How Did It Come to This?
On Sunday morning, the Reverend Earle Fisher was trying to keep his sermon toned down. He’s the pastor at Abyssinian Baptist, but he was guest-preaching at the more buttoned-down Trinity Christian Methodist Episcopal. The thing is that low-energy Earle Fisher still outpaces most ministers at their most fervid, and this was no typical Sunday.
Fisher, one of Memphis’s most prominent criminal-justice activists, was preaching just two days after the release of video footage of the fatal beating of Tyre Nichols by five police officers. In conversation, Fisher speaks calmly and with precise control, but in the pulpit, he was animated as he connected a short passage in the Gospel of Mark where Jesus heals a blind man to the present day with the help of thunderous crescendos and subito pianos.
First, he critiqued the apparently benevolent bystanders who brought the man to Jesus. “The crowd is not asking some very appropriate social, political, and critical questions,” Fisher said. They ask Jesus to “heal some symptoms but not challenge the system … The crowd does not ask, ‘Why are there so many sick people?’”
But Fisher added, “The text is also teaching us that you’ve got to recognize progress when prompted.” Despite being miraculously healed, the blind man’s first reaction is to say that his sight is dim. Only then does Jesus restore his vision fully.
[David A. Graham: The murders in Memphis aren’t stopping]
“A system of impatience and impulsivity and insensitivity has its grips on us even when we are walking with God and God is working on us and through us,” Fisher said. “We know that this man is still stained by the system of social injustice, because he’s trying to focus on the negative. He did not recognize
