Rev. Randy Lewis
Sunday, September 28, 2025
10:00 & 11:30 AM (CDT)
When justice feels delayed, when power pretends to silence truth, when the weight of exhaustion makes us wonder if change is possible, what keeps us moving? Vision. In this message, Rev. Randy Lewis talks about the kind of vision that refuses to accept the world as it is and instead dares to imagine what it could be.
Watch the video or read the full message below. You can also follow us on Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
Can You See It?
How many of you have had to count to three before picking up your phone in the morning? You already knew, before you even had your coffee, that there was gonna be something.
You swipe up:
And then you just stare at the screen, thinking: "This is The Onion, right?"
Nope, it’s real life.
And just like that—before your feet hit the floor—you’ve already been put through a test.
Love and the Test of Relationship
Last week, Rev. Marlin reminded us: Love thy neighbor as Jesus said in the New Testament.
But let’s be honest—some folks really test that. Some know how to work your last nerve—even the backup nerve you keep on reserve for emergencies - yeah, that one!
What do you do when someone you care about starts sounding mean? When they mock people’s pain, share cruel jokes, spread nonsense with a smile and then ask, "How are the kids?"
What do you do when the person you’re called to love is also your cousin, your childhood friend, your momma!? Your pewmate? Someone you still love but who doesn’t seem to love all of you back?
I still believe in the calling, but let’s not pretend it’s easy. It doesn’t always feel like love.
Sometimes it just hurts.
Naming the Wound
And when it hurts long enough, something shifts. It’s no longer just grief, it runs deeper. It’s what we call moral injury.
That is the wound. That is the cry. That is the soul saying, “This isn’t right,” and no one listens.
When your sense of right and wrong is betrayed by the very people and systems meant to uphold it. When your dignity isn’t just denied or disregarded but trampled and treated as if it never existed. That kind of pain doesn’t just pass. It settles in the bones and makes you question your place in the world.
And for some of us it’s not just in theory. It’s personal.
You need to know this because if we don’t name the harm, we can’t begin to heal it. And if we don’t understand how deep it goes, we risk blaming ourselves for what was never ours to carry.
I’ve lived it. When my first brother lost his life, one of two brothers—he was just 21. A young Black man, barely starting his adulthood.
The police called it self-defense though he was attacked at his own home.
They never told us we could speak to the District Attorney. Never walked us through our rights. Never gave our family the dignity of a full explanation.
My parents walked away with nothing but grief.
And as they were walking out—one of the Black administrators pulled them aside and said, “I’m sorry, they won’t pursue this; because to them, it’s just another Black man off the street. One less to deal with.”
That event didn’t just wound us, it marked us.
What do you do when the system makes it clear your loved one’s life was disposable? When justice isn’t even considered because of the color of your skin?
That is moral injury.
Powerlessness is a Lie
Now, if you’re carrying moral injury in your body right now, place a hand over your heart.
Breathe.
We see you.
You belong.
After enough injury, after enough silence, some people may begin to feel powerless. But let me be clear:
I don’t believe for a second that we are powerless.
If we were truly powerless, folk wouldn’t be working this hard to:
Powerlessness isn’t truth—it’s a strategy used by those who fear your strength.
But you and I come from people who knew how to resist. Who imagined freedom when it wasn’t offered. Who kept seeing even when the world closed its eyes.
Your values, my friends, have power. Your vision has power. Our collective hope terrifies those who rely on fear.
That same spirit of resistance lives on, shaping how we confront injustice in every generation.
Standing in Sacred Defiance
That reminds me of a scene from To Kill a Mockingbird. A Black man falsely accused and wrongfully convicted by an all-white jury despite clear evidence of innocence.
After the guilty verdict was read, the Black spectators in the courthouse balcony rose. Not for the verdict—they likely knew it was coming—but for the attorney who dared to speak truth.
They stood, not in surrender, but in sacred defiance. Not with hope for justice, but with dignity in its absence.
It wasn’t a legal victory, but it was a moral one. And sometimes, standing in silence is the last power you have, but it’s still power.
For generations, Black people in America endured injustice so horrific and unrelenting, so legally sanctioned and spiritually ignored, that they had to seek justice elsewhere.
When justice was denied in the courthouse, the White House, even the church house, our people imagined a realm where the scales balance. That was heaven. It was divine justice guaranteed. And for many, that belief—that sacred vision—kept them alive.
But others sought freedom in this world:
And some, like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., acted by casting a vision so clear it moved a nation. Before he was taken from us, Dr. King said:
“I’ve been to the mountaintop… I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the Promised Land.”
He spoke of a future he might not live to enter—but believed we could.
And though they tried to silence him with bullets, they couldn’t kill the vision because vision rooted in justice, dignity, and love transcends our lifespans and our mortal bodies. It lives on in people who see it too, and who keep showing up.
The Legacy of Clara Luper
Closer to home, a bronze sculpture of our own Oklahoma Civil Rights icon, Clara Luper, was unveiled in downtown Oklahoma City. It doesn’t just honor her memory—it tells a story of courage that reshaped our state.
Clara was a teacher who had already faced segregation in classrooms, cafeterias, and restrooms at the University of Oklahoma. She once sat in a class where the professor declared he had never taught a Black student and never wanted to—even using a racial slur. But Clara stayed, excelled, and eventually changed his mind.
In 1958, she gathered the NAACP Youth Council and walked into Katz drugstore in downtown OKC, where the youth peacefully ordered Cokes at the lunch counter—only to be jeered at, coughed on, even knocked down.
Despite it, they responded with dignity and discipline. Within days, Katz desegregated its lunch counters. The success sparked similar actions across Oklahoma City, transforming restaurants, theaters, hotels, and churches.
Clara’s fight didn’t stop there:
And for her unwavering commitment to justice, she was arrested twenty-six times.
But she wasn’t just someone I read about in school—she was family. Her sister was married to my uncle. I remember her visiting our home, and my grandmother’s, too. I didn’t fully grasp it then, that I was connected to someone who opened doors that might still be closed for me.
Now, standing in the very future she dreamed of, I realize: "We can love this country enough to challenge it and to change it." That same spirit lives on—and the struggle isn’t over.
Carrying Forward Her Vision
Looking back, she once admitted:
“My biggest challenge, I think, was within myself—to believe I could keep going despite poverty and hostility. But my greatest satisfaction was knowing that someday we would be able to do what my father, a World War I veteran, never could: enjoy the privileges of first-class citizenship.”
Clara Luper saw it; she saw a future where justice and liberty for all is a reality. And yet here we are, still fighting for equal rights and opportunity. Still fighting for a seat at the table and for who gets to eat.
Yes—there are people raising hell, resisting “equality and justice for all.” Hurting people with their lies, their weaponized religion, their oppressive laws.
I say, let people rage. Let politicians throw tantrums on the floors of power, in courtrooms, in policies. History won’t look kindly on them, I know this.
Why? Because we’ve seen it all before—
We also remember a time when Confederate statues stood tall, when flags of hate were flown and called “heritage.” But history has a long memory. And over time, those symbols came down—not just from pedestals, but from hearts that could no longer stomach the lie.
Families once proud of the past now wrestle with what their ancestors stood for.
And we will see it again.
Because real truth doesn’t stay buried. It rises. It speaks. And it reclaims the story.
What’s built on lies won’t last.
Not in time. Not in truth.
And history will name it for what it was.
The Arc Bends Because We Pull
So, I’m saying to all my brothers, sisters, and others not to become undone at what you see before you, but look over yonder…Can you see it?
Because the arc of the moral universe does bend toward justice. It’s not just an idea, a pattern, a promise. A pulse in the veins of the universe.
Yes, some days justice feels lost. Truth silenced. Lies shouting.
But don’t be fooled, the arc doesn’t bend by magic; it bends because people pull. Together.
So, what do we do?
And as you fight for what’s right, don’t forget to care for yourself. Love your neighbor, yes, but love yourself too. You can’t give what you don’t nourish.
Breathe. Eat real food. Drink water. Say no if you have to. Rest. Laugh. Cry. Take meds if you need them, I did, and two weeks later I went back and asked for something stronger!
So let people do what they do, because the world doesn’t just need your activism, it needs your aliveness. We need you to survive. Let nothing steal your vision, your health, your peace. When you feel yourself being affected by what someone else has said or done, pull yourself back in and hold your peace.
If this is their time; If this is their moment—Let them have it. Let them celebrate a season of control—so be it.
But can you see it?
You got to look with the eyes of hope. Look with the eyes of joy. Look with the eyes of patience and peace. Look with the eyes of vision and love
Look with the eyes of Dr. King. With the eyes of Dr. Wolf. With the eyes of Clara Luper.
Can you see it?
(Proverbs 29:18) “Where there is no vision, the people perish.”
A Shared Legacy
Seeing the future doesn’t mean forgetting the past. It means carrying it forward and recognizing we didn’t get here alone, and we didn’t survive alone. We have always had allies in the struggle.
John Brown—a white abolitionist who believed Black lives were worth his own - that belief cost him everything. Rev. James Reeb, a Unitarian Universalist minister, murdered in Selma for standing with Dr. King. They didn’t just see injustice—they stood against it.
White allies. Jewish neighbors. Faith leaders. Teachers. Field workers. And so many unnamed souls who refused to bow even when obedience was demanded at the highest level.
That vision didn’t belong to just one generation—it’s passed on. To us. This is my legacy and it’s yours too.
If you’re white—this belongs to you. Not the guilt, but, the courage, the connection and the call.
If you are a freedom-loving people—this is your inheritance: Those who stood when it wasn’t popular, who gave when it cost them, who said, “This isn’t just your fight—it’s mine too.”
So rise into it.
Holy Resistance
Some would have us believe that if it’s legal, it must be right. But we know better. The law is only just when it aligns with love. And when it’s used to harm or erase, then, resistance isn’t just justified, it’s holy. Sacred.
Yes, this is holy work. The work of remembering. Of resisting. Of rebuilding.
Not the work that wins awards. The work that wears you down.
The everyday, show-up-again kind of work:
Here’s how we carry the vision:
Learn. Speak. Nourish. Rest. Resist. Remember. Love.
This is holy work, because it honors those who came before us. It’s holy because it upholds the dignity both, of those who walk beside us as well as of those who do not. Holy because it makes room for those who will do the work after us.
We are the keepers now of the stories, the vision, the arc that still bends. We remember what some want us to forget. We carry what others tried to bury. We are the oral historians, the final witnesses.
Truth was never meant to stay on paper. It’s meant to be spoken and lived—at tables, in barbershops, on porches, over meals, between breaths.
These stories survived, the real history survives because someone had the vision to say, "One day, somebody will need to know.”
We are called by voices that came before us and we are answering with courage, with vision, with a holy, relentless love.
And now? Now it speaks in us.
A Vision That Lives On
Vision isn’t passive. It’s a practice. Because vision isn’t just about what we see, it’s what we’re willing to carry even when it’s inconvenient, uncomfortable, or under threat.
No lie lasts forever. And truth doesn’t die. It waits—for a witness, for a voice, for a vision bold enough to speak.
If not us, who? If not now, when? What kind of ancestor do you want to be?
And I am that witness. You are that witness. We are the ones who hold the flame in the dark, the shadows who refuse to let the story end here. So carry it, even when the night is heavy. Speak it, so silence could not dim hope. Live it, knowing that no matter how dark it is right now, the dawn is coming.
Can you see it?
