Tag Archives: race

Shedding My White Naiveté

18 Monday Aug 2014

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St. Louis – Maps of racial and ethnic divisions in US cities, inspired by http://www.radicalcartography.net/index.html?chicagodots (Bill Rankin’s map of Chicago), updated for Census 2010. Red is White, Blue is Black, Green is Asian, Orange is Hispanic, Yellow is Other, and each dot is 25 residents. Data from Census 2010. Base map © OpenStreetMap, CC-BY-SA Map of By Eric Fischer (Flickr: Race and ethnicity 2010: St. Louis) [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons

I am white.

I’m not sure that lends me to give my opinions on what is going on in Ferguson, MO.  Yet by living in the St. Louis area throughout my entire childhood and having conversations about race and reconciliation inside and outside of seminary classrooms, I have some passionate thoughts on the subject.

If you live in the St. Louis area as I did in my childhood and throughout college and seminary, you notice that many areas are either white or black.  While there are a few integrated communities, it seems though each race has their designated space to live.

My first residence was in East St. Louis for the first three months of my life.  My parents moved closer to my dad’s work in Belleville.  My grandparents, who lived in my first residence, stayed there for another decade.  Based on what I remember when visiting them, they may have been the only or one of the few Caucasian families still in their neighborhood.

I remember people often talked about this fear that the people of East St. Louis were going to “move up the hill” to Belleville.  People continued and still continue to move farther away from Belleville’s West End because of this fear.

I’m guessing other areas of St. Louis experienced white flight similar to this.  Is it because people assumed racial minority equaled dangerous?  Or did people continue to hold on to their racism from the 1960’s?

When I entered seminary in my thirties, my friends of color would talk about their fears of living in Webster Groves.  I couldn’t understand.  To me, Webster Groves was this safe suburban community filled with large homes and prestigious schools.

But that wasn’t the experience of my friends.  One told me “I couldn’t go running at night.  I just can’t do that – someone will think I did something wrong.”  She told me that our black classmates and friends feel that they would be pulled over by police based upon the color of their skin.  And then she said something to me that really opened my eyes: “I can’t fully be a whole person in Webster Groves.”

When you live in privileged areas, only some people are given the rights of being made in God’s image.  Others have to embrace a lesser form of personhood.

Hearing the words “white privilege” for the first time made me completely uncomfortable.  As a woman I don’t feel extremely privileged.  Sure, I may not be as privileged as another white person based on my gender or socioeconomic group.  There are times that being a woman does not make life easy – especially when it has to do with bodily safety.

But I am privileged beyond what I will ever realize.

I can drive in suburbs and never wonder if I will be pulled over because of my skin color.  I will be treated with greater respect at stores.  People will not assume I will cause trouble because I am white.

Some time later, I took a class on race and reconciliation.  There was one day where the conversation became extremely heated.  The pain of what was happening in predominantly black neighborhoods and the discrimination to our sisters and brothers all over St. Louis was expressed very explicitly that day.

That day still remains at the forefront of my memory, especially when watching these events unfold in Ferguson.  I recognize the pain as many march on the streets.

From all of these conversations, it was like I took the “red pill” in the movie The Matrix.  I can’t unsee the systemic racism that exists in our communities.  The flame of justice and peace that was ignited in seminary continues to burn brighter within my soul as I watch news reports of North St. Louis County.

All I can assume is that these acts of protests, riots and looting stem from this deep systemic pain.  As a white person, I can’t accurately represent their pain.  But from the gift of many conversations, I know it’s there, and they have every right to voice their deep anguish.  When people face discrimination, violence, a disproportionate number of incarcerations, lack of quality education programs as well as adequately-paid employment options, food and basic needs, there’s less hope in their communities.

As a Caucasian, I can tell you that we don’t experience what minorities and marginalized people experience.  All we can do is try our best to point to injustices that linger in our communities.

What I’m writing here is intended for a primarily white audience — to share my story of privilege awareness.  As Caucasians need to start to do our best to see it from a different angle… not from our comfy suburban coves or up on hills away from “those people.”

When a family of color moves into our neighborhood, let’s not contemplate moving to a “whiter” area.  Let’s invite our neighbors over for coffee or dinner and begin to build the relationships.  When you see the looting on TV, don’t just focus on that one piece of the situation.  Instead, focus your eyes on the people who are trying to pray over the communities and lead communities to peace.  Listen for the people who are trying to bring all sides together for dialogue, and join those conversations.  Notice the people who are trying to stop looters and clean up the messes a few hands have made.

And let’s spend some time with our friends of various background.  Maybe we’ll hear the deep pain that resides within them from discrimination.

These are baby steps, but we need to start somewhere.

I believe it was a matter of time before this happened to a community in St. Louis.  The people of color in St. Louis have been living in pain that many of us will never understand in our lifetimes.  As a white person, I don’t know how to support them as I should, and I know I will fall short.

I will continue to make mistakes.  You will continue to make mistakes.  We’re human.  But how can we be better the next time?

When we misspeak and return to our privileged ways, we need to stand back up and continue to try to bring about God’s kingdom of peace and justice.

And I will say this: I don’t want to hear that the people who are expressing their anguish should be “whipped,” and please stop calling them “those people.”  They are part of all of us – part of the Body of Christ, part of God’s creation.  No matter what our color, we’re made in God’s image.

Yesterday, the lectionary text was Jesus encountering the Canaanite woman (Matthew 15).  Her ethnicity and set of beliefs led Jesus to group her with the “other.”  She called Jesus out on his moment of discrimination, and he changed his view of her and his process of ministry to those outside of the Jewish faith.

Let’s be like Jesus, the one who taught us how to set aside our prejudices and love our neighbors unconditionally.

 

 

Sermon: Clean or Unclean? We’re All One.

16 Sunday Jun 2013

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This sermon was delivered at St. Paul United Church of Christ, Old Blue Rock Road, Cincinnati on June 16, 2013.

Luke 7:36-8:3
Galatians 2:11-21

Back in 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. said that the 11 o’clock hour on Sunday morning is the most segregated time of the week. People of different races, ethnic groups attend their own churches. People of various political or theological views also huddle together in their own faith communities.

Even in a 2012 article, it was found that only seven percent of churches with less than 1,000 attendance are multiracial.

We think we’ve come far in this world. No more segregated water fountains. Interracial couples are legally allowed to marry all over our country where it wasn’t legal a few decades earlier. Yet, very often people of a certain color live in one neighborhood while another race lives in a separate area. And, like in 1963, we still celebrate God in very different spaces.

People always use scripture or faith to find ways to separate the “us” from “them” and to distance themselves from “the other.” Back in the 1800’s people used to scripture and faith to justify both slavery and abolition. Texts from Ephesians 6 and Titus 2 were used to affirm slavery whereas proponents of abolition looked at the ongoing Biblical themes of justice and equality to affirm their stance. Still today, there are multiple issues that one side affirms with Scripture as the other side opposes the issue with Scripture as well. And this keeps our communities divided and ever so segregated.

Why do we have this mentality of us versus them? Of course, it’s not new.

In the gospel reading from Luke, we see Jesus eating with a Pharisee. So, yes, Jesus associated with those with greater societal standing. And then a woman who the world sees as the “other” or somehow “less than” comes in and showers Jesus with attention. Jesus affirms that he experiences more love and hospitality from the woman with the lesser reputation than the Pharisee with the better reputation.

We don’t know much about this woman except that she was a sinner. We don’t know what type of sins she engaged in. They could be referring to her more as a law-breaker rather than a sinner. But wasn’t the Pharisee a sinner too?

The Luke text reminds us that Jesus associated with all types of people: women, the unclean, those who were sick. In fact, he didn’t just hang out with them, but he touched them when healing. He allowed them to touch him too. Whether it was touching dead corpses, people with leprosy or the woman with the hemorrhage, when Jesus came in touch with these people, he became unclean like them – at least according to Jewish Law. Scripture never says he went through purification rituals each evening. As our Wednesday study class had learned the other night from the Saving Jesus Redux video, Jesus had become unclean to relate and save the unclean.

If anyone was allowed to be judgmental, it was Jesus. But even Jesus wasn’t that judgmental about sins. He focused his life and ministry on showing love and grace.

In the reading from Paul’s letter to the Galatians, Cephas used to eat with the uncircumcised Gentiles even though he was circumcised. Cephas would eat with those who followed very different food rules.

Then James and the group who followed the law, the Jewish members of the early Jesus movement, came back into town. In order to keep people happy or to have people continue to like them, Cephas and Barnabas ditched their relationships with the Gentiles. This is when Paul confirms that there is something greater that the law that some of them followed: grace. Through that grace, both Jews and Gentiles learn to place their differences aside.

During the first century, people segregated themselves because of their rituals and food choices. Sixty years ago it was water fountains and eating spaces. What are today’s issues?

This gives us the opportunity to ask ourselves from whom would 21st century Christians divide themselves and who would Jesus hang out with today? Those who have engaged in drug use in their past? Those who swear? Our gay brothers and sisters? Interfaith or interracial couples? Those who pass a hungry man on the street? Those who own guns? Those who are against guns? Democrats? Republicans? Liberals? Conservatives? Divorced people or people who live together before they’re married? Maybe all of the above???

Wherever Jesus was, it was probably one of the least segregated places in Israel because people from different groups of people wanted to hear about love and grace. They wanted to experience healing. And Jesus himself hung out with both the Pharisees and the unclean. If Jesus showered all sorts of people with love instead of intense judgment, should we do the same?

We may not agree with our neighbors on how they live their lives. As individuals, we each build our moral codes based upon how we relate Scripture to our sense of reasoning, experience and traditions. And we don’t see Scripture, reason, experience and tradition in the same ways. But we aren’t necessarily given a free pass to shun people just because our faith and their faith doesn’t line up. Just the opposite. We are called to be in the presence of those with whom we would never intend to associate.

Jesus was one who prioritized relationships over rules. He healed the sick on the Sabbath, touched the unclean making himself unclean and ate with all sorts of people. Might Jesus be asking us to place our relationships with others over legalism and minute differences? If Jesus, who some think was perfect, was able to associate with all sorts of people and become unclean to be like them, then we who are definitely not perfect are absolutely called to associate with other imperfect people. And as for me, I’ve experienced some of the greatest hospitality and unconditional love from those who many people consider “unclean” in our society.

The way we each look at faith, at our beliefs are going to be different. At a church like ours, it’s not what you believe because, let’s face it, we’re across the board. And thank God we’re not told what to believe. But even when we are different and we’re individuals, we’re still part of the body of Christ. We’re not called to agree with one another but be one in Christ. We are still in covenant with one another even as we live autonomously. There is the Great Connection, and whether we see it on this side of heaven or that side of heaven, we will see that all of us are loved by God and called to do the same.

So as we go forward in asking ourselves “Where is God calling us” do we need to ask ourselves who is God calling us to invite and include? Are we needing to reflect on who we include and reach out to? What would this church look like if it were filled with those who are so different than us? This would be scary – – yet how would this help us to grow and live out the great commission that the Spirit has be nudging Christians to do for centuries?

As we abide in this most segregated hour of the week, let us find ways to bridge the great divide as there is no longer slave or free, male or female, clean or unclean, us or them, but, instead, one in Christ. Amen.

At the finish line

16 Tuesday Apr 2013

Posted by in Current Events, Life, Pop, Sports

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finish line“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” (2 Timothy 4:7)

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us…” (Hebrews 12:1)

Back when I used to run in more races (usually 5k races), I was still not in the best shape.  I was exhausted past the halfway mark, if not earlier in the race.  I was barely making it to the end.  But when I saw the silhouette of the finish line, I began to find my second wind.

Quite often, there were people lined up on both sides of this end point.

Even though I was running on fumes, short of breath, feeling I was going to have a heart attack or get sick, I would begin to feel a positive energy as I grew closer and closer to the line.  The energy of those cheering reached to me.  As I approached the last few steps, the crowd of strangers were cheering as I sprinted the final handful of strides.

It didn’t matter that I was usually closer to the end of the crowd who was trying to complete the race.  These strangers were called to be cheering us on, no matter who we are or how fast we could compete.

And, one evening, as I crossed the finish line, it occurred to me that the kingdom of God is like the finish line of a race.

I had finished the race, like it said in the above mentioned 2 Timothy text.  I gave all I had to fighting fatigue and doubt.  And then I saw the great cloud of witnesses, embracing their gift of exhortation (encouragement), giving me the last bits of energy and faith I needed to run my last few steps.

I thought to myself – maybe this is like what the transition from our lives on earth to our lives in heaven in God is like.  Maybe those who loved us and those we hardly knew are the great cloud of witnesses cheering us as we reach the finish line and celebrate the race completion.  What a beautiful image of what heaven could be!

And that’s the heaven we experience on earth – at the finish line of races when friend and stranger cheer us on to victory and completion of our goal.  There is only love at the finish line – love from those we know and those we don’t.  There is rarely ill will at the finish line but, instead, genuine gratitude for finishing the race and being loved by all of those around us.  Many of us are trying to find our energy after greatly exerting ourselves, but words and smiles of love are still in our presence.

But Monday was different.  It wasn’t the kingdom of God as we would hope to see it on earth.   As numerous runners neared and crossed the finish line, explosions rattles and injured those at the end of the run.  The people who have answered God’s call to encourage friends and strangers finishing the race were struck with physical and emotional objects and flames.  These are people who were there to share their love with fellow humans.  These are people who were trying to help their neighbors experience the true kingdom of God.

On Monday, that glimpse of what the kingdom of God looks like here on earth was shattered.  It was destroyed in a matter of moments.

Instead of love and peace, trauma and fear now have entered the hearts of many.  Some may be tempted to quit their racing.  Others may find it dangerous to stand and cheer on the many runners.

Right now it’s hard to see that God is the God of resilience and resurrections.  As time passes and healing begins, many will eventually leave behind fear in the tomb and resurrect into a place of faith and hope.  They will lace up their shoes again.  They will rejoin the great cloud of witnesses at the end of the race.  It may take time, but I pray that many who suffered today will find their way back to the finish line.

I look forward to meeting these great cloud of witnesses and fellow runners the next time I run the great race of life… or my next 5k.

My prayers are with all of those in Boston – especially those grieving, those healing and those helping, with runners and spectators of the Boston Marathon and with runners and spectators everywhere.