Going Deeper

Texts: Luke 10:30-37 (Good Samaritan Story)
           John 4:1-40 (Woman at the Well)

Good morning.  Thanks for opportunity to share with you today. 

As most of you know, I've been involved in a mixed-raced mission group here within the Church of the Saviour, focused on racial justice and healing, for the past several years.  I want to share this morning some things I've been wrestling with out of that experience. 

I'm beginning with a very familiar story, Jesus' parable of the "Good Samaritan."

The Good Samaritan story is usually related in a general way to teach children and adults to be kind to strangers, or to those in need, but it deserves more careful study. 

The Samaritans were people who lived in what had been the Northern Kingdom of Israel.  Samaria, the name of that kingdom's capital, was located between Galilee in the north and Judea in the south.  The Samaritans were a racially mixed society with Jewish and pagan ancestry.  Although they worshiped Yahweh as did the Jews, their religion was not mainstream Judaism, and they were despised by ordinary Jews.[1]

After Jesus tells the story of the man rescued by this person of supposedly inferior origins, he asks the question, "Which of these three do you think was a neighbor?" The expert in the law responds, "The one who shows mercy on him."

It's noteworthy that the lawyer doesn't answer Jesus directly.  He doesn't say, "The Samaritan is the neighbor." He seems to find it hard to identify the Samaritan in the story as the "good guy." Perhaps that would have been just a little too much of a direct challenge to his worldview, his patterns of thinking that most assuredly were deeply entrenched—he was, after all, an "expert in the law," and the law (and probably most people) looked down its nose at these Samaritan outsiders.

Scripture includes other references to Samaritans, and each one points to their being discriminated against, even in the early church, in ways that we would clearly understand today as racism.

In this context, for Jesus to use a Samaritan as the example of how his Jewish listeners were to act ("Go and do likewise") – and his extraordinary interaction with the Samaritan woman at the well, crossing and even healing divisions of race and gender – is really remarkable.

***

When I came to DC after college, Washington was called "Chocolate City"—70 percent of the population was African American.  I got to know a few individual black people.  One or two Latino and Asian Americans, but like most white people, then and now, I was most intimately involved with other whites at church, in the neighborhoods I lived in, and in the places where I worked.

As a social worker and volunteer coordinator at several nonprofits, I've encountered mostly black and brown clients and mostly white staff in positions of power.

Even though we've made progress in America around the issue of race, we're still deeply divided and segregated.  As MLK said, this time right now is the most segregated hour of the week.  This reality mirrors the other ways in which we're still segregated as a society.  Our often-failing inner-city public schools are still filled with primarily poorer, darker skinned children while well-to-do mostly white children attend better-resourced private and suburban schools.  We're also segregated in terms of housing, and our unemployment rates reflect who we most value as well.

For me the story of Samaritans and Jews relates to the racial divide in our country today, and to my own journey to relate to people of color in deeper and more authentic ways.

When I came to Church of the Saviour in 2007, the Festival Center was engaged in a number of anti-racism activities.  Early in the Center's history, a young Mennonite woman who'd worked here had pushed for the staff to attend anti-racism trainings to help deal with the disparities of power within our various ministries and churches.  We still have important work to do and hard questions to ask ourselves.  For example, the Servant Leadership School—whose purpose is to raise up issues of injustice, deepen our faith walk, and build deeper community—has had mostly white teachers and white students over the years, despite good intentions for more breadth and variety.

Another example is The Discipleship Year Program that I'm director of.  We draw mostly young white people of privilege, to serve mostly people of color without economic advantage, in ministries set up to try and reduce poverty in various ways.  We struggle with the challenges that are built into this unjust arrangement and strive each year to learn about and understand institutional and systemic racism, so we can be better equipped to serve people who are struggling to rise above their circumstances.  However, it's challenging to make much of a difference since the oppressions are so deeply entrenched.  The volunteers gain a deeper understanding about the root causes of poverty and racism by the study we do in these areas throughout the year.  At the end of their time, they typically get jobs or move onto further education in various places, with a good number staying in DC.  All of this is wonderful to witness each year.  However, the questions I ask myself are, "In order to more fully make a difference, is there a different structure we might consider?  What if we drew more people of color here and they benefited from jobs afterwards?  Coupled with this, what if we partnered with institutions run by people of color, in addition to our Church of the Saviour ministries?  Or is there another kind of use for the DY house that might be of more direct benefit to the African American Community that was different from what we do now?   I'm asking Joseph Deck and his mission group to wrestle with these questions, the DY local support team and my current Racial Reconciliation group.  It feels right to have people and groups to struggle together with this, especially within my mission group where we've made a commitment to give people of color primary leadership to us on this journey.   

Many Americans today primarily understand racism as an individual, attitudinal issue.  They decry individuals who join the Klan or who act out violently against people of color, and they think of racism as being the same as interpersonal prejudice.

And there's still a lot of that kind of racism around.  But that's individual, overt discrimination.  But racism is more; it's an institutional and systemic challenge.

Racism has been defined as "prejudice plus power."

Beverly Daniel Tatum writer described it as "a system of advantage based on race," the emphasis being on a system—"involving cultural messages and institutional policies and practices as well as the beliefs and actions of individuals." [*]

In anti-racism trainings, we've used this definition of racism (it's my favorite): "Racial and cultural prejudice and discrimination, supported intentionally or unintentionally by institutional power and authority, used to the advantage of one race and the disadvantage of other races."[2]

This actually, in an odd sort of way, has freed me up from feeling personally guilty about the fact that I'm implicated, as a white person, in racism.  We're all in this boat together, brothers and sisters who are white.  We here, within Church of the Saviour, have largely been able to rid ourselves of negative racial biases and personal negative actions, but we're still part of the problem unconsciously, often—perpetuating without meaning to or perhaps even knowing – the very injustice we seek to unravel and by working to see its depth and owning up to it, we can then address it. 

If we genuinely want to make progress against today's racism, we need to look at where the power centers are within organizations and in our society, what the overarching culture is, what constituency actually benefits the most by the actions of our institutions, and whether or not we're accountable to communities of color.  This doesn't mean white people can't have power and authority within organizations, but if we're really trying to dismantle injustices, we need to figure out how to share power more and walk alongside each other more fully.

Another thing that confuses us about racism today is that it's less visible, in particular to whites, as a lot of the more clear-cut and noticeable ways racism used to oppress have changed.  We need to keep learning and growing to continue to eradicate it.

It's rarely named as such these days, but our society still holds the attitudes, behavior, beliefs, standards, history, and values of white culture as normative and as the standard for all other groups.  Although it's not often admitted in polite society, that's pretty much the definition of white supremacy—maybe not the kind that marches around in white robes and burns crosses but white supremacy nonetheless.

It's imbedded in the foundations of all of our major institutions and requires members of other races to assimilate into white culture.  This stuff is deep within us as white people and is often unconsciously perpetuated against our best intentions.

********

Harold Vines has become a mentor and a friend.  Harold, as you know, is the African-American pastor of Friends of Jesus Church, which worships here on Thursday nights and is one of the faith communities within Church of the Saviour.  In many ways, Harold reminds me of my dad.  He is the same age as my father, has a similar personality, and a very strong faith.  And yet his story is completely different from my dad's in several important ways.

As a child, Harold watched his father kowtow to a white man who threatened to harm their family.  Harold struggled for years trying to make sense of why his father didn't stand up for their rights.  He later worked on juvenile justice issues in Jim-Crow Baltimore, and he struggled to succeed in his mostly white institution, as the majority of his "people" remained un- or underemployed.

My dad would occasionally drive his car too fast.  Several times, he was pulled over for speeding.  He would tell the officer, "I'm a pastor at the Mennonite church," and almost every time he was waved on his way without a ticket.  Harold's experience—and that of his relatives—was very different.  His stories entail his African-American relatives and friends being pulled over many times on minor or even questionable charges.  The charges, officially called "failure to signal" or "your taillight's out," seemed a lot more like "driving while black" and rarely ended with the driver being let off with a warning.

For many years, my father was a chaplain in a retirement home in Harrisonburg, VA, and he would often share stories of his bedside ministry.  I couldn't help think of that when Harold told me the story of his own experience of ministering at his son's bedside.  Harold's son had contracted a terminal illness while in prison.  Harold visited him in the hospital, helping his son prepare for death—and the whole time he was there, his son was shackled to the hospital bed, even as he lay dying.

Harold has shared other stories with me about his family—about his daughter, who has lost her job and struggles to make ends meet.  About his grandson, who was recently released from prison and now lives with Harold and his wife, who are attempting to help him acclimate back into society.  And about other family members and friends who've had issues with jobs, with housing, the health care system and the criminal justice system.  And I can't help feeling that we live in such different worlds, my family and his.

***

Church of the Saviour used to have what we called "spiritual support groups," created within the Becoming Church community.  Now they're called "Freedom Circles," run by the Reunion group.  These are small groups, with people from across the spectrum of race and class in each one.  They meet weekly to challenge and support each other in our "inward" and "outward" journeys.  Not long after I joined one of these groups, led by Harold (the one dedicated to talking openly and honestly about Race and Racism), I was challenged by an African American member named Mike, who had been part of the Discipleship Year Program (DY) before I arrived and whom I'd known for a short time.  He told me that I was acting like a social worker, trying to "help" people rather than entering into the group in a mutual way.  He said that I had a "maternal" attitude, and that—combined with my whiteness and the power I hold in the community—made me come across like some kind of "white knight," that I was in fact embodying racism.

It was, of course, painful to hear.

But I was very grateful for his feedback.  I wouldn't have realized how I was coming across but for his honesty.  He also shared with me how hard it had been (and I've heard this before from people of color in other white dominated volunteer corps) to be the sole African-American member of the DY community the year he served with us.

Obviously, I want to be in mutually liberating relationships with people of color, not in "power over" relationships.  I want this in my own life, for our churches, our ministries and for Discipleship Year.  But this can only happen with the kind of honest accountability I got from Mike, and that kind of honesty requires a level of trust that can't be taken for granted.

A central focus of our small anti-racism mission group is the work of building trust with each other, of deepening our relational and spiritual bonds and our connection to God.  This inward-journey work is key.  We'll continue to put together "external" events to educate and organize around race issues, but what we're most clear about is the need for us to be on the journey together.  We're noticing that the stronger our relationships are, the more time we spend together, the more we work on trust, honesty and conflict resolution and the more we deepen spiritually—the more direction for the outward journey flows from this.  We've tested some of our speaking, communicating and educational efforts on this faith community and we know it hasn't always been smooth sailing.  This work isn't easy, as by its very nature it's unsettling and designed to challenge the status quo.  Thankfully you've not only supported us, but you're also entering into the struggle with us. 

I'll share here that I'm going to be moving into intern membership with Friends of Jesus this summer and continuing on here at 8th Day as well, as I have time.  My hope is that our churches will strive to be sister churches as we meet together here in the same building.  There's a lot that could be gained from such a partnership, strengthening our movements for change on a number of fronts, not just in tackling racism.  We need each other for deepened spiritual nourishment too.  For just as Jesus shared with the Samaritan Woman at the Well, about true living water, we too can tap into this deep—very nourishing stream—when we come more fully together.   

This is an exciting time to be about the work of racial justice.  The social justice aspects of race, of course, aren't new issues.  But the context around us is going through a revolutionary change. 

The beautiful mosaic that is our society already looks very different from a generation ago.  A majority of babies born in 2011 in this country are non-white.  In a very few years, more than half of voters will be people of color, and soon after that so will a majority of the country itself.

And this creates a wonderful opportunity, born of the simple demographic reality around us. 

The opportunity is to see this diversity as a profound source of richness, of abundance, of vitality—and not just the cauldron of conflict and divisiveness as it's so often portrayed.

But to achieve that beautiful future—the "beloved community" that Dr King talked about—will require some very intentional choices by those of us who have enjoyed the privileges associated with our race for generations—privilege that came to us whether we wanted it or not, and whether we were aware of it or not.

Those choices will necessarily include partnerships with people of color, based on real mutuality and shared decision-making.  They will include, at times, the intentional relinquishing of power, to allow others to step into leadership roles that we've so often held tightly.  They will certainly include learning to listen to and be guided by the experience, knowledge, and wisdom of people of color—in our community groups, our organizations, and especially in our church bodies. 

On a foundation of those kinds of choices, I really believe a brighter future can be built.

If anyone here would like to explore getting involved in our newly named group – now called The Racial Reconciliation Collective - - you're welcome to talk with me, Wendy, Tom or Steve after the service. 

In Martin Luther King's Nobel Prize acceptance speech in 1964, he said,

"I refuse to accept the view that [humanity] is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace, brotherhood,[and sisterhood] can never become a reality. I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word."

May it be so

Amen.