The Reverend Alfred Sharpton was born and raised in Brooklyn New York. Born and raised in the Baptist Church. All the data I have compiled tells me that he has been ‘preaching’ since before he was ten years of age. He was in fact ordained at about the age of nine. He champions such causes as same sex marriages, and the continued advancement of African Americans in those niches of society where we/they are sometimes not accepted. He’s lended his name to the family of Amadou Diallo, an African immigrant who was brutally beaten to death by officers of the NYPD. He has also offered his name, and help to a number of other families who have lost a loved one; or been effected by the social injustice that exists in this country as a result of inequality.
But as we know there is not yin without yang; and this brings me to what nudged me to insert that status comment in the first place. It’s not that I don’t like the Reverend Al Sharpton, it’s what he stands for that bothers me. Let me explain in the 1 Kings 3:1-15 Solomon who is regarded as one of the wisest men to who ever lived asks God for wisdom. He asks the sovereign Lord at Gibeon, after burning a sacrifice at the high place; the divine comes to Solomon in a dream, he is called into dialogue with the divine, and told to make a request. Soloman begins by offering homage to his predecessor and father David, and thanks the Lord for his providence in his bloodline, and only requests that he be blessed with the same discernment his father possessed. The scriptures don’t echo his age but he has been left to rule over an entire empire yet he refers to himself as a child.
In return the divine offers him a discerning heart in addition to both riches and honor, which he did not ask for; and a long life provided he walk in the ways of his father David. Verse fifteen literally begins: then he awoke and he realized it was all a dream. Now I am no scholar by any means but I anyone could deduce what kind of ’riches’ the divine was referring to when they were granted to Solomon at Gibeon. But I offer this we inherited the book of proverbs from this very man, and in his time he had nothing to gain from the perforation of his works.
When I think of contemporary righteous men I think of Dr. Martin Luther King, who ironically is the same man Al Sharpton was drawing attention to when he organized this whole “Reclaiming the Dream March.” Which is the turning point of my entire criticism of Rev. Sharpton. There is no doubt in my mind that Dr. King has read or pondered upon these very lines in 1 Kings 3:1-15; in fact I am positive he was influenced by Solomon’s exchange with the divine while writing his letter in that dingy Birmingham jail cell where he quipped” ……and who will remain true to it for as long as the cord of life shall lengthen.” In that very paragraph Dr. King was criticizing his brothers and sisters in the church as a minister of the gospel. One who loves the church as a spiritual entity, who has been nourished by it from an early age, and a beneficiary of it’s spiritual blessings. Even in his last public speaking engagement he (Dr. King) said “longevity has it’s place” and that it was the wish of everybody to live a long life. I guess this is the point when he knew his time had come; and that he was living on borrowed time. It’s easy to admire a man like Dr. King in hindsight, even some of his contemporaries held some malice for him because of some of the stances he took during his time. A lot of people don’t know that the first attempt on his life was at the hands of a black woman. How God must look upon us and smile and wonder at his creations, waiting for us to look in the mirror and realize our own divinity. I guess what I am trying to get at is a man after God’s own heart has nothing to prove; he or she doesn’t need a cause, or banner to walk under. King didn’t create Jim Crow laws they were there long before he existed, he didn’t kill those three girls at 16th street Baptist, but he was there. To carry a mantle that men like Dr. King and biblical figures like Solomon, and David takes a heavy heart with no room for petty ambition.
