Sermon: God's One-Item Agenda

Texts: Genesis 9:20-27; Ephesians 4:1-7, 11-6, 25-32

Date: May 25, 2008

Rev. Dee Eisenhauer, Eagle Harbor Congregational Church

            One of my books includes this story of a group of volunteers from the Midwest who traveled to Jackson, Mississippi to work with members of the Voice of Calvary ministry there to renovate a house for a low-income family.  As part of the week-long experience, members of the Voice of Calvary staff prepared an authentic southern soul food dinner for the group.  During the meal, several of the visiting volunteers were heard complaining about the food.  Following the meal, one of the leaders of the Voice of Calvary shared a word about God’s desire for racial reconciliation, which is at the heart of that ministry’s mission.  When the message ended, an adult leader from the visiting Midwesterners said, “Thanks for the food, but I’m tired, and I came here to serve Christ, not to talk about black and white.  So I’m going to leave.”  And he did, and the other visitors left with him.[1]

            What’s wrong with this picture?  Curtiss Paul DeYoung, author of the book from which I borrowed this story, says this episode not only reveals a tragic misunderstanding of what it means to follow Jesus Christ, but also illustrates why the church has been ineffective in addressing social fragmentation, and has even contributed to that fragmentation.   The Christian Church in America doesn’t have a great track record with regard to racial division.  I chose the text from Genesis as a reminder of one of the ugly aspects of our history, namely that the cursing of Ham/Canaan was held up for years by American Christians as a justification for enslaving people of African descent.  Even now, when that practice has ended, we aren’t doing so well in terms of being a truly multiracial community of Christians.  One Alban Institute article I read noted that researchers estimate that only 6% of churches in this country are multiracial, and only 2% are intentionally multiracial (as opposed to the cause being neighborhood demographic shifts).[2]

            In theory, I agree with DeYoung that serving Christ cannot be divorced from talking about black and white or yellow and brown or white and red or any other colorful combination of racial dialogue.  But in practice, I might have to disagree.  There is evidence that lots of churches who believe they are serving Christ can go for months or years at a time without talking about race in any serious or disciplined way.  So in a way, serving Christ and talking about race have been divorced, for all practical purposes.

            When leaders of our denomination, the United Church of Christ, called upon UCC churches to begin a sacred conversation about race in the light of some recent controversies involving one of our Chicago pastors, I thought, “Good idea.”  But a part of me inwardly groaned.  That doesn’t sound like much fun.  As long as we’re going to talk about race in worship and study circles, why not get some dentists to come down to church and do a few root canals during the coffee hour to add to the general festivities?  Know what I mean?

            I feel compelled to share the image that came to me this week even though it’s a little bit of an icky story.  When I was a kid living in Alaska our family got some kind of virus that resulted in most of us having at least one boil somewhere on our bodies.  You know what a boil is?—like a pimple gone wild, a big infected bump on your skin that is very tender to the touch.  I had two, one on my shin and one in my armpit.  Sounds bad, eh?  But I had it better than my brother who had to sit upon his. 

            The thing about having a boil is, it’s embarrassing.  You don’t want anyone to know you’ve got it, which is where having one in the easy-to-hide location of the armpit was a slight advantage. And also, it hurts.  You definitely don’t want anything to touch it.  Between the shame and the tenderness, the solution, which involves having a doctor uncover it and lance it, sounds very unpleasant indeed, even if you want to be healed.  You would almost rather leave it alone because it could be hidden and you’d gotten used to the pain.

            It seems to me that the problem of racial division in America is a teensy bit like having a boil in our collective armpit.  Ongoing racial tensions hurt.  But a lot of the time, this infectious wound can be hidden away in the dark recesses of our consciousness, particularly among those of us who are not regularly subjected to racial discrimination.  It is so painful and embarrassing to talk about that we might just as soon leave it be, not touch it, even if we want to be healed.  We are made mute by our shame and our fear of the pain of seeking a solution.

            It’s probably a good thing I wasn’t in charge of my own health care when I was a kid, because I might still have those boils.  My mom took charge of hauling us all to the doctor, even my Dad, who hadn’t broken out with any sores and insisted he was not sick.  Turns out dear old Dad was the main carrier of the infection, which was cured by all of us taking antibiotics—after those of us with boils got them lanced and drained and bandaged.  I still have the scars, but they are just reminders, nothing painful in themselves any more.

            Having the leaders of our church call on us to have a serious, sacred conversation about race is a bit like having your mom tell you that you really should be going to a doctor about that thing.  We don’t want to uncover it, we don’t want to touch it, but we may just have to admit that there’s no other way to health.  The way to health isn’t at all clear; how do we allow the infection of anger that follows generations of prejudice, injustice and oppression to drain away and permit healing?  I can’t claim to know, but this I do know: keeping the wound hidden only encourages its festering for yet another generation.

            As we think about how we might seek healing, it seems to me the worst thing we could do is deny that there is a problem.  If one is not personally suffering as a result of one’s race—that is, if one is a member of a privileged race—one might be tempted to say, like my dad did years ago, “I’m not sick,” or, “We’re not sick.”  There are those who would say that the bad old days are long over, and since the Civil Rights movement of the Fifties and Sixties we are all playing on a level playing field.   Racism is no longer the problem it once was, and we should all just get over it.

            That’s wishful thinking.  If we consider 1776 to be the birth of the U.S. government, the nation is 230 years old.  For all but the last 40 years of that history, slavery and/or segregation were legally enforced realities that systematically denied people of color equal access, rights, and opportunities in every realm of American society (education, housing, health care, etc.).  So it’s not logical to think that the effects of several centuries of systemic racism would be eliminated or equalized in only 40 years time.  Did you know that in 2008 White families have an average net worth that is ten times the average net worth of Black families?  That’s no coincidence—it’s the cumulative effect of long habits and policies.  It’s flatly erroneous to maintain that the nation is in perfect health when it comes to the lingering effects of racism.

            Oh, there I go, stirring up a little liberal guilt, poking at that tender spot that probably already feels remorseful over being the unwitting beneficiaries of such inequalities.  Evoking guilt amounts to poking that wound in the armpit, poke, poke, OUCH.  And it doesn’t seem fair, because we inherited this situation, we didn’t create it.  We inherited this guilt; every well-meaning, soft-hearted person got a load of it as soon as we began to understand the world a little.  Ow.

            And then, double-Ow when someone who is angry about being on the suffering end of inequality lets loose with some of their pent-up rage while we’re in the vicinity.  Hearing some angry person of color vent feels like someone kicking the boil on the shin.  It would hurt anyway, even on a healthy shin, but when the anger hits the spot that was already tender with guilt…I recall being in a little drive-in in Hardin, Montana a few years ago.  I was taking a youth group to a regional youth conference, and we had arranged to visit the Crow Reservation on the way there, stay in the Hardin UCC church and try to learn something about the challenges faced by Crow Indians in that region.  This local member of the tribe unleashed a very bitter comment about white people coming as tourists to gawk at Indians for our amusement.  OW!  No wonder we don’t relish talking about race. 

            I’m not trying to start a pity party; I’m just trying to point to the fact that it takes commitment and a willingness to experience some pain to face racial issues no matter where you are socially located.  Being defensive is a natural response to pain but not a helpful response in the long run.

            The Physician in this whole scenario is Christ, who reveals a vision of unity among people that appears again and again in the teachings and stories of the Christian scriptures.  I chose the text from Ephesians to be read today because I liked the practical way it spoke about growing toward unity.  It speaks of the differing spiritual gifts that are a blessing to the body of Christ.  While I know that it wasn’t what the author of Ephesians had in mind, I can easily relate that diversity of spiritual gifts named to the variety of gifts that filters through different human cultures.  The variety of worship styles in different ethnic groups, to name one example, is a blessing in the diverse body of Christ.  God did not create cookie-cutter people to be all alike.

            The verses in Ephesians about the variety of gifts are sandwiched between verses that express a vision of Oneness that comes to be through exercising various virtues, and words of warning about vices that tear the fabric of a community apart.  The virtues that are listed would be qualities we need when tackling a painful topic like race in our as-yet unredeemed state: humility, gentleness, patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain unity in the bond of peace.  The vices listed are things we would definitely want to avoid: evil talk, bitterness, wrath, anger, wrangling, slander, malice. 

What if, in a conversation about race, someone in the conversation does bring to the table bitterness or anger or what sounds to our ears like slander?  Is the conversation over?  Do we pack up our bags and go home, ruefully saying that “We tried, but so-and-so isn’t ready for a Christian dialogue on race.” 

Well, we might expect a whole range of feelings to emerge, like the pus and poison spilling out of a wound.  Anger is not necessarily a conversation ender.  This chapter of Ephesians instructs the Christian community to “Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger.”  In other words, anger is normal and natural in human relationships, and often quite appropriate.  The danger, according to Ephesians, only comes in if you dwell on anger and nurture it and refuse to let it deliver its message and then diminish—that leaves room for the “devil” to enter the conversation. 

But making room for the anger is absolutely part of the conversation.  We can’t  possibly experience what someone who is really angry about the racial injustice they have experienced feels.  Just last night I was at a concert with some urban Indians.  One of the singers said he had a song for us: “This land is my land, this land is my land…”  He reminded the audience that most people don’t want to hear that story, but the native community needs to continue telling that story.  Those of us who are in privileged positions need, I believe to be steadfast in our commitment to community even in the face of anger that distresses and frightens us.  In the words of the author of Ephesians, “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.” [Eph. 4:32] We can only hope that tenderheartedness and forgiveness is offered on all sides; but it will never happen if grievances remain unspoken.

God longs for our healing.  Samuel Hines, an urban pastor, puts it this way: “God has a one-item agenda, listed in one expressive and inclusive word—Reconciliation.”  Reconciliation is the state of health to which we are called.  Going through some conversation and action aimed at reconciliation, whether as individuals, a church, a denomination or a whole nation will be painful.  The scars that mark where we have been will never completely disappear.  But we can work for the day when the wounds are healed and the scars are only a reminder of days gone by. 

[1] DeYoung, Curtiss Paul  Reconciliation: Our Greatest Challenge—Our Only Hope  Valley Forge: Judson Press, 1977, p. 43

[2] Kim, Jin S.  “Beyond the Comfort Zones: Evangelism as Parabolic Witness” Congregations, Spring 2008, p. 25