Proper 7B
June 21, 2015
I had a whole sermon written. It talked about David and Goliath, about David’s faith, and Saul’s fear. All the build-up in that story. The 31 verses dedicated to how scared the people were, and how hard the fight was going to be. About the one verse, where David takes out Goliath with simply a small stone, and large faith. I was going to talk about Jesus calming the seas, and the disciples' fear, doubt and faith. About Jesus asleep at the back of the boat. But present the whole time.
And then Thursday morning, I awoke to stories of the attack at Emmanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, where nine people were gunned down during their prayer service. In their house of worship. Because they were African American.
Most of the day Thursday, I had the deep honor to organize the prayer vigil that was held Thursday night downtown. Our vigil, thousands of miles away in a different place and context, could seem like a powerless statement. But rather, it was incredibly meaningful and right. What we did that night can be a model for what we do as a community moving forward, providing some direction when we otherwise don’t know what to do and don’t know how to start.
While we cannot know of the horrors and tragedy to the victims and their families, we too are grieved. It was a Christian church service, like this is. That makes it a little more personal. Being a Christian is dangerous. Being welcoming to all makes us vulnerable. And we are called to do it. This is perhaps what persecuted Christians have known throughout time and throughout the world today. It’s dangerous business, being welcoming and loving to all. We should take the opportunity to bolster each other up in the hard work of being loving, welcoming, vulnerable. Share your faith with other believers. Share tears and fears. And stand with them when the very act of being a Christian believer makes life hard.
We can also see the pain and trouble in our African American friends here. We are all beloved children of God, and it makes no sense that there is violence against some, solely because of the color of their skin. Eric Richardson, local director of the NAACP was troubled by the events in Charleston, of course. In addition to the tragedy itself, he had another thing to grieve. When he told his school-age kids of the tragedy, his son shrugged his shoulders, expressing an apathy and resigned acceptance that was heartbreaking for his dad. What have we become, that this targeted violence has become so normalized that it result in shrugged shoulders? Being a parent, it was heartbreaking for me too. We never want to see our kids experience or encounter the dark side of life.
The next day, I was talking to my daughter. She said she was afraid that someone was going to try to hurt her, because she’s African American. People might target her because of her skin. That’s tough to hear as a parent. What’s tougher is not being able to dismiss her fears, or explain it, or do much of anything. Except sit with her.
This is not about THEM. It’s about US. Our lives. Our friends. Our family.
So what can we do?
As a people of faith, we can cry to God, and pray. Like the disciples in the boat with sleeping Jesus, we can feel terror. We can feel abandoned. And God is with us. We need to call out, and ask God to calm our storm. To give us peace.
We can pray for the peace and grace shown by the family members of victims of the shooting. Several families went to the bond hearing for the shooter, and expressed words of forgiveness. You have hurt me deeply. And I forgive you. I have no room for hate. Grace and love like that are from God.
Finally, we can take a stand and take steps towards saying that this cannot, should not and will not happen in our community.
This is hard, because Oregon, Eugene and St. Thomas are predominately white, and there is a pervasive misbelief held by whites that makes progress hard.
We tend to believe two important falsehoods. First, there are only a few racist individuals in society, like the shooter, and they are bad, very bad. Second, we believe that racism is a conscious dislike. Since I’m neither really bad, nor consciously disliking, any conversations about racism cannot be me.
Rather, we need to talk about and think about racism as the set of beliefs and practices that are so insidious and invisible that we cannot see them. Things that over time result in a higher incarceration rate of African Americans, resulted in the prohibition that African Americans could not own property in Eugene until the mid 1960s. We in the dominate culture are part of the system that lets that happen. That result in shootings, and police racial bias. Unless I am constantly working to fix this, challenging every joke, policy, belief, I am racist. We all are.
The hard thing is that with the two fallacies – racists are uncommon and bad, and racism is a conscious dislike – the universal response from whites when discussing racism is something like “How dare you suggest I’m a racist, or that I’ve done anything racist”. I apologize if this is where you’ve landed this morning, and I want to reiterate that this isn’t about you personally. Racists aren’t infrequent, bad or intentional. And we need to begin to get over our sensitivity to the topic and our defensiveness. Because our African American brothers and sisters need us at the table. Need our voice. We need to begin a conversation about race in this community and in this church.
All of this talk about race and shootings might leave you wondering where the Good News is.
Jesus is in our boat. Jesus will calm our seas, and give us peace. We need to ask. We need to ask for ourselves, for our community, for the victims and their families, and for the shooter.
Churches around the country today were asked to pray the Prayer attributed to St. Francis. In concluding, I would ask you to join me in reading this prayer, on page 833 of the red Book of Common Prayer.
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.
