The Reverend Tommy Graham Speaks

Tom Darilek: The Reverend Tommy Graham Speaks (2012)

Sermon written and delivered by Tom Darilek live on the Liberty Stage at Brave New Books, Austin, TX, 6/27/2012 MC: Ladies and Gentlemen! Please, welcome from the deep-south Austin Church of the Truly Free: the Reverend Tommy Graham… The Reverend Tommy Graham: Thank you, thank you… I’d like to start off by reading from the Gospel of Mark, Chapter 1, verses 17–18: “And Jesus said unto them, ‘Come ye after me and I will make you to become fishers of men.’ And straightaway they forsook their nets and followed him.” Now, I have been a follower of Jesus for most of my life. And what I’ve discovered through the years, is that we, followers of Jesus — Christians we call ourselves — have different opinions as to what it means to follow Him. The actions or behaviors, that this “following” manifests, is usually based on some idea, as to who or what Jesus was and/or is and what He stands for. Now, I believe that no Christian — no matter, what their idea is of what it means to follow Jesus — can in their right mind justify the giving of any financial or military support to the State of Israel, which continues to occupy Palestinian lands: killing, maiming, starving and torturing Palestinians, not unlike the Roman occupying beast of old did to the Jews. IF you believe, Jesus was a human being just like us, who achieved enlightenment in his lifetime, who realized that we are all One with God, who said “I and my Father are One” and who said “you will know that I am in My Father and you in me and I in you” and that you should love your brother, as yourself, because he IS yourself, literally, then it makes no sense to give virtually unbounded financial and military support to one brother, who then uses that support to lay siege upon, oppress, brutalize, steal from and lord it over another brother, which is what the State of Israel has been doing to the Palestinian people for over 50 years. IF you believe Jesus, when he says, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” and “Blessed are the peace makers, for they shall be called the children of God.”, then it makes no sense for our so-called Christian nation to engage in imperial wars of aggression and ongoing occupations throughout the Middle East; conquering Israel’s enemies on her behalf, when these wars fail to bring about any peace, but instead breed only resentment towards both our country and our most conspicuously favored friend. IF you believe, Jesus was a subversive, who conspired to overthrow the oppressive Roman occupation of his day; that He earned the ire of the establishment by riding into Jerusalem, while the people hailed him king and he toppled the tables of the money changers in the temple mall, then don’t you think, He would be a lot more welcome now on the east side of the wall? And yet, how ironic it is now, that many of my fellow Christians call the Palestinians evil for fighting to be free from the oppressive yolk, which is Israel. IF you believe, Jesus was the Son of God, come down from Heaven to preach forgiveness of sins, to make us all “right with God” through His death and resurrection; that He said to the penitent prostitute, after having saved her from being stoned to death, “Go and sin no more!”, then does He not say to us now, “I have saved you. Be not afraid! There is no need for you to be Israel’s bitch. Go and sin no more!” And finally, IF you believe, that to follow Jesus means, that you must believe, that the State of Israel is the fulfillment of Old Testament biblical prophecy and should therefore be supported no matter what and that we should be for anything, Israel is for and be against anything, Israel is against and we should protect her and do her bidding with no regard for the most basic principles of morality and that not to believe this way is to jeopardize your own salvation, then I sincerely say to you, “Open your eyes and see that your god is a whimsical tyrant! He is in no way worthy of your allegiance.” For he is not the Father of Jesus and he is not your Father. He is a false god, whose only gifts to you are the sacraments of ignorance and fear. He is no more powerful, than the forged idols or graven images of old. I say, lay him down, child! Lay him down upon the fiery funeral pyre of memory and scatter his ashes in the four directions! Cast him away, child! Cast him away onto the deserted mound of broken clay shards from the wind-blown distant past! Throw him, child! Throw him atop the heaping pile of the withering papyrus pages of antiquity, where he belongs! And say to him, “Behold now, oh ancient and powerless relic! I have rebelled. Do your worst to me! Ha!” To those, who have ears to hear, let them hear, what the Spirit is saying: “Go and sin no more, children! Go and sin no more!”