Metropolis

October 2009

Farrakhan at young Derrion's funeral

Minister Louis Farrakhan at young Derrion's funeral

(October 3, 2009) “I am here because I am deeply pained at the loss of our young brother. The family that is grieving at this moment, should know this - God who gives life and is the ultimate Cause of death, is He who sets the time for all of us.

“In the Holy Quran, which is the book of scripture for the Muslims, says that God who starts our journey of life through the agents of the male and female, sperm mixed with ovum, then a clot, then an embryo, then a fetus, and at the proper time, God brings life forward from the womb of a precious mother.

“But the Quran teaches us that sometimes God takes life when it is yet in the womb….sometimes God allows some of us to become aged where after having knowledge, we know nothing. But to each one of us, there is a time decreed. We are taught that all of us must return to Him who sent us. The mother and father are the agents of life but not the givers of life. So, the Quran says to God is our eventual return and there is some event that is going to happen in each of our lives that will bring us back to Him who sent us.

“We don’t know what that event may be. It may be a disease, it may be an accident, it may be a fire. Whatever that event is, that event will be the doorway that the soul returns to Him who sent it.

“Naturally we wonder why. Such a beautiful boy, such a future we thought that was waiting for this young man. Why God did you take him from us? Some of us feel that no misfortune should fall on us but God tries every soul that He sends into this life. There is always some misfortune that will touch us no matter how righteously or wickedly we live our lives.

“…may I remind you dear beloved followers of Jesus the Christ. He too was young. He too was a victim of mob violence. And he too was special. And because he was not a wicked person, his righteous life became the redemptive power for all of humanity. So here’s a righteous life, a good life, a young life but God, through Martin Luther King, said “undeserved suffering is redemptive.”

“This young man’s death, allows us to see the horror of the senseless violence even more so than we’ve seen it in the past and his death is a call to action. I heard the father of a young man on television this week talking about Derrion’s passing. That father said that some of these young people are unsalvageable. And the reporter said, “do you mean that there is nothing that can be done to bring these children back?” He said they are unsalvageable.

“Whenever you get to think that our children are unsalvageable, then death and destruction is called down on that which you believe can never be redeemed. How can you say that Jesus Saves but we are powerless to save our children? How can you say that he is a Redeemer and then look at the condition of our children and think it is hopeless?

“The Bible teaches that a man had 99 sheep and one was lost. And he did not focus on the 99 that seemed to be alright, he went after that sheep that was lost. When you look up the word lost, it means - incorrigible, incurable, uncorrectable, irreparable, hopeless, irretrievable, irredeemable, unsalvageable.

“Hopeless! If that is what you think, then the sentence of death is not only passed on our children, it is passed on us who think they are hopeless. Who among us will go after that which is lost and bring it home?

“He [God] called him home because his righteousness was to serve as a redemptive force to command us to get up and get busy and save our children.” Metropolis

Derrion Albert