[MUSIC PLAYING]
Good afternoon, and
welcome everyone
to Harvard Divinity
School's 205th convocation.
My name is David Hempton, and
as dean of Harvard Divinity
School, I'm delighted to
welcome you all today.
Colleagues and the
faculty of Divinity,
our colleagues
from other schools
here at Harvard, fellow deans,
emeriti, senior administrators,
colleagues on the staff,
guests, incoming and returning
students, and all our
friends, near and far
all across the world, welcome.
Why is this the 205th time
that the HDS community
is gathering for the festival
opening up an academic year.
This is our first
time completely
online due to the
COVID-19 pandemic that
keeps us all physically apart.
Please allow me to say
a few words of thanks
to everyone who helped put
together today's convocation.
From the various offices at
HDS, and to the contributors
and participants in
today's festive opening
of the academic year.
Eboni Nash, our HDS student,
will do the reading.
My colleague and
our academic dean,
Professor Janet
Gyatso, Chris Hossfeld,
our director of music.
And last but not least,
my dear colleague
and distinguished speaker
Dr. Cornell Brooks.
Thank you for your work and your
efforts under these challenging
circumstances.
Each convocation is
a time to reflect
on the previous year,
what we have accomplished,
and what work still
needs to be done.
What we most want to
achieve in the future,
and how we want to
adjust our course.
Last year, our colleagues
Davíd Carrasco and Cornel West
celebrated our friend Toni
Morrison with his convocation
address entitled "Toni Morrison,
Goodness And Mercy And Mexico,"
and what was an unforgettable
event at Sanders Theater.
Next year we hope to
hold our convocation
in person in a fully renovated
and recreated Swartz Hall.
This year we are honored
to have as our speaker,
our distinguished colleague,
Cornell Brooks, who
was chosen as the title of his
address, "George and Jesus,
Policing And
Insurrection Of Hope."
Professor Brooks is of course no
stranger to the HDS and Harvard
community, nor to
anyone in the country.
He is Hauser professor
of the practice
of non-profit
organizations, and Professor
of the Practice of
Public Leadership
and Social Justice at the
Harvard Kennedy School.
Is also director of the William
Monroe Trotter Collaborative
For Social Justice
at the Kennedy School
Center for Public Leadership.
And our esteemed colleague
and visiting professor
of the practice of
prophetic religion
and public leadership
at the divinity school.
He's also a fourth
generation ordained
minister in the African
Methodist Episcopal Church.
These are difficult
times in all our lives.
We're living through
the worst public health
pandemic in over a century.
We see violent acts of systemic
racism almost every day.
Our civic institutions are
under unprecedented stress
and strain.
Truth and trust are bent,
distorted, and undermined.
At HDS we are not
and should not be
isolated from these challenges.
This coming year, our new racial
justice and healing committee
comprised of faculty,
staff, and students,
has chosen as its theme
building an anti-racist and
anti-oppressive Harvard Divinity
School, in which our community
will engage quote, "in the
ongoing self-examination needed
to unlearn and heal from
internalized racism,
oppression, and conscious
and unconscious bias."
These commitments are
foundational to cultivating
healthy relationships for a
vibrant learning community.
This will further strengthen our
study of religion and service
of a just world, at peace across
religious and cultural divides.
As part of our
community reflection,
we will read together a book
by Fania Davis, who has spoken
several times at our school.
The book's entitled The Little
Book Of Race And Restorative
Justice, Black Lives Healing,
And US Social Transformation.
The goal of this common
read is for every member
of Harvard Divinity School
to engage collectively
with this text and
with each other.
The start of this
common read next month
will launch the beginning of our
yearlong reorientation journey
through racial justice and
healing programming, organized
around the book and our
collective study of religion.
We hope that these
experiences will
deepen our understanding
of the manifestations
of systemic racism,
and equip us with tools
for addressing it, and
healing from it within the HDS
community and beyond.
So I'm so delighted that Dr.
Brooks has agreed to lead us
into this new territory
of an academic year,
and I'm eager to
hear his guiding
words that will
set us on our path
into the academic year 2021.
And the everlasting
words of John Lewis,
a courageous civil rights
leader that we recently
lost, never give up,
and never give in.
We look forward now to hear
Eboni's reading of John 18,
versus 1 to 11, and to the
address from Dr. Brooks.
John 18, one through 11.
After Jesus had
spoken these words,
he went out with his disciples
across the Kidron Valley
to a place where there
was a garden, which
he and his disciples entered.
Now Judas, who betrayed
him, also knew the place
because Jesus often met
there with his disciples.
So Judas brought a detachment
soldiers, together with police,
from the chief priest
and the pharisees,
and they came there with
lanterns, and torches,
and weapons.
Then Jesus, knowing all
that was to happen to him,
came forward and ask them
whom are you looking for?
They answered Jesus of Nazareth.
Jesus replied, I am he.
Judas, who betrayed him,
was standing with them.
When Jesus said
to them, I am he,
they stepped back and
fell to the ground.
Again, he asked them
whom are you looking for?
And they said Jesus of Nazareth.
Jesus answered, I
told you that I am he.
So if you are looking
for me, let these men go.
This was to fulfill the
word that he had spoken.
I did not lose a single one
of those whom you gave me.
Then Simon Peter,
who had a sword,
drew it, struck the
high priest's slave,
and cut off his right ear.
The slave name was Malcus.
Jesus said to Peter, put your
sword back into its sheath.
Am I not to drink the cup
that the father has given me?
Good afternoon, everyone.
I'm really honored to
have this opportunity
to introduce to
you our convocation
speaker for this
afternoon, Cornell Brooks.
Cornell Brooks
has many profiles,
but they all fit
together to spell
a man with extraordinary
capabilities,
extraordinary commitment
to racial justice,
extraordinary acts
of leadership,
and extraordinary
grounding in the insights
and inspiration of religion.
The main hats Cornell wears as
chief executive of nonprofits,
as a civil rights lawyer.
And he's an ordained
fourth generation minister
in the African Methodist
Episcopal Church.
He currently holds two titles
at Harvard's Kennedy School.
He's the Hauser Professor
Of The Practice Of Nonprofit
Organization, and
he's also a Professor
Of The Practice of Public
Leadership and Social Justice.
And most important
to us here today,
he's also Visiting
Professor Of The Practice
Of Prophetic Religion
And Public Leadership
at Harvard Divinity School.
The last jobs he held before
coming to Harvard where
at Boston University's
School Of Law
and its school of theology,
which is also where he received
an M.Div. degree years ago.
So he's got a thing about
doing law and religion
at the same time.
The courses he's teaching
for us at Harvard Divinity
School this year,
listen to these titles
are Creating Justice In
Real Time, Vision Strategies
And Campaigns.
That's his course for the fall.
And for the spring, he's
teaching Morals, Money,
And Movements, criminal justice
reform as this case study.
So Cornell Brooks
can talk religion.
And he can talk about how to
take action for people's lives.
For human rights,
and for justice.
And most impressively, before
he was at Boston University,
Cornell Brooks brought
his professional
know how and his spiritual
commitment together
when he became president
and CEO of the NAACP.
That was in 2014 to 2017.
And in that short
period of 2014 to 2017,
he secured 11 legal
victories in 12 months
against voter suppression.
And he reactivated the
organization's legal department
by doubling the number of pro
bono firms and hours working
for them.
And he established a
partnership with Yale Law School
to address redistricting,
and with Yale university
to address trauma and policing.
And he advocated for the
Ferguson Police Department
pattern and practice suit
report and settlement
based on the NAACP's
racial profiling law.
And he initiated a lawsuit
against government officials
and contractors after
the Flint water crisis.
He led marches and
demonstrations from Ferguson
to Flint in hundreds
of jurisdictions.
And he created a
national coalition
to protect the right to vote,
with a Democracy Awaiting
demonstration in 2016
in Washington, DC.
And he led a 134-mile
journey for justice march
from the Ferguson
home of Michael Brown
to the Missouri State capitol
go home of Governor Jay Nixon,
going through a racial ambush
and bypassing a Klan assault.
Well, I can go on and on with
this man's accomplishment
and work for justice
and democracy.
But instead, I'm going to
let him speak for himself.
And the title of his
convocation address to us today
is "George And Jesus, Policing
And Insurrection Of Hope."
That's a really
interesting title.
Let's find out what
he means by that.
On this, the 205th convocation
of the Harvard Divinity School,
I begin with a profound word
of appreciation to the dean,
to the faculty, to the
administration, the staff,
and most certainly the students.
Their friends and their
family, and most definitely
those well beyond Harvard
and across Harvard
who depend on this sacred place,
these called people, for soul
sustenance in this tumultuous
and troublesome time.
We find ourselves at
a moment chastened
by circumstance, monumental
moral and historical
consequence.
In the midst of prevailing
pessimism, and cynicism
in so many quarters.
But here at this
Harvard Divinity School,
we find ourselves at the outset
the dawn of this semester,
rebelliously grateful.
Rebellious Lee grateful that
we are yet able to gather,
even virtually.
Rebellious grateful that we are
able to yet see one another's
faces, even virtually.
Rebelliously grateful that we
can yet sing the songs of Zion,
even over Zoom.
Rebelliously grateful.
Yet even as we gather
in this moment,
of generationally
unprecedented activism
there is a Caleb Generation
of protesters, demonstrators,
activists, prayer warriors,
prophets in London,
in Beirut, in Paris, in
Los Angeles, and New York,
in Boston, in Portland, in
Kenosha, who are yet declaring
with their minds, with their
hearts, with their souls,
with their bodies that
Black Lives Matter.
Understanding profoundly
that Black Lives Matter
he is the moral predicate
to the ethical conclusion
that all lives matter.
Unless the first is true, the
second will never be true.
We gather together in a
moment in which so many of us
return to the Divinity School,
into the Divinity School
with the arrest and
the death of George
Floyd heavy on our hearts.
So as we begin the
semester, I want
to share a few thoughts
of considered inspiration.
From the Book of John
the 18th chapter,
the first to the 11th
first, under the topic
"George And Jesus, Policing
An Insurrection Of Hope."
"George and Jesus, Policing
An Insurrection Of Hope."
For your consideration,
I just lift up
these few words of scripture
found in the book of John.
Here we find This pericope
that speaks to our hearts.
When Jesus had
spoken these words,
he went out with his disciples
over the Brook of Kidron,
where there was a garden which
he and his disciples entered.
And Judas who betrayed him
also knew the place, for Jesus
often met there
with his disciples.
Then Jesus, rather
than Judas, Judas
having received a detachment
of troops and officers
from the chief priest
and the pharisees
came there with lanterns,
with torches, and weapons.
Jesus, therefore
knowing all things
that would come upon
him, went forward
and said to them
whom are you seeking?
They answered him,
Jesus of Nazareth.
Jesus said to them I am he.
And Judas, who betrayed
him also stood with them.
Now when he said
to them, I am he,
they drew back and
fell to the ground.
Then he asked them again,
whom are you seeking?
And they said Jesus of Nazareth.
Jesus answered, I have
told you that I am he.
Therefore if you seek
me, let these go away.
That the same might be
fulfilled, which he spoke.
Of those whom you gave
me, I have lost none.
Then Simon Peter,
having a sword,
drew it and struck the high
priest's servant and cut
off his right ear.
The servant's name was Malcus.
May the Lord add a blessing
to the reading and hearing
of his most holy word.
In this moment I
just want to offer up
three lessons of encouragement,
three simple lessons, three
fundamental lessons,
three elementary lessons.
Those lessons being our
purpose precipitates policing.
Our purpose, our presence
is God's people precipitates
policing.
The second lesson is our
identity gives us boldness.
Our identity gives us boldness.
The third lesson, if you
will, is our identity
as God's people's, prophets,
and scholars, as students,
as faculty, as administrators,
as members of this Harvard
Divinity School community,
our identity gives us power.
We come to this text as a
community broken, hurting,
traumatized, triggered.
We come to this
text this afternoon
with George Floyd
heavy on our hearts.
Many of us would
call all too well
the first time we saw the George
Floyd video, characterized
by three distinguishing
elements.
The first of which is the
video, this cell phone video
took place in
emotional slow motion.
That is to say over
the better part
of 9 minutes, or eight minutes
and 46 seconds, to be precise.
Second this video
possesses a moral intimacy.
It draws us in.
Yet now, having been serialized
and viralized, it draws us in.
And lastly and disturbingly,
it is pornographically violent.
It is reminiscent of
the image of Emmett Till
from 1955, the 14-year-old
boy from Chicago
who was killed in
Mississippi by white racists
on the eve of the
Montgomery Boycott.
And you recall that
his photograph--
the image of his disfigured, and
tortured, and young black body
inspired and ignited the modern
day civil rights revolution.
So that image, that video,
is heavy on our hearts
this morning, or
rather this afternoon.
And so we come to this
text this afternoon,
mindful of the fact
that the Book of John
describes the
instruments of policing.
It describes those
instruments as simply,
weapons, torches and lanterns.
But the Book Of Mark
on the other hand,
describes those weapons
with some granularity
as clubs and spears, roughly
analogous to guns and tasers.
The police force
deputized to arrest
Jesus was comprised of
soldiers and the temple police.
That is to say, the temple
guards and a detachment,
or an auxiliary of the military,
joining with religious police,
to effectuate the
arrest of Jesus.
This military auxiliary was
not sent to keep the peace,
but rather to squelch,
to pre-empt resistance.
That is to say, Jesus was
subject to a militarized police
presence.
This sounds very
familiar to those of you
who've been watching
current events play out
on your Twitter feed, on
Instagram, on Facebook.
You will recall that in the
weeks and days since George
Floyd was killed, there
were between 15 and 26
million Americans
who participated
in protests, and demonstration,
and acts of civil disobedience.
Over 550 sites in towns,
cities, villages, and hamlets
across the 50 states
of this country.
And yet even around
the world, the largest
such present protest
in American history,
you'll recall that in
the same period of time,
in the wake of
George Floyd's, death
in the wake of Ahmed
Arbery's death,
in the wake of Rashard
Brooks's death,
in the wake of Breonna Taylor's
death, in that time in which
so many Americans
were protesting,
demonstrating in the
streets, Americans
bought five million guns to add
to the 400 million guns already
in circulation amidst a
population of 330 million.
And in this time, we have
seen the National Guard.
We have seen sheriffs.
We have seen state troopers.
We have seen police dispatched
all across the country
to police these protests, these
demonstrations, these acts
of civil disobedience.
There's something about
the presence of not merely
those who are criminal suspects
that brings out the police,
but something about people
protesting, demonstrating,
engaging in activism
that precipitates
unlawful, unjust,
unconstitutional and immoral
policing.
You'll recall that the legal
scholar, Michelle Alexander,
and the historian Khalil Gibran
or rather Khalil Muhammad
describe the fact that modern
day law enforcement has
its roots in the slave patrols,
the slave catchers of old.
You'll recall that
the police departments
of contemporary America
have their roots
in slavocracy and
white supremacy.
So the moment in which
we find ourselves
is not merely about controlling
crime on the streets,
riots in the streets,
looting in the streets.
But it is largely a response
to God's people in the streets.
I want to suggest to
you this afternoon
that there's something
about the presence of Jesus
in the garden, something
about the presence of Jesus
in the midst of
religious authority,
and Roman authority,
that precipitates
an unjust, unlawful,
unconstitutional, and immoral
policing response.
In other words, when we stand up
for righteousness when we stand
up for justice, when we stand
in the gap for those who cannot
stand up for themselves,
in other words,
Blake who was
shot in the back,
who is now physically paralyzed,
when we stand for them,
that something about our godly
witness, our holy witness,
our prophetic witness, that
brings about an unjust policing
response.
We have to take this
as a matter of course.
We have to take this as a
matter, and a cost, a price
if you will, of discipleship.
Then when we as
God's people show up,
unjust policing
will also show up.
When we confront
Roman authorities
in the present moment, when we
confront religious authorities
in the present moment,
we have to be prepared
to face the police, to
face the National Guard,
to face unjust authority in
the midst of holy authority.
Second lesson of this
text is our identity
gives us a sense of boldness.
For those of you who are
starting here at the Harvard
Divinity School,
for those of you who
are returning to the
Harvard Divinity School,
for those of you who work here
at the Harvard Divinity School,
for those of you, like me
who are visiting the Harvard
Divinity School, I
want to suggest to you
that our identity
as God's people,
as God's prophets, as God's
called, gives us a voice.
You will note that
typically when
police encounter a
civilian, they often
ask for identification.
They try to establish
identification
when they take a
person into custody.
How many Black people,
how many immigrant people,
how many migrant
people, how many
brown people, how many trans
people, how many Muslims,
how many young people
are afraid to be
in the wrong place at the
wrong time without government
issued ID?
But in this biblical instance,
Jesus confronts the police
by asking them for the identity
of the person they seek,
by saying or asking
whom do you seek?
And they answer
Jesus of Nazareth
and he answers I am he.
In other words,
when the police say
that Jesus showed
me some ID, they
do so after he asked
them whom do you seek?
We, to be clear in
this moment, are
required to act in the
boldness of our identity.
We identify as God's people.
We identify as God's prophets.
We identify as God's pastors.
We identify as gods imams.
We identify as God's priests.
We identify as God's ministers.
We identify as gods lay people.
We identify as God's chosen.
We identify as gods, so as we
identify as God's scholars,
we identify as God's faculty.
We identify as God's
broken humanity.
And in so doing, we
declare who we are, boldly.
Knowing that by identifying
with God, with his purpose,
our presence
suggests a boldness.
Lastly, our identity
gives us power
in the face of our enemies,
and even over our enemies.
We, as God's people,
are confronted
by those who are far more
powerful than we are.
But we're reminded
that in this text, when
Jesus announces who he is,
the police, the authorities,
fall back.
They fall down.
They retreat in the
face of his identity.
May I suggest to
you it's not always
easy to believe that God's
god-given, the imago dei that
the notion that we are
created in the image of God,
and as such, we have
innate value and worth.
It's not always easy to believe
that because of who we are,
those in authority will
retreat, they will fall back.
They will not prevail, that
we will ultimately prevail.
But I'm reminded of a prophet
by the name of John Robert
Lewis, who found himself on a
bridge called the Edmund Pettus
Bridge in Selma,
Alabama, in 1965.
I'm reminded that
he was confronted,
like Jesus, like George
Floyd, by the police.
He was confronted with police,
with billy clubs wrapped
in barbed wire.
He was confronted by
police armed with batons,
armed with guns,
armed with gas, armed
with snarling, vicious dogs.
Armed with the authority of
the state, armed with badges,
armed with uniforms,
armed with credibility,
armed with the full backing of
segregationist Jim Crow law.
It could not have
been easy to believe
that the authorities
would fall back,
that they would
fall down, that they
would retreat in the face of
God's chosen and God's call.
But history tells
us that ultimately,
those state troopers,
those police officers,
those brutal unconstitutional,
unlawful, immoral police
ultimately retreated before
the forces of justice,
the forces of righteousness,
the forces of God's call
in our history, in our time.
We have power.
So if you're here at the
Harvard Divinity School,
if you're here as a student
as a faculty member,
as a staff member
as an administrator,
as a family member,
as someone is simply
listening to this
convocation service,
I just want to suggest to
you that you have power,
as a consequence of who you are.
That you are affiliated, you
are part of God's family.
You have power no matter how
powerful those around you
seem, no matter how they're
armed and road with authority,
you have power.
The scriptures make it
clear that Jesus has power.
And because we choose
to follow Jesus,
we choose to follow
the prophets,
we choose to follow our
lord, we too have power.
I just want to close by noting
that late, or rather later
in the book of John,
Pontius Pilate,
acting as judge and
jury, had the opportunity
to grant a pardon.
Grant a reprieve to two people
subject to a death penalty.
We have Barabbas,
who in this gospel
is described as a
robber, a petty thief.
But also in another
gospel, in the gospels,
also described as
an insurrectionist.
Someone responsible
for a uprising
against Roman authority.
So Pontius Pilate
could have extended
a reprieve, a pardon to a
political insurrectionist
and a thief.
Or he could have
extended a pardon
to Jesus, viewed as a threat
to both religious authority,
and Roman authority.
Now the Bible tells us
that ultimately Jesus
did not receive a pardon.
He was still subject
to the death penalty.
This is not surprising,
because of course Jesus
was born under an had
an infancidal edict.
This is not
surprising because he
was born under a death penalty.
This is not surprising because
in the words of an NAACP
report on racial
profiling, in those words,
Jesus was born suspect.
And so it's not surprising that
he did not receive a reprieve,
did not receive a pardon.
But I want to suggest to you
that though Jesus did not
receive a pardon, did
not receive a reprieve,
there is an occasion
to hope in this text.
Because Jesus as
an insurrectionist,
as one responsible
for a uprising
against religious authority,
an uprising against Roman
authority to the extent
that both represented
the constraint of
the human spirit,
they both represented humanity's
inhumanity to humanity,
to the extent that he represents
an insurrection and uprising
against anything that is
unjust, immoral, and inhumane,
ultimately we have our hope
in the insurrectionists led
by God's people, by
one of God's prophets.
I want to suggest to you that
Jesus as an insurrectionist
gives us hope.
Certainly if you
look at the cross,
we might grow pessimistic,
we might grow despairing.
But when we think about the
souls, the hearts, the bodies,
that have been freed as a
consequence of his example,
as a consequence of his love, as
a consequence of his sacrifice,
we have every reason to hope
in that kind of insurrection.
And so this afternoon, for
this 205th convocation,
I want to call upon
you as students,
as faculty, and staff, as
administrators as family,
as friends to rise
in your hopes.
To rise and hope in a moment in
which God's children have been
locked in cages,
on certain borders,
beside unconstitutional
walls, rise and hope
that we have the means to teach,
to preach, to pray, to convict,
to challenge and change
policies so that every child,
in any detention camp,
can get leave and sing
walk together children,
don't you get weary.
Walk together children,
don't you get weary.
Walk together children,
don't you get weary.
There is a great calm
meeting in the promised land.
Rise in our hopes.
Rise in our hopes in a moment
where nearly all of America,
and much of the world is
divided into racial factions,
and ethnic fiefdoms.
Rise in our hopes are that we
can preach from our pulpits,
protest in the streets, proclaim
policies from the ballot box,
and legislators such as
we are able to transform
racial battlegrounds into a
pristine playground, where
all of God's children can
laugh, play, and sing.
Red, yellow, black,
brown, and white,
we're all precious
in God's sight.
Rise our hopes.
At a moment where
the right to vote
is being choked by
COVID-19, on one hand,
strangled by voter
suppression on the other hand,
rising our hopes so that we are
able to persuade this republic
that voting is a civic
sacrament so much so
that like Jesus, we are able
to throw the thieves out
of the temple of our democracy.
Rise in our hopes at a moment
when Muslims cower in fear,
Christians cower in fear,
Buddhists cower in fear,
Hindu cower in fear,
Sikhs cower in fear,
LGBTQ folk tremble
with trepidation,
black and brown people
quake with apprehension
that policing is
so brutal as is,
it is brutal as it is unlawful.
But rise and hope so that we,
like Jesus, are able to declare
I and he whom you seek.
I'm the black life
that you seek.
I am the brown
life that you seek.
I am the person of color,
light that you see.
I am the LGBTQ
life that you seek.
I am the immigrant
life that you seek.
I am the migrant
life that you seek.
I am he that you seek.
I am she that you seek.
I am they that you seek.
I am willing to declare
who I am, what I stand for,
and who I represent,
and whom I belong to.
And you should be prepared
to fall down before us.
Rise in hope.
Rise in hope that we
might be able to sing
over the course
of this semester,
and throughout the
year, lift every voice
and sing till Earth
and Heaven ring.
Ring with the harmonies of
liberty, let our rejoicing rise
high as the listening skies.
Let it sound loud
as a rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith
that the dark past
has taught us.
Sing a song full of the
hope that the present
has brought us.
Facing the rising sun of our
new day begun, let us march on.
Let us march on.
Let us march on.
Let us march on
till victory is won.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
