But Herod wished to gratify the malice of an ill-gotten wife and to vindicate his authority in the presence of his silent guests. But let me invite you to shift your focus from Herod, Herodias and even John the Baptist to look at the silent guests at the banquet."
Bishop Hall told his colleagues that while people rush to pass judgment on the main characters in the story they are not the people with whom most of them can readily identify. But he said that at some point in their lives, most people have been "quiet guests at the banquet." He said those guests were the "mucka mucks" of the day.
"It is because most of us sitting in privileged positions, indulge in guilty silence that the ministries we head sometimes lose their relevance and the cutting edge feature common to the first century church," said Hall. "The privilege of modernity has sometimes cushioned some of us so that we forget that this institution that we celebrate had its birth because of an intercourse between structured evil and retrogressive social policy."
Hall said that too often religious leaders who are privileged to sit and interact with power and influence lose their sense of right and wrong at the expense of those whose lives could be positively impacted by a simple sign of protest.
He challenged them to think of one person whose life had been beset by misfortune and that person whose life might have been changed had they tried to do something. He asked them to think of a situation where they ought to have been more courageous but sat in guilty silence.
"Too often we find ourselves privileged to sit in positions and places where evil and wrong are being perpetrated, but we nestle ourselves in the comfortable seat of the invited guests, comfortable with the privileged invitation, but not accepting the concomitant responsibility to raise a finger to right a damnable wrong."
The bishop said that structured evil and entrenched wrong are so much a part of world systems that some people will never get invited to the king's banquet. And that even worse is the fact that as they sat as guests at the king's table there was a prophet of God imprisoned in the king's dungeon whose only crime was he obeyed his calling and spoke truth to power.
"The picture the Bible paints of John was not an attractive one, he was a hermit, his dress unbecoming and his message disturbing. But would you not agree with me that his worth as a human being and his ministry was worth more than a plate of food. By God's grace, ministry is calling and a privilege. The scope of your ministry should be extended beyond who you are," said Hall.
He further told his peers that big preachers with small messages were one of the most disturbing features of today's pulpit. He said religious leaders privileged to be guests at the king's banquet must embrace the responsibility to stand courageously in support of the least, the lost and the left out.
"In our fallen world, there are very often iniquitous structures, evil systems, exploitive organizations which victimized and marginalized people exploiting their weaknesses, pushing them to the edge of quiet desperation, and we Christian leaders are guests at the banquet sitting in guilty silence eating cheesecake. Which is worse -- a murderous, adulterous Herod or the cute and prim guest who sits in silence? Which is worse, the dancing daughter or the seated guests, indifferent to the beheading of the man of God?"
Hall said that like it or not, they sometimes unwittingly become accomplices in the evil towards which they are indifferent, and that the courage to stand is neither for the weak or the fearful. He told them that if they stand for right and social justice they might find themselves in the king's dungeon while the king and his guests are seated at a banquet.
Hall told them to look into themselves and ask themselves what it was that caused them to shy away from helping others who are disadvantaged, marginalized or being harmed right in our presence. And to also ask why it is that they who are called to imitate Christ pass over to the other side in the face of a simple effort to ameliorate person's hurt and shame.
"Why are we slow to stand courageously, especially for others? The vexing social insanities of our current scene call for more personal boldness on the part of all those who by social precedence are in hear-shout of power and influence," said Hall. "Too many of us wait for and need our ministry to be confirmed by whose guest list we are on. You and I are called to be God's people, and we must not stand in guilty silence because of fear, favor or prejudice. The courage to stand is a call to make a qualitative difference. The courage to stand is to stand up and say my calling supersedes what you might offer me," he said.

Click here to read more at The Nassau Guardian