The commandment we have from him is this:
those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also. —1 John 4:21
It will come as no surprise to those of you who know me well, that the heartbreaking situation in Baltimore, is forefront in my mind and spirit this week. But, I have a confession to make. I realize, ever after 20 years of practice that the prophetic instincts that drive my soul are often in conflict with some of the responsibilities I have as a pastor. It is a serious tension with which I live all the time and it has defined my ministry. When injustice prevails that tension is palpable. My go-to-response is typically indignation about unfairness or oppression and accusation towards those who are in power. Gaining access to empathy for the privileged is usually secondary, and I am grateful to my colleagues on social media and elsewhere, who help draw out a balance in my pastoral response with their kind and thoughtful reflections. They make me better. They make me see a wider picture than the one that I see on my own. They center me with their gentler way. On my own, I would just be stomping my feet and shaking my fist at the brokenness and wrongs done to the least of these. But this knee-jerk-angry response to injustice, this has always been a shortcoming of my ministry. Or, maybe this has always been a strength of my ministry. One thing is sure—this has always been—my ministry.
But today, today? I have not found a balance. Today, I am pissed. How many dead black people will it take? How many skewed-by-white-privilege news cycles can we listen to without hearing that something is wrong? How many stories of oppression and profiling can we dismiss as not our problem before we rise up to do something different? How many invitations to talk about race and/or listen to the experience of those who are not like us can we ignore before we will take responsibility for the mess that is systemic racism and economic oppression? How long before we face the truth?
I read a break-your-heart-open, bold and beautiful blog post today on RachaelHackenberg.com in which Hackenberg expressed the same frustration that I am feeling. She suggests, nay, she charges that white folk can no longer linger in the luxury of choosing whether or not to show up to deal with this matter.
Today I’m questioning the usefulness of talking about race & faith when those conversations don’t de-center and de-glorify whiteness. Too much is at stake for all of us — but especially for our brothers & sisters of color — to tolerate or facilitate easy conversations on race any longer.
Too much is at stake for the Body of Christ as it is threatened, arrested, barricaded by police & by school-to-prison pipelines & by systems of poverty, killed outright or killed slowly across a lifetime, while so many of us whites are still seeing whether we can make time for and whether we can find courage for talking about race.
Too much is at stake for us whites to hide behind our best Christian words, our best liberal words without also listening to non-white words & stories. Too much is at stake for us to pray for consolation without also preaching for confession. Too much is at stake for us to avoid the conversations altogether. But most of all, too much is at stake for us to continue to treat talking about race as a luxury to be engaged or not.
To Jesus who is standing unarmed in the street, staring down hell in its full force, words and time have no such luxury.
To Jesus who is tossing tables, to Jesus who is cursing the fruitless fig tree, to Jesus who says “Get up and go,” to Jesus who says “I did not come to bring peace,” conversations about race that do not result in conversions about race miss the urgency of the Gospel.
Beloved, we cannot not do something. We cannot keep turning away from this mess. We must engage and be Jesus church in the world. We do not have the luxury of not talking about it. Let us begin with confession. Please, pray with me…
A Prayer of Confession
There are only two languages. Love and fear.
There are only two activities. Love and fear.
There are only two motives, two procedures, two frameworks, two results. Love and fear.
Love and fear.
God, help us to find our confession;
the truth within us which is hidden from our mind;
the beauty or ugliness we see elsewhere but never in ourselves;
the stowaway which has been smuggled into the dark side of the heart,
which puts the heart off balance and causes it pain,
which wearies and confuses us,
which tips us in false directions and inclines us to destruction,
the load which is not carried squarely because it is carried in ignorance.
God help us to find our confession.
Help us across the boundary of our understanding.
Lead us into the darkness that we may find what lies concealed;
that we may confess it towards the light;
that we may carry our truth in the centre of our heart;
that we may carry our cross wisely
and bring harmony into our life and our world.
Amen.
Seasons of the Spirit: Taken from A Common Prayer (1990) and The Prayer Tree (1991). Collins Dove, Victoria. Reprinted with permission by HarperCollins Publishers Australia
With blessing, prayer and my own confession,
Rev. Wendy Miller Olapade
