sermon preached at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Bellingham, WA
by the Rev. Josh Hosler
The Third Sunday of Advent,
December 14, 2014
In our Collect today—that is, in the
prayer towards the beginning of the service that sums up our intentions for
gathering in worship on this particular occasion—we heard this: “Stir up your
power, O Lord, and with great might come among us; and, because we are sorely
hindered by our sins, let your bountiful grace and mercy speedily help and
deliver us.”
“We are sorely hindered by our sins.”
And so we ask for grace and mercy. This is our purpose in gathering on this,
the third Sunday in Advent, and it is a vulnerable thing to say. Saying it in communal
worship makes it easier, I suppose, but it can also distance us from the effect
of the words. Let’s not do that today. Let’s lean into the discomfort of our
sins a little. The challenge of the Christian life is not to never, ever fall
short. Rather, it is to repent and start again.
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| Remember record stores? |
Friends, I want to tell you today
about the first time I came face to face with racism in me. Twenty years ago I
was an assistant manager at a record store in Seattle’s Southcenter Mall, and I
found myself eyeing black customers with more suspicion than white customers. We
moved the hip hop CDs near the register to keep an eye on them. Over the course
of a year, every single shoplifter we caught was black. And then it finally hit
me: Whatever other shoplifters there may have been, we didn’t catch them because
we weren’t looking for them.
Furthermore, I hadn’t even begun to ask
the question, “Why do people shoplift?” They were the bad guys, and I was
supposed to stop them. But if there's one thing Jesus has taught me, it's that the world isn’t cleanly split into good guys and bad
guys. Yes, it is wrong to shoplift. But what is the larger story, and how does
my place in the system guarantee that I do not immediately comprehend it? On
that day, I saw clearly the racism in myself.
Theologian Karl Barth once said that
he prepared his Sunday sermons by taking “the Bible in one hand and the daily
newspaper in the other.” There’s lots of discomfort to be found there. And I
could give you a laundry list of social ills, but that would be to spread the
discomfort around and thus mitigate it too soon. Instead, on this day when we
hear from John the Baptist, I want to talk very plainly about race. Because when
it comes to race in America, “we are sorely hindered by our sins.”
I am not saying that we are all a
bunch of racists. But sin is not just about actions that we choose to do. It is
also about what we don't do, and about the systems that we are a part of. When
it comes to issues of race, we Americans are still hindered by our history, by
our habits, and by what we allow to happen. From the very beginning, “all men
are created equal” meant no such thing. While we claim to value diversity, our
schools, churches, and neighborhoods are more segregated now than they were in
the 1950s. We want to see police as those who protect and serve. But in black
neighborhoods, most everybody knows someone who has been treated unjustly by
law enforcement. And today, all around our country, protesters are calling us
to repentance.
Wait. Whom are they calling to repentance?
Surely not us, right here in this room! Well, the presenting issue is police
behavior. Protesters are calling our nation’s police departments to higher
standards of accountability, and that’s a pretty clear-cut goal. But all of
this is part of a much larger conversation that has been going on for
centuries, and while I'd like to say that we cannot avoid being a part of it, that's
not actually true.
Now I know that I’m talking to a room
full of people who hate racism and want it gone. And most of us in this room
are white. Though our ancestors may have come from a variety of countries, when
I pass someone on the street who is a different color from me, that person does
not see me as a mix of German and Swiss and English; such differences are not
relevant in that moment. In America, we are seen as white. So whatever it means
to be white, whether we like it or not, we bring this quality to all our
encounters with strangers.
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| Chris Rock image from goldderby.com |
Biologists tell us that race is a
social construct, and that's true. But our ancestors did construct it, and so
we have to deal with the consequences. It’s only been a few decades since
Italians, Greeks, and Jews in our country were categorized as “black.” Comedian
Chris Rock recently said, “When we talk about race relations in America or
racial progress, it’s all nonsense ... White people were crazy. Now they’re not
as crazy. To say that black people have made progress would be to say they
deserve what happened to them before.”[1]
Indeed. A recent study by the FBI shows that every three or four days in the
U.S., a black man is killed by a white police officer.[2] That’s
not because every one of these individuals, criminal or not, deserved summary
execution without judge or jury. Therefore we know that the situation for black
Americans is rife with injustice.
Another case in point: if you raised
kids, did you at any point have The Talk with them? I don’t mean The Talk about
sex. I mean The Talk about what to say and do when the police pull you over
without cause, and what concrete steps you might take to try to ensure your
survival. Did you know that black American parents have to have that Talk with
their sons? Until Trayvon Martin was killed, I had never heard of it. It was at
that time, too, that NPR asked people to send in six-word essays about their
reaction to Trayvon Martin’s death. One of them resonated so strongly that I knew
I still had a lot of work to do. It read: “Angry black men are so scary.”
Friends, we need to listen to the
voices of African-Americans today. Our town of Bellingham is 88% white, and our
congregation of St. Paul’s is, at a glance, more than 95% white. Is this
something to be ashamed of? No, but it’s crucial to be aware of it as we proceed.
To be white in the Pacific Northwest means that we don’t even have to think
about race if we don’t want to. This is an example of what has become known as “white
privilege”—the ability to look at a situation involving race and to say, “I don’t
choose to think about that today.”
Blogger Franchesca Ramsey speaks to
people’s concern over the term “white privilege.” She explains, “Privilege does
not mean that you are rich, that you’ve had an easy life, that everything’s
been handed to you and you’ve never had to struggle or work hard. All it means
is that there are some things in life that you will not experience or ever have
to think about, just because of who you are.”[3] So
understanding my privilege means admitting, “I have never been in your shoes,
and I will not ever be. My stories are not your stories.” It’s a call to listen
before speaking.
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| Hey! I made a meme! |
John the Baptist came to preach a
baptism of repentance, and to announce the coming of the anointed one. John
wasn’t criticizing all Jews. He was criticizing hypocritical behavior among his
fellow Jews, and many of those hypocrites came out in droves to hear him speak.
In the same way, the protests around our country today are not a condemnation of
all police officers, or of all white people. They are a call to open our eyes
to things happening in our country today and in our very selves, so that we can
be of use in efforts to chip away at the evil of racism.
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| Franchesca Ramsey image from urbandaily.com |
Franchesca Ramsey gives five tips for
being an ally in the fight against racism. First, understand your privilege. I’ve
found that this is a pretty touchy subject for a lot of us white folks, so I
hope we’ll continue to have conversations about it at St. Paul’s. In short, understanding
white privilege is not about feeling guilty or ashamed for being the color we
are. It’s about accepting that there is a whole reality that is all but invisible
to us, and then choosing our actions based on this knowledge.
Ramsey’s second tip is to listen and
do your homework. There are always more stories to hear. I’ve been reading a
lot of opinion pieces and blog posts, and I also have books I can recommend on
Christianity and race. I think the most important thing here is to accept that our
good intentions will often go awry if they are not well fed with the stories of
many people other than ourselves.
Third, speak up, not over. We’ve seen
this step ignored quite a bit since the Ferguson decision. When the slogan “Black
Lives Matter” began to emerge, white America was quick to rush in with a
counter-slogan: “ALL Lives Matter.” Well, yes, that’s true, but it is implied
in the first slogan, and that’s not what we were talking about anyway. This is
a classic example of speaking over—saying, “Yes, I know you’re trying to say
something true, but I can say something truer.” We rush to place the specific
story into a larger narrative, and this comes from our discomfort at being
called out. But if it’s not our own story, we need to let it be.
Step four is this: You’ll make
mistakes; apologize when you do. About five years ago a friend of mine wrote
something on Facebook about discrimination she had experienced. I stepped into
the conversation and proceeded to make it all about me, speaking right over her.
Now, I meant well. I thought I was being a good ally by saying, “I can relate
to that!” But she helped me see that I was belittling her experience, so I
apologized and went back to listening. That was the beginning of my education
in being an ally.
Finally, writes Ramsey, saying you’re
an ally is not enough. It’s not about slapping on a bumper sticker. It’s about
actually putting ourselves on the line. For some of us, that may mean marching
in protests. For others, it may mean speaking clearly and firmly to that one really
racist relative. Being an ally takes both humility and courage—kind of like
being a Christian.
John himself was not the light, but he
came to testify to the light. John taught that justice and liberation are what
God intends for God’s people. John spoke up until Jesus showed up. And then
John didn’t speak over Jesus. He baptized him. But make no mistake: by hearing
these words and by engaging in conversation about them, not only are we are not
the Messiah, but we are not even John the Baptist. John the Baptist is protesting
in Ferguson and in many other cities around our nation today, calling for
greater police accountability, as John actually did at one point in Luke’s
gospel (Luke 3:14). But John the Baptist is also pointing beyond himself to
someone greater.
Today, I invite you to join me at the river Jordan. Let’s pay close
attention to this man named John. Let’s long for release from the way our sins
hinder us, that we may make room for new birth. Christ is coming to bring
good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim
liberty to the captives and release to the prisoners. When we speak about race,
let us speak of the hope that God’s Kingdom will be born in us. Let’s continue
that conversation together. As we examine ourselves, do our
homework, and learn when to speak and when to listen, we wait and we work for
that redeemed world. Stir up your
power, O Lord, and with great might come among us. Amen.
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