This week I want to start the ramblings with a prayer instead of ending with one:
O Lord and Savior Christ, Who camest not to strive nor cry, give unto me, in whatsoever contention I may be, a wise, a sober, a patient, an understanding, a peaceable, a courageous heart. Grant me always to speak the truth in love, and so to present it that it may be loved; for thy mercies’ sake. Amen.
The Rector’s Rambling was delayed last week in large part
because the Rector was at a loss for words – a rare occurrence. More specifically, I have been struggling to find the “right words” to address the ongoing racial divisions in our nation. I have struggled to find words that might call us to reconciliation and prayer, as opposed to words that divide and scare away. Since last week I have written and deleted thousands of words. Probably more than with any sermon I’ve ever written. And why am I struggling so mightily? Why not ignore it, and stay with a safe an innocuous topic like the annoyance of the holiday rush as it rubs up against the quiet of Advent? I think part of my issue is the season of Advent itself.
When headlines rub up against our faith, the Spirit is on the move. I cannot separate the cries of people who are calling out for justice from the cries of the world into which God came as a child. When Mary learned what God was doing through the child in her womb she sang, “…He has scattered the proud in their conceit. He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, and has lifted up the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty.” What a different song that must seem to those who have the power and the full stomachs and the wealth, than to those who do not have power, who go hungry and who live in poverty. I am fully aware of which one of those groups I fall into. I hear Mary’s song differently than some others. I hear the cries for justice differently too.
One thing that this ongoing turmoil tells us is that our world is indeed broken; fractured. We ain’t in God’s kingdom yet. This past Sunday we heard in the lectionary how John the Baptist echoed the cries from Isaiah for the mountains to come down and valleys to rise up, for the crooked to become straight and the uneven paths smooth. It’s a long work in progress. Mary’s song isn’t fulfilled either. The world is not fully redeemed yet; we continue to live with sin and violence and division and fear. This is why the Advent message matters. There are still great places of darkness in the world into which we need the light of Christ to come.
But that’s not the full reason why this has been difficult to write about. It’s because of the division so inherent in the discussion. Here we are, a church whose mission is, “to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ,” and I’m at a loss as to how we actually go about restoring that unity, if we ever had it in the first place. Our baptism calls us to “strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being (with God’s help),” and yet we have all sorts of reasons to stop short of doing those things in their entirety. I think it goes back to the brokenness of this world that all of us are a part of.
In recent weeks my Facebook page has been full of statements like, “Black lives matter!,” “Blue lives matter!,” and “All lives matter!” I can relate to all of those statements and the context that undergirds them. I am fully aware of the presence of racial bias in our culture and the ways in which it permeates everything. It is largely unconscious, which is part of the problem. Racism isn’t always about blatant racists of the sort that are easy to identify and to distance ourselves from. And yet if I allow myself to be honest, I have my own racial biases that I struggle mightily against. I don’t know how they all got there, but I know I need to work at it. It is the work of the church’s mission and my own baptismal covenant, above.
When I was at Sewanee, the School of Theology commemorated the 50th
anniversary of the faculty walkout over the refusal to admit black seminarians to the school which took place in the 1950’s. Our DuBose lectures that year were on the Civil Rights movement and we made a pilgrimage to Birmingham, Alabama to the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. I learned a great deal from those experiences, not having lived through the Civil Rights movement. It was the first time I had ever read Dr. Martin Luther King’s letter from a Birmingham Jail, a letter he wrote to moderate, white clergy…like me. As he said in the letter, and I have never forgotten, “Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.”
Shallow understanding is what keeps us from being able to discuss matters like these recent headlines in a productive way. I’m not suggesting that any of the recent national news stories about young black men being killed at the hands of police is based on overt racism, and yet I think it is becoming increasingly difficult to dismiss the pervasive effects of racial bias; knowing full well that racial bias can be and often is completely subconscious. It is too simple to draw a straight line through recent events and decisions in Ferguson, Cleveland, and New York, and yet there are similarities that bind them together.
I have found it difficult to accept the labels we use to diminish the experience and the value of the other. Black anger being diminished to “thug” behavior is not sufficient to validate mistreatment. But neither is it helpful to label a cop as “brutal” and therefore call into question the actions of all police officers. There are instances where young black men are dangerous, but that doesn’t mean that all of them are. There are police officers that go too far and really are bad cops, but that doesn’t mean they all are. As in most areas of our common life, however, we often have our answers lined up before the questions have even been asked, myself included.
At the start of this rambling I mentioned that I was having trouble distinguishing cries for justice today with those of our Advent remembrance. I must say that cries I am speaking about are not those from looters and rioters – actions I denounce. Yes, I have listened to those demonstrating peacefully, yet the most powerful voices I have been unable to ignore are coming from black people I know and respect; reasonable, healthy, balanced folks, priests and bishops among them. I am listening as best I can to understand their experiences that are in some cases very different from mine. I am hearing how their experience of the systems in our nation are different than mine. I am hearing how their experience of holy waiting for God’s kingdom to come to completion is different than mine. Our yearning and our hoping for Emanuel, God to be with us, is different. And I want to try to understand it.
We are called to seek reconciliation, peace, unity, and above all to love one another. I don’t know how we get there – certainly not without God’s help. But I do know that not talking about it, not listening to others, and dismissing the experiences of others will certainly not get us there. Somewhere in all of this is a call to the Church, an invitation to form relationships, and to embody the gospel, and learn from one another. I don’t know exactly what that looks like right now, but I’m listening. I’m waiting in this Advent season, expectantly waiting for the presence of Christ in our midst to show us the way forward. Lord have mercy on us until we get there.
Tom+
…and yes, we’ll end with another prayer, just for good measure:
Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury pardon; where there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. Grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.