May the Words
of my Mouth and the Meditations of my heart be acceptable in your sight, Oh
Lord and my strength and redeemer.
This was a challenging week as many people I talked with were dealing with
the tragic events that happened in Charlottesville, VA and the political,
social and cultural aftermath. It’s been difficult, and the words I heard often
were, I am not surprised.
Whether in conversation, listening to the radio,
or just at the local CVS, those words ring in my ears, like clinging symbols. The
words, “I am not surprised”, for many, like my family, represent an historical
marker. They remember the years of Jim Crow, segregation, red lining, discrimination,
etc., too many issues of injustice to name here.
Many people, like my mother, said, “I am not
surprised” because they knew there would be a response from those who embrace
white supremacy, white nationalism, Neo-Nazi’s, and the Klan, to a country
which elected its first African American President twice, and a nation becoming
more and more multicultural. According
to the Southern Poverty Law Center there has been a 755 percent increase in
hate groups since 2008.
Nell Irvin Painter, the
emeritus, Edwards Professor of American History at Princeton, and the author of
"The History of White People",
writes, in an Article in the New York Times, that there is an American tradition
of call and response. The call: a challenge to the status quo of
white-people-on-top; the response: outbreaks of meanness, many merely vile,
embracing rhetorical weapons, many murderous, taking up physical weapons. The
bloody history of lynching, with its festive mobs and souvenir post cards and
body parts, bristles with personal provocations to the racial status quo. So, although the current occupant of the
White House reveals day by day, and sometimes, moment by moment, how unfit he
is, he is the one most suited to answer this call. In the 19th-century, the Ku
Klux Klan arose in the South as a response to black citizenship. Federal action
put it down, but in the 1920s, a resurgent Klan added immigrants, Catholics and
unruly women to its black targets. In the West, official massacres and the
"Driving Out" of the late
1800s had already ethnically cleansed Native Americans and run off Chinese
workers and business people.
Considering this uniquely American Call and
Response, Progressive Social Movements such as the Abolition movement, the Suffrage
and Women’s Rights Movement, the Civil Rights movement, and movements for
economic justice, have historically been and still are today a means to form a
more perfect union, to address the call and response, as a means to move the
country forward for all people. To help
the country, as Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., said, in his “I have a Dream
Speech”, to live out its promise that all men, yes, black men as well as
white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness.
The words of Dr. King call us to
rise and not be silent in the face of the complex and at times ugly history of America.
His words call us to live out the calling of Jesus Christ, and, even with the
complexity and complications of issues, made visible once again in
Charlottesville, to overcome the politics of fear, hatred, bigotry and racial
fragility, terrorisms, which have maintained structures of racial, economic,
and cultural oppression, which have consumed this nation for two and a half
centuries.
The protest at Charlottesville, was a clash not
only about statues and monuments to a lost cause of 156 years ago, but a clash
of narratives, between those like the KKK, people of faith , including clergy, who stand for an empire
of racial hierarchy, and organizations and people which stand for social
justice, including clergy and people of faith, who represent emerging
structures of power, which put the empire of racial hierarchy and its various
illusional interests like privilege at risk. Those of us who stand on the side of social
justice must realize, and this is important to say, that Charlottesville was the
stand of the foot soldier. While they
were there and made their stand the greater risk are concerns regarding
political policies of voter suppression, a reemerging discrimination based on
religious preference, healthcare policies continually under attack, and,
according to an article written by Alan Singer in the Huffington Post, a public
education system initially created for the public good more and more at risk of
becoming privatized for corporate interests put forth by political forces which
seek to maintain a narrative gradually receding like empires of the past.
Simone Weil, a
French philosopher, political activist and mystic who lived in the early
twentieth century, amidst the horrors of WWII, writes in her book “Waiting on
God”, Attention is the rarest and purest form of Generosity.” Considering
Simone Weil’s words of wisdom, giving attention to this historical transitional
moment in the life of America, on display last weekend in Charlottesville, we are
called to open our hearts to what might be called a peculiar grace. Peculiar
grace, according to Aaron Tiger, Pastor of Trinity UMC in Muldrow, OK, is the sharing
of the immense grace of God through extravagant and creative means.
The underlying
value of peculiar grace, according to Pastor Aaron Tiger, is the worth of the
other. Every encounter with another is an opportunity to convey grace to a
child of God. This radical view of persons prompts us to show radical grace to
the other. Peculiar grace is not what
German pastor, martyr, prophet, and spy Dietrich Bonhoeffer called cheap grace.
It is not an enabling grace, so that we give people addicted to white supremacy
and other illicit drugs, as described by Carol Anderson, chair of Emory’s
Department of African American Studies, in an article in the Guardian entitled,
“America is still hooked on White Supremacy” some type of pass, but peculiar grace
stands in the truth found in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ,
it reflects the mystical dimensions of love, described by the Apostle Paul in 1
Corinthians chapter 13, the love chapter. In the light of peculiar grace each
of us should give attention as a form of generosity to those who are fearful of
change. To engage family members, friends and folks who might think differently,
from a theological perspective, about race, racism, and multiculturalism, to
share a different perspective rooted in love. Beloved of Christ, we’ve trod
this road before, this is nothing new and we will navigate in such a way as to
overcome these struggles to enter a new and everlasting hope in Christ.
The words of 1st
Peter 4:12-17 say, “Dear friends, do not
be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you to test you, as
though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice, since you
participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his
glory is revealed. If you are
insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed, for the Spirit of
glory and of God rests on you. If you suffer, it should not be as a murderer or
thief or any other kind of criminal, or even as a meddler. However, if you
suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear that
name. For it is time for judgment to begin with God’s household; and if it
begins with us, what will the outcome be for those who do not obey the gospel
of God? And, “If it is hard for the righteous to be saved, what will become of
the ungodly and the sinner? So then, those who suffer according to God’s will
should commit themselves to their faithful Creator and continue to do good.”
Peter is encouraging the early Christians in regard to strive in the community
of faith, a reality of the human condition (1) Not to be Surprised (2) Trust in
God, Be the Christ and (3) Be Vigilant and always ready amidst events ungodly
and unjust.
The other day I was asked by a student, “How do we
engage someone who has very different views on issues of social justice and are
profoundly faithful to those views?” I said, to be clear there are people of faith
who have strong opinions on very complicated and complex historical issues. What
we must do in this historical moment is to be the Christ, to be the compassion,
to sooth the fears of those unable to express that fear in ways helpful. To do
good, worthy and Christlike acts which seek to heal the wounds of a diverse and
teaming humanity. In the final analysis, it is the heart that God examines not
so much the action, or inaction or theological concerns, in this the hope is
found.
In closing, I am
reminded of the words of Theodore Parker, A Unitarian Universalist Minister who
lived from 1810 to 1860, who said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but
it bends towards justice.” The issues raised in Charlottesville would seem to
be the latest example of the profound wisdom of this statement. It has been a long struggle, yet with the peculiar
grace of God this nation and its people will continue to live into its founding
creed that all people are created equal, that they are endowed by their
Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and
the pursuit of Happiness.
Let us Pray
