Runnin' (Can't Keep Runnin' Away) - The Pharcyde/Labcabincalifornia 1995

We Christians sure love us some David.  For a lot of us, particularly Christian men, David of Bethlehem is who we would honestly choose to be like.  Obviously, his story of moving from being a shepard on his fathers' farm to winning a huge battle for his country to being the king's attendant, enemy, then successor is exhilarating.  And if all of that wasn't enough, being labeled by God [through the prophecy of Samuel] as "a man after His own heart (1 Samuel 13:13-14)" certainly seals the deal.  What is true is that King David's spiritual sincerity is admirable.  His military and political accomplishments are commendable.  And his offenses and violations of the law are, well, relieving for many.  I actually know of a minister who choses to assimilate his character with that of King David; seemingly in an attempt to establish a parallel of David's crime of adultery and murder with Bathsheba and his [the minister] crimes of embezzlement and other federal and moral offenses.  I assume the thought is that if David can be great while being evil every now and then, then so can the next man.  But as with many great men and women of the Bible who we uplift in our worship services, Bible studies, and prayer meetings (if those still exist); we love their stories, teach others to be like them, compare our good deeds to theirs and excuse our bad deeds with theirs.  But real talk, we really don't want to be like them.

Some time ago while visiting my maternal grandparents I found myself in one of my grandmothers' anti-rap conversations.  She questioned why I still listened to hip-hop music since I had reached a 'respectable' level of Christianity.  After her question, the conversation went something like this:

"Grammie, what do you think rappers talk about?"
"Nothing but drugs, sex, and violence."
"Ok, and do you think those things happen here? In the West End (Richmond, not Henrico)?" 
"Of course they do."
"And so, when these young people told you, or other Christians what was going on in their environment, what actions did you take to change these issues?"
long pause
"I didn't do nothing.  I changed the station!"
"Ok, so when Jesus charged Christians to spread news about Him, to heal the sick and the poor in His Name, do you think He was talking about these young people who are telling us [Christians] about their or someone they may know situations in their environment first hand through their music?"
"Well, I didn't think about it like that."

And most of us don't.  Because it's very easy to point at the giant and talk about him amongst ourselves; wondering who's going to do something.  But to be a David and actually go and confront the giant is a little extreme, even for the super saved and sanctified.  Crack cocaine appeared in the U.S. in the early 1980s and hip-hop began bringing light to its potential for devastation shortly after.  In Richmond this epidemic literally reduced lives, families, and historical African American communities to rubble.  But instead of Christians taking action on the crack epidemic, most took action on the rappers.  While the deacon ran to turn the radio off and stomp on CDs, his children were getting high.  While the trustee ran to listen to the preacher berate rappers during one of his sermons, teenage drug cartels were extorting corner stores to improve their distribution.  Now we are in a generation where what the white media termed (and the black media went along with) 'gangsta rap' is glorified; quite possibly because no one addressed the issues of what the real gansta rappers were talking about.  Perhaps if these issues were addressed by the people assigned to be "the light of the world (Matthew 5:14)", these issues may barely exist.  But what happened was that most Christians kept runnin' from rap music or to the issues documented in it.  And oh yeah, people are still dying behind drugs.

Although it might not be a bad idea, I'm not saying listen to rap so you can learn about our people's taboo problems and discuss action plans for correction.  But I am asking Christians to stop running from the problems.  I'm also saying to the preacher and the man who thinks you are, chances are you're not David, you're the army.  You are that same army that was scared of the giant and decided to mumble about him amongst their morning and evening meetings; and then run away.  On your way to work every day you see oppression like the army did, but you run away from it and wait until Sunday morning or Wednesday evening to talk about it instead of confronting the problem.  This running could be because you have forgotten that you serve a God who has done and can do anything.  Or maybe you forgot that Jesus commanded you to speak life into threats of death around you and that He gave you the means and power to do so (John 14:12).  Or maybe you have bought into the more contemporary Christian theme of individualism (i.e. God favors ME).  If that's the case than your loss of memory is killing your community.  However, if you are in the Richmond area and you want to stop your running and murder, I am joined with some brothers who discuss how we can change our lives and the lives around us as instructed by the Word; and then we put those discussions to action.  Get at me and I'll give you details of our meetings.  Because the fact remains like the Pharcyde says, can't keep runnin' awaaaaay-aaaay-aaay.

Peace.

For those who don't know, the title of this post is the title of a record from Los Angeles-based hip-hop group The Pharcyde.  Runnin' appeared on the groups' 1995 album, Labcabincalifornia.