A Thunderbolt and Grace
The Home Going of Reverend Clementa C. Pinckey.
His Eulogy given by Barack Obama, the President of the United States of America. June 26, 2015.
Six years in, Republicans are still complaining about Obamacare (the Affordable Care Act, or the ACA), without a fix. They voted to repeal sixty times, without one time having an act to replace it.
And Obama addressed a promise he made. Not to us, but to God. We see it unfolding in his works. I’ve been a witness to it! I felt a part of it as the President delivered the eulogy for South Carolina State Senator (D-45) Clementa C. Pinckney. Friday, in Charleston, on June 26, 2015.
Earlier that same day from Washington, DC, the President described a Supreme Court decision extending marriage to all who embrace monogamy with a climate/celestial/heaven-weighted reference: “sometimes there are days like this, when that slow, steady effort is rewarded with justice that arrives like a thunderbolt.”
Death had come to Charleston like a thunderbolt. No insurance policy or repeal vote stopped it. And justice wasn’t on board. Death fell into the bullet holes of history, and returned from the old molds a spree murderer horrific and symbolic. On the watch of an African-American President. He would deliver a eulogy this day. Like Lincoln nearly 150 years ago, he would address those who died in America’s oldest fight.
The fight over democracy: between Unity and blame. Its governing ideals: redemption vs. sin. Its pillar of life: Love or hate. The fight over justice. The men before us touched every one of these struggles and fought hard, with love and “heart-felt generosity.”
Loaded with a full delegation from Washington, the House and Cabinet, the President, the First Lady, and the White House team, Air Force One came. We heard no sirens when they arrived through the narrow alleys of colonial stockyards to the rear of the coliseum.
The cheering applause elevated as the President walked out to his seat. Then he danced, fist raised to his body, eyes closed, and relaxed his neck. The gospel keyboardist celebrated with fanfare. The crowd cheered; the organ roared. Michelle was in prayer, in the lowlands.
Vice President Joe Biden was in deep grief, numb. His wife next to him. Charleston’s Mayor Joe Riley, Jr. and his wife. Then the Governor Nikki Haley representing the state. Her husband. US Senators Lindsay Graham, Tim Scott. FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn; her father, US House member Jim Clyburn; Hillary Clinton on row’s end.
The President stood before the faithful who had gathered five hours before, slipping easily from today’s earlier Justice to mourning’s eternal cry for Grace. Justice and Grace are powerful religious forces. Grace is the power that will get you through the times and places where there is no justice, only evil and suffering, chest-crushing pain. Justice is peace.
Halfway through the afternoon eulogy, the President said,
“This whole week, I have been reflecting on this idea of grace.”
The crowd resounded in answer! The feeling of the spirit changed, the Spirit had come.
The President opened, saying “The Bible speaks of hope.”
The teacher, he defined grace: “Rather, grace is the free and benevolent favor of God — (applause) — as manifested in the salvation of sinners and the bestowal of blessings.” Then he preached by the grace he defined. He spoke of hope, to hope received, the light of hope when others are blind.
He preached about “the flavor of God,” about “good people,” about people of virtue and work. People of love. Our institutions. The flag. Education. The future. The strength of the AME Church. His shared sorrow with the family and the nation. The Spiritual Path. Salvation.
Throughout, he indirectly recalled three of the marvelous wonders St. Augustine expressed in his written prayers at the beginning of Book One, The Confessions of St. Augustine (401 AD):
“Thee would man raise, the particle of Thy creation; man that bears about him his mortality, the witness of his sin, the witness that Thou resistest the proud: yet would man praise Thee . . . (The wonder of worth and merit by faith)
And how shall I call upon my God, my Lord and God, since, when I call for Him, I shall be calling him to myself? And what room is there within me, whither my God can come into me, God who made heaven and earth? (The wonder of being made in the image of God)
Most hidden, most present. . . Our heart is restless until it is in repose in Thee. (The wonder of the knowledge and love of God).
The Gathering
The media still gets the attendance wrong. The TD arena, a $45 million new public facility for the College of Charleston, sits 5,100. Add nearly a 1,000 seats set up on the floor, including seats for the members of Mother Emanuel. In the front section, across from the family, the first two rows held much of America’s political braintrust including Valerie Jarrett and several cabinet officers.
The national media’s template of who’s-who and “How did he do?” ignored the presence of God that nearly everyone felt. Make no mistake: God had been invited to come, called in prayer and worship and song, by grief and tears, by an inviolate hope, to come. His presence was magnified when the President spoke of grace. “Tis the old ship of Zion, the preacher sang. “Get on aboard.” “King Jesus, He is the Captain; get on board, fellow me,” preacher sang.
As the crowd double clapped the upbeat of stormy seas (clapping on two and three), and the organ kicked the twirling tempest the President entered.
Later, the White House posted a long, on site blog on the PRESIDENT’s eulogy, with videos, pictures and quotes, including the one below:
The President noted, Reverend Pinckney understood that “justice grows out of recognition of ourselves in each other. That my liberty depends on you being free, too. That history can’t be a sword to justify injustice, or a shield against progress, but must be a manual for how to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past — how to break the cycle. A roadway toward a better world. He knew that the path of grace involves an open mind — but, more importantly, an open heart.”
Today wasn’t simply a funeral service for a pastor and a politician. It was a celebration of life, a reminder of the work we have left to do, and encouragement to keep pushing forward.
(Click to see the President dancing.)
In the arena seats were four or five rows of Members of the US Congress and members of the Black Caucus. The attending AME Bishops took up the stage. On risers, beside the Mother Emanuel church choir, a community membership mass choir danced in black robes wearing African stoles, the choirs making a joyful noise. Songs swayed with praise and hand claps sounded like thunder. Bodies and souls brought the arena alive with feeling, the music welcoming the crowd.
Among the last group to get in after waiting since 5:30 am, waiting an hour and a half for the last 200 steps, I passed the security check. I sat in the balcony behind the stage and could see the whole arena. It turned into one of the best seats in the house.
The streets had been filled since early morning.
“Reverend Pinckney and his wife was married in the church I attend in Augusta, GA; Bethel AME church,” said one visitor to a local reporter. She waited for three hours and got overflow seating at the Museum. The minister at Mother Emanuel AME Church, 345 steps from the arena, had been shot to death by a visitor last week. Web photos show the shooter in poses with a Confederate flag. He traveled to Charleston by personal car, joined in Emanuel’s Bible study and afterward, pulled out a .45 pistol; reloading and firing, he killed nine that night in Emanuel after prayer. A grandmother and granddaughter played dead. One survivor was spared and told to tell story.
Of how a young man shot down elders and women, a nephew shielding his aunt; six women, three men; three survived. The first killed was the Pastor. Clementa Carlos Pinckney died, the President recalled, to remain us of “the imperatives of a just society.”
I kept running into people and music I knew. Charleston’s chief municipal judge, a former city council member now state senator, an Episcopal Rector at the city’s oldest church, a member at Mother Emanuel who always made the prayer meeting but happened to be absent that night, an active civil rights lawyer who had secured a civil settlement for a Cottageville family whose relative was killed by local law enforcement, a high school classmate.
My favorite: Working at 5:30 am, the journalist, Trymaine Lee, who had written tiredlessly about Trayvon Martin; who have been in Ferguson, Missouri and earlier in Charleston for another case charged with murder, and was now back, working at 5:30 am. The drumming started around 8:30 am from the park next to the gated-off lines. Sometime after 9 am, the line began to sing. Old hymns. Spirituals. Music of faith that had journeyed in heavy hearts that reminded us of Grace.
The music and the people gathering have come to Pastor’s funeral. A cross section of America has come to honor him with “an army of eumenical friends” (and political) to celebrate his life, family, and work, and virtues. And to celebrate what a local columnist called: “The Gospel of Emanuel (the Church) — “I Fear No Evil.” High Leaders, guests, church members, family on the floor. Others on the mezzanine. We People have the balcony seats.
Below, Rev. Clementa C. Pinckney, our native son of promise and achievement lay in a box beyond our touch — beyond our reach. Never to be touched here in this life by his wife and daughters, his senate colleagues; his congregation and vast community of friends and family — his God has touched him and is touching him now. God touched our hearts, too. As a holy assembly of the faithful, every preacher reminded us to give thanks to God as we grieve our loss. For some an impossible contradiction. Not for others. We felt God move. Barack was speaking to Jesse Jackson, shaking his hand, as the body was rolled away for its last journey to Marion, South Carolina, Rev. Clementa Pinckney’s final place of rest.
The extraordinary act of forgiveness by the families for the killer touched America deeply. For many people, it was their first real view of real Christian witness. Its meaning loss in the news and stories of grief. Yet forgiveness broke through. The God we praise led the families. “It’s the highway to Heaven; none can walk that path but the pure in heart. Christ stand beside me. Angels here to guide me. It’s a long way, walking up the King’s highway,” the Lowcountry Voices sang in New Orleans swing.
For the first time, the people in America saw an act of forgiveness supported by stricken families and an entire church; by local, state and national communities, black and white united in love and arms together. Their heart-felt acts fully demonstrated real, remarkable Christian faith.
Theirs, an act of forgiveness that revealed and opened the Power of God. Pastor Clementa Pinckney, leader and teacher of this Church family, worshipped and preserved its faith, even in death. Who God touches lives on.
It’s the Sunday after and during the funerals being conducted at Mother Emanuel and other churches. A New York Times reader writes about Emanuel online, “I realized how big it is, and I thought, ‘That church is strong.’ And maybe coming to visit, simply looking at it, it will give me strength.”
The Vision
The call to worship hymn from Friday, “He’s Done So Much For Me,” should be a memorial sung in every church. It’s lyrics are joyful; the dancing chorus of praise proclaiming an arm lifting: “I Can’t Tell It All.”
“Lift Every Voice And Sing,” the Black National Anthem, was sung with the majesty of the gospel hymn and a classic anthem. Soaring freedom in its sustained finish of voices, singing a celestial and terrestrial “Amen.”
“Amazing Grace” ended the day. It will be talked about for years. A television reporter noted: “the response was immediate, bringing everyone to their feet and singing along with him.” We say in the black church, “the spirit broke out.” A week later, at a Colorado gathering, Presidential adviser Valerie Jarrett told a group in Aspen, Colorado, “And from the first time he started to speak, the church was clearly with him. . . He knew they were with him.” The President was also “with” the church — for Jarrett the arena had truly become church by its spirit. Both the audience and the President knew in this moment of immense sorrow and pain, they were covered by Grace and acknowledged it freely and audibly in their call and response.
They were “leaning on the everlasting arms” of the God of their faith when a historic evil came again to life. From a stranger welcomed among them, evil sit among them. He entered the church with a planned, premediated decision. Feeling the keen ardor and fervor of what white supremacists since have called “legitimate grievances,” he carried out an multiple acts of racial violence tied in his mind to both benefit and blame.
The murders at Mother Emanuel (I have attended and worshiped in that prayer meeting and bible study!), committed by an zealous young man who adopted a cause and flag of hate — with race as its target and object — says afterwards “they were so nice to me, I almost changed my mind,” and still kills nine, reloading in the blood letting, brings together several strands of America’s darkest values and history.
The Charleston martyrs were killed in a church because of race, in order to fan hate to start a war.
Charleston’s Mayor Riley noted: “It is historic that this horrific act of racial hatred has been responded to by acts promoting racial unity and healing.”
The President spoke about Rev. Clementa Carlos Pinckney as a son “of preachers and protesters.” And “a good man.” “A man who never gave up . . . neither mean nor small.” “The most gentle of the 46 of us,” said one SC senator, the President quoted. In the beginning and at the end, he called all nine names. His remembrance of them helped heal the loss.
Sometimes I think that’s the best thing to hope for when you’re eulogized — after all the words and recitations and resumes are read, to just say someone was a good man. (Applause.)
You don’t have to be of high station to be a good man. Preacher by 13. Pastor by 18. Public servant by 23. What a life Clementa Pinckney lived. What an example he set. What a model for his faith. And then to lose him at 41 — slain in his sanctuary with eight wonderful members of his flock, each at different stages in life but bound together by a common commitment to God.
Cynthia Hurd. Susie Jackson. Ethel Lance. DePayne Middleton-Doctor. Tywanza Sanders. Daniel L. Simmons. Sharonda Coleman-Singleton. Myra Thompson. Good people. Decent people. God-fearing people. (Applause.) People so full of life and so full of kindness. People who ran the race, who persevered. People of great faith.
To the families of the fallen, the nation shares in your grief. Our pain cuts that much deeper because it happened in a church. The church is and always has been the center of African-American life — (applause) — a place to call our own in a too often hostile world, a sanctuary from so many hardships.
Somewhere way back in time when only God knew about this day and how he would take its measure — how we would measure it — long before the bricks and mortar of Emanuel AME Church heard the deadly thunder of bullets in its basement (its old furnace room) below the original heart pine of 19th century floors. Indented with the heel prints that anchored in praise of God, evidence of worship reached back a hundred and fifty years. It has heritage.
And more nearby.
Africans from the Middle Passage landed at Gadsden’s Wharf, a scant half mile east of the church. Follow where the sun falls without shadow, straight down to the waterfront. The builders of pine coffins were the biggest occupation on the quay— “cabinets” — that held Africans who died on ship and whose bodies were still on board, or died after landing. A half mile from the Church is America’s busiest landing point for Africans sold on its piers, and their industry of death. It, too, is sacred ground. A lost burial site for thousands we never knew. It long precedes Ft. Sumter.
Records of lowcountry funerals for African-Americans go back before 1850, before the Civil War. A South Carolina planter describes the funeral for an enslaved buried in the countryside. From his diary, on May 6, 1850:
Got Uncle Ben’s Paul to make coffin for poor old Anthony. . . had it put in the coffin as soon as it came. Buried the body alongside of his son about 11 o’clock at night …. There were a large number of Negroes from all directions present, I suppose over two hundred.
That point of attention to the dead by the whole community is anchored by the church, Mother Emanuel; the Africans built to praise, worship and serve God. In the Wonder, Grace and Hope of Forgiveness, Mother Emanuel and its membership built its temple church next to what it witnessed and bore, where they prayed much of it be gone. We still see “that bearing up” in each others faces and smiles, feel it in the arms and hands touched and extended to each other; voices of a generation’s survivors singing in our bones — the voices who know “it” will “bear up” the President today, as he goes to the Word. We organized large funerals in South Carolina long ago. We have been, God knows, a little “kinder than necessary.”
(President Obama:) “A sacred place, this church. Not just for blacks, not just for Christians, but for every American who cares about the steady expansion — (applause) — of human rights and human dignity in this country; a foundation stone for liberty and justice for all. That’s what the church meant.” (Applause.)
Shallow arguments in the name of God have tried to perpetuate slavery or white supremacy as a state right anchored in God’s Plan. The radio, video and websites are full of this God-above-country talk. South Carolina’s James Henry Hammond speech from the US Senate floor in 1858 models the rhetoric and talking points for these groups and individuals, an advocates of race war. Easy comparisons appear between the killer’s manifesto and the Senator’s speech Ta-Nehisi Coates cited in The Atlantic on June 22th:
“We do not think that whites should be slaves either by law or necessity. Our slaves are black, of another and inferior race. The status in which we have placed them is an elevation. They are elevated from the condition in which God first created them, by being made our slaves. None of that race on the whole face of the globe can be compared with the slaves of the South. They are happy, content, unaspiring, and utterly incapable, from intellectual weakness, ever to give us any trouble by their aspirations. Yours are white, of your own race; you are brothers of one blood. They are your equals in natural endowment of intellect, and they feel galled by their degradation.”
This delusion, of knowing what God thinks and then interfering to aid his will has a long history in South Carolina.
From it, the shooter invoked three actions and motives:
1) Violence taken from a war.
2) Serving a righteous cause that is false.
3) Allegiance to a flag which has become an idol.
It exploded last week.
Wrong Church.
Wrong People.
Wrong Day.
“He wanted to start a race war but he came to the wrong place,” said the Presiding Elder serving in charge of Mother Emanuel.
In a single act — forgiveness — anchors our strength, clears our way, and releases blocks put in our way by others and by our reaction. Through it, we honor our martyrs, and reclaim self-determination, purpose, and tomorrow. That’s why we forgive.
The biggest benefit is to ourselves; it is a natural act of love. Why should we carry pain or be shaped in our response to life by the acts and evils transmitted to us by others?
Forgiveness means we have immediately returned to self-guidance. Our feet are again firmly on our path. As their spirit is released across the land, we have dutifully removed the obstacles in their way.
Forgiveness is an antidote, a life-saving portion! It inures us against the creations of our hearts that would consume us. Those things introduced by others for that purpose. Old notions that lead back to the thorny places we left. Asking us to rely upon our common, persistent problems to define a path of action.
Look closely at the history of our martyrs. Our wisdom. Some critical labels that imply judgement or analysis clearly have not been done beyond the point of passion.
Forgiveness is as common as the air around us, the sun above us, the life within us, and the struggle before us. It does require work to achieve, just as climbing rock faces without harnesses, or walking tightropes without nets. It is the use our intelligence brought to force as a spiritual discipline.
Forgiveness flows up from the marvels of wonders St. Augustine describes — worth, merit and being. A faith that knows the divine worth of life, and of the flesh; a faith that knows merit is service to others and God; a faith that knows God is in the believer’s very being and takes all things to God— “God is able,” AME leaders express. In grief, we know his comfort.
Faith lives longer than flesh’s most broken sin. Faith knows the joy of giving. Faith is among “our better angels.” The processional words of scripture and prayer included the 23rd Psalm.
In the week after the eulogy, the President has opened a US Embassy in Cuba, talked to the nation about the economy and the ACA, dropped in on a Girl Scout camp out at the White House (moved in for bad weather), and set down to meetings with the President of Brazil Dina Rousseff, a dedicated socialist once jailed in her country by its military, incensed about US spying on national leaders phones, including hers. She faces sharp social and economic pressures at home and thinks Barack relies too much on charm and needs structure.
The week before at the White House, “President Obama hosted an Iftar dinner celebrating the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.” “The Iftar is the evening meal after sunset” that breaks the daily fast.
We fasted the day of Rev. Pinckney’s service. Beginning at gathering times as early as 5:00 am, until 4:01 pm, as the service ended, most of us had nothing to eat.
5000 gathered. (Closer to 6,100!) 5,000 is a Biblical symbol of strength. Strong teaching and acts are associated with groups that size: the Hebrews who passed out of bondage through the sea; the number changed by the Holy Spirit we know and feel; the number fed by the fishes and loaves, the foundation of trust on earth built on love and sharing, 5,000. We had a thousand more.
“Amazing Grace” ended the day. Echoes from in between: “a family of preachers and protesters. “A good man.” “A man who never gave up . . . neither mean nor small.” “The most gentle of the 46 of us,” said one SC senator, the President quoted.
His hopes for the future alighted with the man whose death he eulogized: “To magnify that grace.” “To find that spot.” Some coming to immediate effect, by this gathering. The President remained us:
“that to put our faith in action is more than individual salvation, it’s about our collective salvation; that to feed the hungry and clothe the naked and house the homeless is not just a call for isolated charity but the imperative of a just society.”
If we can not see God, how can we know God? How do we receive his knowledge? How do we learn to forgive? Together. Not one by one. Together first. Than on our own.
“There is nothing I could ever do as governor that did what those families did,” AP quoted Nikki Haley. “They have totally changed the perception by how they responded to this — through the love and care and forgiveness they’ve shown. That gives us hope. That gives us something to build on.”
As the President said: “They were still living together by faith when they died.” In the AME Church, God is able. They will live on in faith.
And we can join them:
The very tradition of faith and personal virtues evident with in the spirit and character of Reverend Pinckney assures us that beyond our grief he will live and be a bright morning star along with the others who have ascended. Let not our grief take away from the fullness of our faith. In faith where he is — is salvation.
In his final statement, President Obama exalted: “Through the example of their lives, they’ve now passed it on to us. May we find ourselves worthy of that precious and extraordinary gift, as long as our lives endure.”
Joachim Beuckelaer, Antwerp.“The Well Stocked Kitchen,” 1566.
In the painting, Christ is being received by Mary and Martha. The message: Do not give in to earthly temptations.
Local coverage from WSVN 7, Miami. Sensitive camera work, and cultural knowledge. Watch the full service below:
The full transcript of President Barack Obama’s eulogy from the White House Press Secretary’s Office. Its delivery time was 49 minutes.
The Transcript of the Spoken Eulogy.
This narrative — journal, curation, definition, and local and national history — weaves around black worship at a funeral as President Obama delivers the eulogy for Rev, Clementa C. Pinckney, South Carolina State Senator and AME Pastor at Mother Emanuel.
Walter Rhett wrote it in the oral tradition of community history, common to Charleston.
