March 22, 2015
Good Morning!
I am grateful for this opportunity to share with you this morning! You are my extended family. I am grateful to Gail Arnall for encouraging me, in no uncertain terms, to share myself with you this morning. I wish that Gail could have been here. It is a privilege to try to tell you how God has been working in me, working in my life; how God is changing me! You know how sometimes we hear a person say, "I'm a work in progress and God's not done with me yet!"? Well, I'm a work in progress. And God, God and I – still have a lot of work to do on me.
I am the third person after Fred Taylor and Wendy Dorsey, in a series of Sunday teachings for whom Racial Justice, Reconciliation and Healing have become as vital and necessary to engage in as oxygen is to breathing. Fred called us to encounter our emotional truth. Remember? He shared with us that as a member of the Racial Justice and Healing mission group, he became able to say, "I am a racist and I am more than a racist. I am a white supremacist and I am more than a white supremacist!" Fred told us that when he shared his confession, searching the faces of the Black members of the mission group he felt and heard them say, "Welcome. This is what we must hear to trust you. Now let's move on together".
In her teaching last week, Wendy invited white Christians to learn more deeply the significance of the cross to Black Christians. "We need to explore the deep connection", she said, "between the oppression Jesus and his people experienced and the oppression that our Black brothers and sisters in this country have experienced and still experience at the hands of the white supremacy power structure. If we do not get this connection", Wendy said, "I think we are terribly lost". I didn't always understand this. Now I do. Getting the connection really matters to me.
For those of us who are white, hearing Wendy's words was pretty uncomfortable for some of us, I think. I remember being uncomfortable myself. It would have been just 3 or 4 years ago.
Eighth Day was still meeting in the old Potter's House. Coming in a little late, as I do, I usually sat in the back with Tigist and Gerald and Viviane & Cordell and Eliana, sometimes folks from TASSC. I usually sat in the back with people of color, some of whom have become my friends. Tigist has become my sister. Wendy was giving a teaching something like the teaching she gave last week. The question she was asking was "How can 8th Day become more genuinely welcoming to people of color?" And I was saying to myself "What in the world is she talking about? Can't she see there are people of color here who come to church every Sunday? Can't she see all the good that 8th Day is doing? Does she always have to be telling us that we're not good enough? Why can't she praise us?"
I sat in the back of the church feeling really defensive. I didn't engage Wendy's question. I was just uncomfortable and I was mad at her. I did not share Wendy's view of reality.
At that time I had already been working at Joseph's House for many years, helping to guide a community in which those who are dying, nearly everyone, an African American man or woman, where those who are dying or fighting for their lives are cared for with respect and love and tenderness and with skillful compassion. As he does now, David Hilfiker facilitated a weekly class at Joseph's House for our volunteers and volunteers in other agencies in which they asked the question, "Why are nearly all of us full-time volunteers white, healthy, middle class people with lots of formal education? Why are we caring for nearly all poor, homeless African American men and women with almost no formal education and they are dying or fighting to stay alive?" How did this happen? Why is this happening?
I borrowed David's knowledge of US history and practices of racism. I wanted him to teach it as I still do, but at the time the information didn't move from my head to my heart.
Dawn Longenecker called me from time to time, as she still does, to talk about the Discipleship Year program and its volunteers, many of whom have served at Joseph's House.
Once when she and I were having coffee Dawn asked me what I thought about institutional racism and whether I thought Joseph's House might experience something of that. I felt offended and I bristled. "Are you aware that Joseph's House pays a living wage to all of our employees with full health care benefits and 4 weeks' paid vacation for everyone?" I shot back. Dawn didn't back down. "Becoming aware of the structures of racism is really important to me", she said. "I wonder if you would consider attending a Damascus Road anti-racism training?"
After that, whenever Dawn and I touched base about Discipleship Year, our conversation included what she and I were doing that was particularly meaningful to us, personally. Dawn always spoke to me of her efforts to recognize and take apart racism in every aspect of her life – personally and structurally. Dawn didn't quit and little by little I grew less defensive and curious to know more. I went to a Damascus Road Training on Racism.
Could it have been the Holy Spirit that got to me in the middle of July, 2013? It was definitely Grace. Here's what I'm talking about:
That night, my husband, Pierre, and I were watching a baseball game. A band came across the bottom of the TV and the words said: "George Zimmerman acquitted in shooting death of unarmed Black youth, Trayvon Martin". I turned to Pierre and I said, "I can't believe that guy got off." We went back to watching the game.
The next morning, it was a Sunday morning and as always, we had a full table for breakfast. There were so many of us sitting at the table, we were so squeezed in that our shoulders touched! I remember that my colleague, Blossom Williams, an African American woman about my age, Blossom and I were sitting side by side. We both were wearing sleeveless dresses and we sat, lingering over a second cup of coffee, our arms touching comfortably. The conversation around the table turned to the acquittal of George Zimmerman. "I can't believe they let him off," I put out there, into the conversation. In a whisper, tears streaming down her face, Blossom said, "I always knew they would."
Her words shook me. Right then I knew that my worldview was much too small and I had to find a way to grow it bigger. Blossom and I had worked together for many years. At that table we were sitting so close we were literally arm-to-arm, and our responses to the acquittal of George Zimmerman were utterly different and the difference took me by surprise. If one's worldview can be imagined as an umbrella, my umbrella was so small it didn't even cover Blossom and me, close as we were. I knew I had to get a much bigger umbrella. I didn't know how.
I called David and I told him what had happened and that I needed help. Not long after that the Racial Justice and Healing Mission Group invited me in. Florence Parkinson, Dawn Longenecker, Karen Mohr and Steve Mohr, Harold Vines, Stephanie Harding, Wendy Dorsey, Mike Hopkins, David Hilfiker, Tom Brown, Fred Taylor, Trish Nemore, Mike Smith. African American and European American men and women from three Church of the Saviour faith communities were meeting to understand, dismantle and heal racism in our personal lives, in our places of work, in our churches and in the bigger community. I felt that I had somehow been guided home.
Participating in the Mission group gave me the courage to take Milagros Phillips' nine-week Racial Sobriety class. I was so scared.
I was afraid of the possibility of finding out that I am a racist. Is there anything worse than being racist? When I learned in her class, that as a white person in a white dominated society, I can't help but be at least unconsciously racist – I was afraid that there might be nothing else in me. If I was unconsciously racist, what in me could I trust? I was afraid of the anger expressed by the African Americans in the Racial Sobriety class. I didn't understand their anger. Sometimes I judged it. I didn't know what I could do about it. I judged myself. "Patty, it's not about being a nice person", someone told me. "Oh!" I said. What? What is it about then, I wondered? I was more than uncomfortable. I hurt. And I kept coming back. In Milagros's class a light was gradually coming on. I was starting to see that this racism, this white supremacy is much bigger than me. And it includes me. I am racist and I am more than that, like Fred said two Sundays ago.
At a Festival Center event around that time Mike Hopkins took the opportunity to say hello. He didn't go for small talk. He said, "What's the Racial Sobriety class like for you?" His question told me that racial sobriety was not just another class for him. It was of utmost importance. I paid attention.
In a gathering of African American and European Americans, Harold Vines asked the group a question; he said: "What is it about white people that century after century you have had so little empathy for people of color?"
Confused and numb, full of shame, I had no answer. But that question of Harold's, "Why have white people had so little empathy for people of color for hundreds, maybe thousands of years?" has had my attention ever since. I want to know. I want to notice who I have empathy for and who I don't, and I want to know why. I want to notice when I have empathy for people of color who are at some distance from my life, say in the news. Do I recognize the suffering of Black people? Do I more easily recognize the suffering of white people who are at a distance from me? I want to understand myself. I want to understand white people.
In my mind the white church bears great responsibility for the lack of empathy of whites for people of color. Certainly this is true of the Missouri Synod Lutheran church and the Brethren Church that evangelized and formed me as a child. These churches were not aware of the values of racial superiority they were conveying; if confronted by Black Christians or by First Nations Christians they would have been confused and defensive, self-righteous. They would have taken no steps to engage honestly, if confronted. I will be seeking answers to Harold's question for a long time. The answers are not coming easy.
Before the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the death of Trayvon Martin, the only names I recognized of the hundreds of African Americans who had been murdered by racism my lifetime were the names of Dr Martin Luther King Jr. and Emmitt Till. Since the shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, I have changed. I pay attention to the names of persons who have been shot and killed by police. I try to remember them.
I am also a member of Friends of Jesus church. As a church, learning of the violent death of an unarmed person of color; we have written to the family to express our condolences. In this way, for example, young Lennon Lacy, who appears to have been lynched from a swing set in Bladenboro, NC, last August, is remembered by us, by name. He and his family are closer to our hearts because we remember his name.
My friend, Stephanie Harding's young nephew, Kenneth Harding, was gunned down for failure to produce a bus transfer when he exited a bus. He didn't have the transfer and he ran. He was shot ten times in the back. Kenneth Harding was killed for a bus transfer. I will not forget this. I cannot imagine a young white boy being shot dead for trying to get away without paying for a bus ride. I will remember Kenneth Harding's name.
I pay attention now, on-line, to the response of Black churches and Black Christians to murders such as these. In every African American church blog, the hope is expressed that in churches, temples and mosques around the nation, the names of the dead will be raised up, that their families will be prayed for in every community of faith and that every church will take action to protest and challenge the social conditions that contribute to the profiling and killing of Blacks by whites and by mostly white police.
Because compassion and solidarity such as this has become vitally important to me, I can't help but want my Eighth Day Faith Community to count ourselves in as a church that will pray with African-American churches because we have love, empathy, solidarity.
I am still learning how to express my urgent awakening. I know I have come across as strident to some. I have turned some people off. I ask you, my extended family, to be patient with me as I learn and grow. I'm asking for your encouragement as I work to find my clear, strong, loud voice when it needs to be loud, as I open myself to being guided by the Advocate, as I say Yes to the discomfort of waking up – with your love and patience and encouragement you will help me to do the hard work of becoming a trustworthy ally against racism in its countless manifestations.
For many years I have received the priceless gift of never, not once, having felt judged by David Hilfiker. Even when I've made decisions he would not have made. One time David would have fired me, if he could have, over a difference he and I had in the direction we thought best for Joseph's House. But he never judged me for my difference with him.
I give you my word that I as well as I am able, I will clearly speak what is true for me. I will engage you openheartedly and with an open mind. I will seek to engage you, not to judge you for what you think or where you are, in matters that have to do with race and racism and Eighth Day, especially when where you are is different from where I am. David has shown me that this is possible, and I want to give this gift of love and respect to you.
Wendy loved us enough to not stop preaching. She is still engaging us; she's still teaching! Several years ago I didn't recognize Wendy's teachings as an expression of her love for us. But now I do. Dawn didn't quit inviting me into conversations on structural racism in our society and in my own beloved institution. She wasn't intimidated by my defensiveness. I would say she had enough respect for me to keep engaging me.
Today, at Friends of Jesus I have African-American people and white people in my life who respect and love themselves and love me enough not to make me feel comfortable when the truth is painful. My elder brother, Harold Vines. My brothers Mike Hopkins, Terry Thompson and Mike Smith, Curtis, William... My sisters, Stephanie Harding, Jennifer Ireland, Candy, Pam, Linda, Shelly, JJ. I honor you and I give thanks for you. The men and women of color and the white allies active in Damascus Road and Movies that Move Us and the Servant Leadership School: Ernest Crosby, Joseph Deck. Karen and Steve Mohr. For speaking truth until the truth is engaged, I honor you. You are teaching me. I am learning from you.
There are two people of color who may never again join our worship here at Eighth Day, but they have such deep self-respect and such capacity to love – including loving me – that they have done what it took to get my attention about the cost of racism to all of us - Black and white. I am ashamed to admit it but there are times I need to be shouted at before I can hear. There are times I need to be shaken, to feel. They care enough to do that and I am grateful for them. Reverend Art Brown and José Gutierrez, thank you. I honor you.
Before that Sunday morning in July, 2013, sitting beside Blossom Williams, at the breakfast table at Joseph's House, when I realized that my view of the world was too small and I had to grow, I thought I had no more time, no extra energy to grow in self-knowledge and historical knowledge of racism. I felt I was giving everything I had to give, to Joseph's House, that I was already flat out; spent.
But that morning, a longing for and a determination to find more depth and more inner space and to know more truth was born in me.
Since then, I'm aware that I am changing. This has to be grace.
Could it be that through these courageous, loving men and women; and through you, my sweet Eighth Day Faith Community, as I wake up to and feel the urgency to recognize and resist racism in all its expressions in my life, that God is, as the Jeremiah passage said, putting a new law within me, writing it on my heart! Is it possible, as I humble myself and confess my ignorance, my numbness, as I follow the lead of African American sisters and brothers that God is becoming really, my God! As I engage with my African-American and white sisters and brothers, cherishing our kinship, resisting through our prayers and through the Word, the powers and principalities that separate us, that set up injustice for people of color generation after generation - as I begin to feel myself a sister, I am beginning to know myself as a cherished daughter of God!
May I not take this grace, this new covenant for granted. May I act on this gift urgently, with every breath I breathe. I need your help. I am asking for your help.
I love you very much.
Amen.