Nia: Who am I?

Happy Kwanza: Day 5

Nia (Purpose): To make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness.

Who are you? Why do I exist? Where do I come from?  The systematic degradation of the Afro people has been corrupted to the core.  The lack of identity of young blacks and old alike is an atrocity that we must not overlook.  A people who have been worked over (for lack of a more appropriate term) and mistreated for centuries need to be restored to an understanding of their greatness.  However this greatness is deeper than the pigmentation of our skin.  Its bigger than the prestige of stolen black inventions, powerful activist, or long forgotten African kingdoms.  It traces back to our original origins in the garden of eden…in Africa.  An origin of a man and woman created perfectly by God for God with purpose.  We must recognize our greatest purpose in developing the community of heaven.  We must give glory to God in our lives and in all we do for this is where we find most purpose.  Black pride can only take you so far.  Traditions can only reveal so much.  We must reach outside of ourselves and call people to a greatness that is greater than our black history.  The only way to restore greatness of the African, is for the African to be restored in the image of the Greatest.  We have been chosen, we are royalty, we are holy.

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 1 Pe 2:9

This verse is even more significant than you think when you consider the people being spoken to in this verse.  Our history is deeper biblically than most people think…But that’s a whole other topic.

We have only two more days left in Kwanza. Share and read tomorrows post.

Ujamaa: Build, Settle, Produce

Principle 4

Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics):To build and maintain our own stores, shops, and other businesses and to profit from them together.

This is truly a biblical concept.  If there is one thing that our people must learn is how to manage our money and build businesses.  We must together, do better at educating our people on investing, budgeting, smart buying, entrepreneurship, management, ownership, etc.  We consume the most out of any other racial group but own the least.  God wants us as Christians to be the head and not the tail.  Not only that it is more blessed to give than to receive.  Our focus should be on what we can give back to our society and the future.  What kind of legacy will each us leave behind for the next generation.  If this had been our way of thinking, we may have progressed faster.  I know many systematic factors have played into our decline but let’s take it back by educating ourselves in the area of cooperative economics. 

But ultimately how we manage money and how we build to profit economically may have some serious spiritual ramifications.  We believe that God is the one that gives us our jobs and that all the money belongs to Him.  Since that is the case, we must be very intentional about managing what He has given us and using it to His name honor and glory.  Another huge concept in economy is about keeping your hand open.  Meaning that you can’t build wealth with a closed fist, so money must flow out if money is going to come in.  We must learn to be faithful investors in our local businesses, churches, schools, charities, children, and yes even our Roth IRA’s!  

What I find interesting is what God tells the Israelites who had just been captured and exiled to Babylon.

"Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce.” Jer 29:5

In other words, you were brought here has slaves but I still want you to proposer!  There is no excuse, I know this isn’t your homeland but I want you to act like it is.  The reason is that God can work all things for our good if we let Him.  Ultimately the Israelites knew that their hope was in God’s promise to deliver them back to Jerusalem.  This hope did not hinder them from investing in a prosperous earthy future if they kept the heavenly future in the forefront of their minds! So my people, build, settle, produce…but also Hope!

My Role His Work

Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility)

Ujima (OO-GEE-MAH) Collective Work and Responsibility reminds us of our obligation to the past, present and future, and that we have a role to play in the community, society, and world. 

I like this one a lot. We do have a responsibility to those around us...but what is that responsiblity? That work is not simply to build up a people for our own success but to build up a people ready for eternal life.  In doing this, the Great Commission must be seen by a sermon less preached with words but lived by a lifestyle. A responsibility that Jesus felt as He worked hard for His community. Seeking and saving the lost through social justice and genuine love.

This is our responsibility too! But link that with God's works and the outcome will be far greater than any collective work of own own. I love how the message bible puts Paul's words in Galatians 6

5 Each of you must take responsibility for doing the creative best you can with your own life. 

6 Be very sure now, you who have been trained to a self-sufficient maturity, that you enter into a generous common life with those who have trained you, sharing all the good things that you have and experience. 

7Don't be misled: No one makes a fool of God. What a person plants, he will harvest. The person who plants selfishness, ignoring the needs of others - ignoring God! -

8 harvests a crop of weeds. All he'll have to show for his life is weeds! But the one who plants in response to God, letting God's Spirit do the growth work in him, harvests a crop of real life, eternal life. 

9 So let's not allow ourselves to get fatigued doing good. At the right time we will harvest a good crop if we don't give up, or quit.

10 Right now, therefore, every time we get the chance, let us work for the benefit of all, starting with the people closest to us in the community of faith. 

11 Now, in these last sentences, I want to emphasize in the bold scrawls of my personal handwriting the immense importance of what I have written to you. 

12 These people who are attempting to force the ways of circumcision on you have only one motive: They want an easy way to look good before others, lacking the courage to live by a faith that shares Christ's suffering and death. All their talk about the law is gas. 

13They themselves don't keep the law! And they are highly selective in the laws they do observe. They only want you to be circumcised so they can boast of their success in recruiting you to their side. That is contemptible! 

14 For my part, I am going to boast about nothing but the Cross of our Master, Jesus Christ. Because of that Cross, I have been crucified in relation to the world, set free from the stifling atmosphere of pleasing others and fitting into the little patterns that they dictate. 

15Can't you see the central issue in all this? It is not what you and I do - submit to circumcision, reject circumcision. It is what God is doing, and he is creating something totally new, a free life!

Happy Kwanza From Jesus?

Kujichagulia (Self-determination) "To define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves and speak for ourselves instead of being defined, named, created for and spoken for by others.”

In the Bible, Paul found a determination rooted in more than His own self-definition.

“For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.”  1 Cor 2:2

Self determination finds purpose in who we are in Jesus Christ.  He gives reason for our existence and defines us as His children.  I do not therefore need any man to define me, create for me, or name me, I know who I am because of whose I am.  That alone drives me to be the best because I am from and exist as a product of the Best.

As a people (African/American) we too often receive validation from the world around us.  We have no culture but the one that we have been allowed to have.  Our identity has been shaped and reshaped so many times.  Defining ourselves will NOT counter how we have been defined by others for centuries.  We see all to well what that can do since we define of ourselves so differently.  There needs to be a standard that is greater than our ancestors, we need a self-determination rooted in the person of Jesus Christ and His great sacrifice.  As a man you can’t define me, I can’t define me, I need something that is greater than me to define me, move me and create in me.  We need the one who created us black to define our blackness within the context of His will for us.  Thus We need desperately, Him.  

Tomorrow, we look at principle 3 from the Nguzo Saba of the Kwanza Holiday. 

A Christian Twist to Kwanza

So I had planned to wake up this morning, December 26, and begin to celebrate "my people's holiday" aka Kwanza, until I did a little research.  Anyone who knows anything about Kwanza knows that it is an African/American holiday whose core purpose is to bring unity and identity to a people who are in desperate need of such principles.  (And you can do your own research on all that.)  What obviously bothered me and what bothers most Black Christians is that Dr. Maulana Karenga, the founder of Kwanza, sought to make the holiday "self" focused instead of "God" focused.  Some may argue it was to allow the holiday to include all religions within the African diaspora, however I believe he intentionally left God out.  Each principle is focused on what self can and should do in its own strength.  I and you should have a problem with that since we believe, as Christians, that there is nothing intrinsically good in us.  We have been "born into sin and shaped in iniquity".  With that being said my Black Pride and excitement for this day just went out the proverbial window.  Yet I still feel the strong need for Black people to develop identity and purpose.  There is a need for unity on the common purpose of becoming better than we have been.  I just believe strongly that this hope is NOT rooted in the African but rooted in Jesus Christ.  The hope is to have Christ in the African.  This alone can change the world and our people.  So as I don't believe in throwing the baby out with the bath water, I do believe that Dr. Karenga's seven principles (Nguzo Saba) can be recapitulated for a Christian context.

Principle #1
Umoja - Unity
"To strive for and maintain unity in the family, community, nation and race." 

However, in order to maintain unity you must have love and forgiveness according to the Bible.  This unity is centered on the "one mind" of Jesus Christ that brings all people together.  

Peter says it best, "Finally, all of you be of one mind, having compassion for one another; love as brothers, be tenderhearted, be courteous, not returning evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary blessing, knowing that you were called to this, that you may inherit a blessing..." 1 Pe 3:8

As Black people we need to unite to the only One that can keep our family, community, nation and race together, He is Jesus Christ, the Great Unifier of all nations and peoples. 

Tomorrow we will look at the 2nd Principle of Nguzo Saba.

http://www.officialkwanzaawebsite.org/NguzoSaba.shtml